# Firefly: "Out of Gas" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 27, 2002, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076 "2002-10-27T05:18:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/21 "2002-10-28T20:44:23Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Fiver_ > I saw Mal’s ambush in the cargo hold, then the first part of the Jayne flashback, where Mal and Zoe were tricking Jayne into betraying his employer. > > Then, nothing. What happened next? Oh, man, this is going to be tough, what with the multiple storylines and the flashbacks and me being at work without my tape to refer to, but here goes: The flashback ends with Jayne turning on his current employer and shooting him in the leg. It then jumps back to Mal at the engine. He recovers the part from where he dropped it, tries to get back to the bridge to hit the call-back button, but doesn’t make it. He passes out right outside the cockpit. Now, I _think_ he flashesback to when Inara joined the crew, but that might have been earlier. It’s a good scene, but there’s not much plot development. It does set up Mal and Inara’s relationship as initially much more hostile (Mal calls her a whore). Back in the present, Mal wakes up in sickbay. Everyone is back on board, and Wash is giving him a blood transfusion. Evidentally, Zoe woke up on the shuttle and ordered them to turn back. There’s bonding and warm fuzzies all around, and Mal falls asleep again. The show ends with a final flashback of Mal at a used shipyard, seeing the _Serenity_ for the very first time. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Johnny Angel_ > I think calling her a `ho’ sort of misses the point. They seem to be taking pains to destigmatize female sexuality. She’s still that same girl. A man in her same situation would not be faulted for getting laid. Point of order: the man who was right there with her in that same situation _was_ faulted for getting laid. But I get your point. When they first introduced Kaylee, I thought she was going to be the shy girl who’s good with machines but doesn’t know how incredibly sexy she is. In other words, I thought she was going to be Space Willow. Glad to see them going in a different direction with her. I agree with your take on Jayne, too. I think he’s loyal so long as he’s being treated right. When he’s running with thugs and lowlifes, he’ll turn on them because he knows it’s only a matter of time before they turn on him. I think he knows Mal is trustworthy, and therefore Jayne is himself trustworthy. I also suspect that deep down he’s scared of Mal, because he knows Mal is just as tough as Jayne (example: jet engine) and twice as smart. ---
**Author:** ![elf6c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/22 "2002-10-28T21:02:29Z")
Sorry, Kaylee was a naughty little engine ho. The less then talented mechanic was a himbo too. Still, no to ways about it. Makes her more interesting then the often sterile Star Trek characters. I liked how matter of fact Mal was in handling the situation (only caring about the engine). Oh, and the porn star mustache on the pilot was a riot. ---
**Author:** ![Kn\_ckers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/96bed5/32.png) [@Kn\_ckers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kn_ckers)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/23 "2002-10-28T21:21:27Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Miller \* > \*\* > … Back in the present, Mal wakes up in sickbay. Everyone is back on board, and Wash is giving him a blood transfusion. …_\* Aha! So THAT’s why Wash had a needle in his arm. Glad to have that cleared up. Interesting stuff about Jayne, some great observations in previous posts. He seems to be the most fully-psychoanalyzed character so far. Funny, you see this tough-guy bully character, and you think “Oh, another tough-guy bully character. Seen a million of 'em,” But there’s more to Jayne. He has a \* soul \* , or at least a personality. And that goes for the other characters, too, though most of them haven’t been so fully fleshed-out, yet. I’ll be interested to learn more about what makes the other folks tick. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/24 "2002-10-28T21:24:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > Point of order: the man who was right there with her in that same situation _was_ faulted for getting laid. I don’t think the situation was quite the same, actually. The guy was supposed to be working; he had promised Mal, his employer, that he would have the repairs done by a certain time. He hadn’t done so, and to make matters worse, he wasn’t even trying to fix it when Mal showed up. He wasn’t faulted for getting laid, he was faulted for not doing his job. Since Kaylee wasn’t supposed to be working (at least not for Mal), she wasn’t held at fault. I like this, and I like the direction Kaylee’s character seems to be going. A little detail I liked in the final flashback: We heard the line “She’ll be with you for the rest of your life” more than once in the flashbacks, from both the salesman and from Mal. The implication was that they were talking about the Serenity…but the salesman was actually talking about the flashier ship he was trying to sell. > [@](#): > > [Jayne’s] loyal and subservient, and probably wants nothing more than to be rubbed on the belly and told he’s a good boy. **Johnny** , I most emphatically did not need this image. