328 replies to this topic

[MinDonner]

Note: this isn't actually a rewatch for me, as I missed Firefly when it was originally on the telly and have only just got round to watching it, after several years of hearing how it is the Awesomest Thing Evar. Bearing this in mind, please NO SPOILERS FOR EPISODES I HAVEN'T SEEN YET!!!one!, else there will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth the likes of which even God has never seen...

So, only watched one disc so far, the first three episodes, and here's what I thought*...

Serenity
Pilot episode, so a bit longer, and some plot sacrificed for Meet The Characters shenanigans. We start off in a war zone, which then seamlessly cuts to the same guys in space, bit of a WTF moment until you realise that this was supposed to be several years later, after that war was lost. Wash is playing with dinosaurs, which was funny. They're nicking stuff from a derelict spaceship, when the Alliance show up out of nowhere and they have to flee, but the make of their ship is recognised.

Cut to the planet, and some SEX! It's Inara the Companion (ie. prostitute), whose latest client has fallen in love with her and wants to sweep her away. She politely declines, and contacts the Serenity instead, which is just coming in to dock. Cap'n Mal has some weird macho-possessive-sexual-tension thing going on with Inara; despite the fact that Companions are supposedly an elite and high-status profession. Not really sure about this, at all.

The space port has a dusty Wild West Meets Oriental Bazaar feel to it. Their contact now no longer wants to buy the stolen goods, cos the Alliance will be after them, so they have to a) take on some passengers to make money and b) try to find another buyer, who will have to be out on the frontier somewhere and have less concern for the law. Nice mechanic Kaylee tempts aboard some passengers with her winning smile - these include Preacherman Shepherd Book, Suspicious Dark Glasses Guy Simon, and The Guy Who Played The Baddie in Buffy Season 3 Episode 1. Mal gets to show his contempt for a) whores and b) preachermen by sneeringly introducing Inara to Book in the hope that Book would get offended - which is kind of odd, given the supposed high status of Companions, but that's a whole other discussion. The stolen goods are stowed, and they hope that none of the passengers find it before they can sell it - prospective buyer is dubious old lady Patience, who runs some smuggling empire out on the Rim, or similar.

Out in space, the Alliance are on their tail! Someone has tipped them off! Suspicious Dark Glasses Guy is the obvious suspect, so it's obviously not him - turns out to be Buffy Villain, who is an undercover agent. But he's not after the loot, he's after Simon's luggage, which contains... a girl! It's Simon's sister River, who is Speshul, and is on the run from evil Alliance boffins who want to find out the Secrets of her Genius Brain. In the kerfuffle, Kaylee gets shot, and Simon (a doctor) refuses to treat her unless Serenity runs away from the Alliance ship. So they do.

Erm, some reavers come past, scary moment, reavers are nasty mutant space pirates or something. It's funny how small space seems to be; all these ships just passing within a few feet of each other all the time...

Contact with Patience, who doesn't even try to haggle, thus indicating that she will try to cheat them. Cap'n Mal, First Mate Zoe and Tough Guy Jayne head down to the planet to make the deal. I like Patience, she's a tough old bitch, and does indeed try to cheat them; gunfightin' ensues, and our guys end up getting paid for the job anyway. But oh no! The reavers have decided to come after them after all, so it's a mad dash back to the ship on horseback. Buffy Villain has slipped his bonds, beaten up the Shepherd and is now having a hostage stand-off (reavers notwithstanding) - amusing moment, he says "Nobody Move!" or similar, just as Mal strides onto the ship and shoots him through the head without missing a beat. Body turfed off the ship and some pilot/engineer skillz are required to outrun the reavers, and they're flying off into the sunset...

2 and 3 to come later.

*it's been a few days since I saw these, so if I get some scenes in the wrong order then blame my dodgy memory

[Narishma Reborn]

I applaud your choice to take on this series, and to provide commentary on the episodes. Reading your first-time viewer's commentary highlights some of the things that long-time fans can have forgotten. For instance, the early Mal-Inara interplay does make him seem like an enormous ass. :-P

[mormont]

I'm actually rewatching Firefly myself right now, although I'm about halfway through.

On the pilot: the war scene is fatally undermined by the obvious studio set and generally cheap production values. Budget issues? I dunno. They do their best with it, but it's IMO the weakest scene in the entire series. It looks and feels like a rehearsal.

The episode takes a while to get going, but once it does it showcases the strengths of Firefly. Mal is an enormous ass sometimes: he's an old-fashioned heroic character, but flawed. Not deeply, but somewhat. Still too decent, perhaps, but at least his 'macho-possessive-sexual-tension thing' (well put, btw ;)) with Inara and his rudeness to Simon give us some kind of handle on him in this introduction.

