Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "Out of Gas" (October 25, 2002)

This week’s Firefly (2002) episode is titled “Out of Gas,” but the creative and heartfelt installment actually proves that this Joss Whedon science fiction series almost never runs on empty.  In fact, this is one of the most inventive and entertaining segments of Firefly thus far.

In “Out of Gas,” we see a dead-in-space Serenity captained by a near-dead Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). 

As Mal struggles to survive alone on the all-but-abandoned ship, the episode cuts back to different points in its (and Mal’s…) life.

In short order, we see Mal purchasing Serenity, Wash’s (Alan Tudyk) first moments aboard as ship’s pilot, and even Kaylee’s (Jewel Staite) impromptu introduction as engineer.  Another flashback showcases Inara’s (Morena Baccarin) first time aboard the Firefly class ship, and finally, Jayne’s (Adam Baldwin) addition to the crew.

These views of the family forming are intercut with views of it being torn apart, as Firefly’s life-support systems fail, Zoe (Gina Torres) is badly injured, and desperation sets in. 

With Serenity’s death imminent, Mal sends everyone away in the shuttles, while he remains behind with the ship he so dearly loves…

In very simple, but emotionally resonant terms, “Out of Gas” is all about the way that home and family can get us through the rough times.  “Everybody dies alone,” Mal notes at one crucial juncture, but that’s not strictly accurate.  Everyone goes through the physical process of death alone -- even a starship, perhaps -- but friends and family can be there when the end comes for a loved one, and make it less lonely, even if the outcome is the same. 

Despite its flashback structure, “Out of Gas” is purely and simply about that notion, of a crew or group of people cohering into a family, even as Serenity functions as a home or hearth for it. 

When death is broached, it is easier to face it all together, instead of isolated and separate.  Mal tries to expunge that notion, and send his people away.  But they come back for him and for Serenity too.  And they do it without having to be summoned.  Thus, by episode’s end, Mal is a very happy man.  He has a crew; he has a family. His loyalty to his crew has been returned, and he knows where he stands.

 “Out of Gas” also serves ably as a near-perfect contrast to latter-day Star Trek -- and by that I mean Next Generation (1987 – 1994) through Enterprise (2001 – 2005).  This story is very much the brand of tale that Star Trek vetted so frequently: the starship-gets “stuck”-and won’t-go, thus threatening-the-lives-of-the-crew story.  You might know it as “Night Terrors,” or “Where Silence Has Lease,” or “The Cloud,” or any other of a dozen titles.

But where modern Trek relies on endless, tongue-twisting techno-babble and re-set buttons to depict such stories, “Out of Gas” eschews both crutches.  This is not a story about escaping a trap…it is a story about reckoning with mortality, and recognizing, in that reckoning, what matters about life: family and home.

This episode, written by Tim Minear and directed by David Solomon also resurrects a romantic notion from  Star Trek that has been lost in the 1990s -2000s: that of a captain’s love for his ship. 

We know that Kirk loved his Enterprise with an obsessive passion, but the idea was dropped from subsequent series, perhaps so that characters such as Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer couldn’t be pinned as imitations or knock-offs.  But Captain Picard actually stood in the ruins of his ship -- his home of seven years – in Generations (1994) and off-handedly remarked that he doubted it would be the last starship to be named Enterprise.  This is a far cry from Kirk’s remorse at the destruction of his ship in Star Trek III (“My God, Bones…what have I done?”)

Mal Reynolds is clearly more in the mold of Kirk, and “Out of Gas” does a terrific job of establishing Mal’s undying love for his ship. In fact, the episode culminates with a perfect visual moment of  love at first sight. 

Mal spots Serenity in the distance, in a field, and the ship holds his gaze…and his heart.  

Indeed, there seems to be a symbiotic connection between Mal and Serenity in the episode: both are injured and on the verge of death, and both come back from the precipice.

Next Week: “Ariel.”