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/25 "2002-10-28T21:46:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vivalostwages \* > \*\* > –Gina’s dislike of her future husband when she first sees him. > > \*\* That was the first engineer, wasn’t it? AND what it shares with Trek, like Enterprise last time: Why the bloody hell didn’t they have spares for a part that damn important? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/26 "2002-10-28T23:30:39Z")
> [@](#): > > That was the first engineer, wasn’t it? No, Zoe was referring to Wash, the man we know she eventually marries. (“He just bothers me.”) My wife got a huge kick out of that. I liked this episode a lot, the nitpick about inertial motion notwithstanding. In particular, I liked the _gravitas_ of really coming to terms with being stranded millions of miles from anything without hope of rescue. Also, I liked that a science-fiction show has finally acknowledged that a distress call in deep space would, in reality, be a come-hither to pirates. I kept waiting for “Star Trek” to have our heroes responding to a distress call only to find the disabled ship already stripped bare by raiders. But beyond the plot, I like that they’re exploring nearly uncharted territory with the characters. **elf6c** ’s “engine ho” epithet notwithstanding, how many times have we seen, in any dramatic context, a female character who just plain likes getting laid, and who isn’t judged for it? Remember last week with the doctor: “It’s going _well_, nudge nudge.” Very, very refreshing. And moreover, what about Zoe and Wash? Honestly, think about it: When’s the last time we actually had a _married couple_ as part of an adventure crew? who actually have a legitimate history and relationship? and whose marriage is simply a fact of life rather than an artificial reason for them to be unhappy with each other so they can have affairs with other people? Joss Whedon may have screwed up the fourth _Alien_ movie, but as far as _Firefly_ goes, I have complete faith. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/27 "2002-10-29T00:00:06Z")
My nitpick is with the blood transfusion (and the general level of medicine on the ship). They have interstellar ships, and are still doing something as barbaric as a direct transfusion from one guy’s arm into the other guy? It looks great as a theatrical gesture, but it’s really stupid medicine. The doctor wouldn’t have a couple dozen (or hundreds) of bags of blood frozen in his freezer (pre-cross-matched to the crew) like any hospital in our current time has? They have no better technology to make artificial, sterile blood? As low-tech as they seem to be, the doctor could still be freezing homologous donations from everyone regularly for emergencies just like this. Nitpick aside, I love this show. I’m finding it fascinating and entertaining, and, as I’ve said many times in the past, I’ll take my sci-fi any way I can get it. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/28 "2002-10-29T00:09:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by carnivorousplant \* > AND what it shares with Trek, like Enterprise last time: > > Why the bloody hell didn’t they have spares for a part that damn important? Yeah, but _Serenity_ ain’t supposed to be the pride of Starfleet. It’s a second-hand spaceship with a hardscrabble crew who are just trying to scrape by out on the frontier. Who the hell can _afford_ spare parts? If they’d had a spare, they’d have probably sold it or something. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/29 "2002-10-29T00:43:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > \*\* I kept waiting for “Star Trek” to have our heroes responding to a distress call only to find the disabled ship already stripped bare by raiders. > > When’s the last time we actually had a _married couple_ as part of an adventure crew? who actually have a legitimate history and relationship? and whose marriage is simply a fact of life rather than an artificial reason for them to be unhappy with each other so they can have affairs with other people? > /B] “Favorite Son”, an Enterprise episode. Tom PAris and Bellona Torres of Voyager. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/30 "2002-10-29T01:02:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > \*\* > If they’d had a spare, they’d have probably sold it or something. \*\* If it breaks, you die? I think even Jayne could see the folly in that. Well, maybe not… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/31 "2002-10-29T01:33:34Z")