The resolution of the hostage situation gives us an indication of the writers' intent to subvert some cliches from time to time, and a good belly-laugh along the way. :P

The brief inclusion of the Reavers I think is necessary, to round out the introductions to the main 'players' in the universe - the Alliance, the independent border planets, and the Reavers as well as the crew themselves.

Patience is a good character, yeah.

[anguy]

I don't understand why Fox refused this pilot episode. It's one of the best scifi pilots ever, great character introducion, nice special effect and action. I agree that the battle scene wasn't done very well, especially when he started firing with that big rapid fire laser gun. But I liked the ending of the scene when he realized they lost, the young guy is shot while Mal is just looking in shock on landing Alliance ships. The scene when they were stealing the goods was good too. I liked the fact that it was quite realistic (when compared to other SF).

[MinDonner]

The Train Job
Pub scene, on Unification Day, where some crusty thugs are celebrating the Alliance victory; Mal, Zoe and Jayne get into a brawl (inevitably) and have to escape in the ship - turns out they end up doing this every year on U-Day. Heh. I liked the bit where Mal did the whole "say that to my face!" thing to the thug so that Zoe could come up behind and lamp him.

Next, a meeting with another scary gangster, who is offering a job. The crew have to steal something from a train, and Mal is not interested in asking what it is (which seems a bit dumb given his later qualms). This gangster is not fond of people who disappoint him, and we get a glimpse of his tattooed minion Crow chopping up some guy behind a door. Yikes. Hope this job doesn't go wrong in any way!!!

I quite like the whole concept of Space Outlaws; the fact that the Alliance is a semi-evil government makes piracy seem a lot more acceptable. Anyway, with a minimum of preparation (ie. none), Mal and Zoe are on the train, with the Serenity flying alongside (no-one notices this). After walking through a carriage full of Alliance soldiers, they easily break into the luggage car, and Jayne is lowered from the ship to grab the loot. But oh no, one of the soldiers comes to investigate! Jayne is shot but gets away with the boxes, and Zoe and Mal are stuck on the train.

Back at the ship, Jayne wants to take the loot straight to Scary Gangster Guy, but the rest of the crew refuse and want to rescue the missing 2. Book says something about how he heard this gangster would refuse to deal with them if Mal wasn't present? - wasn't sure if he was making this up in order to save Mal, or if it was true, never made entirely clear. Jayne about to get violent but then Simon's drugs kick in and he passes out, giggling.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Zoe and Mal are pretending to be newlyweds, and find out that the boxes they nicked are actually vital medicine, without which lots of people will die. The Sheriff gives them a bit of a grilling, and no-one's allowed to leave.

"If only we had someone respectable to send in to rescue them," says Book. Aha! And it's Inara! Even though Mal was a dick to her earlier!

See, on one hand I quite like the turnabout, where a prostitute is more respected than a minister... but on the other hand, there's nothing about this setup that explains how that could have happened. It's not like it's post-patriarchy or anything; all the bar thugs are still male, all the Alliance soldiers and commanders are male, most of the gangsters and their henchmen are still male, everything seems to still run along patriarchal lines... nice try, Joss, but this earns you a Fail.

Anyway, Inara turns up and tells the Sheriff that Mal is her indentured manservant who ran away, and whisks them both back to the Serenity, where Mal declares that he's going to give Scary Gangster his money back and return the goods to the village. But too late! Henchman Crow turns up with some heavies and accuses them of trying to steal both goods and money. Fighting ensues, good guys are victorious.

Another amusing moment, they offer to send Crow back to Scary Gangster with the money, and he does some posturing about how he'll hunt them down, they'll never escape... so off he goes into the engine intake, and the same offer is made to Random Other Henchman, who is only too eager to accept...

Then they take the medicine back to the village, and the sheriff guessed they would do that anyway, and there's some guff about the Decent Thing To Do, and everyone is happy.

[anguy]

MinDonner, on Feb 26 2009, 10.26, said:

See, on one hand I quite like the turnabout, where a prostitute is more respected than a minister... but on the other hand, there's nothing about this setup that explains how that could have happened. It's not like it's post-patriarchy or anything; all the bar thugs are still male, all the Alliance soldiers and commanders are male, most of the gangsters and their henchmen are still male, everything seems to still run along patriarchal lines... nice try, Joss, but this earns you a Fail.

Saying with Kaylee the proper term is companion not prostitute/whore :). And courtesans were very respected during certain periods of history. (Italy, France). And those societies were much more patriarchal than Firefly universe.

[MinDonner]

anguy, on Feb 26 2009, 14.35, said:

Saying with Kaylee the proper term is companion not prostitute/whore :). And courtesans were very respected during certain periods of history. (Italy, France). And those societies were much more patriarchal than Firefly universe.

