Foxibex and Stag

Recap: Badger approaches Mal and offers him a job, if he can entice the client. To do so, he needs to go undercover at a high society ball on the planet Persephone. Also at the ball: Inara, accompanied by a rich client who wants her to stay with him. Mal jealously takes issue, and the client exposes his misogyny as he challenges Mal to a sword duel. Inara distracts the master duelist, allowing Mal to sneak-attack him and win. Mal wins the girl and the client's cargo: cows. Almost unquestionably the worst episode of the series yet. Mal's creepy, jealous-possessive relationship with Inara is by far the worst part of the show so far, and it's kind of disgusting the way Inara responds to it positively. Whedon clearly wants us to ship the pair, though - the client turning out to be a Major Asshole conveniently forces us, essentially, into rooting for Mal during the duel. But it's not like the show is entirely unaware of the fact that Mal is really the villain in this sto...

Recap: Serenity hits a dead body in space, and the crew boards a seemingly deserted space vessel. It turns out that the ship was hit by reavers, and they left one survivor, who Mal takes in. An Alliance ship catches Serenity and its captain boards the Firefly, but before they discover Simon and River, they're beset by the survivor - who has gone insane. Mal saves the captain of the Alliance ship and is let go, though stripped of his non-human contraband. Two distinct halves to this episode. The first half is great - a horror movie for the small screen, menace in every shot as the crew of Serenity explores the dead ship, trying to figure out what happened. The dread is palpable the whole time. Excellent atmosphere here. The second half of the episode is less scary and a little more procedural - a story about the scruffy outlaw saving the life of, and thus winning over, an authority figure in over his head. The Alliance officer voices his suspicions about Mal and proceeds to menti...

Recap: Mal accepts a gig from a creepy Eastern European dude named Niska: a train heist. As standard operating procedure, he doesn't ask questions. Mal, Zoe, and Jayne pull off a crazy heist, but only Jayne escapes, and Mal discovers that the cargo they stole was medicine needed for the inhabitants of the mining planet. Going against his deal, Mal returns the stolen goods and sends Niska's money back, not taking no for an answer. Here's a relatively straightforward, procedural episode after the overwhelming double-length opener. There's not a ton to dissect from its main action. The most important work going on here is the characterization. Mal can appear amoral and he certainly is fond of violence - he instigates a barfight, licks his chops at taking on a whole squadron of feds, and dives right into combat with Niska's henchmen - but when it comes down to it, his principles render him more fettered than he lets on. While awaiting investigation, Zoe reassures Ma...

Without commercials, the first episode of Firefly runs an hour and a half. It also makes a daring decision to start things off with a battle that's muddled in uninteresting dialogue and visual muddiness. Trying to make out the action, in conjunction with the dread of a lengthy episode, had me dropping the series for nearly a decade. Over the last year and a half, I watched through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series, by the same creator. The quality of them were so thorough that I felt I owed it to myself to find out why people were so upset about Firefly. Prepare for lots of references to Buffy, because I can only interpret things by comparison and that's my most recent measuring stick! Recap: Mal Reynolds is on the losing side of a war, but he sees his squad through the battle. Six years later, he runs an old junker ship named Serenity , doing odd jobs for sustenance and avoiding the Federation that won the war. His crew consists of his right-hand woman soldier...