Firefly - War Stories

Hey, I actually watched this one on air, start to finish! I think it might be the only one that I did.

In the aftermath of Ariel, the crew is living it up good. And "good" out in the black means fresh produce. River and Kaylee get to play on the Serenity set. ("One of you is going to fall and die, and I'm not cleaning it up!") Book is offering his opinions on River's condition and spinning ancient philosophy (or "sadistic crap dressed up with florid prose"). We find out (not surprisingly) that River hasn't been made quite as well as Simon had thought at the end of Ariel. Jayne is being obviously contrite (with the fresh produce).

This is the first episode that has shown any strife in the Wash family. (Well, TUAP does, but that's in two weeks, right?) Wash is really almost as out of his depth on Serenity as Simon. He just handles it better because it's more his choice. He's not nearly as rough and tumble as Jayne, Mal, or even Zoe (warrior woman). He likes flying his spaceship, loving his wife, and playing with his dinosaurs. He's my hero. Annnnd he's a leaf on the wind. Don't forget that.

I'm sure had the show run, somewhere in season two or three we would have seen their courtship. From what we saw in Out of Gas I'm guessing he fell for her fast and when she fell for him she was really annoyed by it. Mal certainly was.

It is nice to see that Joss has no problem with making his stand-in characters obnoxious and wrong. (Xander, anyone? Xander is Joss and Wash is Joss with a spaceship.) Wash and Zoe almost make up for stopping Xander and Anya's wedding. It's good to have a pretty solid married couple on a sci-fi show. And they are neither hopelessly sappy nor fatally flawed. *Sigh* Leaf.

We get our second recurring character: Adlai Niska! I wonder if he would have been the season's big bad? He's just such a lovable scary Russian crime lord.

A little more indication of Shepard Book: Man of Terrible Mystery. And Jayne's opinion that he's not fooling anyone. "Rabbits. Right. For stew."

A torture chamber is a rather interesting place for a quiet little character study. It's great to see Wash and Mal airing out their opinions of each other. Of course, a lot of it is Mal putting on an act. Or at least some of it. This ep has the classic Joss earmark (heh, ear) of going from falling down funny to cover your eyes scary (and maybe back).

It's also got the classic Joss moment where the cliché is turned on it's head. "But sufficient perhaps for one. Ahhhh, you now have--" "HIM. Sorry. You were going to ask me to choose, right?" Heh. What was funny was when I started seeing scenes like this in other movies, and I was surprised when it DIDN'T go the "Joss" way. (Kate & Leopold is the classic example.)

I LOVE the scene when Wash decides that Mal is the hero, and they need to save him. And realizes that Mal is also crazy.

The crew getting the ear is good too. (Only time that Book swears in Chinese, btw.) Then the crew swinging to the rescue is nice. This isn't really a "swinging to the rescue" crew. As we see. I mean, is Simon really the guy you want coming to rescue you? (Actually, I guess yes. Because if he cares he WILL NOT STOP.) Wash's gun is high-larious. And Book, "It is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of knee caps." Ouch.

Ahhhhh, River. Doing the math. (I had a friend who saw Serenity(movie) first. When he went back and saw the show he was greatly disappointed that he didn't get to see River doing THIS stuff.)

Hey look! It's a stupid tacked on Inara plot! I'm told that the original draft tied this into the main plot more. Kind of like Jaynestown. The client comes to the rescue. Dumb plot tie-in.

This was when I was enjoying Firefly like no other show. (Heroes has come close.) Two more episodes to go.

Next week we look at some Objects in Space. Ohhhhh, I got some opinions there.