Hm. Not so sure about this; I'd imagine their high status would come from the status of their patrons, not from something intrinsic in their jobs. I'd also suggest that if Madame de La Vallière went to a remote outpost in rural France, she'd be unlikely to garner anywhere near the amount of respect that she'd enjoy in the courts of Paris...

[MinDonner]

Bushwhacked
Another one of those moments when you're drifting through the vastness of space and suddenly you nearly run into another derelict cruiser. Time for some salvage! But the crew are mysteriously missing, without any sign of a struggle - even the food is still on the tables where they left it, right in the middle of dinner. Simon is scared of spacesuits so Jayne plays a trick on him.

River now appears to be not just a Genius but also Psychic, and keeps talking about ghosts. While everyone else is rummaging around looking for stuff to steal, she wanders in and spots the missing crew, all dead and hanging from a chain on the ceiling. The work of reavers! Everyone is scared, but Mal apparently has had Prior Dealings with reavers and knows their ways. And Jayne is attacked by a lone survivor who has gone feral and violent; they take him on board Serenity and sedate him.

While faffing about trying to give the bodies a decent burial (or something), an Alliance cruiser turns up, and again they only notice it when it's right on top of them. WTF? Space must be really small and their scanners must be really crap. The Alliance are still looking for River (oh yeah, they were in the last one too, some guys with blue hands who cropped up right at the end). Here it's just some rookie officer who wants to throw his weight around and take these scavengers to task; he boards the ship and has it searched from top to bottom, while the crew are questioned (this scene is pretty funny). But where are Simon and River?

They are outside the ship, in space suits. Simon is still scared, but River is awestruck by the vastness of space. I'm not sure why, there's a hell of a traffic problem out there.

The rescued guy from the reaver-hit ship now goes mental with a knife, just as Mal is being accused of murdering the crew himself. Couple of redshirts get killed, then Mal saves Rookie Officer's life. The salvage is confiscated, but they are left to go on their way, and River is safe.

Bit more on the Shepherd/atheist conflict in this one. While I'm glad to see another major atheist TV character (alongside House), why do they always have to be grumpy older men? Why not make Kaylee an atheist instead? Mal's also a bit of a crap atheist, as he kissed a cross in an earlier episode, and says something not-very-atheistic in this one (I forget what exactly). I'm really hoping that future episodes do not feature him being shown the True Meaning of Life by either the Shepherd or Inara, who admits to praying for him.



***

This'll be the last update for a while, as we now have to wait for Disc 2 to arrive from LoveFilm...

[mormont]

MinDonner, on Feb 26 2009, 14.26, said:

I quite like the whole concept of Space Outlaws; the fact that the Alliance is a semi-evil government makes piracy seem a lot more acceptable.

But then, one of the points of this episode is to start to question the validity of that whole setup. Yes, the Alliance are the Bad Guys - but they're the ones supplying the vital medicine. The crew are the Good Guys - but they steal the stuff. In the end the crew do the Right Thing, at some cost to themselves - but had Mal not been willing to deal with a pretty dodgy character, even after seeing Crow being nasty to the previous errand boy, there would have been no need. Returning the medicine is heroic, but it's also redemptive rather than pure charity. The moral ledger at the end of the episode is only balanced, not advanced.

Quote

See, on one hand I quite like the turnabout, where a prostitute is more respected than a minister... but on the other hand, there's nothing about this setup that explains how that could have happened. It's not like it's post-patriarchy or anything; all the bar thugs are still male, all the Alliance soldiers and commanders are male, most of the gangsters and their henchmen are still male, everything seems to still run along patriarchal lines... nice try, Joss, but this earns you a Fail.

Well, Companions are not merely prostitutes. Prostitution does seem to exist as well, and prostitutes seem to be looked down on and downtrodden. Companions are high-class courtesans, with lots of training, a powerful centralised Guild, influential clients, etc. It's idealised and sanitised, maybe, and it could stand some explanation.

I would point out that there have already been a few indications that the Firefly universe is, if not post-patriarchal, at least reasonably broad-minded about the status of women in some areas. Zoe serves alongside male soldiers and holds an NCO's rank, for example: Patience rules a border planet: there are hints that promiscuity amongst women is not automatically regarded negatively: I'm sure some other stuff comes up later, too. Again, it doesn't necessarily hang together well and there may be some element of tokenism, but the respectability of Companions at least isn't the sole nod in the direction of female empowerment.

Edited by mormont, 26 February 2009 - 10:32 AM.

[Narishma Reborn]

MinDonner, on Feb 26 2009, 10.27, said:

Bushwhacked
Mal's also a bit of a crap atheist, as he kissed a cross in an earlier episode, and says something not-very-atheistic in this one (I forget what exactly).

