I’d agree… But on the other hand, that was also the episode with The Hat. That’s got to count for something. Oh, and the alien, too. “Oh, right. Cow.”
I never even though of ranking them. Here you go:
Out of Gas
Objects in Space
Ariel
Trash
Serenity (Pilot)
War Stories
The Train Job
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Shindig
Heart of Gold
Jaynestown
Safe
The Message
Bushwhacked
The top four are closely tied, and I would consider the top eight to be outstanding in almost every way. Bushwhacked and the Message are the only two that didn’t knock my socks off, even though they both contain some great moments.
Objects in Space.
“Am I a lion?”
If that character trait–“I’ll risk my life and the life of everyone I love just so I can be recalcitrantly taciturn”–hadn’t been done to death in Buffy, I might have been more patient with it. It’s just a totally bizarre character trait, IMO, one that is weird enough to base an entire character around; instead, Joss seems to use it as a plot crutch.
Daniel
I was just thinking about this. Five or six years ago I cared not at all about episode titles, or numbers, who produced the show or even the names of the actors.
Nowadays it’s pretty easy to refresh your memory about stuff like that. At first you could always find a fan-site devoted to the show that would list the episodes. Now you can google up the IMDB entry for the show and it’ll list the eps. Increasingly, I’m finding Wikipedia is a quick way to find what you want about shows.
I know I don’t commit all this information to memory.
Which was the one with Mal naked? 
Trash. You can have naked Mal- I’ve got a crush on Simon.
Probably Out of Gas is my favourite, with only a tiny, tiny lead on Objects in Space. Jaynestown and Safe were my least favourite.
Was that really Mal being taciturn, though? It seemed to me that he meant to tell the dude the plan, but he never gave him the chance. Once he pulled the gun on Kaylee, Mal’s absolute, #1 priority was to protect his crew, even if it meant shooting the dude on the spot. As it happened, he did his best to try to keep him alive, within the constraints of protecting his crew. If whasshisname hadn’t been a complete idiot and shown Mal a slight modicum of trust, he would have found out about the plan (or enough of it, at least), been able to go along with it, and survived. His fault, not Mal’s.
Out of Gas (we learn more about the characters than we did in the pilot)
Objects in Space
Serenity (Pilot)
Ariel
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Trash
Shindig
Jaynestown
War Stories
Heart of Gold
The Message
Bushwhacked
The Train Job
Safe (gets last place for the lame “burn the witch” plot device)
For me it’s Out of Gas, with Ariel and Objects in Space right behind it.
But not, apparently, saying, “Idiot, our entire plan is to keep your dumb ass alive and out of their control. Put down the gorram gun!”
Might’ve worked, might not. Mal didn’t try it, and that resulted in the dumbass’s death.
Daniel
Yes, but Mal’s plan depended on luring the crooked cop guy into Serenity so they could talk, right? If the cop found out that Mal had no intention of giving up Tracey, he might have just killed them all rather than try to negotiate.
My preferences:
Out of Gas
Objects in Space
War Stories
Ariel
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Trash
Serenity (Pilot)
The Train Job
Shindig
Safe
Jaynestown
The Message
Heart of Gold
Bushwhacked
I realize it’s all been said already, but the top six I consider some of the finest TV ever made, in any genre. Frankly, although the theatrical Serenity is a decent movie and at least provides a bit of closure, the best TV eps are considerably better, and certainly more adventurous. Likewise, every one of the series eps, even the least of them, has some sparkling lines and/or scenes.
Yes, but they made up for it with Mal’s line: “…but she’s *our *witch.”
I think that if most television series had a worst episode as “bad” as The Message, I’d be watching television for several hours every day. While I definitely feel it’s in the lower tier of the fourteen in quality, I am moved to tears every time I watch it, particularly by the idea of someone coming back from a war and never being able to get it together, to get right with himself again. And that’s a lot, considering I’ve always been slightly annoyed by Jonathan Woodward (Tracey) as an actor – he has a certain smugness that bothers me.
Was he on camera with the crooked cop at that point? If so, that changes my opinion a bit–it’s been awhile since I watched the episode (although I remember being irritated at the time). Even so, couldn’t he have said something as soon as they were off-camera, and wouldn’t doing so have been much better for Kaylee?
Daniel
Not to mention the ever quotable:
“What do you suppose that makes us, Zoe?”
“Big Damn Heros, Sir.”
“Ain’t we just?”
I would honestly have to go back and watch it again to be sure. I remember being annoyed that Mal didn’t signal to Tracey somehow that it was just a trick, that Tracey was just the “bait” to get the cop to talk with them rather than shooting first, and he should go along with it. But I think there’s enough room to interpret it either way. (It could be credibly argued, I think, that Tracey was such a jumpy and paranoid person that he wouldn’t have agreed to try Mal’s plan if he’d known about it in advance. But once he had Kaylee hostage, letting him in on it seems like a no-brainer if only for her sake.)
Ain’t that the truth.
Indeed. The hat scene, the alien freakshow scene, and the funeral scene were all fantastic in that episode; the fact that the central plot hinged on an implausibility hurt the episode for me, but it was still pretty enjoyable.
Daniel
The overreliance on special effects hurt the episode too, for me anyway. The spacecraft pursuit/chase scenes were the least convincing CGI of the whole series, and they went on for way too long. That really took me out of the story when I first watched it; I spent the whole time thinking about how they must have blown all the effects money on the pilot and “The Train Job.”
Jayne’s hat, the alien cow, and the Mal-Zoe war flashback scenes were classic though.