I actually watched Serenity the Movie about four times because I had it DVR’d off SciFi (now SyFy?) but didn’t have access to the series for quite a while. Then when my wife and I upgraded our TV and also got NetFlix Stream I was able to watch the series for the first time and I was glad I watched it in-sequence.
As far as Joss Whedon’s projects go, I thought DollHouse was a better concept with more timely statements to make, albeit more obvious. I never watched Buffy TVS or any of his other stuff.
So, having just recently watched the series from 1 through 14 (and I was mortified to find myself starting #1 over again last night), I’m going to be a rebel and say I like the whole series, each episode equally, and I really wish they had been able to continue it.
And now I’m going to go off-task and simply provide responses to various other comments above – in no particular order and failing to properly attribute the other postings that I’m referencing:
Safe
This episode establishes that River has psi/psychic abilities. Of course, I knew that from watching the movie first, but that was kind of cheating on my part. It also suggested that there could be safe places for the Tams to hide where they could put their talents/training to good use – except that such ‘frontier’ societies might be too dangerous in their own little back-water ways. So they can’t stay close to the core because the alliance will hunt them down and kill them and they can’t hide out on the fringe because local yokels will hunt them down and kill them. This also establishes that Mal might not like the Tams, but he still considers them crew and his code of honor won’t let him abandon a crew member. Ariel reinforced that notion.
**JaynesTown **
While Out of Gas (later) showed us where the picked up Jayne in the first place, this one was the first to show that he had a conscience beneath the Mighty Merc facade. The death of that ‘worshipper’ rattled him, and might have been the turning point in his demeanor (or what we get to see of it).
Out of Gas
What a great title! So many levels of meaning! There’s a lot of argument about the volume of air in the cargo ship, including “Mal was acting hypoxic too soon” and “they’d freeze quicker if they were extremely far from a sun.” but it seems relatively un-noticed that Mal had been shot (by the guys with the replacement part, remember?) and they were intentionally far between stars. Wash said he plotted the 3-day trip to take 18 days instead, because Mal wanted to avoid possible Alliance encounters. Ultimately, it was a great way to show us where some of those characters had been picked up – and I thought the recruitment of Kaylee was quite humorous.
ShinDig
In keeping with the Mal is just a southern gentleman persona, we got to see Mal get into an old-fashioned duel over a woman’s honor. It was also nice to see that some places relied at least partly on swords for combat. Fewer chemical or mechanical malfunctions possible. I interpreted Whedon’s depiction of the party as suggesting High Society is just rich people stuck in Junior High School mode: The girls gather in cliques and disrespect the newcomer while gazing longingly at the guys and keeping a fearful distance. Kaylee just settled into her Tomboy self and had the guys crowding around her because she spoke their language. It seems that was a bigger insult to the whole clique than the old guy’s insult that dislodged the clique leader,
**Our Mrs. Reynolds **& Heart of Gold
These two were nicely subtle ways of showing that there was something brewing between Inara and Mal that neither wanted to address directly. It wasn’t just a coy game, it was “I’m not letting my attraction to ___ get in the way of my professional duties. I’m not even going to admit I’m attracted.” It was like a staring contest or a game of Chicken – and Inara broke first in OMR, much to her own detriment (that’ll show her) and I don’t think anyone (even Mal) believed she got knocked out by bumping her head or kissing Saffron. Conversely, HoG was Mal saying “I care enough to risk my life for your friends, just because it’s you asking, and no payment is needed.” And, of course, when he got ‘paid’ anyway, it clearly broke Inara’s heart.
War Stories
There’s more than enough talk above about its resolution of the Mal/Zoe/Wash dynamic. The torture scene was funny in a twisted way, and the first thing I thought when it started was “Why aren’t they gagged?” but it was quickly clear that Mal was keeping Wash from succumbing to the torture by occupying his mind with the discussion about Zoe. If Inara could conceal a flash-bang explosive in a stick of incense (again, I saw the movie first), why couldn’t Zoe hide a few flash-bangs amongst the coins she gave to Nischka for her husband’s ransom? It was deliciously cruel to see Nischka use defibrillators to force Mal back to life so he could continue torturing him.