The "kiss the cross" was in the first scene of the pilot, at the battle. I think it's made pretty clear that he's lost his faith because of the defeat in that fight. I don't recall what line you refer to for this episode, but he does a lot of things sarcastically... maybe I just missed something.

[needle]

Hmm..I might join in this rewatch thingy. Keep me occupied while I'm painting away of an afternoon.

( though it'll be more of a re-listen for me as I'm never looking at the screen..)

[PhelanArcetus]

I'd never keep up, what with trying to get through some anime at the moment, or I'd join in.

Companions are definitely not just prostitutes, as said, but respected, trained, verified. They have to get regular physicals. Presumably they have non-disclosure agreements they uphold. They seem to be very well trained in a broad range of fields. I don't know if there are male companions, for that matter. Quite possibly, and likely, there are. But companions are respected throughout known space, while a minister only gets notable respect from people who share his faith, I believe. (As an atheist, someone being a priest means nothing to me.)

There is an episode with a very unpleasant treatment of women by some characters, but it's pretty clear those are not remotely nice men.

I would go so far as to say that of the adult main characters, the most skilled are the women. Zoe is a great executive officer and an excellent fighter. Kaylee, while bubbly and in some ways childish, is also a brilliant mechanic (just wait for Out of Gas to see how good), and Inara has by far the best people skills.

Mal, I feel, is not so much an atheist as disillusioned and, more importantly, a proponent of freedom. He's not the type to stop a preacher from preaching to his congregation, and I highly doubt that if Shepherd Book were to go into a quiet part of Serenity with someone who wanted a sermon, Mal would object to that. What he objects to is evangelism and pushing your religious beliefs on others. Paraphrasing something he says in another episode, he might say that a preacher giving sermons with the intent to convert isn't respecting the person they're trying to convert. And that sticks in his craw.

[Eloisa]

Aaru Tuesday, who knows these things, is of the opinion that Inara as a Companion was riffed from the shuyu, the high-class river-dwelling prostitutes in Shanghai, rather than from French courtesans, Japanese geishas or Greek hetairas. Min - I know you haven't watched all the episodes yet, but the issue of Inara's status returns later in the series, so I'd hold fire on this point. (AT's post on female sexuality in Firefly - contains spoilers for all episodes.)

Two or three years ago I used to watch a Firefly episode practically daily. I don't know that I've watched any of it in more than a year. Maybe time to break it out again.

On the theism/atheism front - I actually like the conflict between Mal the ex-Christian and Book the preacher, as well as the presence of Inara the Buddhist as the only other remotely devout crew member.

[Sir Thursday]

The thing about the pilot that Fox didn't like, IIRC, was that Mal was not a sympathetic enough character. And actually, I can kind of see where they're coming from with that, even if I still think that they should have aired it first. Mal is a far more dour character, and there is a slight discontinuity between the characters' actions and interactions between the pilot and the rest of the series.

I definitely feel like Firefly took a few episodes to get into its stride - I don't rate the first 4-5 eps as highly as the later ones. It takes a little while for the characters to bed down, IMO.


Sir Thursday

[Shryke]

Eloisa, on Feb 26 2009, 12.09, said:

On the theism/atheism front - I actually like the conflict between Mal the ex-Christian and Book the preacher, as well as the presence of Inara the Buddhist as the only other remotely devout crew member.

Aye. Mal's not an atheist so much as an ex-believer. He's disillusioned and angry. That's why he treats Book like shit, not because of society looking down on Preachers (you'll notice everyone else treats Book quite well)

[mormont]

On the subject of Inara's social status vs. that of Book, I'd also not neglect that fact that Inara is much more obviously wealthy than he is (and indeed Companions are generally much more wealthy than Shepherds). That counts for a lot.

[G'Kar]

MinDonner, on Feb 26 2009, 10.27, said:

Mal's also a bit of a crap atheist, as he kissed a cross in an earlier episode

Wasn't that before the fall of Serenity Valley, when he still had hope? He probably thought after the defeat of the browncoats that either god had abandoned them, or there was no god. He is probably not a true atheist, just bitter.

[G'Kar]

Since another Firefly thread has been started, this must be said:

Saffron>Inara>Kaylee>River>Zoe

Don't even argue with this, you know its true.

[Shryke]

Sorry son, but you were crazy about Billboard Head. Your opinion on Hotness is meaningless.

[G'Kar]

Shryke, on Feb 26 2009, 13.31, said:

Sorry son, but you were crazy about Billboard Head. Your opinion on Hotness is meaningless.

Hey, its not my fault you all were blind. History will vindicate me.