Joss Whedon's Firefly is perhaps one of the greatest cult series' to have ever graced our TV screens. This space western drama based around the fallout of a civil war (the Unification War), smuggling and the opposition of the superpower known as the Alliance (or the Central Federal Government) was cancelled after only eleven of its fourteen episodes and has since become a cult show, resulting in the release of a film, Serenity (2005), a line of graphic novels and even a role-playing game. The show is set in a new star system in the year 2517 and follows the crew of the ship Serenity, a firefly class of craft. Aboard the ship are, as Whedon describes them, "Nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things". Led by the ship's Captain and former Independent Army Sergeant Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), are his second-in-command and war-time ally Zoe Washburne (Gina Torres), the pilot and Zoe's husband Wash (Alan Tudyk), hired gun Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), the mechanic, Kaylee (Jewel Staite), a companion hiring a shuttle, Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin), Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) and two fugitives, Doctor Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his sister, the enigmatic River (Summer Glau), who is being pursued by the Alliance. With such a great assembled cast the show had to provide memorable supporting characters, and it didn't disappoint. While there were only a few that appeared in more than one episode, in the show's tragically short run, the following list provides who I believe to be the best five supporting characters from the show. Just to clarify, this does not involve the film or comic series, and there are
spoilers present.