A former rebel and his shady crew embark on galactic missions for profit in a transport ship, the ironically named Serenity, in this space swashbuckler set 400 years in the future. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' creator Joss Whedon pitted the crew against the Alliance, a totalitarian interplanetary regime. 'It plays like a normal drama except that it's floating in space,' said Whedon. It was an ambitious and original sci-fi enterprise, but 'Firefly' never caught on and was gone in three months.