Step back. Imagine you're not a Firefly fan who thinks Joss Whedon has a halo of genius and that not all episodes of great shows are created equal.

I did not see Firefly when it originally aired (for reasons beyond my control). I did however buy the DVD of Serenity, fell in love with it and purchased Firefly - and loved that also.

The Good: Excellent casting (I do feel there is one exception - not to be named), great sets and effects, and a wonderful universe concept. Absolutely sold on the language - both the Chinese elements and the Western jargon. I also like the costumes - all those earth-tones.

The Bad: Fox totally messed up in not airing the double length pilot first. They should have given the series a longer chance. Also, they were dense about the Sci-Fi Western idea.

The Ugly: The ratings weren't very good. The guest stars were uneven - some wonderful - example Richard Brooks in Objects in Space - and a few were substandard. To me the real damning item involves the writing. Since the pilot had not been aired, Whedon and company must have known they were on shaky ground.

The Train Job is a super rebound after losing the pilot. We're treated to excellent characters (likewise, the cast portraying them) involved in an engaging heist tale with WOW-level special effects to boot.

It is beyond me how Bushwhacked ever was released as the second episode. It has such glaring problems, it comes across as something you'd expect in season three as filler to give the writers chance to think up some new material. The Reavers - we never see them. OK, I can dig that, saving them for impact later in the series. So what do we learn about them? They're vicious, practically inhuman. We are told this. We also find out they carefully clean up after themselves, leaving not one spot of blood to alarm the Firefly's crew. Again, in keeping with their tidiness, they pick up all the dead and neatly hang them up, apparently drained of unsightly blood, since there is no trace of any below them. Always the domestic madmen, they know not to leave the door open, so they lock the room where a bounty of food and the bodies are. We get past this to where Mal decides that the survivor they've rescued has been turned into a dreaded Reaver. His first thought: get everyone away from him and lock him in the medical room - without restraints! Nothing like giving homicidal madmen access to drugs and sharp objects. It gets better. The crew and the Reaver-in-waiting are brought aboard an Alliance ship. Big, big alliance ship with an operating room right by the entrance I guess, because the now raging full-blooded 130 pound Reaver actually gets out of an OR and navigates his way past all security and defenses with his mighty scalpel. His small size worked as a joke for his run-in with Jayne, but here it just plays wrong because this segment is serious (not that a sizable dude should have been able to find his way out). Poor guy, survives Reavers and a mini-army to be finally killed by Mal with handcuffed hands.

If you watched the Serenity film with its accompanying Joss Whedon commentary, you heard him explain how audiences don't like to see the good guys win purely on the stupidity or ineptitude of the bad guys. Well, after establishing that the Alliance military is uncaring and lazy in The Train Job, we are now served the notion that they are thickheaded and incompetent. As for the Reavers, we'll have to wait to see their flaws, as they've already impressed us with their ability to neatly kill defenseless people.

After Bushwacked things got better with four good episodes. Shindig is all manner of fun. Safe is a foundation sort of installment. It's not so much about what goes on, but rather a fine exercise in character development. Next is one of my favorites, Jaynestown. It's a fantastic hoot, with humor well spread on-board and off. My one snicker: Stitch is pretty spry for a guy cooped up in a 3X3X3 crate for four years. Can we spell atrophy? Yeah, but Ray, how about that song? "The Hero on Canton" is one hi-larry-ous audible concoction, well written and funny enough to save many a show less gifted. Our Mrs. Reynolds is a cute romp with a cute guest star, the type of episode best used sparingly so as to be viewed as a bit of fresh air.

Then followed the peak stretch of Out of Gas, Ariel and War Stories - three awesome shows. Could go on and on about all sorts of greatness, but that's not the aim of this blog. At this point Fox would be totally 100% wrong in ditching Firefly. The weaknesses so far were more than half of their own making. Yet, the next turn of events would offer them ammunition to defend their decision to axe the show, because after War Stories, things fell apart.

