[ethbr1]

Devil's advocate: deft use of zeitgeist-known settings in time-limited media can make for more efficient storytelling.

A captain of a ship.

An outlaw.

In a western-seeming system of planets.

If nothing else was said, that already paints a pretty vivid background from the audience's preconceptions. All of that exposition can be skipped. Or at most, quickly nodded to in order to confirm.

Sure, a show could rebuild the same thing neater from primitives, but how much show time would that take? Western was "close enough" to the point, so they went with it.