Okay, we had our first “Whedon Creep-fest”. I knew it wouldn’t take long…
I’m wondering how long we’re going to get references to “reavers”, and them being these Lovecraftian, too-terrifying-to-describe once-men, before we actually get to see 'em. [sub](How do you keep a moron in suspense? I’ll tell you tomorrow…)[/sub]
Really dug the Alliance ship. It’s actually shaped like a spaceship - no streamlining necessary. They’re really pulling off the whole “arrogant victors” attitude as being pervasive among the Alliance people. But I’m wondering what non-military Alliance citizens are going to look like…
And the spaceship brings me to what Mrs. Tygr and I find MOST encouraging about this new series:
Nobody’s trying to explain everything.
We don’t care how the engines work. We don’t care how big the system is or how far apart the different planets are. We don’t care how their weapons work. Grease-spunky’s harangue to the Alliance fellow about how his ship’s ventilation system was set up didn’t explaing anything and I DON"T CARE! It was a fun plot point to help her character get fleshed out some more (no jokes, please) and that’s all it was. I shudder to think that some fanboy is out there re-playing that little speech and mapping out the whole engine system for both the Firefly and the Alliance ship from the ‘clues’ in it.
“Repeat to yourself, ‘It’s just a show - I should really just relax…’”
Yes, bartender, I’ll take a little less science in my sci-fi, thank you very much.
You know, if they’d just remodulated the phase generators and re-routed them through Serenity’s main deflector dish, I think they could have kicked that Alliance ship’s ass…
Well, personally, I wouldn’t object to science, but less pseudo-scientific techno-babble is just fine.
Too lazy to quote, but I agree with all that stuff about how explaining sci-fi takes the fun out of it. It gets all teachery and boring when shows try to explain just how it is that the particle wave descriminators are able to repolarize the dampening field. Another thing I liked about g-spunky’s little ventilation lecture was how confused and uninterested the Alliance dude was. If this were Star Trek (no offense to Star Trek, mind you), he’d have been blown away by her genius, and would have taken her on to revamp his ship. Possibly. Though it’s too early in the morning for me to say that with confidence.
As for the Reavers, I don’t really like the idea of establishing this dark force… I know we need villains, I’m just not so keen on the idea of ending every other episode with “the Reavers did it!” That was what was so cool about kicking last week’s bad guy into the engine. Maybe it’ll turn out that they just bring back the Reavers for Season Finales…
Or perhaps the Reavers will all get kicked into an engine.
I think we already have seen one, they guy that they “rescued”. Think about it. He allowed himself to be captured and brought onboard Serenity and planned to do the same thing there that was done to the colony ship. Then the Alliance ship showed up and the medics that retrieved him seemed to be under the impression that he was dead. Surprise! The guy’s abilities are beyond that of some insane colinist, IMO. Remember what Jayne said after they brought him on board? “Reavers never leave survivors” or words to that effect. That leaves the booby-trapped hatch, either Reavers are not afraid of death or the device was set to go off a safe distance from the colony ship.
I thought one of the big points of the show was that the survivor was in fact one of the colonists, and the horrific things he had seen had driven him to become just like one of the reavers. That having been exposed to the depths of depravity, he himself became depraved.
Which was why the Captain kept saying stuff about it being more merciful to put a bullet in his head, etcetera.
I agree. I like science fiction with actual science in it. But no science is better than bad science.
But actually, Joss & Co. do seem to have somewhat of a grasp of the fundamentals, even if they’re not explaining it.
For example, as far as I can recall, the space scenes have no sound other than musical score. (For the science-phobes: no sound in space, 'cause no air to carry sound waves, a fact most sci-fi ignores for dramatic effect.)
Also, the crew put on space suits to go explore the ghost ship, something Trek rarely bothered with.
Then there was the fact that the ghost ship was rotating when they found it, an entirely likely thing. I think they off-handedly explained it as a thruster malfunction. Then when they dock, the ship is not rotating relative to Serenity. They don’t explain it, but there are a number of ways they could have accomplished that. Matching rotation, sending over a teleoperated thruster pack, or somesuch. But we really don’t need to know how they did it. It’s not important to the plot, and I sort of like that they just treated it as a perfectly routine activity for a spaceship crew.
Roddenberry knew about the whoosh in the credits, but couldn’t resist.
Trek has sensors to tell them if there is a warm atmosphere.
These guys had drinks on the table, which would have boiled away in a vacumn, BTW.
I think they matched Serenity’s rotation to the delerict. I think the star files was rotating in relation to both ships.
Certainly different from Trek in many respects. Not cataclysmic-save-the-universe stuff, merely busted by Smoky for DWI stuff, but very good. Different and good.
I really need to slow down with that Submit button.
My reasoning is that if Reavers never leave survivors, nobody would know exactly how to identify one. Therefore, the guy they picked up may have been one. He pleaded to be killed rather than be captured and later cut up his tongue so he couldn’t give any information.
I know, I know. I’m not trying to do any Trek-bashing here. Gene had his reasons for doing things the way he did, and people like it, so WTF. I just like it that Firefly tries to adhere to reality a bit more.
Yeah, I noticed that too. But that doesn’t mean the atmosphere was breathable and non-toxic.
Yeah? I didn’t notice that. But that would be really cool if they went to that much trouble for realism.
Personally, I like the fact that William Faulkner is finally getting his just dues. I mean, he was never really that bad. Well, TJ Hooker might have been pushing it, but his Kirk was…hmmmm? WHAT?
My bad. Nevermind.
Besides, what I think Jayne was fearing was Joan Rivers. As should we all!!
moonchilde
“Any sufficiently advanced society is indistinguishable from magic.” A. C. Clarke *
Wait, it wasn’t River Phoenix they were all upset about? That made sense to me. I just assumed the derelict was taken over by evil River Phoenix clones! Oh no!
So many interpretations. But I guess whether it was Phoenix, Faulkner or Joan, Jayne’s horror was justified.
And now, for my prediction for this week’s adventure:
Babies! And not just babies, ROBOT MONSTER BABIES! They’re coming out of the woodwork and (literally) crapping things up all over the ship. We thought it was bad having the crazy tongue-slasher guy lurking around, just wait until the babies take over! Be afraid, be very afraid.