Oh yeah, and **elf6c** wrote: > [@](#): > > Oh, and the porn star mustache on the pilot was a riot. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Back in my day it was called _The Love Brush_ or _The Flavor Saver_. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/32 "2002-10-29T02:27:10Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by carnivorousplant_ > Why the bloody hell didn’t they have spares for a part that damn important? Yeah, but how much of the ship consists of parts that are that damn important, and how much of their valuable cargo space are they willing to sacrifice so that they can carry spares for every single “important” part? Especially if its a part that almost never breaks? I don’t remember for certain, but I don’t think they ever say that the part they can’t replace is the part that caused the explosion. The explosion might have just damaged the one part of the engine that they didn’t have a back-up for. I see where you’re coming from on this, but I don’t really think it’s a valid nitpick. There are a lot of reasons why they might not have a spare for that part, and I don’t think it was necessary to go off on a tangent in the show to explain why. Hell, half the point of this particular episode is that you don’t need to invent fancy sounding future tech to tell a good sf story. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/33 "2002-10-29T02:49:46Z")
Ah hell, that’s why they call then nitpicks! 🙂 I enjoy both shows, but I thought it just as dumb for Wnterprise to have no spare plasma injectors. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/34 "2002-10-29T02:51:39Z")
And it was also dumb for Enterprise not to have spares for a dinky little part. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrVisible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@MrVisible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrVisible)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/35 "2002-10-29T06:17:08Z")
You know, I drive through the desert quite a bit, and in summertime, a busted fan belt or a fried alternator can mean a really long walk in some really hot heat, with death as a possible consequence. And my car is old, and sometimes temperamental. Do I have a spare alternator? Or fan belt, or fuel pump, or anything, except a spare tire? No. Would it make sense for me to carry them? No. If something’s gonna go wrong, it could be the engine seizing. Aside from carrying a spare engine (and maybe transmission and steering column and brakes), there’s nothing I can do to forsee every possible problem. I think this episode was one of the best all-around episodes of anything I’ve ever seen on TV. And they’re just barely into the first season. Imagine what this show could be like in its second season, or third, or fifth. I’m begging Fox; keep this one. It’ll take a year or so to take off, but it’ll mean buttloads of money for them eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/36 "2002-10-29T08:33:15Z")
Yup. I think this show has _franchise_ written all over it. Unfortunately, it’s not really finding an audience so far. I looked on one of the TV ratings sites, and _Firefly_ finished a distant last in its time slot on Friday. But didn’t it take a long time for _Buffy_ to find a big audience? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/37 "2002-10-29T13:41:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MrVisible \* > **You know, I drive through the desert quite a bit, really long walk in some really hot heat, with death as a possible consequence.** But when we traveled through the desert on the Great Vacation we were told to carry a can of paint. The state police of the various states AZ? CA? NV? flew over the highway looking for stopped vehicles with “help” painted on the roof. I much more easily answered distress call than Serenity’s. To contnue the Cowboy analogy, I wonder what spares wagons carried across the Great American Desert. All they had to do was add a line saying “the spares locker was desroyed”. Anyway, it’s called “Poetic License”. A good episode. ---
**Author:** ![elf6c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/38 "2002-10-29T13:42:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*Yup. I think this show has _franchise_ written all over it. Unfortunately, it’s not really finding an audience so far. I looked on one of the TV ratings sites, and _Firefly_ finished a distant last in its time slot on Friday. > > But didn’t it take a long time for _Buffy_ to find a big audience? \*\* Yeah, but this is Fox, not the brand new WB. Fox is infamous for killing off much promoted hour long dramas on Friday night. Another factor is how expensive Firefly might be to produce in comparison to its ratings. I love the Firefly - John Dow combo so I am a bit scared of what Fox will do. I agree with **Cervaise** regarding our cute little engineer. A much more interesting character with her “background” in place. That damn lucky doctor. . . . **Johnny Angel** – Love Brush? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/39 "2002-10-29T15:09:56Z")
Carnivorous Plant Said: > [@](#): > > All they had to do was add a line saying “the spares locker was desroyed”. But there are MANY things that can break on a spaceship… You can’t carry spares for them all. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2002, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076/40 "2002-10-29T15:22:21Z")
Like I said, it’s poetic license. However…🙂 Any Navy (or even better, Merchant Marine) people out there who can tell us how many spares you carry? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefly-out-of-gas/134076.md?page=3)