New 'Firefly' Tonight, 12/6

Cafe Society
41

Maybe… Two or three episodes previous, when Mal and Co. got the contract to smuggle cattle to the frontier, there was a scene where she confronted some petty mid-level criminal and seemed to be able to read his mind and throw his own past back in his face, despite having never met the guy before. She also seems to be able to sense when the “blue hands” people are nearby, and arguably had an episode of precognition when she attack Jayne shortly before he tried to sell them out to the Alliance. At this point, it seems clear that she has some form of psychic powers, which were almost certainly the reason for the experiments conducted on her by the government. Wether these powers are purely the result of those experiments, or enhanced her native abilities remains to be seen.

I wonder if Kaylee is wigged out by River’s apparent psychic powers, her cold-bloodedness in killing three men, or just shame that River stepped up and saved the day when Kaylee chickened out. Near as I can tell, only River knows that she panicked…

Yet again, this was the best episode yet. I think I’ve said that in every Firefly thread to date…

42

I don’t really know what to say, except to say that I love this show. Every time I think Joss Whedon has started to produce less compelling television, something like Once More,with Feeling or Firefly comes out to completely change my opinion.

Anyway, that torture device was way creepy. Especially the thingies that looked like they were crawling along under his skin. Yikes. Reminded me of the Hands of Blue Guys’ whatchamacallit from the last episode.

I think my favorite cliché that hit the dustbin in this installment was the maniacal “You must choose which one I kill!” Not only was it played perfectly, it also cleared up, not just for Wash but for the audience, too, the Zoe-Mal relationship.

Speaking of that relationship, I really appreciate that Mutant Enemy is allowing two characters of opposite sexes to have a “just really good friends” relationship. It happens a lot in real life, but if you believe your television (something I don’t recommend), a man and a woman can’t be friends unless at least one of them is gay. Well, I suppose they can be friends, as long as one of them is harboring a deep unrequited love for the other.

Anyway, I don’t remember where I heard this first, but I’m going to shamelessly steal it. One of the best things about this show is that, at least so far, none of them are stupid. They may do some foolhardy things (I’m looking at you, Jayne), but, unlike most shows on television, their plots don’t revolve around the characters actually being dumb (I’m looking at you, Buffy). I mean, while that concept works for a show like Buffy, I’m glad that, on Firefly, the characters actually communicate and share information that might be important to the whole crew. Plus, I must say, I laugh more at this show than I do at any show whose primary mission is comedy.

43

Oh, and I so don’t want Firefly to die.

44

This ep seem to have a lot more Chinese words than previous eps. Anyone got a translator? :slight_smile:

45

Thanks kasuo I came back to this thread to see if anyone was nice enough to translate some of the chinese for us.

Are they actually cussing in chinese?

Can we get a thin skinned china man to start a HUGE media cirus going on about “foul language allowed by FOX”

Think the the viewers that would tune in to see what all the hub ub bub is about. Then they can get hooked on one of the best shows on TV!
A rope a dope stratagy so to speak. They come to learn chinese cuss words and leave hooked :slight_smile:

Also, I am not sure abotu anywhere else, but did here it seemed there was a serious lack of commercials. I think there way a total of 2 commercial breaks the whole episode. Then the commericals did not seem to be approperate for the time slot. I say appropreate in the sense they were not produces you would normally aim at the viewer demographics for such a show.

Somehow I find this disturbing

46

GREAT ep. The best so far IMO (along with “Ariel”).

Best line: “Take me sir. Take me hard.” Must. find. wav. now.

With his knowledge of weaponry & exit wounds, I think Book may be a former Alliance cop. I have a theory that he is in fact a direct descendant of Detective Harris of the 12th Precinct, NYC (what with his wacky hair & verbal diahrrea).

Stupid sexy Fox! Why can’t you promote this show properly?

47

Well, Buffy and Xander are pretty close friends, and neither one of them is gay. (Though I admit, I had my suspicions about the Xan-man.)
The difference, of course, is that Mal and Zoe are acting like adults, and Buffy and Xander act like 12 year olds. That’s why I’m starting like Firefly, even though I didn’t want to. They act like adults, and I’m tired of all the people on my favorite show acting like they never left Jr. High.
Of course, I’m am now waiting for the rug to be ripped out from under me. Either they are going to do something horrible to a character I really like and make me feel the pain, or the show is going to be cancelled.
Some days I really hate Whedon…

48

If this were Enterprise, if we could expect six more seasons, I’d get critical.
Heck, I will anyway. Don’t everyone jump on me at once. You’ll have to get in line.

I’m finding River to be irritating. “'Verse” for universe is silly, it’s making up words to show we are in the future. Any power in the world can stop you when you stand and strike a dramatic pose to make a declaration like that. What’s with this ‘psychic aiming’? “Can’t look, can’t look”; I presume it’s something the academy taught her; I found it irritating.

