Jossolalia  

Discussion, critique and fannish obsession over the works of Joss Whedon and his band of merry geniuses


 
Ariel

Whoa, this episode started off like any other, and then it quickly turned into a scene from THE A-TEAM. I mean that in a cool way. I was humming that A-Team theme to myself (you know the one, where Mr. T is welding a tank and Dwight Schultz and Dirk Benedict are mounting sub-machine guns on a golf cart) as everyone was building the Medical Shuttle. Then, we switched to MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, whose theme I also had running through my head during the break-in. It was nice to see Mal, Jayne and Zoe rehearsing their lines. It was beautiful. To that point, I found the show to be a nice, light jaunt in search of the "ultimate" score.

Now I can't say that I was terribly surprised to find that Jayne sold out Simon and River. As a matter of fact, I was ahead of the game on that one. And it pissed me off. I'm all for an every man for himself feeling on the show, but this sort of living environment forces one to have to consider WHY these people stick together. Usually, something terrible is redeemed by a greater good. I think it was a bit horrible to see that Simon was ultimately oblivious to Jayne's action.

HOWEVER, the second half of the episode was redeemed for me in two major events. FIRST: The long-awaited face-to-face with the people chasing Simon and River. My first reaction to them was..GROSS. My second reaction is that they remind my of what the demons in HUSH may have looked like BEFORE they were demons. My third reaction was--well, COOL. I actually had a sense of danger while watching the show, something which I find lacking in dramatic and genre television of late. There seems to be a comfort level that you get with the main characters in that they are never REALLY in trouble. Last night, and I partially atribute this to the writing style of FIREFLY as a whole, I actually felt like something bad might happen to the siblings.

Now, I have to say that the sense of danger may also be attributable to the perpetual back-stabbing which I hate so much. Someone once remarked that the great thing about shows such as FIREFLY is that the buck the so-called comfort zone established by other, more saccarin genre shows. I agree. But you have to wonder how much you can sacrifice the comfort zone before you sacrifice how much your audience cares for the characters (I hope that makes as much sense typed as it did in my head.)

The other pivotal event for me in the episode was the last scene. To see Mal confront Jayne in such a full out way, could prove to be a turning point (although I tend to doubt it) for this program and how these characters interact. It would be nice to see Jayne for an episode or two eat a little crow and maybe even act like the wounded animal. I just don't see it happening. I found that their confrontation was a long time coming, and I was glad to see it.

I think that overall, with the exception of Inara, Book and Kaylee (unfortunately) this was a pretty good episode for everyone else (the above being a lazy way of not listing 6 individual names.)

In my book, two thumbs up for being what could be a pivotal episode for the rest of the season (however long that may be.)

  posted by J @ 12:42

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19.11.02  
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