Angel: Peace Out

"I know she's a lie!"

And so the whole Jasmine storyline ends, suddenly. It works, it’s a good piece of telly, but you can see the joins as Angel is sidelined off in some CGI dimension where cliffhangers are easily resolved and high priests taunt him about his relationship with his son. Still, this strand successfully builds up what would otherwise be a deus ex machina ending in which Jasmine’s powers are suddenly revoked when Angel suddenly arrives.

As for the other cliffhanger, it feels a bit of a cheat that none of the rest of the gang are killed, instead spending most of the episode in a cell while the drama happens between Jasmine and Connor, who is the episode’s real focus. Still, at least the shared experience has seemingly brought the gang together and papered over some of their differences.

It’s explicitly revealed that Connor has always seen Jasmine’s real face, but doesn’t care. He needs something to believe in and, as he says in his little soliloquy beside a comatose Cordy (has Charisma Carpenter been sacked or something?), it’s nit that he’s naive enough to believe Jasmine but her lies are better than all the other lies.

Interesting, then, that is should be he that kills her, shortly before seemingly sodding off for good, which I suspect many of us wouldn’t mind. Less interesting is the half-hearted debate between Angel and Jasmine about paradise vs. freedom; I trust we all side against tyranny on that one.

So it’s a witty and well-scripted episode, one that actually makes good use of Connor, but one where a good script can’t quite paper over the awkward pacing of the plot, not even with its wit. But we end up with the status quote seemingly restored and our heroes back in the hotel- and up pops the seemingly alive Lilah...

Angel: Sacrifice

"Anyone else feel like the last feisty wife in Stepford?"

Last episode showed us life under Jasmine. This episode develops it a bit- Jasmine has now got the Governor to surrender all of California to her, and indeed the Archbishop of Los Angeles to devote his cathedral to worship of her. But essentially this episode, now that the status quo of Jasmine, is about progressing the plot as Angel and the gang escape, regroup, and start to figure out how they can end all this.

Except Connor. He's had Cordy's blood, he can see what Jasmine really is, presumably with maggots and all. But he doesn't care; for once he can belong to something, And, my God, the boy is so unbelievably annoying at this point, not questioning Jasmine even when she moves Cordy somewhere else. Incidentally, once again Charisma Carpenter is called upon to do no more than act unconscious.

We begin with the gang heroically escaping to, er, the sewers, where they get to hide from Jasmine for a bit. And, perhaps, conveniently, Wes thereby discovers an insect-like demon thing that provides a clue, insisting that "we loved her first" and letting slip that Jasmine's weakness is her true name. If you think about it too hard this is somewhat too convenient, but it's handled with just enough sleight of hand.

So, when the National Guard inevitably comes for them- led by Connor with, creepily, Jasmine's voice- its time for a double cliffhanger as Angel jumps through a portal to the dimension of the incredibly powerful and fanatical mantis things, while the rest of them face a fight against hopeless odds. Ah, Angel. You do like to be so gloriously random come the end of the season, don't you?

Angel: The Magic Bullet

"I've been so alone, so scared. I'm not like you. I'm not a champion."

The first few minutes of this episode are deeply effective; an old fashioned, happy LA with a prominent ‘50s car and a Beach Boys soundtrack. It all looks idyllic- until we see that Fred is being chased and is lucky to escape. Winifred Burkle, alone, against not only her friend but a city that is slowly becoming a hive mind, where everyone is the eyes and ears for Jasmine. Things seem hopeless, but despite the quote above Fred is a hero.

This is the episode that shows what a completely Jasmine-controlled LA is like, with the hotel crammed full of worshippers and a terrifying, stultifying conformity that is bad enough before we even start asking about the people Jasmine seems to take to her room. And when Connor asks where they went she simply says “I ate them”. She can do whatever the hell she wants and is clearly evil.

I like the interlude with the hand-eating demon, butvthe sheer hopeless drives Fred to seemingly surrender- only to shoot Angel Through Jasmine, thereby mixing their bloods and reversing the spell. It’s clever, she’s clever, and she and Angel are able to do what’s necessary for the plot and free the minds of the whole gang. Yes, it’s a stretch that the blood of Cordelia, comatose mother of the goddess  (what about Charisma Carpenter?) will do the same thing, butbthe rpisode gets awY with it, and is a bloody well-crafted 42 minutes of television.

It’s depressingly predictable, of course, that Connor should betray them even after they’ve seen the light. What are we going to do with that boy?

Angel: Shiny Happy People

"Even before you were born, I chose you to be my father."

Just as with two seasons ago, with the adventures on Pylea, the status quo has changed utterly for the last few episodes, with the baby of Cordelia (asleep all episode) and Connor turning out to be Jasmine, a good-nature’s paragon of virtue and a goddess whom everyone feels the urge to worship, including our heroes, who under her leadership swiftly free LA from all the vampires and demons which are oppressing it. Or is she?

This episode feels weird; first Angel and Connor fall under her spell, returning to the hotel to the horror of their friends, with Wesley trying to convince them they’ve been manipulated. Yet, as soon as Jasmine arrives, they all drop to their knees. It’s deeply disconcerting, as well as unusual to see Gina Torres (Firefly has just been cancelled) in a part like this.

Of course, a chink in her armour soon appears as just one of many worshippers suddenly shouts that she is a “monster” and “deserves to die”. This is rationalised as hate... until Fred randomly sees Jasmi’s probable true face, with maggots everywhere. This breaks the spell for her and she ends up on the run, the only person in the whole city not under Jasmine’s spell. Yep; finally we get a situation in which Fred is unambiguously the hero. The scene in which first Wesley and then the whole gang turns against her is chilling.

This episode consists mainly of set up and establishing a new status quo, so it’s best, I think, to reserve judgement for now. But yet again we see why Angel, with no status quo that can ever be relied upon, is indeed the televisual equivalent of Chris Claremont’s run on X-Men. And that is high praise indeed.

Angel: Inside Out

"Guy steps out for a few hours, half the place goes supervillain."

This episode is about as much a game changer as it’s possible to be. Cordy has been exposed and confronted as the baddie and is freed to spend all of her time quite openly mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ing. Except, that is, she’s still grooming (the word gets used) and gaslighting Connor.

Ah, Connor. We’ve discussed how annoying he is before, but he creaky crosses a line here, and seems as though he’s genuinely meant to come across as an annoying little shit. Even his mother’s ghost, sent by the Powers to speak to him, are unable to get through. He’s completely under the spell of whatever’s controlling Cordelia, and goes as far as to be an accessory to the cold-blooded murder of an innocent girl. His hands are quite literally dipped in blood.

We learn a lot, too; the thing controlling Cordy has been manipulating events for a long time, including Cordy’s ascension and an awful lot of recent events. Much seems to be depressingly pre-ordained, although Gunn gets a wonderful speech about how some amount of agency still exists. Skip, of course, has always been in on it and is, in fact, evil.

