Personally, if my car went up in a ball of flame, even if that flame ate up all the fuel, I wouldn’t say I was “out of gas” I would call it being “blowed up”. This episode should be called “Blowed Up”.

Anyway, this is the one where part of the ship blows up and they’re stranded out in space. It’s also got flashbacks to how the crew got together (the ones who didn’t join during the pilot, I mean). I almost wish those could have been two separate episodes. Maybe they could have done the meetings as a little anthology episode, and the stranded in space as another. But the reason for that is being stranded in space, so far from other humans, is something I’d want a deeper look at. The vastness of space, the largeness of infinity, how small we are, that stuff interests me greatly. But it’s probably less “space western” than getting ambushed by someone who wants to steal the ship is, the show did what it does instead of catering to me.

Anyway, what is most important here is that it is Simon’s birthday. Somehow. River actually mentions that measuring time by Solar cycles doesn’t make a lot of sense given their spacefaring, but somehow is still IS Simon’s birthday. Does that mean that back on whatever planet/moon he was born on a yearly cycle has been completed? Or, I must ask again, is there some standard of time set by some authority? I demand answers and refuse to look up if anyone who worked ont he show has ever said!