Review: The Libertarianism of Firefly

What if our interplanetary future involved train heists, legal sex work, and a lot of running from the feds?

The short-lived 2002 space western Firefly endeared itself to a certain type of libertarian in the first episode, when a smuggler-captain with a galley full of too-inquisitive passengers harrumphs: "That's what governments are for—get in a man's way."

Libertarian fans took solace not only in the show's leave-me-alone anti-government attitudes, but also in the way it found its audience through then-novel distribution methods despite a botched rollout and midseason cancellation by Fox network execs who misunderstood its appeal and doubted its reach.

Two decades later, director and writer Joss Whedon's premise for the show—what if our interplanetary future involved train heists, legal sex work, a grey market in strawberries, Mandarin swear words, and a lot of running from the feds?—is as delightful as ever. But even through a veil of nostalgia, a rewatch reveals how much better television has gotten in the intervening years.