Firefly: Shindig and Safe

We watched two episodes of Firefly yesterday: Shindig and Safe. One of the things I love about this show is the juxtaposition of sci fi and western elements, old-fashioned dancing with spaceflight.

The Shindig in question is a fancy ball that Inara attends with one of her clients. Mal and Kaylee also attend the ball in search of a smuggling lead.

First, I have issues with the way Mal treats Inara. He is condescending and considers his smuggling as superior to her profession, even as he uses it to his advantage to get into areas Serenity couldn't get into on its own. Full disclosure: I didn't mean when Mal's relative morality led him to steal money from slavers. But, the whore calling gets old.

Despite his whore calling, Mal defends Inara by punching out her client when he is about to say something insulting. This leads to a swordfight--the main action of the episode.

For me, the highlight of this episode was Kaylee. Despite being a ship's mechanic, she loves a pink frilly dress that she sees in a window. Mal later gets it so they can attend the ball. She is delighted by the buffet table, especially the fresh strawberries. She attempts to talk to a few people who snub or insult her until Dash Riprock from the Beverly Hillbillies (actor Larry Pennell) comes up to her. Suddenly she is charming a group of older men with her talk of engines and machinery. Kaylee is adorable.

Here is Rhiannon's post on this episode.

In Safe, the crew is taking cattle--the cargo from Shindig--to another planet for sale. Things go wrong; Shepard Book is shot; Simon is kidnapped and River follows. Serenity heads to an Alliance ship for medical assistance. The Alliance personnel originally don't want to help Book. That is, until they see his ident card. What's up with that?

My favorite parts of this episode involve River. We see a flashback of young River and Simon at home. A later flashback shows Simon's realization that River is in danger at the Alliance facility. When Simon's first attempt to save River fails, their father refuses to help in the future. Back in the present, there is a beautiful scene when River encounters a group of musicians and dancers and starts dancing with them. She is so joyful and innocent. I think this is the episode in which I really began to like River.

Firefly: Bushwacked and the Original Broadcast Schedule

Bushwacked was a good episode.We learn more about the crew's main antagonists: the Alliance and the Reavers. The Alliance rep seems decent if a little by-the-book. The Reavers are scary even without being seen.We do see their influence on the sole survivor of one of their attacks and it's horrible.

The episode opens on a fun note with the crew playing basketball. The interrogation scenes are also funny and give a little insight into the crew members. Zoe doesn't want to discuss her marriage--she's a private person. In contrast, her husband Wash talks about being married to a warrior woman. Kaylee is insulted that someone called the ship junk. Jayne just stares at his questioner.

River and Simon hide from the Alliance on the outside of Firefly. River's look of delight as she watches the stars is beautiful.

Rhiannon's post on Bushwhacked is here,

Since my earlier Firefly post, I checked out the TWoP forums and the wikipedia entry. Apparently, Fox in its "wisdom" thought the Mal Reynolds character needed to be jollier and demanded a new pilot be written over a weekend. The original pilot included some back stories for the characters. But the second pilot The Train Job was confusing to many viewers. Oddly enough, Fox promos emphasized the "girl in the box." Too bad, viewers didn't see River in the box after the Serenity pilot (except in the opening credits.) Even if the execs were correct that the pilot was too dark, why not change a few scenes, instead of writing a new episode? Fox ended up showing the original pilot after the second. Their actions certainly hurt the show.

Thank goodness for Netflix and other services so we can see the show the way it was intended. 

Re-Watching and Blogging Firefly

I was thinking that I would start re-watching Veronica Mars, Season Two this week. But then I read that Rhiannon of Feminist Fiction was going to re-watch and blog about Firefly. I decided to re-watch Firefly first.

Jeff and I didn't watch Firefly during its original run. From what I read since then, it wasn't exactly promoted by Fox. We found it via Netflix instant streaming, quickly watched the whole series and the movie Serenity and loved it.

I found Feminist Fiction via a link from TWoP's Game of  Thrones forum. I've enjoyed her posts about Game of Thrones. I'm psyched to read her insights about Firefly. I don't intend to post about every episode but will play it by ear.

Rhiannon's post about the pilot is here. I thought the pilot did a great job setting up the technology, the political situation, and most importantly the characters. I liked all the characters except Jayne, (Spoiler alert: I never warmed up to Jayne.) Jayne is still a good character. I wondered if he would betray others in the crew.  I loved Zoe and Kaylee.  I agree with Rhiannon about Inara's sponge bath in this episode; that was just stupid. I didn't notice the lack of Asians because I didn't get that the world was supposed to be half-Chinese. I was intrigued by the big bad--the Reavers. We don't learn much about them in the pilot, but what we did hear was bad enough.

The second episode of the series is The Train Job. Rhiannon discusses it in this post. I didn't realize that this was a second  pilot when I watched it. I liked the scary villain of this episode (Spoiler Alert: he returns in a future episode) and loved that Mal returned the stolen medical goods. It didn't bother me that background was repeated; I see it often in new series.

Jeff and I also watched the third episode today: Bushwacked. We learned more about the Reavers. I won't say more at this time. I want to read Rhiannon's take first.

What I'm Watching

Today the Science channel is showing a Firefly marathon.

Jeff and I missed Firefly when it was first broadcast in 2002-2003; we finally watched it sometime earlier this year. We loved it. We were disappointed that there were only fourteen episodes and only one movie. The show deserved much more.

Looking forward to the reunion next hour.