I don't think they really ever fully fleshed out *cringe* the mythology surrounding companions, or at least I was never satisfied by it. I think it is possible that it sounded [cool, modern, liberal, sex positive -- insert your positive modifier of choice here_________] to have sex workers hold an esteemed, ambassadorial sort of position. But in practice, she was just a highly paid prostitute with requisite heart of gold, and she filled the Saloon Girl/Belle Watling role. Perhaps Mal's POV on it is too like society's for it to play any other way? Perhaps it didn't work because Mal is often the character wrestling (rasslin'?) with matters of conscience.

Is buzzing the cattle in an episode? I'd always imagined it as a getaway tactic.

My biggest problem with Inara is she's essentially the same as a character in the original Battlestar Galactica series, the (I think) Sociolator, though that character didn't have the Geisha-sort of social respect for the position. "Fortunately" she was redeemed by love for Starbuck (male in the first series, for those who only have experience of the new series) and she started dressing more conservatively and worked with the medical staff.

Yes, I know there were cattle in space. What I don't get is why people always get upset and "I don't like it!" and sneer at *horses* on a futuristic show because they can't wrap their minds around a "space western," but the whole cows in space thing just goes right by them. You never hear anybody sneering at cows in space.

Nilly, I love the whole anachronistic new plus old, rather than new vs. old juxtaposition in that shot, too. That's why I dearly loved The Train Job, and fell in love with Firefly because I saw that ep. first, even though there were some things that I kept tuning in to find out about.

I loved that whole western saloon--with belly dancers! And revolvers--with retrofitting! And window--but a holograph! And strong tough woman fighting toe to toe with bad guys, and not only landing effective punches, but taking them and not wailing because of a broken nail. And the language, "We've got some local color happening. A grand entrance would not go amiss." That mix of country-formal and Chinese and evolved vernacular, "Gimme the sticky."(as an example only--I know it's from another episode) And the backs to the precipice oh no! and then The Ship! Swoop, save, ha! Fell. in. love, right there and then.

Of course I grew up on tv westerns, and am far more familiar with and can imagine myself in, or relate to that milieu than many younger and more urbane tv watchers. I can't fault those without a solid tv western grounding for reference. But still. While I comprehend the lack of instant love, intellectually accept that it exists, I don't grok it. Because--this is what frontier living is like, on practically any frontier. "Make do, do without, use it up or do without." Repurpose, retrofit, scrabble. Such a foreign concept for most of the first world tv audience. So I suppose it's not surprising Firefly didn't catch on, and I know lots of people were actively repelled by the language, by the pieced-together look and feel of it, by the anachronisms.

And I still regret not buying that Pigs in Spaaaaace! lunchbox, lo these many years ago.

No, there were some cattle in space. . . remember?

But they weren't cows when they were in space.

Cows not in space. Cows in hold of ship in space. It's not like they were grazing on vacuum grass.

I always think "people who stampede the stock need shot."

From the shot there's no way to tell if they were stampeding the horses or just swooping down over a bunch of stampeding horses.

I guess I just assumed it was the latter, what with the swooping instead of straight line travel.

As Robert Heinlein pointed out, tractors don't reproduce. On a low-tech planet, you're better off with a draft animal that not only reproduces, but is fueled by an easily acquired and replaceable resource.

It's not like they were grazing on vacuum grass.

Cows - vacuum sealed for freshness.

Seal-a-meal them Hoover heifers.