One for the road: QT's Shamelessly Gushing Review of Serenity (SPOILERS!)

POSTED BY: QueenTiye
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 14:55
VIEWED: 3855
PAGE 1 of 1

REPOSTING FROM REVIEWS (BECAUSE THE SOFTWARE IS ACTING FUNKY...)

Part 1
I knew I was going to write a shamelessly gushing review for this episode. How could I not? I've already decided to gush shamelessly over the star of the show - could he be less than gushable in the episode that was intended to introduce him? And so, it came as a surprise to me, at least, that in the first couple of minutes, I nearly missed gushing over him. Anyway, I've got to do this - so

Look

Out

For

Spoilers

Below!!!

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Sargent Reynolds was something of a good old boy, joking, wisecracking, and generally not someone I'd care to know. Yes, I'm that much of a stick in the mud sometimes, but he would have irked the daylights out of me. That was my very first impression of him. And yet, in his moments away from people, the real Mal Reynolds showed up, and so, within the first five minutes of the show, I was in love, all over again. It was this juxtaposition of this happy-go-lucky jokester, against this highly responsible, principled man that kept me off balance... you know... the way women like to be kept off balance by men who they are gonna fall in love with?

Before I go much further with my shameless gushing, I have to say this - this was truly the most enjoyable 2 hours of television I've seen in a while. Nothing was "predict-a-plot" - the pacing was smooth, and in the two hours of time that we had, we got to know 9 characters just enough to want to know them more! So kudos to Joss Whedon. This was an amazing outing. And because it was so amazing, I have to briefly run through all that was amazing about this ep:

1. Zoe & Wash. I was the first to say "I don't get it, and I don't like them together." I get it now. AND, I like them together. And I don't hate Wash. (he still rates pretty low on my liking scale, but at least he's on it...)

2. Wow. I can totally get Kaylee's crush on Simon. What's that chinese word she used to describe him? Suei? Whatever it was - yes. Simon is YUMMY all dressed up in his shiny clothes!

3. And how about Kaylee talking to her ship? Loving it? I'll say it again - we didn't need Kaylee humping the engineer to get it that she loves ships...

4. Jayne - man, I love Jayne. I haven't said that before, but if Mal weren't my whole heart, Jayne would be. Damn. Did anyone's heart leap to their throats watching Jayne spying on Kaylee's progress? Truth be told, a tear came to my eye. Just that one little scene made Jayne human in a way that nothing else could. And makes you forgive his crassness in every other scene - indeed, made me kinda love him a little bit for it! And, um... as much as I hate bullies, I thought it was kinda sexy when Jayne deliberately bumped into Simon on the way out...

5. BOOK! K. I hated his last scene with Inara - that just felt WRONG - we had no plot development prior that suggested that Book would be having such an emotional crisis. And given that we've seen no hint of it since, (or rather, PRIOR...GRRRRRRRR!), it just seemed stupid. BUT, his every other scene was amazing. WOW, WOW, and WOW to Ron Glass! I was simply blown away by this preacher, coming to bring the word to "them that need it." I was impressed with how authentic in his faith he is. Whatever it turned out that Shepherd Book was, I believe that he was a man of God.

6. Zoe - k. I wanna BE Zoe...nuff said. What an amazing woman! Strong and feminine at the same time...with NOTHING compromised, EVER... where did they FIND her?!?

7. River - we get a first glimpse of her... she's weird, but she's here to stay.

8. Inara - of all the characters, I was most disappointed in her, without ever disliking her. It is apparent to me that Inara's profession is just what it looks like - legalized prostitution, with a grand amount of training to support the fantasy that she provides. Mal's little joke of calling her an "ambassador" highlights this. I'm disappointed, as I had hoped to see something a bit more for her,

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Part 2

O.k. enough of that! Back to MAL!

I wrote to a friend after watching the ep - "Mal can be a real jerk...and I would have been totally in love with him!" His stunt with Inara and Book was unkind to both of them, and actually unforgiveable. It was crass, and mean spirited, and I couldn't like him for it. For his own amusement, he set Inara and Book against each other. That they, neither of them fell for it is good on them. But Mal's amusement at the situation was purile at best - a kind of frat boy sniggering humor. At worst, it was hypocritical - as the person most uncomfortable in the presence of either Book or Inara is MAL. And yet, it wasn't long before I was forgiving him What you learn about Mal's core crew after watching them for like - 30 seconds - is that they are true. By that I mean - they are who they are, authentically, solidly. Mal can count on them being just who they seem to be. Who is inauthentic here is Simon, and Inara (not surprising, given their connections with the civilized, evil Alliance world). So, while I could have kicked Mal for his little stunt with Simon - I kinda "got it"... Simon became crew in that moment - having passed his intiation.

Um... did anyone else's heart flutter when Mal almost lost it over Inara? I could have paid LOTS of money to have been Inara in that moment. ~SIGH!!!~ Nice recovery, btw, Capt. Tightpants...

Speaking of which - was there any real purpose for us observing Mal zipping up after a visit to the little boys room? It wasn't sexy. It was rather crass. We all make those little runs, and we all know what it looks like. Don't we? Aren't we all adults here? Ick.

