Firefly

[Foggle]

I love Serenity. Like Avaitor, it's somewhere in my top 5 sci-fi films. I also saw the movie before watching the series, and I liked it then... but now that I've seen everything in chronological order, I enjoy it even more.

I do have a couple of problems with how it rushes the development of the characters.

This is somewhat true, but you have to remember that it's just a single movie and that it really needed to be accessible for newcomers to the series (like E-K and I). I think they pulled it off flawlessly in that regard. IIRC, if you watch the special features on the DVD (don't remember which thing, specifically), Whedon comments that Serenity was intended to be the first part of a trilogy meant to properly send off the series. Sadly, it didn't make enough money to fund a sequel.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Is it wrong of me that I hope the Avengers clout Whedon gained will help him realize that trilogy?

[Foggle]

Is it wrong of me that I hope the Avengers clout Whedon gained will help him realize that trilogy?

God no. That's exactly what I'm hoping for too.

Or a season 2...

[Avaitor]

Not at all, but I don't think it'll happen now. Whedon already has to do Dr. Horrible 2 before Avengers 2, if he even signs back on. There could be room, but it's been 7 years since Serenity, which is a heck of a longer gap in time than 3, so they'd have to set some things up separately to explain the wait and aging.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I can see how Jayne pretty much fucked the crew over and almost blew the whole operation at the medical facility. I feel like every great team has its un-loyal member that can turn traitor, but I guess what I didn't like about it in this case was Jayne's stupidity in trusting someone else so blindly to come through on their end of the bargain and give him the reward money, especially given his lowly status and how easy it would be (and pretty much was) to charge and arrest him as well.

While Jayne went down a peg as a likable character in my book, though, I have to say that Simon really impressed me in this episode in how fast he could think and how surprisingly good he is at coming up with the sort of plan that he did. I guess he does have a criminal mind after all. I also liked the scene where he risked getting caught to help that patient that was dying, which shows just how skilled he is at his profession and reminds you of just how much he gave up since you can tell that he really was one of the top doctors at the top facilities before he became a fugitive to protect his sister. He's gotten some good characterization before, but I like how this episode really showed him off in action.

[Avaitor]

You know, I love how the first episode set up Jayne's character arc and introduced him to us. He had an easy chance to screw Simon and Summer over right then, and the episode turned out to have a big will he/won't he subplot, but decided to end things by having him not betray them, yet leaving out a possibility that he might. Makes this episode all the more exciting.

And even if you don't like Jayne as much, you gotta admit that the ending scene makes Mal all the more likable. This is why you don't fuck with him, and Jayne just happened to get lucky.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just have one episode left of the series and then I can go onto re-watching the movie.

[Foggle]

Wow, you've been tearing through it! I assume you've become a fan?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, and I have to say that 2 of my 3 favorite episodes so far both involve Saffron (or whatever he real name is). She's a great recurring character, and it would have been nice to see her get more appearances if the series got more than just 1 season.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

And, I'm done with the TV series. Now all of a sudden I feel pissed that this show didn't get the second season (and potentially more beyond that) that it deserved. Thankfully we got Serenity which was an awesome film from what I remember, and I'm sure that I'll love it even more when I re-watch it after just having gone a marathon through the entire TV series, but still, there's just so many other things that this series could have covered that had the potential for so much awesome story-telling and character development that we'll never get delivered on now....Of course I can't be too much of a hypocrite since I was one of the people not watching this show back when it was airing, but I hadn't even heard of it back when it was on, so I blame Fox for poorly marketing it.

[Avaitor]

There's so much more that they never got to delve into in the show, but what we got is incredible. TONS of development around and a great mix between comedy, drama and action. Even if they couldn't get a second season, I would've at least liked a full first season order.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Unfortunately this series is far too short for me to even bother listing my favorite episodes, but I have to say that if I had to pick a favorite episode out of the bunch, it'd definitely be Ariel. It was a great episode for Simon and River, for one thing, and really had a lot of foreshadowing to events that PROBABLY would've unfolded in future seasons had the show not been canceled so early. Furthermore, I just love really good heist stories, and this one was expertly paced and really managed to build up tension during key moments.

Out of Gas is another great episode, and most fans consider it to be their favorite, but mine will always be Ariel, personally.

[Avaitor]

How about ranking the episodes from favorite to least favorite?

Out of Gas
Objects in Space
Shindig
Ariel
Safe
War Stories
Jaynestown
The Train Job
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Serenity
Trash
Bushwhacked
Heart of Gold

This was actually kind of hard, since they're all good episodes, and I haven't seen some of them in a while. "Heart of Gold" is probably the weakest episode the series has done, but it's still got to be a 6 or 7 out of 10, if memory serves.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The series has no bad episodes, IMO, but if I had to rank them, it would look something like this:

Ariel
Out of Gas
Objects in Space
Safe
Jaynestown
War Stories
Our Mrs. Reynolds
The Train Job
Shindig
Trash
Serenity
Bushwhacked
Heart of Gold

[Avaitor]

I ranked "Shindig" a little higher than most since Kaylee's one of my favorites, and I really enjoyed Mal's sword fight at the end. The episodes I ranked ahead of it are mostly better, but yeah, it's hardly like any of these are major duds.