I've read your post twice now, Epic, and I still can't find the like button...

Oh! How did I forget to watch last night on Firefly Friday? Well, now I know what I'm doing this evening.

Brilliant, Epic!

I don't think I could possibly love this episode any more. One of the best hours of teevee ever made. It still blows my mind that Joss and Tim wrote this over a weekend, I hear people saying this is one of the weaker episodes, but I don't see it. I use this one as a hook for newbies. It starts with a bar fight! It ends with the guy getting shoved into the engine! There's a caper! What's not to love?

Plus, so many of my favourite lines are in this episode. "Hey, I didn't fight in no war. Best of luck, though." "tragic space dementia" "terrifying space monkeys" "What did I say about barging into my shuttle?" "That is was manly and impulsive?" "Sir, I think you have a problem with your brain being missing." "It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understands who's in ruttin' command here!" "You can't change that by gettin' all...bendy." "His story had kind of an odor to it." "Yes. It's not the only thing about him that does."

Yessssssss. Yesss.

Daniel and I may have to watch two episodes tomorrow, because we have not yet found time to watch The Train Job.

I knew it was my kinda crazy when Mal got thrown through the bar window and the window was a hologram. Space Western! Then Serenity rose up behind the guys from the edge of the cliff to save the day, and I was in love.

And then, "Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it" and somehow that was the line that hooked me.

"Every man here go back inside the bar, or I will blow a hole in this little moon."

Zoe got me. Toe to toe with the men, unflinching and effective. Also, the grill from a charcoal grill as a window grill, cut-down water bottles as glasses. I saw the makeshift, salvage, and make-do that would happen on a frontier planet, and those details, though never remarked on, made the setting real for me.

I loved a lot of the details on the show, though the re-painted Starship Troopers armor for the Purple Bellies always took me out of the moment.

Zoe got me. Toe to toe with the men, unflinching and effective. Also, the grill from a charcoal grill as a window grill, cut-down water bottles as glasses. I saw the makeshift, salvage, and make-do that would happen on a frontier planet, and those details, though never remarked on, made the setting real for me.

That. Both of that. Zoe was wonderful.

I never saw Starship Troopers. Probably wouldn't have noticed the repurposed armour, myself, anyway.

I finally got around to watching Train Job. It feels like such a perfect encapsulation of the series, but none of the halting notes of a pilot, just dropping the viewer into the Verse. Simply smashing.

Totally agree about dropping the viewer into the verse. They talk in the commentary about trying to get in as much exposition as possible, but I do prefer the in medias res approach.