"What it is is what it is." Wow. No one doubts who the captain of the ship is...his leadership shines through in moments like this...I guess it's Mal's way or the highway, right? Any complaints, Inara? LOL! Well, anyway, he's pretty straight, so you can feel pretty comfortable with him setting the rules...did I mention before that this man has my heart near entirely? Don't suppose there's any real life Mals floating around, do ya? 'Cuz, I'd like to meet one if he's out there...LOL!

O.k. I'm amusing myself here, but there's one more scene for me to gush over - and no, it's not when Mal says "Everybody's making a fuss!" Although, I laughed my head off at that whole Patience discourse! Very funny stuff, and Nathan Fillion played it so perfectly straight, it was funny 3 times in a row! Anyway, the scene that tickled me pink, and at the same time made me once again swoon completely over Mal was when, after carefully considering for a good half an episode what to do with this guy, Mal comes on the boat, and shoots the mole dead without breaking stride...Um... this is the stuff westerns and tough guys are made of, and Mal wears it well. So very like Mal - when caution was no longer a commodity they could afford, he simply dispenses with the problem and moves on...remind me to stay on his good side, will ya?

And that's it folks. On this note, we say goodbye to the Firefly Shamelessly Gushing review. Fox has killed the show, and UPN won't pick it up... we fans are grasping at straws hoping against hope that some miracle will happen, but truthfully, I know in my heart that t.v. this good is not long for this world...I'm hoping that there is some new paradigm of television that grows up out of the growing discontent of fans like us who love shows like these, and keep getting our hearts broken time after time. But until that time, I'm signing off, thanking all of you for reading my review, and thanking the cast, crew, and writers of Firefly for making it one of the most wonderful, if shortlived series ever.

Yours,
QT

QueenTiye, Companion Academy, class of 2006

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Quote:

---

Sargent Reynolds was something of a good old boy, joking, wisecracking, and generally not someone I'd care to know. Yes, I'm that much of a stick in the mud sometimes, but he would have irked the daylights out of me. That was my very first impression of him. And yet, in his moments away from people, the real Mal Reynolds showed up

---

I don't have any idea what you're talking about. It looked like the same old guy all along to me, showing the kind of reaction under extreme pressure that I expected from how he's reacted to pressure in episodes I saw before.

To me the oddest thing about the opening scene was the similarity to Kyle Reece's flashbacks in "The Terminator". It especially jumped out and screamed at me when he was shooting the big turret gun at the enemy craft that got close, with the flashing light of the guns, the slow hovering machine with its whining sound and a handful of searchlights, and the sound track's nearly identical pulsating electrono-bass that was popularized in the early 80s.

Quote:

---

1. Zoe & Wash. I was the first to say "I don't get it, and I don't like them together." I get it now. AND, I like them together. And I don't hate Wash. (he still rates pretty low on my liking scale, but at least he's on it...)

---

I don't see how this episode fixed them for someone who didn't think they worked in the first place! What's different? Is it just that this is the first episode you've seen in which Wash's problem with Zoe & Mal showed up like it should have all along? (And that dinosaur thing with Wash was just ridiculous; they seemed to be trying to tell us that he's got a disorder that kept his brain at the second-grade level.) I even saw those two as a bit worse than before; for example, the sracastic exaggerated smile and thumb-up sign he gave her when she called Mal "sir" just after he'd said "Call him 'sir', he likes that." That way of handling a real issue with their relationship and trying to make sure it was a scene Mal would take notice of is the most childish thing he's done, and just makes he tolerating him more mysterious.

Quote:

---

4. Jayne - man, I love Jayne. I haven't said that before, but if Mal weren't my whole heart, Jayne would be. Damn. Did anyone's heart leap to their throats watching Jayne spying on Kaylee's progress?

---

I do love that character and what he did for the show (although nowhere near what you mean by that verb of course). But I disliked that scene, which felt like character assassination. Everything else we've seen about Jayne makes him look much less caring than that, or at least leaves room for doubt. Even his un-betrayal of the Tams in the hospital never showed us anything about his REASON for it. If this episode had been the first I'd seen of Jayne, that would have cast EVERY subsequent scene of his in another light, because then his detachment would have been established as an act all along. I can't say if it would have felt inconsistent as originally conceived, since then my whole concept of Jayne would have been different all along, but it sure felt inconsistent in the screwed-up order we were shown. I guess part of my problem with it is that the main thing I had always liked about Jayne was that he didn't try to hide how uncivilized he was, and now it turns out that apparently his uncivilization is itself mostly hiding someting else. But, I have to figure it was intended as part of his original character establishment and development, along with how his feelings seemed hurt when Mal told him to leave the table for making dirty jokes about Kaylee. Now I feel like I should review tapes of all the episodes I saw before this one, with this completely different Jayne in mind, but I don't have them.

Quote:

---

5. BOOK! K. I hated his last scene with Inara - that just felt WRONG - we had no plot development prior that suggested that Book would be having such an emotional crisis.

---

Ditto. It's like he's someone else entirely for that scene.

Quote:

---

8. Inara - of all the characters, I was most disappointed in her, without ever

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME