Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly (2002): "Objects in Space" (December 13, 2002)

In “Objects in Space,” the crew of Serenity runs afoul of a unique and dangerous bounty hunter: Jubal Early (Richard Brooks).

Early has been secretly shadowing the ship for some time, and plans to acquire River (Summer Glau) and return her to the Alliance for a big pay day.

Early sandbags much of the crew in short order, including Captain Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), but finds that River isn’t the easy mark she appears to be. 

In fact, River unnerves Early by claiming to be “one” with Serenity, and revealing personal secrets about him that she couldn’t possibly know.

But Early only grows more dangerous as River grows craftier…

An argument can be made that “Objects in Space” is the most complex, and also the very best episode of Firefly (2002), as well as a perfect distillation of the series’ overall aesthetic values. 

The episode’s central villain, Jubal Early is named for a Confederate General in the Civil War, and thus revives the series’ exploration of that milieu, although in a future/outer-space setting. 

In particular, the real Jubal Early (1816 -1894) was a man who served General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Civil War, but not before making known his point-of-view that secession and war were the wrong courses of action.

In some way, the Early we meet here seems similarly conflicted.  The man boasts a singular intelligence, and a unique manner of expressing himself, yet he also seems captive to his baser instincts…to his sadistic side.  

It seems like anyone as smart as Early should know better, and it is clear that he has come to deceive himself about why he acts as he does (“it’s my job,” he notes). 

But River cuts through the lies. She “sees” Early for what he really is: a monster.

There’s a great and totally odd-ball Jubal Early moment mid-way through the show in which Simon (Sean Maher) asks the bounty hunter if he is working for “the Alliance.”  Jubal mishears the term, and thinks that Simon has asked him if he is “a lion.” 

This description gives Early reason to pause and reflect, and he actually contemplates if he is, in fact, symbolically “a lion.” 

It’s a crazy, weird, inventive, out-of-the-norm moment but it exposes to crucial aspects of Early’s psychological gestalt. The first thing to consider is that he is a vainglorious narcissist.  The second is that, as base and monstrous as he is, is Early wicked smart, and a philosopher even. 

The question of whether or not Early is “a lion” adheres to the overall approach to the hour, which stresses existentialism, and the idea that we are “just floating in space,” and thus objects without meaning…at least until we imbue ourselves with meaning.   We could all be lions, or even a spaceship, if that is how we choose to regard ourselves, the episode intimates.

Jubal Early stops to consider if, metaphorically, he could be considered “a lion” (a fierce and cunning animal), and that odd reckoning emerges from his ability to philosophize and rationalize away “meaning” in his own life.  He hurts, maims, and kills people for a living, but Early contextualizes those acts as merely being part of a “job.”

Similarly, River wishes to vanish from existence itself, to become one with “Serenity” because she feels unloved and unwanted by the crew.

What “is” River? 

A danger to the crew? A sister? A crazy woman? A psychic “reader?”  Is she something with independent, objective meaning, or is River actually only the “thing” that others view her as?

River grapples with this idea, perhaps, because of her mental aberrations.  At one point during the episode, she holds up a gun, but importantly, she views it as a tree branch.  Again, we asked to consider the meaning of this “object in space.”  A gun is designed expressly for killing.  Contrarily, a branch is a stick or part of a tree that grows out from a central bough or trunk.  It is an extension of something, an outgrowth from a hearth.

In grabbing hold of the branch, is River actually contextualizing herself (and the gun) as an outgrowth of Serenity (presumably the tree in this metaphor)?  Is her act of holding the gun, actually the action of protecting the hearth, or reaching out to the others?

What’s important, perhaps, is the “boundary transgression” River undergoes in this particular episode, at least according to scholar Karin Beeler in her essay “The Transformation of River Tam.”  Beeler notes (in Seers, Witchs and Psychics on Screen; 2008, page 47) that “Objects in Space” showcases River’s essential other-ness by moving from being human to being part of the machine (as part of Serenity, during her ruse).  Then she becomes human again, and finally another machine, in the form of Early’s spaceship.  As J.P. Telotte notes in The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, River comes to identify herself “more closely with the intert technology of the ship than the crew.”

On a more basic level, River is able to put herself into the “experience” of reading and sympathizing with others.  She takes over the sheltering/protective duties of Serenity, and also sits in Early’s chair, and comes to see him as he really is.

