Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new discussion catchup series featuring around the American Sci-Fi show Firefly. This is a show that I have actually been meaning to get around to watching for a couple of years now, and have heard lots of positives about it. I know that there is only one season comprising of fourteen episodes so it won’t take me that long to watch (well still a while at about one a week, but not like some of my other catchups like Clone Wars or Prison Break).

Things kicked off action packed and didn’t take long to see the signature wit and tone that Joss Weadon has became known for. I am a big fan of his work so the show managed to get me invested in the characters early on. The crew are all shades of grey in the sense that they are scavengers and criminals, but do have a sense of honour and justice among them…some more than others but we’ll get to that later. I didn’t recognise many of the cast except for the actress from Deadpool and Gotham, but I will have to look up their credits as I often just don’t recognise people who I have seen in things before.

They went all in with the outer space setting, name dropping planets and moons like we were in a Star Wars movie. Some of the location designs such as Persephone were really out there and you could see that they were going for full out space landscapes. Everyone mostly seemed humanoid though so I am not sure if alien species are going to really appear. I’ll just have to wait and see. They also had random inventions/designs such as sink and toilet drawers which were just amusing details to make everything feel more off-earth. The music really helped to set the tone too. You got a real outlaw western type of feel to it, especially when people started riding horses through dusty open spaces.

Like I mentioned, at this point I really like most of the crew but in particular I liked Wash (partly because of his random playing with dinosaurs) and Mal. He led his team well and had a swagger about him even when he was on the back foot. In saying that, he was a bit mean though telling Simon (who looks like Matt Murdoch in my opinion) that Kay Lee had died when she hadn’t. And although she didn’t die you knew something bad was going to happen just from how overly happy and cheerful she was right from her first appearance. I liked how the episode ending space chase showed her value to the team too, and I imagine that other crew member’s specialities will be highlighted more in later episodes.

My opinions on Jayne wavered throughout the episode: first I thought he was just the crude muscle who liked to beat stuff up, but then he did show a more rounded personality, as well as some loyalty after a betrayal being teased. He might still turn on Mal later on as you couldn’t be sure whether him saying how he didn’t turn on him because the money wasn’t good enough was completely a joke or not. Mal himself though wasn’t afraid to cross some lines too, basically declaring his ship a dictatorship saying that nobody votes on it, and by shooting that admittedly annoying federal agent without even missing a beat. I was glad he did the latter though and was nodding in agreement as they just tossed his body off the ship.

They set up a terrifying group of villains known as the Reavers. Without even seeing them they were introduced incredibly well and already treated as more than a genuine threat. No one made silly jokes about them specifically or underestimated them which really tells the audience that the crew are in actual danger. Them alongside the Allience are who I presume will play a recurring role in causing trouble for the team in this show.

It seemed that Simon joined the team as a medic and although I don’t completely trust him, he was likeable and helpful enough for me to want him to become a permanent fixture (even if it was still weird that he had a naked Summer Glau in that box. If she was his sister why did she have to be naked?) Overall a very interesting debut episode that already has me invested in these characters. I can’t wait to see what direction they take this in.

DD Rating: 9/10