Hi, wewantfirefly! Glad you're on board with the enthusiasm for the show -- take comfort in the fact that there will be DVDs coming out in the US later this year, with lots of commentaries and extras and suchlike (including the Blooper reel). From the foodstuffs you cite, I'm guessing you're British? I'd be surprised if SciFi doesn't rerun the show -- they've been promoting the pants off it, so you'll hopefully get to see it from the start. It's TOTALLY worth watching from the first episode onwards, because I'd agree that, much as I enjoyed it, Heart of Gold is probably the weakest episode in the series.

Although we've no reason to think that the show's going to be taken up again in the immediate future, there is some possibility of a movie -- Joss is working on the script, Adam Baldwin (Jayne) is hugely enthusiastic and so, it appears, is Alan Tudyk (Wash). Write to SciFi or Fox, maybe, rather than Joss - afaik nobody here has his email address, but he sometimes reads the thread & I'm sure he'll be chuffed by your enthusiasm. I know I am.

Griffyn -- I totally agree with your take on Inara. I'm boggled that my perspective on the character is so wholly at odds with Allyson's (and I know that many/most people agree with Allyson).

(Griffyn, the UK's over 8 hours ahead of board time, btw, so it was around 2am here when you posted your Inara comment. Although I must admit, I was awake and I read it, but I didn't have anything to add beyond "wrod".)

The problem I think with HOG -- I mean aside from its relatively mundane plotting -- is that it deals textually with sex and power roles, and it fails terribly in its job.

• Have you noticed how only the male characters got any nooky? Kaylee talked about it, but didn't partake. So only brutes (Jayne) and sad, conflicted men who need sexual healin' (Mal) can partake of freely offered, no-strings sex. Oy.
  
• Hello! I am your $10 whore for the night. Do you have a psychological problem? I can fuck it out of you! And you know what? I am a saintly, wonderful person who has no psychological problems of my own. I exist only to help you!
  
• Here we are, a bunch of evil misogynist guys. Let us go burn down the house of the only whores on this continent. Surely they will want to have more sex with us then! It would have made more sense and been a more interesting thesis if the band of evil men had been teetotalers or stick-up-butt crazies. Allowing them to be presumptive users just foregrounds the fact that whoring is the business of being used.
  
• Like Suela, I'm still not seeing the cultural difference between a companion and a whore. Is it the tea??
  
• Griffyn's theory about Inara's past isn't illogical, but it's pretty damned elaborate. We shouldn't have to wank that hard to have a character make sense.

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,

This strikes me as a huge cliche. Actually, as someone who actively dislikes the Inara character, there's practically nothing they could do with that plot setup that wouldn't be annoying, but my eyes practically rolled out of my head when they ripped off Willow from S3. It was pale imitation, and it made the Willow scene somehow less than it used to be. Maybe if Inara had been sarcastically cruel, I could have cottoned to the character having an emotional reaction; but running away crying? Hello to the high school! Hello to the not understanding a thing about what being a sex worker means!

It just felt very unironically 20th century. Like something taken out of a Lifetime ("women's television") movie, riddled with irritating stereotypes. I expect better.

The Firefly verse take on Companionship seems to blend elements of the Priestess Prostitutes and the Japanese Oiran and Tayuu, and indeed Geishas.

This seems optimistic. My own interpretation of the same textual data is that the people who voiced objections to the companion concept early on were right -- it is nothing more than a fantasy out of the pages of Maxim magazine; it isn't well thought-out; it doesn't make any sense; and it can't work in dialogue with current concepts of sex, sexism and sex workers. All those little hints like "priestess" and so forth? Are nothing but window dressing on the same old hooker.

Actually, it was in the middle of this episode that I was suddenly reminded of all the icky things I've heard out of M.E., about sex and gender. How Tim came here, and attempted to argue that women don't have the same heart of darkness that men do; Tim's story of talking with Joss circa Angel S3 and saying, "Darla came back in a box; how about we put something in her box?" -- That kind of stuff. I suddenly didn't feel like I could trust them to tell a story that wouldn't offend me, much less a story that was well thought out. I hate that feeling, and that's what that episode made me feel.

Like Suela, I'm still not seeing the cultural difference between a companion and a whore. Is it the tea??

It's like a lot of class distinctions. It's total bullshit. There IS no substantive difference.

It's like a lot of class distinctions. It's total bullshit. There IS no substantive difference.

And yet, also like other class distinctions, it means a lot to those who are on one side or the other of the boundary.

Nutty, I'm sorry to admit it because it's not exactly what I'd like to think, but all your points are valid ones. Well said.

Thanks, Am-Chau. I have liked Firefly a lot, and really loved some of the episodes. But HOG really made me doubtful, and not in a plotty, angsty way.

I propose we barrage Fox with e-mails until a new series is commissioned.

That's a good idea! Then we can collect funds, take out a full page ad in Variety, schedule viewing parties all over the country, send 8,000 postcards to advertisers, FOX, SciFi...

Oh. Wait. We already did that.

Sorry, love. We did all we could, all we managed to get were some DVDs and the faint hope that there may be a movie someday.

I feel bad that a whole other country has to feel cheated.

We did all we could, all we managed to get were some DVDs and the faint hope that there may be a movie someday.

Believe me, Allyson, when I say that I, for one, am glad you did what you could at the right time, before I could have known that it should be done. You tried. There is faint hope. That's all we can really ask for (edit: and expect to get. We can ask for the series back, for lots of movies, for a pony...)

We can ask for the series back, for lots of movies, for a pony...

I just want a Zoe action figure with a gun that shoots real rice sized bullets and a Wash action figure that can fly my cat.

I just watched Heart of Gold, which I downloaded to my laptop a while back. I was holding out, what with this being the last new Firefly for me until the movie and all. Surpirsingly enough, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I know a lot of people didn't like it--and frankly, it doesn't measure up to the structural complexity of OoG, the tight pacing of Ariel, superb characterizations in War Stories or the experimental brillanace of Objects In Space, but I felt there were still moments in the episode that made it feel Jossian to me. The dialog between Kaylee and Wash Allyson quoted above, for example. Jayne and his hilarious body languages (the rather adorable rapport he seemed to have developed with his lady of the night, the combing of her hair, etc.) Wash and Zoe's conversation about having a child. And there were genuinely nice moments between Mal and Nandi, despite the banality of some of the dialog. I liked the actress who played Nandi quite a bit, but then I was predisposed to like her since I thought she was smashing in her guest spots in CSI (as the dominatrix Lady Heather.)

The problem was, the central story had very little that was original. The villain was one-dimensional, perpetuating annoyingly cliched misogynistic claptrap. And I feel hopelessly muddled about just what the hell TPTB were going with the concept of companionship (companion-hood?) vs. whoredom.

As for Inara, I felt bad for her when she was huddled in the room crying. Which is more than I felt for her most of the time. I still think Morena, gorgeous as she is, has very little on-screen chemistry with Nate Fillion, which hurts the 'ship. (Also, her line delivery still bugs me.) I thought Melinda Clarke who played Nandi had way more sparks with Fillion.

Edited to fix italics.

I just want a Zoe action figure with a gun that shoots real rice sized bullets and a Wash action figure that can fly my cat.

And a Kaylee one that will have sex under my computer and then make it work far better than I ever could.

Oh, and a Jayne action figure, complete with hats.