Smallville wears TWOP recaps quite well. I read one Angel one, and my blood pressure hit the ceiling.

Will not touch Firefly ones with a barge pole.

(still sore from the stupid fucking Skittles Sours indent ads we've had on Sky for a couple of years, which ripped the shit of the show. Because the Skittles are sour, you see. So they make sarcastic remarks. Watching an animated Skittle voiced by Tony Hawks being snide about how cliched and stupid Buffy was, and then watching the various bloody depressing plotlines of Season 6, was very angry-making. Mocking something which is acutely aware of its own cliches and plays with them, and mocks itself? Not so funny. Especially since it was more the Cordy-like character from the movie that was being mocked. And especially since Season 6 is about as far removed from the perky fun of Season 1 as it's humanly possible to be. And...I need to calm down about this, don't I? But it was a feature of every sodding episode of BtVS for two years, until they finally finally finally came up with a funny, subtle, clever, appropriate campaign using visual gags that tapped into the sensibility, rather than ripped the shit out of the show. ....er, right. Calming down.)

Wrod. They were awful-- and I normally like Tony Hawkes. When he's on the radio. But mocking Buffy? Not happy making.

And wrod to excitment re. tonight's show.

In fact, I think I should give up writing posts, and change my tag to "Wrod. What Fay said." It would save me typing time.

Oh, how I anxiously await the UK reaction to this one. So much revealed, so much left unsaid, somuch... Well, just so much.

And only one week until the first ever viewing of the original Objects In Space!

Thirty two minutes and counting to Heart of Gold...

Matt said:

Fay, have you read Shack's recap at TwoP now that you've seen the show? He has a hilarious riff about the moment that Tracey wakes up during the autopsy.

The recap:
[link]

the moment:

When we return, Tracey leaps off the table and starts wrestling with Simon. My mind cycles through about 500 gay jokes. Simon looks frightened and confused -- usually they're all naked and Zoe's not there. And the screaming generally has a different edge to it. Anyway, Mal pulls Tracey off Simon, wrestles him to the ground, and straddles him. Tracey, not Simon. At the moment. Hee. Sorry. Mal eventually calms Tracey down enough to realize that Simon was cutting him open because they all thought he was dead. Tracey realizes where he is, and then realizes that he's naked.

The rest of the recap is generally nasty and misses the point a couple places.

Right, I've said it before and it appears that I'm saying it again: I like Inara. I really do. I was gutted for her in this ep. I appreciate that YMMV wrt the whole 'Companion' concept, and I also appreciate that the viewing order y'all got in the US didn't introduce the characters nearly as well as Serenity did. Nevertheless, I really bloody like Inara, and I like the way Morena plays her.

For some reason I had an inchoate sense of dread watching this episode. Really not sure why, other than that the whole 7 Samurai thing seemed doomed to end unhappily. In the end it all turned out reasonably okay, though. Well, sad, but I'd been afraid somebody might be broken, somehow. I'm not sure quite what. And I suppose Inara was a little broken, but not in the way I'd half-feared.

Very much liked the first glimpse of the whorehouse and the horses and the speeder thing. Very Star Wars. Oh, but the opening ship scene was delicious. I love Serenity very much indeed, and I love the informality of people talking as they make ramen or whatever -- 'course, I've been sharing accomodation with friends, family or strangers all my life, so that's maybe part of it. It feels real. Using the table to practice manly gunplay stuff, and the remark about the place settings, and the snarkage about emergencies in people's pants -- it was all very nice.

I liked the whorehouse a lot. And I was pleased they had boys as well as girls, and I was pleased everything was covered in solar panel sheeting. Lovely. Jayne was entirely splendid in his every scene, and continued to crack me up with his talk of his John Thomas. Lovely.

I was also particularly fond of:

"Tell me I'm pretty?"

"Were I not wed I would take you in a manly fashion."

"Because I'm pretty?"

"Because you're pretty."

Bless Kaylee. And I'm glad they didn't make more of the Simon/Kaylee thing, actually -- it might have started to feel a little too much, and it wasn't the point, and Simon was in Doctor Mode. River made me laugh, bless her. Zoe was her fabulous self. Book was good -- sorry there wasn't more Book, to some extent, but not enough time, and I did enjoy his interactions with the whores. They were a likeable bunch, the whores, and for all that they were spear carriers (or, more accurately, pistol carriers) there was still a reasonable sense of them as being individuals, I think. Petalline was cool.

Mal. I do like Mal exceedingly. "You're my kind of stupid" -- very Mal Reynolds. And I'm glad that he did have the sex, because if he'd abstained from the sex for no bloody reason it would have been too cheesy and frankly incredible. (Which is to say, precisely what most shows would have had him do. "No no, gorgeous and feisty woman of substance who runs this fine whorehouse, is indebted to me and evidently fancies me -- I cannot have The Sex with you, despite the fact that it's a good long while since I got my end away, for I have big adolescent Unresolved Sexual Tension with the beautiful hooker who constantly puts me in my place and tells me our relationship is professional -- and not in the sex industry way. So despite having no reason to think she fancies me, I must pine away, pretend I am not a big manly man with bunches of testosterone and a space monkey in sore need of a spanking, and turn away your very sincere offer of The Sex." Pah.) So, yes - glad he had The Sex, believed it. (And loved the fact that whatchamacaller said "I've been waiting for you to kiss me since the moment I showed you my guns". My kind of Madame, yes indeed. Glad also that it evidently hurt Inara a lot -- not in a yahboosucks way, but rather because it was touching and a lovely character note, I thought. And I know some of you will be all "dumb bitch, it's entirely her own stupid fault, if she wanted to bed him why didn't she just DO something about it rather than being all stupidly standoffish" about it, but I have a big old glass house situation going on there, so I'm not so much with the stone throwing. Owch. Yes. Owch. Poor cow.