Comparisons, Dr. Johnson said, are odious, and while I find the “Enterprise does such-and-such, Firefly does son-and-so and Firefly is being canceled?” odious, I must interject that one of the reasons I quit watching Andromeda is the wise cracking as Our Heroes Go Fearlessly Into Danger. “Are you starting a book club?” , “They say people don’t look like their pets.” were funny, but there were too many. Why the comic relief? “Now I’m learning about carrying.” And speaking of knee capping, the Bible has things against murder, not killing. Speaking of Jewish stuff, I was disturbed in The Train Job as well as War Stories with Niska having a Yiddish accent. He seem a stereotype right out of The Protocols of Zion.
I was glad to see Jayne wounded; a bit of realism there. Why did he carry an assault rifle and fire a pistol? Why did Niska escape? Reynolds kicked a guy into an engine intake and was going to defenestrate Jayne into a vacumn. Niska was spared to be an ongoing villian, which is silly given that the series is going to be canceled. It is unfortunate, this is great science fiction, but the lesbian scene, the blood and the guy on fire are the coup d’ grace. Who can argue against a Mother Clutching Her Chest and saying she doesn’t want her fourteen year old child to see that in prime time?
It was good to learn more about Book, but this episode was a virtual menage of character development. Again, the impression was just a gallery of how cool Our Heroes are that did not contribute to the drama.
Does anyone know if they are rally speaking Chinese? I didn’t hear any tonals when Wash was cursing. He sounded like he was reading a grocery list in a monotone.

49

I don’t think they let Niska go - I think he escaped. Didn’t he take off while Mal was battling the other guy? That station is huge, and Mal’s crew was doing a lightning snatch-and-grab and getting the hell out of Dodge. I’d guess there were probbaly a couple of thousand of Niska’s men on that station. Once he was out of their sight, they had no way to get him.

I thought this was a great episode, and after I watched it I thought, “well, that ought to bring the ratings up a bit.” Unfortunately, last night’s episode got its worst ratings ever, a lousy 2.4 (it was averaging 2.9/3.0 before). This show’s a goner.

It pisses me off. A few weeks ago Fox put out a press release saying they were giving Firefly one more chance, and that they would promote it heavily during the two weeks it was off the air in hope that the new episodes would get better ratings. Well, their ‘heavy promotion’ must have been psychic or something, because I never saw a single ad for Firefly in the entire two weeks. Not one. They didn’t even give it a 10 second plug when they pre-empted it. They just said, “John Doe will return next week.” No mention of Firefly.

I think Fox wants it dead. Maybe it costs too much to make or something.

50

I wasn’t surprised about the lesbian scene. Joss likes lesbians, and when Buffy was on the WB, he wasn’t allowed to show any love-scenes between Willow and Tara. We didn’t get those until the show moved to UPN. (Well, we did get the kiss in the body.)
I’ve been expecting a lesbian scene since the show started, to be honest.

51

Who doesn’t like lesbians?!

And, er, about Buffy and Xander, I did think about them, and that’s why I added that bit about the unrequited love. I’ll grant you that Xander’s not still in love with Buffy, but that is how their relationship started…

52

Isn’t that whole “verse” line River mouthed-off to be a “payback” of sorts of when Kaylee got her apple back in the beginning of the episode? Of course, Kaylee was freaked-out cuz she was not one of the “Our Heroes Go Fearlessly Into Danger” ™, but rather a person who’s never been in a gunfight before.

Yeah, most of the stuff River says is damn annoying. However, can’t her looking away while shooting be a way for River to not feel so guilty about shooting the guards?

His accent sounded more Russian to me.

53

Then how did she hit them? Three rounds and three dead guys.

Sam: Niska escaping: The dialogue made me think they let him go, but upon watching that again, I agree that he escaped. I do dislike the recurring villian concept.

Osip: Commercials: The Fox feed I watch seemed to have the usual amount. Did you see it on a local affiliate?

General question developed on watching again: What equipment did the counselor loan the crew?

Difering dialogue: During the attack, Book says, “Don’t think, just shoot” and the subtitle says “Keep down or you will be shot in the head.” or something very much like that. Did anyone else notice that?

54

I think it was the medical equipment to patch up Mal.

55

I think we know what River is - she’s a weapon. The shenanigans the Alliance played with her brain gave her mild psychic power - not much more than a heightened sense of impending danger. Which would be incredibly useful for a soldier to have. I think when she said “Don’t look, don’t look” it was basically to focus all her energy on the weapons-system built into her head. She kicked into weapon mode, targeted, and fired.

She’s probably a prototype of a new alliance soldier or something.

Book is interesting. I’m beginning to think that he’s connected to River. Maybe he’s a ‘blue hand’ that turned good when he found God, and now he’s trying to keep the River/weapon out of the hands of the alliance. There’s lots to learn about Book yet.

But we’ll probably never learn it. Shows with 2.4 ratings don’t survive long, barring a miracle.

56

We can always hope that Sci Fi will buy the remains from Fox and hire Robert H. Wolfe to write for it.

57

One little commercial, strategically placed, with the Companion (Anera?) smoochin’ on the naked Ambassidor (?) then Jayne “I’ll be in my bunk”.

Beaucoup ratings.
And a small thing…

She looked and placed the guards. Then she shut her eyes and popped 'em all.
-Rue.

58

The gore was a little intense in this one (my wife hid her head when the claw thingie was grinding through Mal’s chest), but I’m with all of you guys: This show just keeps getting better and better.

Fox needs to move it out of the graveyard, promote the hell out of it, and watch the birth of a classic.

Paraphrasing Barton Fink – “Sci-fi adventure. Actions. Laughs. Best writing on TV. Whaddaya need, a road map?”

59

I thought River didn’t want to see them die. She knew she could hit them but watching three guys die of bullet wounds in her current state couldn’t be good for her.

60

The question remains how did she hit them? They were moving and she couldn’t see them. Some kind of psychic wunder kind stuff. I find that irratating in regular science fiction. It is a fantasy element, kind a sortan that doesn’t go with blackpowder revlovers and cowboy space ships. :slight_smile: