Want to make a villain scary? Show the toughest character getting a little freaked out. It's like these rules are in Whedon's DNA.

And that's how he did it with the first introduction of Reavers, using Jayne.

Just so many great moments in the flick.

"No, no, no! It's okay! I'm a leaf on the wind!"

"What does that mean?"

or

"I don't wanna explode."

"Bet you wish we'd brought those grenades now."

Hee hee hee.

Is it tonight that Sean Maher is on The Ghost Whisperer?

Apparently Nathan Fillion is a big old Trekkie.

[link]

I didn't particularly notice that. However shall I correct this moment of inattention?

Hey brenda, wanna see a movie tonight?

Wanna go next weekend? I'm out of town to a wedding tonight.

Hrmp. I'm out of town next weekend. Ah, well.

Book might've been a cop, and they may make him one now, but the way the series arced, seems to me it would've felt like less than a full climax for him to have been just a Fed, even one on the take. I don't think Operative (far too pat for me), but I do think "spy." "Double-agent," just maybe. On the other hand, if they want to use the Operative framework now that they've set it up, it could work, I suppose. I would require him to be a lot less of a true believer than the Operative we've seen; have him leave his job because of finding faith rather than losing it.

I would require him to be a lot less of a true believer than the Operative we've seen; have him leave his job because of finding faith rather than losing it.

Well, I was thinking about it and the Operative and Book are sort of similar...they both want a "world without sin". Book found the slow way, the soft (and I don't mean that as a bad thing) way...to spread the Word*. Whereas the Operative was all "I will cleanse the world(s) with mine mighty sword and my firm belief in my belief." After The Secret, perhaps the Operative would find a path similar to Book's and join a monastery (that would be way too pat for me) or, I dunno...become an activist or something. Or adopt the Malcolm Reynolds Viewpoint of "There ain't no such thing, suck it up and live as best you can."

*This statement is neither an endorsement nor disparagement of any Word with a capital "wuh" that you may think of. Not even naughty Words.

I just remembered two other subtle movie allusions in Serenity, one to The Searchers and one to The Big Sleep.

When the operative says he's a monster, and that his job is to make this better world that he believes in, but that he will have no place in it, he's basically articulating the last scene of The Searchers. In that scene, John Wayne's Ethan character walks away from the doorway after returning the girl to her family. He's too much like the Indians, too much like the West itself to be a part of the civilization he's making. What the Operative says, is exactly what film students write in their papers about The Searchers.

And that brief scene at the end where Mal is checking with Zoe and asking about the ship but really asking her how she's doing, and they both know what's being said but stick to the ship report? That's the same gambit used in The Big Sleep where Bogie and Bacall talk about sex by talking about horse racing.