We also get a big montage of how it was in fact Cordy who did all sorts of unexplained things over the course of many episodes, and Wesley comes to realise that it was her who killed Lilah. It’s moving to see the renewed friendship between Angel and Wes here as Angel cares because Wes does, a nice moment.

It all ends with a flash of light as the baby is born and turns out to be Gina Torres, getting a compensation role after the cancellation of Firefly. And everyone kneels before her. Yet another twist in a series that glories in having no status quo. This is brilliant stuff and it’s looking awfully like a rather brilliant series with not long to go.

Serenity (2005)

“If anything happens to her, anything at all… I swear to you, I will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears.”

The world of Firefly has always been potentially very dark, but this darkness has been somewhat leavened by that Joss Whedon wit and the fact that the regulars have to survive the episode. Now, all bets are off. This film doesn’t have to worry about the next episode and the fact that cinema needs to be “bigger” pretty much guarantees that things are going to get very, very dark. And they do. And yet it’s all still leavened by that same old Joss Whedon wit.

Whedon has really pulled it out of the bag with this film. Yes, it’s a crying shame that the series was cut short and so many plot threads would not be allowed to develop, but this is a perfect end to the story against all odds. Whedon gives us a brilliant scripts and directs it with a real; sense of cinematic style- early on we get a long tracking shot through Serenity, showing us those familiar sets from a new and more cinematic perspective. We also get to see the ship do some cool stuff it’s never done before. I love the scene where the ship gracefully lands on its legs!

It’s hard to judge how accessible this would have been to people who hadn’t just watched Firefly, but the backstory seems to have been conveyed very well indeed, with the early scenes giving us much more detail on the history of Earth-That-Was and the settlement of this star system than we’ve seen before. “Dozens” of planets and “hundreds” of moons, it seems, were terraformed. Does the fact that Earth is spoken of as part of an inaccessible past imply that faster-than-light travel is not possible, and the journey was made over millennia?

The early scenes also introduce the whole River / Simon story for new viewers, and show us very clearly that the Alliance is not very nice. We’re introduced to Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Nameless Baddie, too, who is coolness incarnate, by means of a nicely metatextual 3-D recording of the necessary flashback. It seems that River was intended to become a kind of psychic weapon, but that the reason she’s being so relentlessly hunted is because of things she knows.

Everyone gets put through the wringer here, but no more than Mal, whose burden of responsibility has never seemed heavier. Nathan Fillion is extraordinary in showing us the sheer stress he’s under. Time has passed; Inara left the ship long ago, while Shepherd Book seems to have been living on a planet called Haven for a long, long time. Times are not good, and Mal is desperate for any job he can get, having to put up with clients who unilaterally change the terms of the deal after he and his friends have just risked their lives. As Zoe points out early on, his desperation is causing him to cut ethical corners that he wouldn’t have before: neither she nor we are pleased to see Mal abandon a local boy to the Reavers. Things are starting to fall apart, and the main symptom of this is the final falling-out between Mal and Simon.

The film is the classic mix of sparkling dialogue, great characterisation and non-stop action, from the initial bank robbery to the final battle. The pace is extraordinarily fast, but we get times for the characterisation to breathe and some very nice world-building stuff. But at the heart of all this is River, and the secret of Miranda. What they find on that world is horrible, a world of thirty million people who were subjected to a gas intended to pacify them (shades of Blake’s 7 series four?) which overshot and made them so apathetic that they let themselves die. Worse, 10% were affected the opposite way, and became Reavers. This is proof, if any, that the universe is a chaotic and unpredictable place and totalitarian acts never have the intended effects. Things fall apart, entropy increases, and the future is more Mad Max than 1984.

Our heroes, after much adversity and a cool fight between Mal and Nameless Baddie, finally succeed in broadcasting the truth, but at a cost: Book and Wash are both killed, and everyone is brought to a point where death seems inevitable until River’s superpowers save the day. Gina Torres is incredible in portraying Zoe’s anguish while she’s also keeping everyone alive through her military skill. The brief exchange between her and Mal towards the end (“Think she’ll hold together?”) is one of those little moments of Joss Whedon genius that I love so much. There’s also a happy ending, as Kaylee and Simon finally get to do something about all that sexual tension they’ve built up. I bet it was a bit of an anti-climax.

A fitting ending to the whole Firefly story, then, in spite of everything. Joss Whedon is God. The Buffy and Angel marathon starts, I think, on Tuesday…

Firefly: Objects in Space

“Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.”

“You live on a spaceship, dear.”

So that’s it. The end. It’s a very good episode, written and directed by Joss Whedon himself and taking a final look at all these characters we’ve grown to love but, as we expected, there just isn’t enough time to resolve anything, so it isn’t worth trying. This is no place to end but, given that Fox had dictated that it had to be, it was right to end on a slow, contemplative episode like this one.

We begin with a few last pleasing vignettes of the characters relaxing, seen through the eyes of River. At last, Simon and Kaylee are having fun together, their body language indicating that there may be hope for them as a couple. Jayne and Shepherd Book continue their surprisingly successful double act in the gym. Wash and Zoe are at it, and Inara is still leaving, something which will now not be resolved. Suddenly, though, we have a dream sequence; it’s Autumn, appropriately enough. And River is holding a gun.

Suddenly she appears dangerous. And once Kaylee mentions River’s past doings with a gun, we seem to have another witch-hunt, one which remains unresolved. We’re not told what Mal would have decided had fate not intervened, but I suspect River would have stayed.

And then, from nearby in the deep, deep space, by the poetic dance of spacewalking, comes Jubal Early, the latest in a long line of sadistic, misogynistic wankers. He’s an effective villain: intelligent, self-referential almost to the point of doing damage to the fourth wall, and in some ways the representative of the author. It’s an interesting glimpse into how Whedon sees himself in that role.

Early’s behaviour towards Kaylee- using the threat of rape and torture to frighten her- is utterly sickening and leaves us in no doubt as to the kind of man he is. In the circumstances, Simon’s calm, collected and dignified reaction to this monster probably shows him in the best light that we’ve yet seen.

We get one interesting comment from Early, though, concerning Book: “That ain’t a Shepherd.”

Early is brilliantly wrong-footed by River herself, who uses her psychological understanding of him to push his buttons and manipulate him. Pretending to have become one with Serenity itself, she enlists Kaylee and Mal in her plan. She has his measure, and genuinely creeps him out; the alternating shots of Early being outwardly calm and, at the same time, inwardly frightened, are superbly done.

The reveal- that she’s in his ship, and laughing with real, innocent joy that contrasts so much with his sadistic cruelty- is perfect. And her gambit- offering to go with him anyway as she isn’t wanted on board Serenity- is all too believable. Things are fine, though. After a brief hiccup, in which Simon gets himself shot (foreshadowed, of course, by Early’s comment about surgeons having to be shot before they can perform surgery!), the trap is sprung, and early is thrown into space. It’s River’s turn to graciously dance the spacewalk.