Did I mention how much I loved Jayne all the way through this ep? I really did. And I loved that he had a gun lodged between him and the blonde when they were all snuggled up. Cute.

I also loved the fact that Kaylee knew immediately that there was something wrong with her ship when they went aboard. That was cool.

I was terribly worried about Zoe and Book during the shootout. They didn't seem to have any cover. It fretted me.

Now, what are we to make of the rampant chauvenism of The Baddy and his mates? And what are we to make of the roles of Companions in the 'Verse? And of women? I feel like I need to sit down and think a spell about all this. The big rousing (as 'twere) speech about putting the damn women in their place, and the whole 'suck my cock' thing -- effective and disturbing, and it makes me feel that I need to try to fathom out the various contradictions between Core planets and the rim, between Independents and Alliance, and all that stuff. Evidently no concept of either Companion-as-high-class-and-respectable-profession here -- not that they were Companions, granted, but is it possible to have Companions seen as respectable people, priestesses even, and also have all other women seen as chattle? I don't think so. And Mal's view of gender politics encompasses women as different-but-equal, in terms of how he relates to Zoe and Kaylee; he's very troubled by the whole sex-for-cash thing, equating Companions with whores regardless. And yet other service industries don't seem to be a big shame thing, so why is the sex industry? If it's not about inherent inferiority of women, and about -- oh, I don't know. There seem to be a number of paradigms at work, and I don't feel up to thinking it through, but I think it probably needs thinking through.

To sum up: very good episode, once again. And gorgeous frocks.

It's handy you type out all my thoughts for me. Cheers!

It's handy you type out all my thoughts for me. Cheers!

What can I tell you? I'm a mind reading genius. I just have problems eating ice planets.

I think that with all the variations of humankind spread throughout the galaxy, certain types will start to pool.

Atavistic misogynists and their apparently similar minded women were more prevalent in the town than the whores thought.

But then, since in general women are not treated that way in the Firefly-verse, it was troubling enough to the Serenity crew to stand and fight. It almost seemed a dirty-little-secret in the 'verse that yes, it does exist, they had heard of such a thing, but that it was rare.

See, now, I didn't much like Heart of Gold. I didn't hate it while I was watching, but it didn't have that patented ME spark to it. There was nothing in the story or the characterizations that made it an ME episode, or a Firefly episode (with the possible exception of Jayne). Could have been a Magnificent 7 episode, frankly.

If the planet is populated by misogynists who fixate on fatherhood issues, why are there male whores? The male members of the community would never allow for the women to visit the boys for fear of cuckolding.

If Companions are priestesses (as stated by Nandi in her conversation with Mal) why are they treated like whores? Why on earth did they name the brothel Heart of Gold? Bad enough the episode was named it. Yes there were boys but they weren't in evidence at all. Nobody was in evidence except for Nandi.

I liked Inara's response to Mal when she found out he slept with Nandi. But the crying scene (a) was a ripoff of the scene where Willow finds out Xander slept with Faith; and (b) completely undercut Inara as a mature individual. She's a sex worker, not a fifteen-year-old high school virgin. She shouldn't respond the same as Willow to the same stimulus, and it makes the ME team look silly to have her do so. If she had to respond, I'd have preferred anger rather than self-pity.

This episode made Serenity's entire crew look incredibly stupid compared to their sharpness of not two weeks previous. It was hardly the same team that pulled off the job in Trash.

I was saddened and annoyed. I think it's meaningful that the IMDB listing for the writer has no other credits. I'm sure things would have gotten better, but I think Heart of Gold is hands-down the worst episode of the series.

So, Heart of Gold is definitely not my favourite episode of the series, but there is much to love about it.

Every little bit of Wash/Kaylee interaction was a gem. I also loved the little snippet of Zoe and Wash discussing kids, and that it's Zoe who wants kids, and Wash that wants to wait.

I adored how excited Jayne was by the prospect of 'getting sexed up'. Like a kid in a candy store he was. And how he sleeps with his gun in his hand. Speaking of getting sexed up, Mal got his end away! Nandy was so worthy of him too. She's his kind of stupid, oh yes. I knew she was doomed from the start though, as Fay said, there was a Seven Samurai vibe going on.

Morena Baccarin was just fabulous, I thought. Now I really want to know why Inara left the core to work on the rim, and why she's so afraid of getting close to anyone. I also loved when she kissed Simon on the cheek, it was just an adorable little moment.

I think her response to the Mal/Nandy sex was more complex than the Willow response. As she said to Mal, part of her job is to be relaxed about sex. She's not supposed to get emotional, and when she saw what had just happened, she realised just how deep her emotions for Mal went, and that if she wanted to keep an emotional distance, she was going to have to leave Serenity. Much to be upset about, methinks, though why she feels the need to remain emotionally distanced, we'll never know, I'm guessing.