I think the memories of what made Firefly so special ignore the reality that it's been 16 years.

Nathan Filion will be 50 in 3 years, he can no longer physically pull off the young uppity captain with a grudge against the system. The same goes for all the other actors - they've all grown up and matured since then.

So to account for that, time would've had to pass. I find I find it difficult to believe that the crew of Serenity would've been able to stick together for more than another year, two at the outside.

In the movie we'd already had Book and Inara leave, and given the events in the movie I can't see Zoe wanting to stick around much longer, despite her loyalty to Mal.

Given the wanted status of most of the rest of the crew, paying work would continue to be hard to find, and the ship was already running on fumes as it was. Any failures of any critical components would quickly see the ship grounded, and then Jayne would be gone if he hadn't already bailed.

Kaylee and Simon might have made it work for a while, but Simon was always too focused on his sister's well-being to the exclusion of everything else. With the government apparently no longer after River, he might have reached out to the rich father to return home.

It felt like just another mediocre predictable action/adventure show, but in space.