It’s a beautiful episode, and the series as a whole is just as beautiful, an unfinished symphony that never gave us a bad episode and reached such heights. I’ll miss these characters so much.

So, that’s it. I’ll be back on Saturday to wrap things up with Serenity, but before then I hope to do The Nightmare Man, a four part BBC sci-fi thriller from 1981, scripted by Robert Holmes and directed by Douglas Camfield. After that, it’s more Whedon as I plough through the entire Buffyverse, with regular film reviews for variety. That should take me at least eighteen months, although I’ll probably punctuate things with other short series every now and then.

Firefly: Heart of Gold

“So I trucked out to the border, learned to say ‘ain’t’, came to find work.”

Yes, this is another great episode, but we’ve come to expect that. But this is where it really hit me just how little time there is left; one episode and a movie in place of seasons worth of stuff. None of the character arcs or plot threads are going to play out properly, and this episode ends in a way to make this so very frustrating. Damn you, Fox.

The opening couldn’t be more Western, with a ranch being overrun with a bunch of guys in metaphorical black hats. I keep making tongue-in-cheek references to the fact that at these alien planets look just like Southern California, but the great thing is that it couldn’t be more appropriate.

This episode is basically a brothel under siege, plot-wise, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s about lawlessness in frontier communities and the ethics surrounding prostitution, and it’s great to see that the “whores” in this episode are presented as strong, admirable and hard-working. It’s appropriate that the first woman we see Mal get intimate with should be Nandy, the brothel owner, who’s just as strong, witty, and caring about those under her protection. In fact, she’s more or less a female version of Mal. She’s built this brothel from the ground up, and it’s her family. She’s not leaving.

In opposition to the prostitutes (I’m trying to think of a nicer word, but I can’t think of one!) is the extremely unpleasant Rans Burgess, whose cruel and sadistic misogyny is made all the worse by his hypocrisy; his revolting words to his underlings about “decency” and “family” are utterly contemptible. This episode seems to exhibit a healthy contempt for social conservatism, in fact; there’s a very nice mixture of feminist attitudes and a total rejection of Puritanism. Burgess places himself utterly beyond the pale as he speaks of women “knowing their place” and demands of his spy from the brothel that she “Get on your knees.” The sexual assault here is not so much subtext as just text.

It’s interesting that even Inara describes Nandy and her friends as “whores”, albeit without any judgement implied. This is the frontier, and they are not members of the guild. She and Nandy are friends, which makes it much harder for her to discover that Mal has slept with her. It’s shocking to see her crying her eyes out afterwards, especially as she has never, ever appeared other than elegant and dignified before. It’s clear that Mal means a lot to her, but she comes to a realisation here. Because the parallel between Mal and Nandy goes both ways, and Mal is as attached to his “family” as Nandy is to hers.

This episode isn’t all Mal and Inara, though. I love Kaylee’s cheerful declaration that “They’ve got boy whores. How thoughtful!” Shepherd Book once more turns out to have some suspiciously martial talents for a preacher. Plus, of course, Zoe wants to have a baby. Wash seems unpersuaded at this point. It would have been interesting to see this play out, but I suspect we won’t. The series is nearly out of time.

It’s the same with the ending; Inara, finally realising that her feeling for Mal cannot possibly go anywhere, decides to leave. What a shame that we probably won’t see how this was supposed to develop.

Firefly: The Message

“You are such a boob.”

Another good one, this, although not one to particularly stand out in such exalted company. There’s a nice twist, yet again, and once again it’s made clear what a fantastic cast and group of characters we have.

It seems there are still travelling shows in the far future, exhibiting “freakish” stuff. Also, there’s still awkwardness between Simon and Kaylee. Er, isn’t this going on a bit too long? I mean, I can be as awkward around girls I like as the next boy, but surely it can’t be that hard for Simon just to tell Kaylee that she’s lovely or pretty or cute or something when he’s pretty much invited to do so? I have no sympathy for him at all, and Kaylee is quite right, and also most amusing, to spend the rest of the episode hating him.

Anyway, the post has come. Jayne has got a rather fetching hat from Mummy, which is nice. I love the bit where he reads her letter aloud, stumbling over the words! Adam Baldwin is great, as ever.

But Mal and Zoe have a parcel which is far more McGuffin-y: the corpse of their old war buddy, Tracey. What is it with Firefly and blokes with girls’ names?

Another war flashback- oh goody; I love these. The whole vibe is very First World War, with trenches, shell shock and period helmets. Appropriate, then, on this day of the year. I seem to have been noticing the excellence of Gina Torres a lot lately, but she’s excellent here. She plays Zoe very differently, as a hard, gritty soldier, and we see how much she’s been changed by (relative) peace and married bliss. This scene, introducing Tracey as a bit of a useless but likeable twonk, is very funny indeed. Mal, of course, is the same as ever.

It’s rather touching how every one instantly drops everything to abide by Tracey’s recorded last wishes: Mal and Zoe out of loyalty and everyone else, even Jayne, by simple decency. And Inara is clearly putting herself to great inconvenience.

We get a quick scene to establish that a bunch of badass cops are coming after the ship and its corpse, and it’s clearly underlined just how sadistic and unpleasant they are. Still, anyone who wears a black leather trenchcoat must be up to no good, right?

There are some very nice scenes showing us everyone’s different reactions to death- Jayne likes to make himself feel alive, River is just weird, and Mal and Zoe get bladdered and share old war stories with Inara. Then, bang.

Tracey has clearly bitten off more than he can chew, and his story makes it clear that he’s in deep trouble, trouble from which perhaps he has no chance of recovering. He may not be dead, but even if he evades his pursuers he’s smuggling someone else’s organs, and is likely to be hunted forever. He’s a little boy in a man’s world, and he can’t possibly survive the episode.

Kaylee, on the rebound, takes a liking to him, which instantly tells us that he’ll betray her in a moment of weakness before he dies. And so he does. There are some exciting moments during the pursuit during the cops, but it’s ok; Shepherd Book has a brilliant plan which works perfectly. Tracey gets himself killed out of pure stupidity.

Firefly: Trash

“I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!”

Bloody Hell, another great episode. They just keep on coming, don’t they? This had everything: wit, excitement, great little character scenes- I’m seriously in danger of taking all this superlative excellence for granted.

The opening shot is, in hindsight, very clever indeed, as the situation is not at all as we think it is, and this one little scene rather cleverly shapes our expectations as to how the story is going to develop and makers us believe that Mal is in more trouble than, in fact, he is. It’s a great pre-titles sequence as a whole, though, and it’s fantastic to see Saffron again. Both Christina Hendricks and the character as written are cool, charismatic, hugely entertaining and, er, hot. I for one would stand absolutely no chance against her.

It’s a bit of an eye-opener that six whole months have passed since Our Mrs. Reynolds, but Saffron and Mal have great chemistry; I love the bit where she sticks her tongue out! Pretty much all of their scenes together are a joy.