Having a SECOND episode with a goofy "cute villainess" plot line (Trash rehashing Our Mrs, Reynolds) so early makes it appear that once again the writers were relying heavily on the world they constructed and the tightness of the characters to carry a poor story. The thing is, the world they constructed and the tightness of the characters hadn't really been established fully yet, partially because the pilot wasn't aired. WAKE UP JOSS! He's too smart to be excused for not putting out his best stuff early, knowing the network was watching with a wary eye. Well, Trash didn't air and I don't think it was a great loss. It's not terrible, it's simply rehash. If it were to appear a season later it would be OK, maybe even very welcome, but it was too soon.

The biggest challenge was the fact that Firefly being a serial series, had potentially important info in every installment. So if an episode doesn't air, all the more confusion for the viewers and a jolt to the writers that they must retell the important stuff some other time. All this might be excusable if they hadn't offered The Message and Heart of Gold as the next two episodes. The Message is flawed, the continuity is awful - especially Jayne's hat. Alan Tudyk's commentary notes the vanishing and reappearing straw stuck to the hat. What he doesn't mention is how often Adam Baldwin takes the hat off - in one short segment he removes it twice. I do have a hard time watching the main guest star. If you can buy into the plot's far out concept, that's one matter. Believing anyone would remotely trust this obvious Bozo with such rare, expensive and potentially life-saving items is really pushing it. The commentary more than hints at other weaknesses. Still, I enjoy The Message - because I've bought into the whole Firefly idea. On it's own it's just OK. The beginning is very entertaining and offered plenty of promise, plus the villain looks cool, even though his sidekicks look ready for a frat keg party rather than taking on a ship full of hard cases (like it or not, the fact is we are rooting for some unrepentant killers). Thrown in the fact that bad guys are outnumbered 3 to 1 and stupid and we revisit the recurring evidence that Joss either was full of crap about the notion that serious bad guys needing to be more than buffoons or he meant it only applied to feature films - or he was doing weed. Hey, he jokes about it why can't I?

Then there's Heart of Gold. Need a lot of weed or an uncritical bias in order to forgive such a disaster . Underwhelming villain played by unconvincing actor using an unremarkable weapon while leading unscary henchmen VS unbelievably inept crew (leaving ship practically unattended in a knowingly hostile place) protecting an unconvincing group of harlots. Looks like they outnumber the towns non-hooker residents, don't it? But the worst is the absolute ham playing the pregnant girl. Throw in some bad direction and dialogue to really make sure the thing stays dead. No wonder it didn't air... and the series was only about halfway through it's first season. I've stated my distaste for this fiasco elsewhere and don't want to go on about it now. If someone wants to knock me on it, I'll be glad to get more detailed. This should have been titled Trash.

Then came a large serving of redemption.

Objects in Space is a masterpiece: story and subtext (Depth of suspense, logic and philosophical context), rich atmosphere via Greg Edmonson (his music a consistent bonus throughout the series, I've wondered why he wasn't tapped to orchestrate the film Serenity), Ah, Richard Brooks as Jubal Early (I'm strongly tempted to assume Whedon wanted to morph this role to fit into the Serenity motion picture). Generally I'm more engaged in cinema than television, but so many superior facets meld in Objects that I would love to see it in a theatre environment. I feel it's as good as some of the greatest sci-fi films.

If you watch only the episodes that aired, you end up with Out of Gas, Ariel, War Stories and Objects in Space running one after another. The snags here and there could be written off as mere missteps. It becomes easy to understand the frustration of viewers at the initial time when Firefly was on the Fox schedule. Instead we can look back and see many of the flaws the audience was spared. There were a couple stumbles beyond missteps.

Was Firefly a good show? Yes. It could very often be a great show... maybe often enough to be considered a great show, when the heights of it's best moments are weighed in. Still, I return to my premise, Step back... survey the entire series with a critical eye. It's not perfect. As much as I think Fox should have kept it going, I believe there were signs that perhaps it wasn't realistically fated for a long run, instead a fantastic jumping board for an excellent movie franchise.