Why is this considered THAT good?

It's rated so highly because hardly anyone watched it or has heard of it except for fans, who would rate it highly. 60% of votes were 10/10, most of the votes come from males aged 18-29, which supports my statement that it's the die-hard fans that have over-rated this.

In all fairness, it's a 6.5. The concept of a frontier in space in the style of the old-west is creative, though it was taken too far with wooden tables in space ships , horses on alien planets, and old guns that shoot lasers. The characters are corny and cliched too. My first reaction to seeing this was "cowboys in space? this is the stupidest show ever" and switched it off. I'm guessing a lot of people reacted similarly and that's why it got cancelled.

I love SF stuffs nad am I SF fan generally.

But I didnt like series that much. 7/10

Am I normal?

It all depends on your feelings on the rating system. Some people see a 9 and expect something specific. While others expect something different. The ratings are a subjective scoring of the scorers feelings at the time of scoring. Not a concrete valuation of the subject matter. If you didn't "feel" like the show deserved a high score on the system, you should have rated it where you "felt" it should be rated. This way if the show really shouldn't have a high rating it would lower over time. Instead you have posted something the had no real merit in a place that people have come to have real, if somewhat belated, discussions on a show and deliberately tried to disrupt the group. Something of a fart in a party. Congratulations, you've chosen to be the person everyone stares at at and wonders how they got here.

it may not be the show for you, if it was everybodys favourite show it would have a 10 rating and still be on fox.

Having read many of the posts defending the rating, I will not focus on territory that has been covered multiple times. I will, however, mention that I also find the characterizations compelling and the interactions between the characters to be engaging. I find the writing to be consistent and it rarely bites its own tail. Something nobody has mentioned, however, is the fact that the show is, on some level at least, engaging in parody without being campy. This is why the Batman series from the sixties is a decent show for what it was intended to be, but not a great show. I appreciate that this show expresses an ability to laugh at itself without going overboard. I have also noted that many have complained about this show not being "realistic" enough in a sci-fi sense. I would suggest that their reason for this complaint is that it is rough hewn and does not display all bright shiny pieces for us. An example of another show that takes this approach might be Babylon 5, another highly rated show, quite beloved by its fans, while its detractors seem utterly confused as to why it is so popular. Of course these are my opinions, and I am entitled to them, just as you are entitled to yours. Neither of us is likely to change the mind of the other. How about I continue to love the show for what I consider its wonderful qualities, and you continue to be confused as to why I love it for what I consider its wonderful qualities. Thank you for your attention.

I guess it has this high rating because it's loved very much. :-) I only watched this show a few days ago, and though I don't think it's a 9 quality wise I can see why people appreciate it a lot.






Watch Blackfish (2013)

When the show was first advertised, I was impressed by the special effects, and I did notice that Joss Whedon's name was prominently featured in the commercials. But the "cowboys in space" theme completely threw me, and I'm sorry to say that I reacted in a very prejudiced, close-minded manner. I did not bother to even try to catch the show when it finally began airing. However, I did flip channels and accidentally stumble across it a few times during the commercial breaks for other shows. And what little I saw intrigued me. Yes, I still saw the dumb-sounding "cowboys in space" on the screen, but the way that the actors played that off so seriously, so matter-of-factly, without acknowledging that it smacked of corniness in the extreme, took me by surprise. Like the Starship Troopers movie said, I would like to learn more. Nevertheless, the screwed-up airing order confused me and completely turned me off, so I put the show on the back burner. That's probably what most people did, and the reason why it got cancelled.

Years later, I remembered that spark of intrigue that I had felt during its original airing, and I sought out to research the show a little, and watch the eps in their proper chronological order.

Nevertheless, thinking quite highly of myself, I was pretty sure that my initial negative impressions of the show from the early commercials were probably shared by most people. And the fact that the show was cancelled so quickly made me think that even after watching the show, I was probably still going to feel the same way. In other words, I went into it thinking that I was just going to have my prejudices confirmed.

But that's absolutely not what happened. Instead, I was hooked from the opening scenes.

Now, I'm no Whedon fan boy. I don't worship any director, producer, or showrunner. Sometimes his pithy back-and-forth dialogue between characters is acutely annoying, as if the characters are trying too hard to be kewl and slick.

But I completely bought these characters and their dialogue.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm from Texas, and while we have plenty of high-tech resources here and there, plenty of people still do and say things the old-school country way, too. It feels completely natural to a Texan to mix the old and the new. You can see a real life, honest-to-goodness cowboy pull a smart phone out from a pocket of his blue jeans while he's seated atop his leather saddle, blanket, and horse. It's a perfect integration of eras. And the matter-of-fact way that Whedon had these characters mix things up worked for me. It made me feel stupid for ever presuming to laugh. As a Texan, I should've known better, all along!

I'm also involved in search and rescue. And while we love our techy gadgets and toys, we also have to be prepared for missions out in the middle of nowhere, where a gentlgeman named Mr. Murphy is bound to introduce himself to all that pretty tech. We have to have old-school ways of getting things done, too. And we have to practice with both. Also, shiny 4x4 trucks and blingy touchscreen portable devices don't tend to stay so new-looking for very long, when you're hiking up dusty trails, bumping into rocks, or slipping into muddy puddles. Therefore, the kit of modern-day search and rescue teams is an eclectic blend (read, hodge-podge) of equipment and techniques from several different decades. So this part of my background also kept the seemingly anachronistic bundle of stuff aboard Serenity from appearing too bizarre or jarring. I think I would've felt right at home on that ship. (Just let me bunk in the engineering room with Kaylee.)

Some commenters have questioned the show's sense of continuity, but I would have to say that I thought the show had remarkable continuity. It was actually another strong point of the program which kept me coming back for more, episode after episode. Decisions had consequences for these characters--maybe not in the immmediately following episode, but certainly at some point down the road. It was extremely satisfying to see connections between different events, as well as to see consistency in the characters' personalities even as they faced new situations. The show felt solid, that way.

As far as quantifiable ratings go, though, I don't really consider there to be much difference between a 7 and a 9. I don't really split hairs between 7.8 versus 9.2. Either way, the show was darn good. I guess I think more in terms of a 4-star system, with 2 being fair, 3 being good, and 4 being near-perfect. This show earned 3.5 stars from me.

I also echo others' theory from above that part of the reason this show is so highly rated is that it went out before it ever had the chance to jump the shark. It was cancelled abruptly, so I can't exactly say that it went out on a high note, but it definitely went out while it was still firing on all cylinders. So it leaves a positive taste in a lot of people's minds. It leaves them with an overall positive impression. And there was very little about the show to detract from, undo, or tarnish that. Whether rusty, grimy, dusty, or slimy...at the end of the day, when it really mattered, the Firefly-class ship Serenity was still quite shiny.

The first three shows were being controlled by FOX, after the cast and crew got the word they were being canceled they didn't worry about the FOX critics. There is so much depth to the story and characters that most people will ever know. The DVDs give you more insight with the special features and interviews. It is also very rare for a cast and crew to have had and still to this day have the type of relationships as the cast of Firefly does.