Saffron is clever, too, though, and she has a plan. Normally, Mal wouldn’t touch this sort of thing with a bargepole but, as Inara rather forcefully points out (and there’s another case of great chemistry), it’s about time they had another big payday. So, exciting heist story it is.

Saffron’s plan is to steal an ancient artifact from “Earth-that-was”- a fascinating phrase. It’s clear that Earth is somehow forever in the past and out of reach. The artifact is owned by some rich bloke who lives on a floating island, which as a concept is such a frivolous use of energy as to be decadence itself! We get a nice bit of ok CGI as we see loads of islands floating above the sea of whatever planet this is, but it’s not all glamour; the very, very clever Kaylee has come up with a plan to “chuck it in the garbage.” (I didn’t know they used “chuck”, meaning to throw, in North America?) Everyone agrees to the plan- they really, really need the money- but with doubts. Gina Torres is absolutely superb in her facial acting during this scene, showing us the nuances in what Zoe is thinking and feeling without saying a word. But if that’s not enough, the punch makes her feelings very clear indeed…

We get the excitement of the heist, but the presence of Saffron guarantees constant comedy gold. The dialogue between Saffron and Hamer, and Mal’s reaction towards it, is hilarious; so far, 100% of non-regular male characters have been husbands of her’s!

The plan seems to be on the verge of success, though, and Mal seems to have Saffron sussed; she thought of Hamer with genuine affection, she only pulled this trick as a desperate last resort, and she feels terrible for betraying him. But, as Mal says, she’ll shake this off and carry on as she was. Starting now, as she immediately double crosses him. We’re back at the start, with a naked Mal sitting in the middle of an alien desert that looks uncannily like Southern California.

Except… there’s a twist. This was always expected, and Inara is waiting at the pick-up point with a gun. Interesting; this is the first time we’ve seen her taking part in any crime.

There’s a nice little scene near the end where Simon makes clear to Jayne that he knows exactly what happened a couple of episodes ago, but he chooses to ignore it. I like River’s reaction better, though; “Also, I can kill you with my brain.” What sort of super-powers will she eventually end up with?”

But we end as we began, with naked Mal. How could we not…?

Firefly: War Stories

“Preacher, don’t the Bible have some specific things to say about killing?”

“Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzy about kneecaps.”

Here’s another arc episode, of sorts, although its centrepiece is a wonderful character piece looking at the triangle of Zoe, Wash, and Mal. It’s another good ‘un, with bags of wit, some cool action scenes and lots of Shepherd Book being mysterious.

We’re following directly on from last episode; Jayne is being uncharacteristically generous with his cut of the takings, and no one can understand why. The early minutes are great, with lots of little character moments- Kaylee and River running around like kids, Book being mysterious with Simon, and of course Jayne’s reaction to Inara’s female client (“I’ll be in my bunk!”).

But it all kicks off properly with a bit of an argument between Zoe and Wash over why she always agrees with the Captain. This is essentially because she and Mal have all those shared war stories, of course, and Wash as the husband feels emasculated by this. The upshot is that Wash insists on going with Mal to sell the medicines they stole last episode, instead of Zoe, and Zoe feels she has to go along with it. This is fascinating; I believe it’s the first time we’ve seen Mal not getting his way with a member of his crew, and we’ve seen him get his way in some pretty extreme situations. And yet it’s Zoe, his oldest friend and war comrade, and the one who calls him “Sir”, who is calling the shots here, and Mal just lets her.

This isn’t as good news for Wash as he initially thinks, though; he and Mal are quickly caught by Niska, and it’s not long before the torturing starts. Mal is brave and defiant, of course, but so is Wash, in spite of being completely unused to this sort of thing. The arguments between them about Zoe are hilarious, but of course Mal is just trying to take his friend’s mind off the horrible circumstances.

The crew, led by Zoe, soon discover what happened, and Zoe is soon off to Niska’s place to negotiate the release of her husband and her captain. Zoe is bloody competent all the way through this. It’s really thrown into sharp relief here how essential she is to the crew as the solid, shred, intelligent, no-nonsense first mate. Mal may be a genius, and a gentleman, but he’s a little erratic. Zoe is anything but.

Niska, being a right sadist, tells Zoe that the money is only enough for the return of one prisoner. Of course, she chooses her husband. Niska then shows how utterly horrible he is by cutting Mal’s ear off and giving it to her. What could possibly happen now other than the entire crew picking up some very big guns and rushing to the rescue?

And it really is the entire crew. Jayne clearly has no ill-feelings for Mal after the last episode. Shepherd Book is mysteriously good with guns for a preacher- and, in spite of that quote up at the top there, clearly shoots to kill. Fittingly, though, it’s Mal who gives Niska a good kicking , as Niska’s few underlings still standing are distracted by all the flying bullets.

Kaylee is very scared, and panics: a realistic reaction. Interestingly, it’s River who saves her, a crack shot with her eyes closed. This girl is developing an impressive array of powers. I suspect this is the reason for the government doing what they did top River- is she supposed to be some sort of super-soldier, like a telepathic, precognitive Captain America?

When the fighting’s over, things get funny again. I love Book’s comment on Simon’s shooting (“I was there, son. I’m fairly sure you haven’t shot anyone yet.”). And, of course, we end with “Take me, Sir. Take me hard.” I love this show.

Firefly: Ariel

“Next time you decide to stab me in the back, have the guts to do it to my face.”

At last we get a proper, full-on arc episode. Great. I mean, the series obviously isn’t going to be hanging around long enough for anything to be developed properly (damn you, Fox!), but it’s nice to have something.

Shepherd Book isn’t in this one (was Ron Glass on holiday or summat?) and Inara barely features, but the smaller cast rather adds to the tension in what is basically an old fashioned heist. Simon makes a fantastic criminal mastermind, and I love his patient rote teaching of some stock medical phrases which, of course, turn out not to be needed at all. But this is, of course, about River, and his need to find out what’s wrong with her so he can help.

The eponymous planet of Ariel is one of the “inner planets”, and a much posher place than we usually get to see in Firefly. Mal makes it quite clear early on that he doesn’t feel particularly at home here, and not only because it’s crawling with Alliance authorities. The likes of Mal just don’t seem to fit into a place like this.

I wonder what the significance of the name might be? Judaeo-Christian / occult lore has Ariel as an archangel associated with healing, alchemy, Paradise Lost, John Dee and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Beyond the obvious healing motif I’m not really clever or knowledgeable to get the references, but I’m certain they must be there. The episode is called Ariel, after all.

Anyway, the big shock comes when we find out that Jayne has arranged to sell out Simon and River to the Feds in return for a lot of money. We’re reminded that this amusing figure of fun is, actually, exactly as amoral and self-centred as he and everyone else keeps saying he is.

