Once a beloved sci-fi cult hit, Joss Whedon’s sci-fi series, Firefly, is now clouded by its creator’s epic downfall.

There was a time when Joss Whedon was the king of cult TV, with a fandom behind him that was near-rabid in its appreciation and devotion. Nowhere was this more apparent than with the fate of his space-western series, Firefly. Having only run for a mere fourteen episodes before it was cancelled by Fox in the fall of 2002, the show was worshiped by Whedon fans, with a fanbase called “Browncoats” springing up around it in the wake of its cancellation. This new status was partly spurred on by the show’s release on DVD, with sales so robust a feature-film continuation called Serenity was greenlit, kicking off Whedon’s career as a film director, leading to his eventual hiring for The Avengers.

So, what was it about the show that made Whedon’s fans so passionate? To many, it was considered a logical successor to classic era Star Trek, with the show set in the aftermath of a massive civil war, with surviving members of the losing side, called the Browncoats, working as smugglers and mercenaries aboard a ship called Serenity. The captain is Nathan Fillion’s Mal Reynolds, a Han Solo-style rogue whose positive reception from fans led to major small-screen stardom for the actor, with him headlining Castle and The Rookie following the show’s cancellation. Like the original Star Trek, it took a lot of inspiration from classic westerns, with this one owing a particular debt to John Ford’s classic, Stagecoach.

Yet, good reviews weren’t enough to keep it on the air. Its cult status became something that, for a while, was viewed as quite special, but its legacy has been undeniably tarnished in recent years. In this episode of Gone But Not Forgotten, we dig into the cult surrounding the show and whether or not it holds up more than twenty years later, considering what we now know about its creator.