“Any new writer on a Joss Whedon show learns early on that the way not to sell Joss on an idea for an episode of television is to try to sell him on a cool monster, a cool visual, or a cool moment. There always has to be a real reason to tell the story. There has to be a truth exposed through the story. Either a truth about the world, or a truth about a character. Or, ideally, both. Joss’s take on gender, the nature of heroism, and the role of religion cannot be separated from the ways he writes his people. This insistence on having a reason to tell the story means that Joss’s stories are striving in a very real way to communicate content beyond just a steam of well-imagined fictional events. They set out to do more than simply keep the audience tuned in through the commercial breaks.”
–Jane Espenson. “Introduction.” Serenity Found. Ed. Jane Espenson. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2007, 1-4. Quote on page 3.