I am with Mr. Broom on this. I hate it when things that don't make sense are forced to make sense. I have two stories. One is Firefly and one is Serenity. I feel no real need to make these two stories fit seamlessly.

Right. Believe me, you start doing that and you will never be able to watch more than one season of any Star Trek ever again. All you'll ever do is yell at the screen.

The problem is, the Simon we see in Serenity is completely at odds with the Simon we see in Firefly. Him being cool and confident and BSing his way into a highly-secure Alliance facility in ordrer to rescue River himself completely invalidates those moments from Firefly, with or without an explanation.

The more I think about it, the more the retcon bothers me.

Kalshane, I didn't find him completely at odds at all. It is simply a different possible version of River's escape. I don't think it invalidates anything. And I am not sure what moments in Firefly you are thinking that a calm cool facade on Simon invalidates. Doesn't he start with a calm cool facade?

Doesn't he start with a calm cool facade?

Downright sinister, in fact. But they didn't/couldn't keep it up for long.

A man who can pretend to be a high-ranking official in the Alliance military in order to bluff his way into a highly secure facility and rescue his sister vs. "I, err, want, to, uh, buy some mud." from Jaynestown.

A man who claims to have no idea what the Alliance did to his sister, denies she has any sort of psychic ability whatsoever and consistantly ignores her "babbling" even though doing so puts them both in danger, versus a man who was told directly by the doctor working on River what they had done to her and what her abilities were and knows a safety word to stop her if she becomes out of control.

These things do not mesh.

Well, maybe he has to be thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of his criminal act before doing it.

Or perhaps he just needs more prep time.

For the Jaynestown stuff, I can totally buy that Simon would need more prep time. I can totally picture him in front of a mirror practicing his River rescue stuff over and over and over and over.

For your second point, Kalshane, I got nothin'.

Things I've said before--one, they only told Simon what they've done to her in vague terms, terms reserved for the Alliance official was pretending to be. They didn't give him medical explanations, because he wasn't supposed to be known to be a doctor. Two, he is a trauma surgeon. He is not a brain surgeon. He has no expertise in this area, just a large amount of general knowledge. You don't want to go into fixing a brain with only general knowledge. That is a good way to do a lot more damage.

As for his Master of Disguise bit--he had time to research to pretend to be an Alliance official. Probably saw more than a few in his life. He knows nothing, however, about being an off-world resource merchant. The former part is something that's much more within his world. The latter is very much a part of the world he's had to flee to, a world he doesn't get.

As for his being Mr. Confrontational, consider it as him having grown a spine in his time on Serenity. I daresay he's figured out that this is the only real way to deal with Mal in his time on the ship. You push a man too far, even a "wuss" like the old Simon, particularly when you're pushing them about something they really care about (River), and you're gonna get the fist. Or a CGI concussion-energy-thingy.

Retcon is unnecessary with enough character examination.

Lack of medical explanations or not, Simon claimed to have no knowledge of what was done to her, at all, only that she had been experimented on. He behaved as though he was in complete denial of River having any extraordinary ability, even in instances when they were both alone and ignoring her put them both in danger.

In Serenity he is told point blank what she can do and is even given a safety word to put her to sleep in case she becomes dangerous.

This is not a lack of character information, this is a retcon.

My comment about Simon and Mal being confrontational wasn't complaining about Simon having a backbone, he was shown to grow one during the course of the series. It was about Mal treating him like dirt, where as in the show, Mal considered Simon and River "part of the crew".