I thought Firefly was a pretty good attempt, shame it didn't take off.

It didn't take off because it didn't gather enough audience. Most people have a prejudice against SciFi. It took me several months to convince my girlfriend to watch Firefly and more than a year for BSG, but in the end she loved them both very much.

> It didn't take off because it didn't gather enough audience.

Which of course had nothing to do with the network showing a series of shows written with developments carrying through multiple episodes out of order.

I'm hoping that the mass appeal of BSG (especially now that it has a second life on Netflix) and the accessibility of the new Star Trek movies will pave the way for more space opera on TV.

It was OK. I don't think it was better than TNG when it first came out.

Better or not is a personal preference. But the world it describes (much closer to our time, which also affects the technology), the kind of protagonists (regular folk, not associated with an all-mighty quasi-military governmental structure), the action (more personal, less "submarine in space"), and the issues (more political, and in general more grown-up, than Star Trek) do make it better for some viewers. (Disclaimer: myself included.)