Firefly ep by ep; rewatch and reviews

[saturn5]

Jack Bauer wrote:

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I would drink Saffron's bathwater. Damn, she is F - I - N - E! I really love this episode. It's quite funny.

I bet Jack Bauer likes the kinky dinky section?

Ok, here we go, slimmed down and edited review which I hope will make people happier.



Jaynestown
　
[FONT=Arial]The good;
The bit where the gang see Jayne's statue alone had me laughing out loud, then the song is even better. Inara's confusion over her client referring to Jayne but she thinks it's Mal is also hilarious. The River/Book scenes where she tries to correct the bible are terrific. Also love the bit where Zoe welcomes her boys home and her faked adulation of Jayne once she hears the story.
　
The bad;
Handing Stitch the loaded gun is deeply stupid, no matter what the magistrate's motivation. What IS the cargo they pick up? Stitch fires a shot in the air when we first see him confront Jayne but doesn't work the action and eject the spent cartridge until he shoots the mudder, he actually threatens Mal with an empty gun.
　
Best line;
Kaylee (to Inara who's off to see a client) "Have good sex!"
also like;
Simon; (upon learning of Jayne's folk hero status) "This must be what going mad feels like"
upon hearing the Jayne song;
"No, THIS must be what going mad feels like"
plus Wash;
"Let's go to the crappy town where I'M a hero"
and;
River (to Book whilst correcting the Bible); "Just keep walking preacher man!"
　
Packing heat;
I'm informed that Zoe's cut down carbine is referred to as a 'mare's leg', possibly because of it's kick? Stitch has a sawn-off Remmington shotgun.

Kinky dinky;
Simon finally tells Kaylee that she's pretty and they get all snuggly over 'mudders milk' (nice pun).
　
Notches on the Serenity bedpost; Jayne possibly sleeps with the barmaid but unconfirmed. Inara has another paying customer.

Inarra;2- 2 paying customers, 1 possible, Atherton.
Wash; 1-the missus
Zoe; 1-the hubby
Jayne; 1 possible, Jaynestown groupie.

　
Capt subtext;
I thought that the toppling of the Jayne statue was actually a comment about the similar destruction of Saddams statue during the liberation of Iraq but that actually happened afterwards (much as The Initiative on Buffy was very Guantanamo Bay but also occured beforehand)

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Total Serenity crew; 9
Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Wash, Kaylee, Inarra, Book, Simon, River

Subverting the Hollywood cliche;
Big tough Jayne whimpers as he pulls the surgical tape off his skin

Whedon cliches;
Devoted siblings, haunted charismatic leading man. Teenage girls with superpowers. Hookers. Babbling insane girls with truth in their madness. Fake cockneys. Misguided religious zealots. Numbered t-shirts. Girls with botanical names (Willow, Saffron, Jasmine). Absent/overbearing fathers.

Bondage;
Mal; 1
River; 1
　
Knocked out;
Book; 2
Simon; 1
Kaylee; 1
Jayne;1
Mal; 1
Wash; 1
Inara; 1
　
Women good/men bad;
Really like Inara's 'what makes a man' speech to her client. Not so fond of Jayne casually tossing his groupie aside the next morning with only a goodbye spank of her ass.
　
Kills; Jayne kills Stitch
Mal; 11-
Zoe; 6-
Jayne; 7-
　
Happy high-class hookers in Space;
Inara kisses on the mouth. Her guild gives her enough leeway to reject her clients father if she'd wished to but she seems genuinely fond of the son. Ceremony plays an almost more important part for her in her work than the sex.
　
Know the face?
Kevin Gage who plays Stitch essentially recreates his role of the odious Waingrow in the wonderful Michael Mann film 'Heat', best cops and robbers story off all time.
　
Whedon alumni- Joss likes to reuse the same actors in his series, let's count up their appearances (let me know if I miss any)
1. Nathan Fillon-3; Firefly, Caleb in S7 of Buffy and Dr Horrible
2. Gina Torres-2; Firefly and Jasmine in S4 of Angel
3. Alan Tudyk-2; Firefly and the villainous/heroic(?) Alpha in Dollhouse (haven't seen season 2 so don't spoil it for me)
4. Adam Baldwin-2; Firefly and Marcus Hamilton in S5 of Angel
5. Summer Glau-3; Firefly, Dollhouse and the prima ballerina in the LEGENDARY S4 Angel ep 'Waiting in the wings'.
6. Carlos Jacott-3; The Fed in Firefly, Ken in the 'Anne' ep of Buffy and Richard Straley in 'The Bachelor Party' ep of Angel.
7. Andy Umberger;3-the captain of the Dortmunder in Firefly, D'Hoffryn in Buffy, the psychic surgeon in the Angel ep 'I fall to pieces'.
8. Mark Shepherd;2-Badger in Firefly and later turns up as one of Ballard's FBI colleagues in Dollhouse. Also a BSG alumni.
9. Jeff Rickets;3- one of the blue handed men in Firefly and Weatherby on Buffy/Angel plus the spiderdemon at the end of Angel season 4
10. Gregg Henry; 2- he's one of those faces that occur time and again in TV/movies, the Sherrif in The Train Job and he later recurrs in the Dollhouse ep 'Ghost', one of my favourite eps of season 1.
11. Christina Hendricks; 2-Saffron in Firefly and a bar maid in the Angel ep 'The Prodigal'. She'll later star in Mad Men with Whedonverse alumni Vincent Kartheiser.
12. Jack Jabaley; 2-the bartender here and Xander's friend Tito the Plumber from Buffy.

Firefly speak;
Gorram=goddam.
Weak tea=not good
Back birth=idiot
Companion=high class courtesan
Gengish=competent
Doh-ma=understand/understood?
Rutting=bloody (or perhaps 'fraking'?)
Chin-cha-da=hell
Purple belly=officious bureaucrat
Ta-gow=Oh god!
Won-gwa-pee= to urinate or defecate
Gosa=excrement
Tien-sha-duh=rubbish
Los-soh-ret=crap
Dien-dyododo-chowen=bastard
Wah=what the hell?
Mah song=quickly
Jin-seen-yung=idiot
Nu-shu-quong=nice going
　
Shot; .
Mal; 1-
Kaylee;1-
Jayne;1-
Book;1-
　
Crew injured;
Simon gets roughed up AGAIN! He's beginning to remind me of Joxer the Mighty. As Kaylee observes "You got to be steeley, can't let men be stomping in you so much"
　
Reminds me off;
Bare chested Jayne reminds me off the late Kevin Smith playing Ares in Xena. River sounds very like Fred when she starts talking physics when rewriting the bible. Book with his hair down reminds me of an Afro-American Albert Einstein. 'You fought the law' may refer to the song by The Clash. Mal's remark about the Mudder's Jayne fixation being about what they need as opposed to reality is reminiscent of the Dollhouse's philosophy.
　
Questions and observations;
So, beer was intended to keep the masses down? I wonder what went wrong? Surely Stitch can't have been wholly in the box for 4 years, his muscles would have atrophied until he couldn't walk and no one would be able to stand the stench to realease him. A town so backward they don't even know what a menu is, Simon really is in hell. He comes off the ship and starts really participating in their crime for the first time. Interestingly Zoe is left behind and Mal takes Wash with him, maybe because there's not going to be any gunplay in Canton. Jayne starts to develop a conscience, he and Mal beginning to bond again in the final scene. Stitch is one tough hombre to keep fighting with a Bowie knife in his chest (take that Deadliest Warrior who said the stiletto was better).
Magistrate Higgins got what he wanted, his son is now a real man, standing up to his overbearing father.
.
Marks out of 10;
8 out of 10, fairly lightweight but truly very, very funny episode with a Jayne brought to the fore for the first time and some absolutely killer lines.
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[Trekker4747]

Forbin wrote:

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Vera: No cartridge firearm (and Vera is obviously one) needs "air around her" to fire. Every cartridge has everything it needs right inside it. Guns can be fired in vacuum, and even underwater. It's been tried and proven. This was just a case of writers not knowing shit about something.

