I just finished re-watching every season of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly and I've been looking for a place to unload my thoughts and it looks like a few people in this thread were talking about whether or not they liked Firefly, so...
When I first watched Firefly back in like 2005 I loved it. But watching it years later directly after Buffy and Angel... it was very clear to me that Firefly is simply not as good. I happen to be a person who likes Sci-Fi and Space much more than I like Vampires and Demons, yet every other aspect of Buffy/Angel was better than Firefly; The comedy, the plot, the writing in general, I laughed, I cried, I felt connected, the character types were more interesting, the character development was incredible...etc.
Granted Firefly only had one season, and the first season of Buffy was not great, but I feel like at this point Joss and Team should have had enough experience through the years to be able to add those great elements in the first season of Firefly. It's like they didn't learn anything, like they were stepping backwards. Firefly was full of cliches and characters just straight up being annoying. Even some of the casting was bad.
More details for those interested:
I did like a lot of things about Firefly. I liked Mal's character, his relationship with Inara, I liked Kaylee a lot, Wash was funny. I loved the episode where we learn how Mal found all his crew.
I hated the shepherd and how everyone kept saying he's not a shepherd and hinting he has a darker secret. It got annoying after awhile. Just reveal it already!
Sets were way too cheesy and fake. The ship itself was great but everything else should have been shot on location. Worst offender was the flashback war scenes. Looks like they were shot inside an indoor haunted house made to look like a rocky asteroid or whatever, complete with flashing strobe lights.
Zoe was a very plain character. She rarely shows emotion, with can be fine, but she rarely adds to the plot. I guess she serves as the one person Mal can count on the most, but as a viewer, I don't care about her at all.
The Simon and River characters should have just been a 3 episode sub plot that came and went. I don't care about them at all, and it really doesn't make sense for Mal to take on the extra risk. Simon is a very annoying character because of his behavior, although I do think it's accurate for a man in his position. His main priority has to be his sister so I get it, but nobody else on the ship even likes or needs him. Except Kaylee because she has a crush. But it's been made clear in multiple episodes he's a jerk and he's not right for her. The excuse the writers used was that they needed a doctor on board, but they got along fine for years without one. Convenient plot device.
I hated how Summer's character was always just annoying and crazy, yet could snap into being perfectly normal at the drop of a hat. Whenever she would go into one of her nonsensical word rants I would just roll my eyes. At least When Joss made the character of Drucilla crazy, she had substance to her and she was evil and dark and creepy. It was always interesting. Everyone on the ship just felt sorry for River and made her seem pathetic, yet she slashes her friends with knives and snapped into completely different personalities whenever she wants to help the crew out of bad situations. Way too inconsistent.
Side note: all of this is ignoring whatever happened in Serenity the movie, because I haven't watched it in years. It's possible Joss wraps the series up and answers my concerns, but I'm judging the TV show as if Joss didn't know he was going to have to make the movie, which he didn't.