“People don’t appreciate the substance of things,” Jubal Early says in “Objects in Space,” and perhaps that phraseology is a way of noting that the crew can’t appreciate the substance of River, because she is so different from the other humans. 

Ironically, Early is guilty of the same transgression.  He doesn’t see -- until it is far too late -- the substance of River.  His misreading of her -- his misinterpretation of the “substance” of her -- is what leads to his downfall.  Early and River are both dangerous, and both cunning, but River can “become” something else, becoming something outside her psyche so that she can see and appreciate the substance of things.  Early can’t escape his ego and narcissism enough to see that perspective.

This episode is very cleverly constructed and brilliant executed, but ultimately, one need not ponder any of this material to enjoy “Objects in Space.”  The episode is tense, the conflict is direct and urgent, and Early is an unforgettable villain.   

Accordingly, Firefly ends its TV run on a high note, and perhaps even the highest note of the series

Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "Heart of Gold"

A friend of Inara’s (Morena Baccarin) -- a former companion named Nandi (Melinda Clarke) -- contacts Serenity in desperate need of help.   A rancher and power-hungry psychopath, Rance Burgess (Fredrich Lehne) is threatening the women in Melinda’s house of prostitution on a barren desert world.  In particular, a young woman named Petaline (Tracy Leah Ryan) is pregnant with Rance’s baby.

Mal agrees to help Nandi, and the women under Nandi’s care.  However, when he meets Rance face-to-face, Reynolds realizes that his crew and Nandi’s group are in serious trouble.  The man is every bit as dangerous as Nandi suggested, and more. Still, Nandi would rather fight than run.

Accordingly, Mal and his crew prepare for battle.  And on the night before that battle comes, Nandi and Mal sleep together.  Inara pretends not to be bothered by their intimacy, but is shattered by it.

Rance kills Nandi while attempting to claim his child, but the crew of Serenity ultimately defeats him. Petaline kills Rance thus saving her child.

Afterwards, Inara reports that she will be leaving Serenity permanently…

The “hooker with the heart of gold” is a long-standing Western movie trope, and thus fits in well with Firefly’s (2002) Western, post-Civil War approach to the future, or outer space. 

A hooker with a heart of gold might be said to be a woman of virtue working in an occupation where virtue is not expected, nor sought.  Sometimes, but not always, the “hooker with a heart of gold” is a tragic character, who despite her core decency experiences an unpleasant fate at the hands of a cruel patriarchy.

In “Heart of Gold” -- which clearly takes its name from the trope -- the crew of Serenity helps a group of women, led by Nandi (Clarke) face off against a sadistic bastard that runs the local town, and makes plain his view of women and their place.  When not making babies for him, women are to be his compliant sexual servants. 

In one scene that seems shocking for network television circa 2002, Rance Burgess forces a prostitute to perform fellatio on him in public while delivering an address before a crowd entirely of cheering men and minions. 

It is easy to suggest that Nandi is the hooker with the “heart of gold” of the episode’s title: a woman of virtue protecting her friends, and standing her ground.   But importantly, the “heart of gold” descriptor may also apply to Serenity’s resident companion, Inara. 

Inara’s heart of gold is clearly broken here when Mal chooses to sleep with Nandi.  This development is particularly intriguing because Inara’s sobs suggest that all her high-handed talk of companions “choosing” their lifestyle, and exerting “power” of others in society is just that…talk. 

Inara speaks frequently in the series as if sexual intercourse is a kind of therapy and her role as companion is part psychologist, part sexual partner.  If this is indeed the case, and companions are liberated from traditional gender roles and parochial attitudes about sex, then what explains Inara’s emotional breakdown over Mal’s actions?  Why are her words about being glad for him so obviously a “cover” for her true feelings?

Her response could be evidence of the fact that Inara is, actually, someone who has bought into a lie and become trapped in a patriarchal structure that requires her to use her body for men’s pleasure.  Inara is thus the proverbial “hooker with a heart of gold.”  This interpretation fits in well with some other aspects of the series.  The Alliance loves to convince people they are empowered and free when, in fact, they are slaves.  

That metaphor has never been explicitly connected to Inara in the series, but “Heart of Gold” implies that this is the case.  Inara has been convinced she is “enlightened” and “evolved” about matters of sex when, in fact, she is, as Mal always insists, but a glorified “whore.”

