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 w

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.