It’s interesting to see that Simon and Mal are actually getting on quite well these days, and seem to like and trust each other, however much they will never quite be able to shake off a certain awkwardness. Mal’s demands that River be confined to quarters after her unprovoked attack on Jayne are not unreasonable, and Simon doesn’t argue. He also shows what a fundamentally decent bloke he is by pausing to save a stranger’s life at a potentially dangerous moment. The crew of the Serenity have got themselves a bloody good doctor. We’re used to seeing Simon as a socially awkward, useless, fish out of water. Not here.

We learn something about River; her brain has been cut into, several times, as though to lobotomise her. Her amygdala (whatever that is) has been removed. But there’s no time for any more info as Jayne has to keep to his schedule and sell them out to the Alliance. Of course, he’s double-crossed, to the schadenfreude of the entire audience, I’m sure. Simon suspects nothing, to the very end, and is even grateful to him for his contribution to the escape. River knows, though, and in hindsight it becomes clear that’s why she attacked Jayne earlier. She’s becoming more than telepathic, showing random incidences of precognition as well.

At last we get a proper look at those strange besuited men, “two by two”, with “hands of blue”. It’s clear that, whatever was done to River, it’s top secret. All the Alliance soldiers are subjected to a horrifying Death By Nosebleed because they know too much.

The ending is very interesting indeed. Mal is well aware of what Jayne did, and he’s furious; this really, really offend his sense of honour; Simon is a member of his crew, and so under his protection. But Mal’s sense of honour and ethics certainly allows for killing, as we’ve seen many times. I suspect the only reason he allows Jayne to live is because he inadvertently lets Mal know he’s genuinely ashamed by asking him not to tell the others what happened. How will things develop between the two of them after this?

Firefly: Out of Gas

“Mal, you don’t have to die alone.”

“Everybody dies alone.”

This sort of episode is pretty much obligatory for any genre series; we’re a few episodes in, so it’s time to flesh out the characters’ backgrounds by means of some amusing flashbacks. And it’s fun, so fun that it’s not until the end that you realise you’ve been watching a “bottle” episode.

It’s an impressive bit of structuring from Tim Minear, too; we have two parallel “presents”-Mal alone in Serenity, having been shot, with little oxygen left, and a few hours earlier as the crisis hits- interspersed with the flashbacks. It’s complex, but never difficult for the viewer to follow, and it’s nice that the disaster A-plot is sufficiently simple to allow for this complex structure. It’s very much a Mal episode, really, showing him to be an old-fashioned heroic type, likeable in spite of everything, who insists on going down with his ship while allowing the rest of his crew a better chance of survival. It’s notable that he’s ultimately able to impose his authority even in these circumstances, even getting Wash to get back to the bridge while his wife might be dying.

It’s Wash (with a very ‘70s porn moustache!) who gets the first brief flashback, in which we also see the ship’s previous engineer, Bester, who has hair rather like mine but is considerably better looking than me (grr!), and is of course named after Alfred. Next we move on to Kaylee, who probably gets the best flashback. This scene is hilarious. Plus, if Kaylee noticed all that technical stuff while she was lying on her back then this Bester chap probably doesn’t have the, er, skills to back up his good looks, which is a rather comforting thought to us more ordinary-looking blokes.

Inara’s flashback is interesting; she drives a hard bargain, and has the measure of Mal from the start. Interesting that her politics are at odds with his. It’s also interesting that she’s the one who tries to persuade Mal not to stay with the ship. A lot of things are obviously left unsaid at their parting.

Jayne’s flashback is comedy gold, of course, and in hindsight the whole “How much are they paying you?” thing is the only way you can imagine him joining the crew. None of these flashbacks really tell us much about the characters that’s likely to affect how we see them or anything that’s likely to happen from now on, of course, but they’re certainly entertaining, and that’s how to do this sort of thing; play up the comedy. It certainly makes a nice contrast with the uber-serious A-plot, and gives us a chance to get a deeper, more serious look at Mal by putting him under severe pressure while we have fun with everyone else.

There’s one overwhelming thought that always strikes me whenever I come across stories of spaceships breaking down, though. Life on a spaceship is incredibly dependent on life support, and things break. Surely, in reality, life aboard a spaceship, with the constant real risk of life support failure and death, would be far too dangerous for non-specialists to attempt? Sadly, much though I enjoy good space-set science fiction, I suspect that, in reality, space travel will never progress much beyond the space programmes of today (or should that be yesterday?).

Firefly: Jaynestown

“You guys had a riot on account of me?”

It’s an odd one, this. It’s funny, the conceit is brilliant, there’s some great character stuff, but it never quite manages to take off. Still, we get to see River’s recovery taking another stage, some nice development of the cross-class relationship between Kaylee and Simon, and a fantastic comic performance from Adam Baldwin.

Before we get to Jayne, though, there are lots of other nice little moments here. Kaylee has a very romanticised view of Inara’s work as a companion (“Have good sex!”), which is immediately contrasted with a grubbier reality. But this grubby reality, interestingly, has nothing to do with the sex, or with her rather innocent twenty-six year old virgin client, but with having to deal with said client’s boorish, amoral and no doubt smelly father. There’s a nice little deconstruction of macho conceptions of “manhood” here, too; it’s not the “conquest” of women that makes one a man, and sex is not about notches on a bedpost. It’s about, you know, emotion, and relating to the other person as, well, a person, as sort of symbolised by the “sacred” tea ceremony. Having said that, though, this sequence isn’t anywhere as deep or as meaningful as it seems to think it is.

The scenes between River and Shepherd Book are fabulous. I love River’s overly literal theological ideas, which are funny but also reminds us that there’s a very clever girl underneath the craziness. But what exactly is wrong with us men with long hair? Grr!

Anyway… we have the latest in an already long line of poor, desperate planets where a few oligarchic bastards lord it over the oppressed majority, who in this case seem to have a particularly unpleasant existence as “mudders”. The foreman mentions to Simon that there are “two thousand workers, mainly indentured”, and that the costs saved in wages can be passed on to the customer. I think, to put it mildly, that some sort of trade union might be in order.

Oh yes, and the Kaylee / Simon shipping heats up a bit, give or take the odd moment where he offends her by being a bit of a stuck-up arse. She’s very forgiving of him, really. He can’t even hold his drink, for one thing. But things seem to be developing quite well between them. I expect a massive falling-out between them any episode now. This is a Joss Whedon show, after all.

And yes, I know, Jayne. Jayne the hero. Jayne the statue. That song. The hilarious contrast between the truth and the Robin Hood reputation. All this stuff is great, and gives us some top notch comedy moments but, well, it doesn’t go anywhere. Even the crudely tacked on moral at the end, as Mal tells Jayne that sometimes people need heroes, is basically saying little more that that the mudders have really crappy lives.

And their lives stay crappy. Even the magistrate doesn’t get any real comeuppance; he doesn’t get to capture the crew of Serenity, but that’s it. And this man is a real tyrant; he imprisons people for years in tiny boxes. But then again, this is the sort of society we’re seeing again and again in Firefly. The ‘verse isn’t very nice, which makes the contrast with the people of Serenity all the greater. Because they’re great characters, and that means this can be an uplifting and fun show in spite of it’s very, very bleak setting.