Or, contrarily, Inara’s emotional breakdown could suggest that even when one is “enlightened” about issues of sex, it hurts to see the one you love with someone else, especially a friend.  Perhaps Inara’s “power” as a companion is valid, but it’s something she would rather shun at this point, for a committed relationship (presumably with Mal).

Joss Whedon is an acknowledged and vocal feminist, and his characters in programs such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse certainly reflect this fact.  Yet what “Heart of Gold” really seems to concern is freedom; the idea that we should all choose to be what we want to be; and not be pulled into society’s definitions for us.  The tragic thing about Inara here is that she doubles-down on the lie of what being a companion means, instead of choosing the very thing that she thinks would make her happy: a romance with the man she truly loves.

Next week: “Objects in Space.”

Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "The Message" (July 28, 2003)

In “The Message,” Serenity makes a quick stopover at a bustling space station and bazaar. Mal (Nathan Fillion) and Zoe (Gina Torres) unexpectedly receive mail in the form of a giant crate, and Jayne (Adam Baldwin) receives a care package from his mother.  

Inside the over-sized crate is a dead veteran of the Unification Wars, a fellow soldier, Lt. Tracy. Included with his body is a taped message from Tracy asking Mal and Zoe to bring his corpse home to his parents on a frozen outer planet.

Mal and Zoe take their new mission very seriously, despite the fact that a sadistic Alliance captain (Richard Brugi) is also after Lt. Tracy’s casket, and pursues Serenity to get it.

When Tracy unexpectedly awakes from a coma, the crew learns the reason for the pursuit and his deception.

Inside his very body, Tracy is carrying special human organs worth a fortune on the black market.  He is not just a carrier, but an “incubator” for these organs.  While Tracy attempts to make a profit off of his own flesh, the captain is looking or the same payday…

“The Message” is probably my least favorite episode of Firefly (2002).  In part this is because the episode already recycles information about the characters that audiences already know. 

Specifically, “Serenity” and “War Stories” both feature flashbacks to Mal and Zoe’s past.  In the case of “Serenity,” we see the duo in the Unification Wars (at the battle of Serenity, rather than the Battle of Du-Khang), but we clearly get the message about them: they are honorable brothers-in-arms fighting a just war against impossible odds.  Nothing that happens in “The Message” really adds much to that information, or character equation.  Here, they agree to take home the body of a fellow veteran, because of the bond they still share with their fellow soldiers.   The “leave no man behind” edict has been voiced before on the series, and to have it front and center here adds little new.  It’s not the information is bad or unworthy again, it’s that we already know it.

We have also seen the “Simon-says-something rude-and-offends Kaylee” subplot before, particularly in the story “Safe.”  Here, Simon (Simon Maher) again comes across as “too good” for Kaylee (Jewel Staite), and she gets into a snit about his high-falutin’ ways.  In this case, Kaylee contrasts the stolid Doctor with the “down to Earth” Tracy, and in the end, sees that Tracy’s “down to Earth” behavior comes at a price.  Simon would never treat her so disrespectfully.  Again, this aspect of the episode is something of a rehash of Simon/Kaylee repartee we’ve seen before, and just serves as another (unnecessary) bump in the road preventing them from getting together as a couple.

The episode doesn’t really come together in the end, and is one of the few episodes of Firefly (2002) that seems to be treading water.

Again, the message of the episode is good, but the tragedy seems a little manufactured; a bit too patently “sad” and without reason.

Mal and Zoe finally shoot (and kill…) Tracy, and then, in the end, deliver his body to his parents, thus living up to the “leave no man behind” edict. The worthwhile message is that after the war, many soldiers simply didn’t know what to do with their lives, and strayed to a life of crime…even though at heart they weren’t really criminals.  This notion reflects, even, on Mal and Zoe, who also turned to a marginal existence.  But they possess a moral compass that Tracy doesn’t seem to.

Next Week: “Heart of Gold.”  

Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "Trash" (July 21, 2003)

In “Trash,” Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and the crew of Serenity cross paths once more with treacherous Saffron (Christina Hendricks), the duplicitous criminal who nearly conned them into a pirate’s space trap some time earlier (“Our Mrs. Reynolds.”)

In exchange for rescue from a dead moon, Saffron offers to share with the Firefly’s crew the treasure from the heist of a life-time, or “the perfect crime.”  In particular, Saffron claims to know the exact location and security codes of the Lassiter, the first laser gun, and thus a valuable antique.  The ancient gun now is on display in a private collector’s home on the planet Bellerophon, one of the central planets.  If Mal and the others can steal the Lassiter, it will fetch a high price on the black market.