Ariel
Did anyone else notice the same type of defibrillators were in Zoe’s hands when she took out the doctor who was giving Mal grief? As everyone else has noted, this is Jayne’s turning point from greedy merc to caring crew member. It also blatantly emphasized that Mal thought of Simon (at least) as a crew member and not merely a passenger-and-tag-along.
Trash
I take it the antique they’re after is a nod to the Tom Selleck science fiction movie/character? It’s clear they left the Mrs. alive to return in additional episodes.
Train Job
Somebody noted in another thread that there weren’t many Chinese, even though everyone switched freely between Chinese and English languages (and I’ve noticed some of the printed characters in various scenes are Japanese - katakana and hiragana). It was nice to see another culture – Russian-ish. There seemed to be some Australian types in another episode. It would have been nice to see some Native American, Indian, Middle-Eastern, Central American, etc. representatives, but those were good starts. When I first saw the epilogue scene I thought “Darn” was horribly poor acting on Fillion’s part; that made Mal’s next move more surprising and hilarious. I laugh just thinking about it.
Objects in Space
Jubal dropped a comment in OiS, telling Simon “That ain’t no Shepherd” in reference to the unconscious Book and I got a sense that Jubal knew or knew of Book from the past and, again, it raised some interest in just who that man is and why he has so much Alliance credibility and crime knowledge. In case our memories from Safe were too foggy, we saw River reading people’s minds and emotions, and also reaching out with her mind and screwing with the bounty hunter’s hearing (or his understanding of what he’s hearing). It also occurred to me that The Believer in the movie was originally intended to be Jubal Early but that wasn’t going to make much sense with the way he was ‘recently’ left hanging in space so they had to make it a different actor (and simply called him The Operative).
The Movie
I had heard the Serenity movie was a distillation of the last 4 episodes of a truncated 18-episode season. Between OiS and the movie, it seemed to me there was quite a bit of development, including Inara making good on her decision to leave, and Book going his own way as well. The movie scene showing the reunion with Book also shows a kid running as the ship is landing, and I got a sense that the kid was supposed to be Book’s son. [Yeah, I know I’ve read a whole lot into nothingness with these assumptions.] I kinda figure those key events and a lot of other capers would be part of Season 2 and onward but those slowly-developing explanations had to be cut from the movie script. While Ariel showed Mal considering Simon a crew member and OiS had River redeeming herself by thwarting the bounty hunter using only her mind, the payroll heist in the movie showed Mal considering River to be a useful member of his crew – and therefore not willing to leave her behind.
Miscellaneous
Every time we’d see Mal practice drawing his gun (and pointing at the camera) I’ve been keenly aware that the cylinder isn’t revolving as he is pulling the hammer back and there are ‘caps’ and other fiddly bits in front of the cylinder on either side of the barrel. Now those could just be dust/dirt covers, but I get the impression the device is supposed to look like an old Colt-style revolver but the area with the ‘cylinder’ and caps is more high-tech than just explosive powder and slugs.
As for the laser in HoG, I couldn’t help thinking that when Mal grabbed the horse to start chasing the villain, he should also have grabbed a mirror – or at least something relatively large and shiny – to deflect (or even fatally reflect) the beams of light he knew the villain was going to send his way. Perhaps not the side of the whole building, but aren’t there always shiny things decorating a guilded brothel?
There are various aliens seen on different worlds. Most of the time it seems like oddly colored plants. Sometimes I’ve seen strange little creatures in cages or wandering around. The opening premise is that earthlings went out and terra-formed other worlds. I’d think any non-earth beings requiring earth-like conditions and bearing human or greater intelligence would have said, “This is ours, you can’t make it yours” or they haven’t been encountered yet. The worlds we’ve seen have been terra-formed, which means nothing on that world was able to stop us and earthlings have become the dominant or most-abundant species. Still, it would have added texture to see earth-based creatures with non-earthling colored hair or skin due to different chemicals (and organisms) in the soil and food/water chain.
–G!
There’s no place that I can’t be
Since I found Serenity