Firefly: Our Mrs. Reynolds

“If you take sexual advantage of her, you’re going to burn in a very special level of Hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theatre.”

Another Joss Whedon script, then. I like Joss Whedon scripts a lot. They’re good, they’re witty, and they always contain the phrase “not so much”. What’s not to like?

We have a river which looks an awful lot like the Mississippi. We have a hold-up of a stagecoach. Well, a marine stagecoach thingy. Yep, that’ll be a Western in space, all right. It’s an amusing sequence, as is the party with more Irish dancing. Then it’s back to Serenity, and Mal appears to be married…

This is the first time I’ve seen this episode since I became familiar with the excellent Christina Hendricks (well, I managed to keep up until part way through Season 2, but I’ll be marathoning it for this blog one of these years). It seems that Mal has his own domestic servant-cum-“nubile little slave girl”, except he’s far too much of a gentleman to take advantage of that. We think. It’s interesting to observe how this pans out, knowing Joss Whedon’s reputation for undercutting and playing with traditional gender roles. In fact, anybody with a passing knowledge of Whedon’s stuff would probably guess from the start that Saffron isn’t what he seems to be.

It’s fun to see everyone reacting, of course. The bit where Zoe calls everyone to see and have a good laugh is fun, but it’s interesting to see that Inara is immediately and obviously jealous. She also gives away, to the viewer at least, that she cares an awful lot about Mal when she sees him unconscious. So far this has only been hinted at, albeit fairly blatantly. It’ll be interesting to see how things develop between the two of them, but I suspect the whole thing is far too slow-burn, sadly, for a programme with such a limited life expectancy.

Mal’s starting to fall for Saffron a bit, though. He even starts to tell her of his upbringing, on a ranch on the planet Shadow. We eventually get to an hilariously awkward bedroom scene (“Oh, I’m going to go to then special Hell!”), ending with Saffron kissing him. Her lipstick’s poisoned, of course. I bet that’s where Steven Moffat got the idea from, for River Song.

Now that we, the audience, have had our suspicions confirmed, we get the fun of watching Saffron trying to seduce other members of the crew. Wash, being very, very married, isn’t falling for it, and has to be karate chopped from behind. Inara isn’t taken in by the Sapphic charms of Saffron, though, much as it seems otherwise at first. But she ends up kissing the unconscious Mal, must to her later hysterical denials! Morena Baccarin is great in this episode, where she gets a wider range of material. We can’t have her just being poised and graceful all the time.

Interestingly, we’re told Saffron has been to companion academy, but she remains mysterious. It’s a fascinating last conversation between her and Mal, though, about individuals “playing” each other versus people sticking together. Is this a coded message in favour of social democracy as opposed to the dangers of right-wing individualism?

The last scene is perfect, of course. Mal draws completely the wrong conclusion. Of course, Inara would find it truly intolerable if only he knew! Their relationship is shaping up in a rather nicely ‘40s screwball sort of way…

Firefly: Safe

“Dear Diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. Then I got kidnapped by hill folks, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever.”

We begin in flashback, with a brief exterior shot of a big posh house. It seems that that Simon and River are so posh that they grew up on the “Tam Estate”. The visual style of the house, inside and out, and including their father’s costume, is essentially late nineteenth century, with just a few nods to the future. It’s such a contrast to the way scMi-fi television used to depict the future, with bland corridors and “futuristic” clothes. Alien and Blade Runner introduced the idea that future styles can be retro, and the result is a fab-looking sci-fi Western aesthetic like this.

There’s a lot of Mandarin this episode, more so than usual. Then again, there’s a lot of swearing, and I’d imagine that Fox are rather more relaxed about swearing in Mandarin than swearing in English.

There’s an interesting scene in a bric-a-brac shop, with Inara and Kaylee revealing that swans are considered rare, and perhaps not found at all on any world that’s within reach. I’d imagine that a bunch of faraway worlds would be restricted to only certain animals from Earth- domesticated animals, pets, parasites and not much else. No swans.

Kaylee’s falling out with Simon is interesting, too. These two characters are pretty much the ones who symbolise their respective social classes, and everything which happens between them can be understood in those terms. Interestingly, it’s the working class character, Kaylee, who is romantic and imaginative, while Simon is neither.

It’s interesting to see shots of River doing an Irish dance juxtaposed with shots of the gunfight. Both sequences have a sort of beauty, but neither ends well, as Shepherd Book is shot and badly injured while Simon and River are kidnapped by nearby villagers.

Mal is eventually forced to seek medical help from a nearby Alliance facility in order to get medical help for the Shepherd, and here the mystery surrounding him depends even more. Why does the sight of Book’s “ident card” immediately cause the Alliance soldiers to immediately agree to Mal’s request with no questions asked? It’s becoming very velar that there’s a lot to be revealed about the Shepherd’s past.

At first, it seems as though Simon and River have reached a safe and friendly community, and even River feels safe, becoming more and more lucid. Unfortunately, and shockingly, her display of telepathy leads the villagers to denounce her as a witch. This is evidently not a future dominated by reason, as the villagers’ seventeenth century clothing might perhaps have told us.

Fortunately, she and her brother are rescued at the last moment as Mal returns. There’s an interesting exchange in the final moments as Simon asks Mal why he came back to save someone he doesn’t even like. Mal’s reply is typical: “You’re on my crew. Why are we even still talking about this?”. It’s this sort of straight-up decency that means you can’t help liking the character, for all his flaws.

Firefly: Shindig

“You think you’re better than other people.”

“Just the ones I’m better than.”

Our first episode written by Jane Espenson begins in a way that’s already starting to become familiar; a moving camera shows Mal and co in a dimly lit bar which is offset by some bright colours, and it all very quickly kicks off. Is this going to become a Firefly trope? Still, we get a bit more backstory as it’s established that a slave trade exists in this society. Naturally, Mal has no compunction about robbing such people…

The gang are making a lot of enemies on Persephone, and could really do with leaving. Their next destination (whose name I didn’t catch) seems a much classier place, superficially at least. Inara arranges to meet a regular client, a posh bloke called Atherton Wing, while Kaylee gets all excited about a posh frock that she sees in a window. There’s more than a bit of Eliza Doolittle about Kaylee- she’s a bit common, yes, but so are many of us, and she’s a lot lovelier than a lot of her “betters”. Mal’s nasty comments here don’t go down well at all.

Time for some plot, then. Badger is back, and wants Mal to work as his agent in doing a bit of smuggling for another posh bloke called Warwick Harrow. Nathan Fillion is great here, as is Mark Sheppard. Of course, now that we’ve met the deeply sinister Niska, Badger is suddenly a lot less scary and has become more of a fun character.