Malcolm and his team plan the caper -- which involves disguises, a futuristic gated community of sorts, and an automated drone garbage system -- but everyone is nervous about working with Saffron, a criminal know that they will double-cross them without thought…

Like “Ariel,” “Trash” is a great Firefly (2002) caper story, but one made even better by the presence of Christina Hendricks’ Saffron -- “a brilliant, evil double-crossing snake” in Mal’s words -- as an uncertain ally.

As the end of the episode reveals, everyone is playing everyone else in “Trash,” and so the episode is a con within a con within a con.   The twists and turns are brilliantly orchestrated, especially when Saffron lives up to form.

Structurally, “Trash” is intriguing because it opens after the caper’s end, with Mal sitting naked on a rock in the arid desert.  He says “Yep, that went well,” and the suggestion is pretty clearly that he’s been had or tricked again; that he’s failed.

As the remainder of the episode leads up to this denouement, however, we start to see that our assumptions about Mal’s presence there (and his tone…) are not correct. On the contrary, he is undeterred and un-phased about being stripped of his clothes. And for once, “the job” actually did go well.

The most delightful revelation in the course of “Trash” is that Inara (Morena Baccarin) -- who has been vocally upset with Mal and the plan involving Saffron -- is actually in on the secret, and is present at the end to procure the Lassiter.  It’s nice to see Inara so expertly playing her role in an under-handed crime plan.

I wrote some about Saffron (and Hendricks) in “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” but she is the most charismatic -- in my opinion -- of all Firefly’s villains for the mere fact that she is such a talented chameleon.  She changes approaches or strategy depending on who she is in the room with, and seems to make that shift as easily as she breathes.  Here, Saffron is able to trick Mal again, by once more showing a vulnerable side.  He knew that moment would come and planned for it, but the fact is that Saffron again gets the better of Mal. This makes Mal either an easy mark, or Saffron a positively exceptional con-artist. Whatever the truth, the moments Mal and Saffron share are wonderful, tense, and charged with sexual tension.

I would have loved to see a second season of Firefly for many reasons, but not the least of which is the return of Saffron.  It would have been great to see her return one more time, or even join the crew for a time.  Could you imagine a ship with both Jayne and Saffron among the crew?

In “Trash,” we do learn some more about Saffron’s background, but these facts don’t fully illuminate her, or make her transparent.  We learn that she is the mark’s wife, and that he has been searching for her for six years.  He calls her “Yolanda,” but Saffron also goes by the named Bridgette.  Thus there’s the sense in”Trash” that we may know one chapter of Saffron’s life, but not necessarily the most important one, or the truth of things.   We also learn that Saffron ran off with an associate of her husband, and that the associate mysteriously died soon after.  Saffron claims she didn’t kill him, but the problem is that we simply can’t trust a single word that she says.

If Saffron gets her comeuppance in “Trash,” then Jayne (Adam Baldwin) gets his as well.  Thanks to River (Summer Glau), Simon (Sean Maher) learns the truth of what happened on Ariel, and gets Jayne on his medical bay…where he can threaten him with bodily harm.  Showcasing his essential decency, however, Simon never harms Jayne.  Instead, he shows simply and effectively that he is -- and always will be -- better than Jayne.  He shames him, and Jayne, for all his flaws, is still susceptible to being shamed.

Next week: “The Message.” 

Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "Jaynestown" (November 1, 2002)

In “Jaynestown” Serenity makes a stop at the “mudder” settlement on poverty-stricken Canton. 

There, Mal (Nathan Fillion) and Jayne (Adam Baldwin) attempt to recover a long-lost loot, only to discover that since his last visit there, Jayne has been deified as “the Hero of Canton.”  On his last visit, years earlier, Jayne dropped his cargo -- money – on the mudder town, and so now boasts a reputation as a kind of modern Robin Hood.

While Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) cares for River (Summer Glau) and introduces her to the Bible, and Inara (Morena Baccarin) sees the son of a wealthy client, Jayne comes to reckon with what it really means to be a “hero.”

“Jaynestown” concerns the Hero of Canton, Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), and he even gets his own theme song here. 

I’ll be honest: Jayne -- Serenity’s muscle -- is one of my favorite characters on Firefly, and episodes such as “Jaynestown” and “Ariel” (coming up in a few weeks), establish why.  Jayne is most definitely not a hero.  

