He'll either have to do a prequel or flashbacks. As much as I'd rather they weren't dead, I can't think of any way he could bring them back that wouldn't be utterly ridiculous and insulting.

I also realized last night that it was lacking a lot of the "space cowboy" Western stuff, which despite not being a fan of Westerns in general, I really liked in this series. Definitely not Firefly - sigh.