The writers do likely know how their fictional weapons that only exsist in the future work.

Despite what the prop gun is in the real world what it is in the context of the show is entirely different. Unless McCoy really did repair Chekov's artery with a piece from an AMT model of a Klingon battle cruiser and the Mr. Fusion energy device on the DeLorean is really a coffee grinder.

[Trekker4747]

saturn5 wrote:

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[FONT=Arial]....

:headdesk:

[saturn5]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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:headdesk:

Eh?

[Trekker4747]

saturn5 wrote:

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Eh?

You tell me:

Trekker4747 wrote:

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And the "Font" tags don't work on this BBS.

and the "FONT" tags do not work on the board so they're just clutter...

FONT AND SIZE TAGS DO NOT WORK ON THIS BOARD!!!!

...

Jaynestown
　
[FONT=Arial]The good;
The bit where the gang see Jayne's statue alone had me laughing out loud, then the song is even better. Inara's confusion over her client referring to Jayne but she thinks it's Mal is also hilarious. The River/Book scenes where she tries to correct the bible are terrific. Also love the bit where Zoe welcomes her boys home and her faked adulation of Jayne once she hears the story...

I'd also say the "　" thing is just clutter but, feh, whatever. I give up. You're about to get into some of the best episodes this series has to offer and, well, I don't care. You're halfway through this series and I've no bead on your feelings on it, what your real opinions are on the series and your thoughts on each episode. I do know that Jack Jabaley has been used twice in Whedon's body of work so there's that... I guess.

[Forbin]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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The writers do likely know how their fictional weapons that only exsist in the future work.

Despite what the prop gun is in the real world what it is in the context of the show is entirely different. Unless McCoy really did repair Chekov's artery with a piece from an AMT model of a Klingon battle cruiser and the Mr. Fusion energy device on the DeLorean is really a coffee grinder.

[Trekker4747]

What, you're looking at a 21st century prop gun, taking your knowledge of 20th/21st century fire-arms and trying to draw a conclusion. But it's sort-of foolish to do it because Vera isn't a 20th/21st century gun! The prop might be built using prop-guns of 20th century weapons but Vera, the gun in the Firefly universe exsists hundreds of years in the future. We've no idea how the guns of the future look, work or how they can work/not work in a vacuum.

You're looking at a prop of a 20th century gun and trying to say how a 24/25th century gun should work. I could do the same thing with Chekov's brain-fixer. "Hey! What, did the medical technology makers stumble across some old moel-kits of a Klingon battlecruiser?! Didn't they find it odd that these things exsisted centuries before Klingons were known about?!"

"Hey! Does Mr. Fusion work by grinding up the trash into a really fine powder and then make the energy by filtering hot water through it?"

It makes as much sense. We don't know how Vera works or how any of the guns in Firefly work. They're 25th century weapons being represented by 21st century props.

I doubt the "Mule" is "really" an ATV from 20th century Earth either.

[saturn5]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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You tell me:

...

I'd also say the "　" thing is just clutter but, feh, whatever. I give up. You're about to get into some of the best episodes this series has to offer and, well, I don't care. You're halfway through this series and I've no bead on your feelings on it, what your real opinions are on the series and your thoughts on each episode. I do know that Jack Jabaley has been used twice in Whedon's body of work so there's that... I guess.

Not going to fight with anyone as life is too short but at the risk of demonstrating my technological ignorance WHAT IS A FONT TAG!?

I think I made my opinions on this extremely funny ep abundantly clear?

[Trekker4747]

See the tag you put at the front (and the end) of your post that says "[FONT=Arial]" ("[FONT=TIMES ROMAN]" in the other posts) that's a "Font Tag" (similar to the Italics, Bold and Underline tags used in a post to italicize, bolden and underline text) and it doesn't work in this forum. So it's just more clutter.

Your opinions on this episode are clear, a bit more clear than in the other reviews but still not very deep the reviews are still very bogged down in numbers and statistics. It's as if a Sports Reporter was talking about a game and instead of writting a 1,000-word report on what happened during the game, how he thought everyone played, where he thought the team went wrong he just wrote a couple of paragrpahs and then threw a bunch of numbers out there.