All this means finding Harrow at some posh do. That means Mal needs a lady to go with him, and Kaylee gets to wear her posh frock after all. And, who’d have thunk it, it’s the same party as Inara and her post client. I don’t like this Atherton much; he wants Inara to be his “personal companion” and she’s mulling it over. This feels uncomfortably close to The Crimson Petal and the White, which I read quite recently, and makes me like this rather arrogant Atherton fellow even less.

I love the cut straight from Jayne’s “So, we gonna play cards or screw around?” to a rather lovely scene of Zoe and Wash being all post-coital!

It’s not nice to see Kaylee being bullied by a load of posh girls (who, it’s implied, own slaves), but she’s soon rescued by a nice man who can’t stand “useless people”. Yay! Soon she’s in her element, talking machinery with a bunch of friendly men. It’s an interesting example of set and costume design, this ball; it’s all very Regency, like something out of a Jane Austen adaptation. There’s a certain Chinese aesthetic, too, but then that was true of the Regency itself.

But things don’t stay nice forever. Mal runs into Inara and her wanker client, one thing leads to another and Mal, showing his usual diplomatic skills, hits Atherton in the face for the way he speaks about Inara. Unfortunately, this is a place where the social mores of Regency aristocracy apply. Mal has just accidentally challenged Atherton to a duel. With swords. About which he knows nothing. Oh dear.

This leads to an interesting conversation between Mal and Inara during the night, as she desperately tries to teach him some rudimentary swordfighting. He’s a man of honour; he faces seemingly certain death, but he won’t run. We’re only four episodes in, but I really, really like Mal.

Meanwhile, aboard Serenity, Summer Glau gives us her cockney accent. It’s, er, a nice try, and only lapses into something approaching Australian about 50% of the time…! We get a bit of background here, too. It seems that Badger, and presumably at the other cockney geezers, hail from somewhere called “Dayton Colony”. It’s a nice touch, this.

It’s morning, and time for the duel. This sequence is even more Regency than the rest of the episode, if such a thing is possible. Mal’s improbable victory is a little contrived, perhaps, but it’s great that he gets to humiliate Atherton by not killing him. Plus, Inara’s blacklisted him, so he’ll have to rely on his charms to get any sex in future!

Even better, Harrow is impressed and agrees s to the deal. Serenity is duly loaded with cargo, and it’s cows. What else? That’s the great thing about this sci-fi Western, a spacefaring future with horses and cows!

Firefly: Bushwhacked

“Couldn’t let us profit. Wouldn’t be civilised.”

We hear the word “civilised” a lot here, in different contexts- it’s certainly a theme. We also get some incremental development of the Simon / River arc, and continued bigging up of the still-unseen Reavers into the most fearsome ever. Mainly, though, we get a damned good script. It’s not quite up there with the last couple of episodes- Tim Minear is not Joss Whedon, good though he is- but it’s still up there somewhere.

The characters continue to be wonderful, with Jayne playing a delightful prank on Simon and Mal having an interesting debate with Jayne and Shepherd Book on whether to look for survivors on the derelict transport that Serenity is passing. This sort of demonstrates that, while Mal’s manner may be closer to Jayne, his sense of right and wrong is much closer to Book’s, in spite of their philosophical disagreement. A good conscience is a good conscience, whether religion is involved or not. Kaylee has Mal pretty much right when she praises his speech later on.

I’m not sure how realistic it is for Serenity to just bump into another ship (this ain’t the ocean; space is much, much bigger even if we’re only talking the space between a limited number of planets and moons), but I’ll not single out this episode to criticise for a common sci-fi failing, especially as I failed to mention this during fifty-two episodes of Blake’s 7.

We have a proper Mary Celeste-style mystery, soon solved by the realisation that Reavers have been here. The script and the performances really pull out the stops in underlining just how bad-ass they are: even Jayne is terrified. I suspect once we finally get to see them they won’t be anywhere near as scary.

There’s also a sad story here, of poor colonists looking for a new life at the frontier having their hopes cruelly snatched away. It’s clear that the worlds under the Alliance are home to an awful lot of poverty, inequality and state indifference to the have-nots.

Kaylee gets a moment to shine, as she calmly defuses the Reavers’ booby trap, and there’s a quick but interesting shot of Inara with her calligraphy. This seems to symbolise grace, serenity and other such predictable things, but also perhaps, at a moment like this, it signifies feelings underneath that she’s trying to cover up.

Just when they’re about to leave, though, they’re boarded by a load of Alliance troops looking for River. Mal is smart at not falling for any verbal traps (“No children on board.”), but soon clashes with the leader of the Feds. Politics rears its head here; we learn that the ship is named after the Battle of Serenity Valley, where the Browncoats lost the war.

The hiding place for River and Simon- outside the hull in their spacesuits- is clever, and it’s wonderful to see River, so very innocent, gaping at the stars with childlike wonder. I love the interviews with the crew, too. Especially Kaylee’s. I think I’m getting a crush on her. Perhaps I’m in luck. She seems to like Simons.

It’s a bit of a stretch, perhaps, that the Reavers’ traumatised victim should start to become a Reaver himself, but we end the episode with a nice bit of tension before, for the second episode in a row, the authority figure lets Mal go with just a slap on the wrist for being a fundamentally decent sort.

The backstory has now been set up in quite some detail. We have a deeper understanding of the Reavers, the Alliance and the world in which Mal and co all operate. We can expect Reavers at a later date, and of course Niska. And what’s going on with River…?

Firefly: The Train Job

“Take us out of the World, Wash. We got us some crime to be done.”

I have a vague idea of the story behind this episode: of how Fox insisted in being utter wankers, on how they refused to show the pilot and, indeed, proceeded to screen the whole series in an eccentric order, and of how we foreigners and latecomers with our DVD box sets are indeed fortunate to be experiencing the show this way. All of which is to say that I’m well aware that this episode was unfortunately pressed into the job of introducing everyone and everything once more.

It’s obvious, knowing this, that all the characters are being subtly introduced once more, and that the entire backstory is pretty much related to us again. Yet it’s never intrusive, or too obvious, and the fact that this script also happens to be completely bloody brilliant is a huge credit to Joss Whedon, he who can do no wrong, and Tim Minear. I’m vaguely aware that this episode hasn’t got too good a reputation. If that’s the case, I’m looking forward to seeing a popular one.

Whedon also directs here, and rather brilliantly. The opening shots in the bar, with the constantly moving camera, set things up really, really well, and the fight with the clientele of the Alliance-supporting bar is a great set-piece. We also get a bit of a backstory; the civil war between the Alliance and the Browncoats took place six years ago.

We get a few nice character scenes- Inara and Mal are fantastic together, while Shepherd Book once again shows himself to be an incisive judge of human character. It’s becoming clear, already, what a fantastic cast this is. It’s great to see a bunch of actors who are clearly very, very into their characters, enjoying themselves hugely, and relishing the superb dialogue that Whedon is giving them.

