15 minutes to Firefly…
For the first time ever, I’m responding to a thread without reading a single other post. I just had to pop in to say “Woot!” and thank Legomancer for the head’s up. I’ll be back later to discuss the episode in tedious detail, once I’ve actually seen it.
Firefly just cannot seem to stop getting better. Not only did this episode feature a meltingly sexy love scene, it also had high action and tense drama that did not slow down a bit to deliver constant hillarity that managed remarkably not to diffuse the sense of immanent danger.
In addition, Zoe, bless my soul, was so sexy when she strapped on those guns. And when she did her tuck-and-roll and came up and pulled dual pistolas, I wanted to bear her children.
One thing I’ve often noted about Buffy is how they often tease the viewer with familiar cliches just to twist them in the end into something entirely new. In War Stories there must have been at least a dozen tropes kicked over, so that you hardly had time to get over the first before they were exploding another tired plot device.
Unbelivably, they have even topped Ariel and the two-hour pilot. The fact that Fox is going to cancel this show is a mortal sin.
I heard about it through the SDMB. Thanks SDMB.
So I’ll be the first to review.
Good episode. Nice turn on the cliches.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You were about to ask me to choose, weren’t you?”
“This is something he has to fight for himself.”
“NO I DON’T!”
That last one got me laughing for a good 30 seconds.
I’m still wondering how all the characters fit together. We’re learning that Book has military training now but I’m still wondering what most of the character’s roles really are. I mean, I know I’ve only watched 3 episodes so far but I still don’t have a good idea of what these people do on the ship. It’s not that they’ve failed to flesh out the characters…it’s that they’ve failed (for me at least) to even define who they are.
What role does the young girl play? Blowing the airlock doors is the ONLY substantial thing I’ve seen her do yet.
Why is there a prostitute on the ship anyway? What does she bring to the crew?
The husband…what is his job?
So…in summation. Good episode. One and a half ears up.
We can do spoilers now, I assume?
The (soon to be aired) pilot makes those things clear: Zoe and Jayne are basically helpers, since the not-really-legal business they do requires multiple eyes/guns etc.
Walsh is the pilot.
Kaylee is the mechanic.
In a twist on the Western, the Companion is the only legitimate profession on the ship: she rents out a shuttle for cheap, does business where the ship goes, and adds a veneer of respectablilty to the whole operation.
I thought tonight’s episode was fan-fucking-tastic. Favorite details:
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Jayne’s “I’ll be in my bunk” was funny and predictable. Kaylee’s obvious facination/arousal was beautiful and brilliant.
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“It’s fuzzier on the topic of kneecaps” was great.
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The whole scene with Mal and Walsh was just funny beyond belief.
Wonderful!
Wonderful!
Wonderful!
Best episode yet.
Homosexuality in space, and yet, while not condemning it, the other characters were still surprised/aroused by it. This isn’t a perfect little sanitary utopia.
Cliches toppled. At least twice. The mundane conversation over the torture was funny, yet not outside the bounds of reason (Mal was keeping Walsh’s [and his own] mind on other things).
Walsh does something, and does it well. The fact that, without saying it, he suddenly understood (and shared) his wife’s devotion to Mal was great.
Book is suddenly also more interesting. What do y’all think he is, really? I guess a former elite Alliance soldier/assasin who found religion.
It’s nice to see River a tinge more coherent. The gibbering craziness was begininng to wear.
And the fact that i couldn’t quite figure out the function of the “very precious” torture device made it all the more freaky.
Btw, why didn’t Mal and crew kill the gangster? That’s my only problem with the episode.
That, and a visit from our friend Pander the Panda, but it was more erotic, more needed, and less gratuitous than the stuff on Enterprise, so I’ll forgive it.
Speaking of Enterprise, it looks like next episode is stock cliche plot #237: Thinly veiled variation of “Swept Away”. [Sigh] And Firefly is the slow that’s in trouble?
Great great episode.
Favorite lines:
“I’ll be in my bunk.”
“Doesn’t the Bible have some very specific things about killing?”
“Yes it does, but it gets a little fuzzier on the topic of kneecaps”
(Followed later on by him nailing a guard in the kneecap)
“This is something he has to do for himself.”
“No it isn’t!”
“Oh.”
bang bang bang bang bang bang
Plus the last thing with Mal and Zoe.
This show is amazing. The best Sci-Fi show on TV currently. It isn’t glamorizing death and violence, its just showing it as something that has to be done some times in order to get what you want. They include all the gory little things just to impound the fact that bad guys don’t just get shot and fall down (as we saw with the bloodied and burnt guard stumbling around after the grenade) and that killing isn’t a glorious experience. I also liked how they showed Kaylee freaking out when the guards poor in. It made it more real. Grrrreeeeaaaaaatttt stuff.
The only thing that bothered me, from now, on I’ll be using a knife on fruit.
Where do you write to keep the show on the air?
All I could think while watcihng the torture scene was "Holy Shit! These are the same people who (spoiler for future BtVS) Are going to strap Spike to the will of torture in two weeks. sigh
“Just don’t fiddle with it”
“Now something about that is downright unsettlin”
big smiles and sighs…i knew i had missed it, just not how much.
mc
I assumed the gangster slipped away, like maybe through a secret passage.
I wonder if Firefly will survive long enough for us to see the fallout of Kaylee’s falling apart under pressure?
Was I the only viewer who, as soon as the female Councillor stepped aboard, thought to myself “I sense a ratings grab in the form of a lesbian scene with no relation to the plot?”
That’s all. 
They can grab my ratings and cough for all I care. Firefly needs to stay on the air.
No, you weren’t. They could have been more subtle (like, cut to fireplace). Not everyone wants to see the Panda (BTW, the Enterprise threads introduced me to that phrase, and I think it’s wonderful). Jayne’s comments did set up the final statement by Wash (that’s Wash, not Walsh): “We’ll be in our bunk.”
Anyway…Book got the best line in the ep, as already mentioned, re: kneecaps. Was it homage to T2 (“He’ll live”)?
Oh, and “Hey, free soup!”–THWACK–“uunnnggh”
What’s really interesting is where they seem to be going with Kaylie getting the severe wiggins from River.
re: Smapti
"Was I the only viewer who, as soon as the female Councillor stepped aboard, thought to myself “I sense a ratings grab in the form of a lesbian scene with no relation to the plot?”
Ummm, yeah, that is exactly the first thing I thought. Well, after “WOOHOOOOOOOOO!” and “I’ll be in my bunk”.
mc
But, there was a lesbian scene. Didn’t you notice?
Wait. That was the window next to my entertainment center.
BTW BTO TCB everyday…um… oh yeah… BTW, I first heard about it from Fox. They were plugging the heck out of it down here. Long commercials, weeks before it started. Then, when it did start, nothing. I have not seen a single ad since.
Well in this episode we know he can shoot ;).
Wouldn’t it be something if Shepherd was the son of the hive queen or whoever runs the alliance, and he skipped out of that life (like Moses of the OT) to take up his own twisted form of vigilante religion?
I haven’t seen enough of each episode to know this for sure … but did the reason they messed with River just get explained? If so, that has to be one of the coolest ways to do exposition ever.
I only saw the last half, but it was definitely the best of the show I’ve seen so far.
Mal with all the wounds did a good job of looking fatigued.
“Not to 50!”