How A Firefly-Style Sci-Fi Series Got Five Seasons And No One Noticed

By Jonathan Klotz and Joshua Tyler | Published 9 seconds ago

The 1990s and the early 2000’s delivered tons of wild, fun, televised science fiction, but that seemed to fade away in the 2010s. It was replaced by super serious programming like Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse, with little lighthearted adventure left for sci-fi fans. 

One show, though, dared to be different. It bucked the trend and delivered a series of fun space adventures, quietly earning five full seasons in the process. 

Lost in a haze of twenty-teens angst, almost no one seemed to notice, but it’s time to change that. This is Why Killjoys Failed.

Firefly wasn’t the first series to use the sci-fi-Western mashup, but it did popularize it. To this day, it is what people think of when they hear “space western.” Decades later, it has become common for sci-fi shows to incorporate aspects of Westerns into their world-building and storytelling. Though it lacks the dusters and six-shooters, Killjoys captures that same spirit of the old West. 

Following a trio of bounty hunters that are constantly outgunned and often on the run from one group or another, it doesn’t hit like Firefly, but scratches the same itch. A Killjoy is a bounty hunter. In the first episode, we meet our “heroes,” Dutch and Johnny, as they take a kill warrant for Andras on what seems like a routine mission.

It turns out, though, that “Andras” is actually Johnny’s brother D’avin, so instead, they find a way to nullify the kill warrant. D’avin joins them as a brand-new member of the Killjoys and, thus, becomes the audience surrogate for learning about the rough-and-tumble business.

That’s only the first two episodes of Killjoys, which soon falls into a rhythm of episodic adventures combined with the usual mythology arc playing out in the background. Unlike some sci-fi shows that can’t find the right balance, this SyFy original keeps things moving from the word “go.”

The Killjoys are working as officers for the RAC (Reclamation Apprehension Coalition), one of many factions in the universe. It all revolves around Old Town, an industrial city essentially controlled by The Company, a massive conglomerate that has a stranglehold on trade and commerce. You can see where the conflict in Killjoys is going, but as with any series about life on the edge of society, allegiances can change with the wind.

During its run on SyFy, Killjoys received widespread praise for the surprising depth of its world. Unlike Firefly, which didn’t have time to explain much of the workings of the Inner Planets, this series delves deep into politics, subterfuge, and secret plots involving immortal super soldiers.

Why Killjoys Failed

Killjoys never really got the credit it deserved during its run, but the SyFy channel treated it well. It was canceled after 5 seasons, but SyFy allowed it to finish on its own terms, something genre television almost never gets.

Despite getting five seasons, Killjoys never really blew up big on the radar of most science fiction fans, and today, only a few years after the show ended its run in 2019, it’s all but forgotten. What happened? Why isn’t it a bigger part of the conversation? 

The thing about Killjoys is that it’s very much a spiritual successor to not only Firefly but also Farscape. In an era of super serious sci-fi, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and remains fairly light-hearted throughout.

However, that is both a positive and, to some, a negative.  Killjoys never reaches the emotional depth of its contemporaries, like The Expanse or Dark Matter. And we have to admit, it’s reflected in the show’s acting, which is passable but doesn’t go beyond “B-tier sci-fi series.”

To some, that’s a good thing. If you start watching the show for a good time that’s exactly what you’ll get. You get a lot of it too, as there’s plenty to binge.

One of our favorite things about Killjoys is the fun that the crew had with the episode titles, which are all either puns or references, from “How to Kill Friends and Influence People” to “The Hullen Have Eyes” and, what we hope is a purposeful reference to Blake Lively’s greatest line-reading of all time, “Wargasm.”  That immediately lets you know the level of seriousness the show maintains, and you’re now either excited to check it out or want to stay far, far away.

As a show on television in an era of super serious TV, an era in which people were so against even the notion of comedy that Hollywood stopped making them, it’s easy to understand why Killjoys may never have seen the success it might have deserved.