Your "reviews" are dragged down by the statistics and numbers.

[Forbin]

Since he doesn't know what a font tag is, I suspect the tag is a carry-over from whatever program he's cutting-and-pasting from.

[Mal]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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You tell me:

...

to be fair, this review is a HUGE improvement! way to go! but

Trekker4747 wrote:

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You're about to get into some of the best episodes this series has to offer and, well, I don't care.

well i do care. and,

Trekker4747 wrote:

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You're halfway through this series and I've no bead on your feelings on it, what your real opinions are on the series and your thoughts on each episode. I do know that Jack Jabaley has been used twice in Whedon's body of work so there's that... I guess.

so true! look, we know you came into firefly via the other joss whedon shows (Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse). this, of course, is the opposite of my experience: i started with firefly, and then - years later, and only grudgingly - moved onto Angel, which i love! i've enjoyed Dr. Horrible, but gave up quickly on Dollhouse. I'm still very far away from ever giving Buffy a try.

the point is, firefly is very unique - not only as a whedon creation, but also in the realm of science fiction television in general (compare Star Trek or Babylon 5 or SAaB or Farscape). the guns, the civil war motif, the chinese/asian culture, a Shepard of the Book - these things are wonderful IMNSHO. i love the underdog PoV (like Farscape, but very different from Star Trek or B5).

but, as Trekker4747 said, you're entering the very best string of firefly episodes, and we have no idea what you think of the show

saturn5 wrote:

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Ok, here we go, slimmed down and edited review which I hope will make people happier.

as i said, much better. can always be ever betterer

saturn5 wrote:

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[FONT=Arial]

ugh, the Preview Post button, use it.

saturn5 wrote:

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The good;
the song is even better. I

Jayne! the man they call Jayne!

saturn5 wrote:

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Zoe ... faked adulation of Jayne

OMG, is it really him!

saturn5 wrote:

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Kinky dinky;
Simon finally tells Kaylee that she's pretty and they get all snuggly over 'mudders milk' (nice pun).

things are going so well!
oh, well, then.

saturn5 wrote:

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Notches on the Serenity bedpost

i can see how this is important to kids in high school, but don't you think that, at some point, people just stop counting?

saturn5 wrote:

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Total Serenity crew
Whedon cliches
Bondage
Knocked out
Know the face
Whedon alumni
Firefly speak
Shot

total waste of space.

saturn5 wrote:

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Women good/men bad;
Really like Inara's 'what makes a man' speech to her client.

agreed.
Reminds me off
similar to the conversation the cylons have on the roof of the building on caprica (while stalking Helo), that a child never really grows up until his parents are dead. ok, maybe not exactly the same, but a similar vein.

saturn5 wrote:

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Not so fond of Jayne casually tossing his groupie aside the next morning with only a goodbye spank of her ass.

should he have paid for the cab? or bought breakfast?

saturn5 wrote:

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Crew injured;
Simon gets roughed up AGAIN! He's beginning to remind me of Joxer the Mighty. As Kaylee observes "You got to be steeley, can't let men be stomping in you so much"

i love watching them beat him up. must be the Fight Club in me

saturn5 wrote:

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Questions and observations;
So, beer was intended to keep the masses down? I wonder what went wrong?

[Cordy]Case you haven't been paying attention: Masses - not doing so well.[/Cordy]

saturn5 wrote:

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Jayne starts to develop a conscience, he and Mal beginning to bond again in the final scene.

It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another.

as you said, kinda like saddam.

saturn5 wrote:

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[/FONT]

d'oh!

[Trekker4747]

Also off /= of

[Wereghost]

Hi-res and lo-res screencap albums for Our Mrs Reynolds.

[Vendikarr]

Forbin wrote:

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Since he doesn't know what a font tag is, I suspect the tag is a carry-over from whatever program he's cutting-and-pasting from.

These posts are being copied and pasted from posts on the syfy.com boards.

[Forbin]

AHA!!