"Heart of Gold" next week.

I like that one

sounds good

So Laga, was it the barker?

Sorry I missed tonight, but it was great to read about it after the fact. The internet was, indeed, expensive and I had to board about half way through the wnp. The flight was good and fun (with lots of librarians, yeah!) but the hotel at some point cancelled my reservation (boo). I have a room tonight (yeah!), but don't know yet about tomorrow or the rest of the conference (boo). Wish me luck!

Oh, and it turns out that a good friend was able to come to the conference when it didn't look like she would be able to, so (yeah!) for the win!

And in on-topicness, I made a Jayne hat for AnotherAlaskan, who apparently forgot tonight, and who actually wore it for one or two winters before he lost it. I love that hat.

was it the barker?

It was Simon saying, "yup, it's a cow fetus" and me realizing that finally I was getting to watch a show set in the future with no aliens.

If people were curious, the first draft of my adventure, The Seven Arks of Cibola! has gone off to Margaret Weis to be edited AKA shredded

I can't wait!

Congrats CaBil! May the shredding be minor.

Okay, so I didn't participate in the w&p, but I do have some thoughts on "The Message".

Warning: Here be heresy.

I hate this episode.

I think it's the most poorly written of all the episodes. Nothing is really thought through and the McGuffin doesn't even make sense.

I mean...Tracey's smuggling superduperorgans, right? Where are his originals? Is he gonna pick them up later? How are they getting transported? Why couldn't they transport the superduperorgans the same way and leave dumb ol' Tracey out of it?

But my main beef is the idiotic ways the characters act near the end. Book comes up with a plan that amounts to little more than "call their bluff". Tracey overhears just enough of the contrived dialog to freak out and take Kaylee hostage. It's painfully obvious he has no idea what's really going on and is horribly mistaken. And nobody, nobody takes fifteen seconds to say "Tracey, you dumb fuck, LISTEN! We are NOT selling you up the river. Trust us, we'll get you out of this. Go hide somewheres while we clean up your mess." No, instead they make vague threatening "Don't do it, son, or I'ma mess you up" noises until Zoe (my prime candidate for the person to say "Tracey, you dumb fuck..." etc.) shoots him.

It's clumsy and torturedly contrived. And Tracey bugs the fuck out of me. I think this was a bad episode all around.

Thus ends the heresy.

Otherwise, of course, the show as a whole is fucking brilliant!

It this be heresy, light me up.

I completely agree, especially about the soap-opera...duh, duh DUH duh...we won't take a nano second to tell you the truth because keeping simple secrets has always worked so well in the past.

And this:

I mean...Tracey's smuggling superduperorgans, right? Where are his originals? Is he gonna pick them up later? How are they getting transported? Why couldn't they transport the superduperorgans the same way and leave dumb ol' Tracey out of it?

Tracey says that the only way the organs can be transported is in a body...but they are going to put HIS organs back when he gets to the drop point.

Um. How are they transporting his regular ol' organs and how come they survive better than the super variety? Makes them not so super, eh?

And if Tracey trusted the crew so much as to fake death and consign his 'remains' for safe passage, how can that trust evaporate so instantly? Lordy, they coulda just refused delivery, or tossed him out with the rest of the trash. But NOOOO.

"Know why I chose you and Zoe? Because you are saps." Yeah, but saps who would get the job done and BY THE WAY, saved your ass before...so...have a happy afterlife you git.

Yep. My least favorite episode and, while I would give a whole lot to have Firefly back on either my teevee or the big screen, the fact that the cancellation notice came during the filming of this episode...well...I don't know what that means.

It means the ratings were bloody awful - I don't think it's a reflection on the episode as the network would keep cow shit on the air 24/7 if it got bums on seats.

I do think this is a weak episode, and yeah - soap opera madness going on here.