He’s not even a good man, at least most of the time.  He’s an opportunist and a man who is interested in his own survival, first, second, and last.  “Out of Gas” reveals how Jayne joined Serenity’s crew in the first place, switching to the highest bidder during a confrontation.  And “Ariel” explores how he is willing to sell his shipmates out for a big pay-day.

But Jayne is also funny as hell, and, most significantly, he does possess a conscience, even if he doesn’t always choose to listen to it.  In “Ariel,” after Mal learns of his sell-out, Jayne accepts his own death, but pointedly asks the captain not to tell the crew about his mis-deeds.  He doesn’t want to be remembered that way….as a rat.  That fact suggests that Jayne knows that he did wrong.  A real monster, a real bad man, wouldn’t have understood the error of his ways.

Likewise, in “Jaynestown,” Jayne is bowled over by the fact that someone else would die for him, as a young mudder does in the climactic battle. 

Would Jayne have died for that boy?  Not bloody likely. 

Jayne realizes this fact, and so the episode ends with him confused, and downright contemplative; the most thoughtful we’ve ever seen Jayne, in fact.  He can’t understand why his life would matter to someone else, because most of the time the lives of others don’t really mean much to Jayne.  He is shamed by the fact that someone better than he is died for him.

“Jaynestown” is a strong episode of Firefly because it asks the viewer to accept multiple and seemingly contradictory truths about Jayne, and what he did on Canton. 

On one hand, we know that Jayne dumped the cash in the haste of a failed escaped, and didn’t intend to do good at all. 

On the other hand, Jayne did (inadvertently) do good, in the final analysis. He made a difference in the mudders’ lives, and now they veritably worship him as a Robin Hood figure.  

In this situation, are Jayne’s intentions (or lack of intentions) important?

Or are his deeds what truly matter?

In studying that question, the episode examines how we can’t really know a “hero” by his or her actions, and furthermore, explains that heroism is a matter of a perception.  As Mal says in the episode’s coda: “It isn’t about you…It’s about what they need.” 

In other words, the mudders find a purpose, unity, and even a meaningful life “story” in Jayne’s actions, and that “myth” becomes infinitely more important to them than the reality of Jayne’s intentions in one moment of time. 

At first, we want to laugh at the colonists for building this huge heroic mythology around Jayne, a dunce and a scoundrel.  But then we see how the “Hero of Canton” has made their lives better; has rallied them.  That Jayne is a dunce and a scoundrel matters not a whit, really.

This theme finds an interesting and meaningful reflection in Shepherd Book and River’s sub-plot.  There, Book introduces River to the Bible, and she proceeds to tear it up.  River starts scribbling in the book, and tearing out pages.  She says she can “fix it” and that the Holy Book is “broken.”  Sherpherd Book tells her that you “don’t fix the Bible!” with a bit of righteous indignation.

But in this scenario, the Bible is, essentially, serving the same purpose as Jayne does.  It is a well-spring from which many people have drawn inspiration, faith, and the strength to continue facing the difficulties of life.  The Bible may not be “perfect” in some ways -- as Jayne isn’t perfect or even heroic -- but so many people draw strength from its words and lessons.  It has become more than a mere book, and an integral part of a whole culture’s “life.” Yes, there are some aspects of the Bible which might (arguably) be termed archaic today, as there are some elements of Jayne that aren’t so great. 

But Jayne and the Bible have managed -- each in their own, very different ways -- to bring hope to the hopeless, and faith to the faithless.  What “Jaynestown” seems to state most clearly is that sometimes the messenger may be flawed or imperfect, but the message can still be fruitful, and worth hearing.

Next week, one of Firefly’s greatest episodes: “Out of Gas”

Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly (2002): "Safe" (October 18, 2002)

In “Safe,” the fifth episode of Joss Whedon’s Firefly (2002), Serenity delivers its payload of livestock (picked up on Persephone in the previous story “Shindig) to dealers on the colony of Jiangyin.

The transaction is interrupted by the police, however, and Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) is accidentally shot in the resulting melee.

Mal (Nathan Fillion) is forced to leave the planet and seek Alliance help to save the Shepherd’s life, while Simon (Sean Maher) and River (Summer Glau) Tam are inadvertently left behind, and captured by the denizens of a backwater town in the hills.  

Those denizens desperately need a town doctor to tend to their sick, but the parochial hill people also suspect that River is a witch. and decide that she must be burned at the stake  along with her brother…

Your mileage may vary, of course, but “Safe” is -- for my money -- the least interesting and least notable Firefly episode in the canon thus far.  It repeats a central threat from the pilot episode -- that of a crew-member getting shot during a confrontation -- and even reruns the notion of a “business transaction” that turns violent, or otherwise goes astray.

Similarly, the flashback sequences in “Safe” involving young River and Simon (Zac Efron) don’t really cover any new ground, or provide information that audiences don’t already know, or can’t intuit.  In previous stories, Simon has already explained rather thoroughly how we grew worried for River while she was away at school, and how he endeavored to break her out of the Alliance’s grip.  Seeing some of that history played out here doesn’t really add anything new to the mix, save for the depiction of Mr. Tam, the siblings’ father

Likewise, the episode’s final point -- that Mal is loyal to his crew -- is pretty much a foregone conclusion from the beginning, and so doesn’t spark any strong feelings or emotions, or even register as very memorable.  “Safe” isn’t just the episode’s title, then, it’s a description of the episode itself, which plays like a placeholder between extremely dynamic installments, namely “Shindig” and “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” up next.

Getting to specifics, in “Serenity” it was Kaylee (Jewel Staite) who was shot, nearly died, and required medical attention, and here it’s Shepherd Book.  The point with both injuries is the same: life is dangerous on the periphery of the law (and on the frontier), and doubly so without easy access to state-of-the-art medical facilities.  But the point doesn’t have to be made twice in four episodes, for certain.

The most compelling aspect of “Safe,” is by far the continuing bread crumb trail regarding Shepherd Book’s past.  Here, it is discovered that his “Ident Card” establishes him as a man of some importance in the Alliance (a former Operative, perhaps?).  When the Alliance Goons read his card, they treat Book like a V.I.P. and really hop to it.  This is a notion that the series didn’t get to fully explore before cancellation came, but which is nonetheless compelling.  Who was Book before he became a Man of God?  What bad deeds did he commit that turned him towards a life of prayer and reflection?

Regarding Simon and River, I feel it is very hard to get both of their characters exactly “right,” and that this episode ever so slightly misses the mark. For instance, River possesses that special TV brand of insanity -- which Walter Bishop also suffers from on Fringe -- namely that she is sane, lucid and wise when the story requires her to be, and nutty, dangerous and confused when the story requires that aspect of her personality to come to the forefront.  I call it selective insanity, and it tends to magnify whenever there is some threat that could be easily avoided save from the wrong word or action by River.

As for Simon, we learn in this episode that he gave up his entire future as a physician to help his sister, and that’s admirable indeed.  However, Simon still comes across in the present day scenes as entitled, abrasive and selfish.  “Who cares about my future?” He asks, for instance, obsessing on his own problems.  We know he is struggling with his decision to save River and give up his career, but he isn’t especially sympathetic or likable in this installment.

I’m not saying that “Safe” is a bad episode, mind you, only that not much really happens in the story that seems fresh or new, and that, therefore, the episode isn’t one of my favorites.

In particular, I don’t think that the writer, Drew Greenberg, is particularly strong in making the shift from the hill people as backwards, doctor-needing-rubes to Fire-and-Brimstone Villagers and religious fanatics.  It seems a little too pat, and a little too manufactured a threat.  On the other hand, the scene with River breaking loose and dancing -- care-free -- with the locals, is quite beautiful, and poetically-rendered.

Next week, a humdinger of an episode gets us back to the spiky surprising Firefly that we all love: “Our Mrs Reynolds.”

Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "Shindig" (November 1, 2002)

There's a quirky little joke in the introductory scene of "Shindig," a highly-entertaining episode of Joss Whedon's late, lamented space opera, Firefly (2002).

We open in a seedy bar on some back-water planet, and the unsteady, hand-held camera prowls across the room to Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his muscle, Jayne (Adam Baldwin) as they play a friendly game of pool with some rough-looking customers.

Lo and behold, the pool balls suddenly blink out of existence during a power fluctuation before just as quickly re-materializing. The customers let out a collective whine of dissatisfaction until the camera draws our attention to a sign on the wall that reads:

"Management Not Responsible for Ball Failure."

Make no mistake: the words "Ball Failure" possess a double meaning in "Shindig," an episode penned by Jane Espenson and aired on Fox TV on November 1, 2002. For the episode really concerns the cocksure attitude of Captain Reynolds and his sense of, well, testicular fortitude as he risks his life in a "duel to the death" over the honor of Inara (Morena Baccarin), a companion and the apple of Mal's eye.

No Ball Failure here, thank you, ma'am. Brain failure, perhaps. But not Ball Failure.

"Shindig" occurs mostly on the planet Persephone, as Captain Reynolds attempts to drum-up work from a "psychotic low-life" business associate named Badger (Mark Shephard), a character we met in the pilot.

Meanwhile, Inara has arranged to meet with a high class (and totally insufferable...) client named Atherton Wing for a high-profile dance, the planet's "social event of the season."

By an odd set of circumstances, Mal ends up attending the dance too, with Kaylee. He's there in an effort to talk up a prospective customer (Larry Drake), a man who may be looking to move some property off-world.

Intensely jealous of the wealthy, handsome Wing, Mal ends up decking Inara's date before the night is over. As Kaylee says "Up until the punching, it was a real nice party..."

Of course, Mal's headstrong and violent action --  according to the customs and laws of Persephone -- spur a challenge.  Atherton Wing, an expert swordsman, will duel him. Mal, typically klutzy with a sword, is outmatched and outclassed. And at sunrise, he could be a dead man...

In the course of "Shindig," Mal tells Inara that he is uncomfortable in her "high-class" world, but she responds --cleverly -- that Mal always breaks the rules, no matter what society he happens to be interfacing with. This is a keen insight into the character, and reminds me of the joke Woody Allen made in Annie Hall (1977).  Mal, like Woody, wouldn’t be part of any club that would have him as a member.

In less comedic terms, Mal is a man who stomachs no authority but his own, and who is so impulsive when challenged (or even when he perceives a challenge...) that he becomes, well, self-destructive. That insight is also the very advice, perhaps, that allows for Mal's ultimate victory. With Atherton, Mal doesn't play by the rules, and he's most certainly not a gentleman.

Mal escapes by the skin of his teeth in "Shindig" but it's intriguing that the very quality that makes Mal a great man (his reliance on his instincts and thinking outside of society’s norms...) also repeatedly endangers him and vexes the woman who obviously loves him.

The Mal/Inara relationship dominates "Shindig," and rightly-so, since Espenson's story examines the stubbornness and class roles of both characters.

But the rest of Serenity's crew gets some good moments in the episode too. Kaylee holds court at the dance after some mean girls rudely insult her. And Wash and Zoe share an intimate bedroom scene aboard Serenity that on first blush is funny and intimate, but given the events of the Firefly movie now resonate in an entirely different (and tragic...) fashion.

Once more, I want to call attention to the camera-work in Firefly, and especially in "Shindig." For the most part, the camera-work here is hand-held and immediacy-provoking (the real antecedent of the re-imagined BattlestarGalactica in terms of visualization and style), but when the episode settles down in high-society on Persephone, the camera-work adjusts, abruptly and suddenly turning formal.

So we go from empathy-encouraging, almost casual close-shots (beforehand) to majestic long shots in short-order. There's a fair amount of spinning and tipping too, as if the camera itself has joined the dance. This shift in technique helps the audience visually comprehend the spirit and atmosphere of this high falutin' world.

Firefly always featured droll dialogue, and "Shindig" is certainly no exception, offering some whip-smart banter between Mal and Inara. The episode also shows off Mal at his rogue-ish best (or worst, depending on perspective...) and even finds time to serve as a variation on the oft-used "Arena" genre convention: the hero's duel to the death with a superior opponent. 

Not a Gorn this time, but a guy -- Atherton Wing -- who is clearly reptilian, anyway.

Next Week: “Safe”

Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "Bushwhacked" (September 27, 2002)

In “Bushwhacked,” the third episode of Firefly (2002), Serenity’s proximity alert warning sounds as the ship unexpectedly nears a derelict space-craft.  Mal (Nathan Fillion) and others board the ship for purposes of salvage, and discover the entire crew dead, save for one survivor (Brandon Morgan).  As Mal realizes, the crew has been murdered by the brutal Reavers.

As Serenity’s crew grows concerned about the survivor’s health and mental well-being, an Alliance Cruiser approaches with plans to arrest Serenity’s personnel and impound the Firefly class ship.  While the rest of the crew is in held in Alliance custody, River (Summer Glau) and Simon (Sean Maher) don space-suits and hide on Serenity’s hull so they won’t be discovered. 

Meanwhile, the derelict’s lone survivor succumbs to the very madness that embodies the Reavers and attacks the green-horn Alliance captain, Harken (Doug Savant), at least until Mal intervenes.

In “Bushwhacked,” the crew of Serenity -- our frontiersen, to adopt the series’ Old West metaphor --comes across the aftermath of a brutal Indian raiding party. 

Only in this case, of course, that space-age raiding party consists of the deadly Reavers, who are again defined by Firefly as incomprehensible “others,” blood-thirsty savages about whom very little is concretely known.  The episode also suggests that more Reavers are “born” by being exposed to the Reavers themselves.  It’s sort of like, literally, “going native.” 

This material doesn’t connect explicitly to Serenity (2005), the Firefly feature film which features a revelation about the Reavers, but it doesn’t exactly contradict what we learn there, either.  In fact, some of the confusion and apparently-conflicting details about the Reavers reflects real-life historical context, particularly white man’s misconceptions about the Native Americans.  There was gossip and rumors about these so-called “savages,” and, of course, many proved not to be true.  But nonetheless, for the East Coast, “civilized man” of the Old West there was a belief, like the one espoused in “Bushwhacked” that the savage ‘other’ was not quite human, not “a man” in the strictest sense or meaning of that word.

Like many other episodes of Firefly, “Bushwhacked” also positions Mal as the voice of knowledge and experience regarding the chaotic terrain of the frontier.  He provides both the crew and the audience most of the background  information regarding the Reavers, and even saves the day by recognizing that the survivor is changing to become a Reaver himself.  Also, Mal saves the military greenhorn, Harken, who though intelligent and educated, has almost no experience dealing with the challenges of the frontier.

The term “bushwhack” might be defined as “waiting in place in anticipation of an attack, usually in some kind of wilderness.”  Again, this definition leads us back to a consideration of Firefly’s post-Civil War/Old West milieu. Here, Serenity’s crew is metaphorically bushwhacked by the Reavers, who have left a “sleeper” behind following their raiding party’s departure.  Harken might also say to be bushwhacked, since he is literally the victim of a surprise frontal assault from the newly-minted Reaver.

By-and-large, “Bushwhacked” thrives as a pointed contrast between two space captains; between Mal and Harken. One boasts all the benefits of wealth, education, class, and military hierarchy while the other is an outlaw, but a man, as noted above, with incomparable experience.  In “Bushwhacked,” then, it turns out that Mal’s skill-set is the more valuable one, a fact which can also be extrapolated about the frontier in general. There is a real advantage to having been around the block a few times, and that’s one of the core conceits of the Whedon series. Mal transforms his experience in space into survival for the crew again and again, while having almost no other tangible resources upon which to call.

“Bushwhacked” also explores how this futuristic society treats its dead. Shepherd Book demands that the dead crew people be given a Christian burial, and this demand too is part of the frontier milieu.  There’s a scene, for instance, in Michael Mann’s Last of the Mohicans (1992) in which a scouting party comes across dead colonist families and must decide whether to give them a proper funeral, or leave the bodies untouched, as they are, lest they make the attackers aware of their presence.  Book’s subplot here reflects that idea; of trying to bring civilization -- and decency -- to a dangerous frontier.

“Bushwhacked” also features the old sci-fi trope of a crew discovering a “Mary Celeste” in space,  a vessel in which the crew has disappeared, seemingly in a tearing hurry.  The Mary Celeste trope has also been featured (and name-checked) in episodes of series like Space:1999 (“The Guardian of Piri”) and Doctor Who (“The Chase”). Here, the idea of a mysteriously abandoned ship is minimized quickly, however, since the dead crew is promptly discovered

In terms of character arcs, there’s a lot of terrific material in “Bushwhacked.” In the episode’s inaugural scene, for instance, we see the crew relaxing together, playing a game of something that, at least broadly, resembles basketball.  There’s also a terrific interlude later which expresses Simon’s fear of donning a spacesuit and going into an environment without atmosphere.  This sequence possesses a great punch-line, courtesy of Jayne, but also develops and augments the episode’s sense of dread and danger.  On the soundtrack, we hear Simon’s labored breathing as he grows more and more nervous on his walk into the derelict ship. In moments like this, Firefly really excels in making the audience feel that we are there, with the characters, negotiating this crisis, and this dark frontier.

Next week: “Shindig.”