As far as sci-fi fans are concerned, Firefly was cancelled much
too soon. Just as the show was finding its rhythm, the executives at Fox balked
at the show's $3 million per episode budget and tepid Friday night ratings. Fox
just didn't see its potential. Good space opera has always been costly to
produce, and ratings-versus-cost is a repetitive cancelling theme when it comes
to our speculative fiction entertainment--at least fans of the original StarTrek got 75 episodes out of that run. At long last, though, we have found
Firefly's heir apparent; it is called Dark Matter, and it's already made it
past its first season. 
Lower production costs have made ambitious programming less
risky. SyFy took the plunge recently and produced a plethora of new space
operas: Killjoys, Dark Matter, The Expanse--but of all these new series, only
Dark Matter captures Firefly's essence. The writing and show mythology only got
better in season two, something Firefly never got its chance to prove.
