Firefly was a great show. It got Jossed, a term for shows cut short because they were written by Joss Whedon or because they had similar writing to Joss Whedon's style. Now, there are many Whedonisms which are the primary cause of shows being Jossed: and Firefly is by no means immune to these problems. However, the one problem it can't be accused of is flat characters.
Kayley is the ship's engineer, and cute as a button. Props to the casting by the way, for choosing an actress who could look absolutely adorable in a 1940s style Rosie-the-riveter suit. She's also one of the two comic-relief characters: the other one being the ship's wisecracking pilot Wash. Kayley knows a lot about engines, and a lot about adult stuff. It's evident she grew up around men who fixed stuff and talked about intimate details of their personal lives as they did so. She also has a persistently optimistic outlook on life. So, in what way is she naive? She does not know social conventions or for that matter have any interest in them. She does not care about taboos such as the taboo against discussing sexuality. However, she is never mean. Kayley genuinely cares about people, and understands what it means to respect others. Her frankness can make them uncomfortable, but she is never unkind. She does not understand the reason for taboos, and doesn't like the concept: but she is fundamentally unaware of how completely good-natured she herself is. She believes everyone else is just like her. The rest of the crew think that an angel has come to live with them. In this sense, she is naive: failing to grasp that other people don't think the way you do is in a sense childlike.
However, this is not an example of the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope because Kayley is not the hero's love interest, and she is actually aware of what sex is (and is also definitely aware that some people find her attractive). What she doesn't understand is society. Her lack of knowledge about society is also mostly purposeful: she views society as ridiculous, and so refuses to respect it's rules. This is demonstrated by the fact that she can, and does, parody different segments of their society. She understands the ways that people act: even if not why they act that way. For Captain Mal in particular, her optimism and unironic blunt kindness is genuinely transformative.
But Joss Whedon does not fall into the trap of assuming that Kayley can only transform Mal if they are in a sexual relationship. It's in fact much more of a father-daughter relationship: with Mal taking the place of the father that Kayley lost when she was young, and Kayley taking the place of the child Mal always wanted but never had. She is the character who is capable of breaking through Mal's nihilism: showing him that his life is meaningful, and that he is a good man. Mal is a mercenary, not by choice but because of his circumstances. He has PTSD and survivor's guilt as well. His experience is clearly meant to mirror that of a Vietnam or Korean war veteran: A man who knows he did terrible things, wonders why he survived, finds his current employment distasteful, and is disgusted by the ingratitude of those around him.
Of course, this is hardly a new experience (although very often it is treated that way). The same motivations drove Vespasian to a coup against the Emperor Claudius, only to devastatingly discover that there was no way to stop the Roman war machine-Roman society was too dependent on it. Mal has read his history, and doesn't bother with the political coup. He also doesn't run away from his emotional problems by becoming addicted to something. He simply buries them. He pretends like everything is okay, but he's letting his self-loathing and his fear of loss determine his actions. He is like my Uncle, one of the many many so-called "successful" veterans who came back from Korea unable to tell anyone how broken they were and are. The only way Mal is able to make sense of a society that rejects his efforts on it's behalf is to essentially believe that he is in hell: and if he is in hell, that must mean he is a fundamentally evil person. He is unable to see that he is a good man who has been treated unfairly because he believes all the good men died in the war. It is only through Kayley that Mal can come to see the world for what it actually is, how unfairly he has been treated, and that he has the ability to reject that unfair society completely. But this is only because Mal respects Kayley enough to believe that her fundamentally hopeful attitude towards the world isn't born out of ignorance. It comes from observations about the world that he is blind to.
This transformation in Mal, sets up the events of the movie Serenity where Mal accepts actual fugitives of the government onto his ship even though one of them could potentially kill him and his crew in their sleep. The Tam siblings are not simply marginalized people: in fact they grew up privileged. They are wanted fugitives and criminals, and Mal is eventually willing to not simply transport them but accept them as crewmembers. Mal and his crew have hitherto kept themselves on the gray side of the law: but now Mal is willing to risk a complete break with the society that has oppressed and rejected him and his little family.
Kayley is innocent, or in French "naïve", in the original sense of that word: of not understanding, and therefore not being persuaded by, evil. This is what it means when Christ is described as Innocens, unknowing. He does not feel hatred, bitterness, pride, anger or any desire to hurt those who have hurt him: in short, he has no evil impulses. When he is in the wilderness and being tested by Satan, he demonstrates that he cannot be corrupted and persuaded to choose evil. To be clear here: the Satan of the Bible is not a being of evil, but God's servant. Jesus in fact goes to the wilderness for the express purpose of being tested by Satan: essentially to test the connection between spiritual being and mortal human, to be sure that the plan really will work. The normal word for "to know" in Latin is "scire", which means literally "to see": another word is "sapire" which is similar to English "to figure out". "Nocere" in Latin means a deeper form of knowing, more like our word "to feel", or the colloquial meaning of "to dig". It's an emotional form of knowing rather than an intellectual one: a gut feeling about what is or isn't right. If you are innocent in the Christian sense, you don't "dig" evil. It has nothing to do with the Victorian notion of innocence as a lack of sexuality: a notion that we still have in our society today.
Despite Bridge to Terabithia, and the repeated testimony of child psychologists: we refuse to accept that children have sexuality, and understand what it is. They have no interest in grownup sex, but that does not mean they cannot understand the emotions that exist between people who are in romantic and sexual relationships. This leads us to fail our children, by failing to teach them about healthy romantic relationships and healthy sexuality. So, they learn from the media: which tells them all kinds of wrong and harmful things about relationships and sexuality, their own or other people's. Even when parents tell their children where babies come from, they frequently neglect to mention other important aspects of adult relationships. Children understand the concept of romantic love: they conduct romances with each other, or between toys. This is natural and normal.
That is not to say children aren't innocent: they are. They are innocent in this older sense: of not understanding, and therefore not being persuaded by, evil. If they hurt each other, it is out of ignorance rather than malice. They do not yet understand that others think differently from them, and therefore cannot feel actual hatred. They have no reason to be self-conscious, prideful or bitter because they do not yet know that others judge them. They feel frustration and disappointment, but not anger because they are not yet aware that there are people who would want to hurt them. If they get hurt, they believe it is either a natural consequence of their own actions, or an accident. So they are quick to forgive and move on, but also liable to blame themselves for the psychological problems of adults. Children do not understand abuse, they do not understand that it is possible for someone to gain satisfaction from exploiting and hurting them. That is what innocence really means. It doesn't mean their eyes need to be covered every time a woman's naked breast happens to appear.
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