The actual plot is a fairly perfunctory backdrop for all this, really, although Niska is a delightfully evil character whom we can hardly fail to see again. His deliciously nasty threats to our heroes as they accept the job pretty much tell us that they’re going to somehow fail and earn his enmity.

A train robbery is a traditional Western trope, of course. But I’m glad to see an interplanetary future which still has them around- I suspect that’s what would happen. Plus, we get some rather fun set pieces such as Jayne jumping out of Serenity on to a moving train. You’ve always got to love that. I also love the silly euphemism “gorram”. Still not sure about all the Mandarin, though. There doesn’t really seem to be enough Chinese cultural influence to justify it so far.

Interesting that Inara should rescue Mal by claiming that he’s her “indentured man”. This future society is no utopia.

The episode hinges, of course, on Mal being a decent man, and insisting on returning the stolen goods once he realises that the crates contain much-needed medicine. Mal’s great; rough, gruff, incredibly witty, but with a conscience underneath it all.

It’s a great twist, but typically Whedon, that the Sheriff immediately sees what Mal is doing, understands, and lets them off. We’re shown that Mal’s no saint, though; he’s honourable enough to return Niska’s money but quite prepared to kill his thuggish underling.

We end with a bit of juicy arc stuff. River is starting to become a bit more lucid, and is now going on about “two by two, hands of blue”. We end with the sight of some official types on River’s trail, and either their gloves or their hands are bright blue…

Firefly: Serenity

“We are just too pretty for God to let us die.”

I must admit, I wouldn’t have decided to watch this on a weekday if I’d remembered how long it was, but the Firefly reviews start here. I’m going to fit in the remaining three Sarah Jane Adventures two-parters over the next few days too, but basically it’s Firefly now until it finishes, except with films on most Saturdays. More Whedon to come, though. Appropriately, my iTunes library has just been playing me Johnny Cash and Neil Young’s “From Hank to Hendrix”.

We begin with a flashback to the recent war, in which Mal and Zoe (Gina Torres) fought on the losing sides. They’re essentially Space Confederates, although Zoe’s ethnicity tells us that in this case there’s none of that slavery nastiness. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) is charismatic, brave, rugged on the surface but deeply caring underneath. Zoe would follow him anywhere in spite of his flaws, but the fact that Zoe is a supremely capable and intelligent woman shows us that he’s earned that respect. Joss Whedon really gets us to invest in the characters during these first few vital minutes. We see people die nobly, and then the war is suddenly over. They’ve lost. It was all for nothing, perhaps.

The present day, and now Mal is captain of a ship, Serenity, and he and his crew make their money through not-entirely-legal means, in this case salvage. Wisely, Whedon is not telling us what year it is. Our heroes are criminals, and they have a relationship with the powers-that-be, the Alliance, which is hardly friendly. There are obvious parallels with Blake’s 7 here, even if it’s clear that planets are going to look like Southern California rather than Southern England. But we should be careful not to overstate this; Mal and his crew are far more concerned about where their meal is coming from, and are not political idealists. And the Administration, while obviously not nice, are not quite so obviously totalitarian. Also, it’s 2002, a generation later. Still, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’ve chosen to follow up Blake’s 7 (give or take the odd Sherlock) with this.

The aesthetic is also very different, and very American. The Western tropes and touches are obvious, from the costumes to the incidental music, and this underlines the frontier feel. There are more settled planets, such as the home planet of Dr. Simon Tams (Sean Maher), which stand for “back East”, but this is a rugged, frontier existence with many planets, such as the one ruled by Patience, seemingly to some extent outside the law. And when Mal states that “It’s what governments are for- to get in a man’s way”, he’s expressing the sentiments of rugged individualism which owe a lot more to the American West than to anywhere remotely close to me, here in Leicestershire. And if all that isn’t enough, there’s an obvious spinning wheel on the Serenity that evokes the feel of a steamboat.

This is a Western in space, all right, and quite rightly this dominates the aesthetic, the message and, I think, the sort of stories we’ll get. But that isn’t all that’s going on. For a start, everyone keeps occasionally speaking, I think, Mandarin, and we’re not given any subtitles. Badger (Mark Sheppard, recently in Doctor Who) is a cockney geezer crime boss who reminds me of Ronnie Kray or, indeed, Dinsdale Piranha. And then there are the Reavers, about whom we know little as yet.

We get a good, proper introduction to all of the people we shall be getting to know, so I’d better introduce them too. It makes a slightly awkward structure for this review but, in spite of Whedon’s assured script and direction, the same is true of this episode. Such is the way of first episodes.

Gina is married to Wash (Adam Tudyk), a rather witty and rather brilliant pilot whose scene with the dinosaurs is the most Joss Whedon thing ever. So far, though, there’s not a lot to him beyond that. Rather more interesting is Adam Baldwin’s violent and self-centred Jayne, a sort of working-class Avon who heavily implies he would betray Mal for the right price. Yet he clearly cares a great deal about Kaylee; Whedon rather interestingly chooses to have him at the front of the shot looking worried as it appears she might die. Even he has a softer side. He’s a great comedy character, too. Whedon manages to make the scene in which he threatens the government agent into a comedy highlight.

Inara (Morena Baccarin) is, of course, gorgeous, and has a rather interestingly ambiguous relationship with Mal. She’s a high-class “companion”, and her profession clearly enjoys a much higher degree of respectability and status than in does in the present day. There are initial clashes with Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), but I rather suspect that they’re going to be friends. The Shepherd is a mysterious one; he says he’s freshly out of the “abbey”, but he hints at a mysterious past and is a shrewd judge of character. His initial scene with Kaylee (Jewel Staite), as she entices him on to the ship is wonderful.

Kaylee, the ship’s mechanic (of course I adore her- she’s lovely!), is irrepressibly cheerful, innocent, a refreshing break from all the angst-ridden characters one sees everywhere, and interestingly perceptive about people. She knows that most of her crewmates (even Jayne) are basically nice and realises that Mal cares very deeply beneath the gruff exterior. Interestingly, we get a rather lingering shot of her eating a strawberry, which seems to be telling us that she’s a rather sensual person. I love the door to her room.

She has a bit of a thing for with Simon Tam (Sean Maher) who is, alas, from a different social class, and both literally and figuratively from a different world. Maher plays his awkwardness very well; he’s got the good looks, but sadly not the easy-going charm, of certain other Simons. Ahem. He also has a sister, River (Summer Glau) who is at this point more of a mysterious McGuffin than an actual character.

There are a lot of characters to introduce and develop, then, as well as an entire world, aesthetic and set of narrative rules. That Whedon manages to tick all these boxes while also delivering an exciting and intriguing piece of strong, character-led drama bodes very well indeed for future episodes, which will hopefully have much more space in which to breathe.

I couldn’t help but smile at the “grrr! arggh!” of Mutant Enemy. I’ll be seeing a lot of that over the next eighteen months or so.