You're right about the deaths, and they annoy me because I felt that despite the general fucked-up-ness, Firefly was somehow more positive (mature?) than Buffy or Angel -- I'm not sure this makes any sense, it's really only a feeling I can't define... It starts out bad, but it felt like they were going for something positive, maybe achieving it, not just angst and more angst. There never was any real hope in Angel and I'm actually surprised Buffy ended as vaguely positive as it did; Firefly, as far as one can say after only 13 episodes, felt a bit different to me. I believe if either Wash or Book had been killed in the series, it wouldn't have been so random. It's almost as if JW was making sure that if the series was dead, it'd better be (and remain) *very* dead...