Firefly: Huh?

I was excited to see Serenity until I saw my first episode of Firefly. I can see why the Fox executives killed it. I know I would have. Which brings up the question: What am I missing? The show I saw was little more than take offs of previous Star Trek (original series) episodes, bad scripting, bad acting, and over-worked sci-fi cliches. It basically killed my desire to see the movie. I saw the previews again and the poor scripting came up in it as well ("Do you want to captain this ship?" "YEAH!" "Well, you can't!"...That's GOOD?). I don't know I'm just tired of Star Trek sci-fi. It's been done to death. Give me Planet of The Apes, new Battlestar Galactic, Logan's Run, Philip K. Dick, and 2001 any day. Give me sci-fi that makes me think (as you can tell, I like sci-fi with political themes). Am I truly missing something? Am I not supposed to take it so seriously? Is it meant to be so bad that it's good? I'm at a loss here.