If I’d tried to remember the show and tell you which episode was my favourite, it’d probably have been this one. I didn’t remember all the details, but the villain here was just so villainous that he stuck with me. Jubal Early. The character impressed on me so much that I remembered his name before it came up in the episode. He’s a mix of scary and professional that reminds me of Richard Stark’s Parker, though in a different way. A weird philosophical way. And indeed it remains a watchable episode of television thanks to him.

I hope that the actress who plays Kaylee has gone on to a long career in some sort of horror franchise. She’s so good at selling fear. Also, I need to give the show the credit for quiet space that I haven’t brought up yet. Quiet space is the best, but few shows seem to realize that.

I do have to complain about one thing, though. The exchange “That sounds like something out of science fiction.” “You live in a spaceship, dear.” I really dislike that kind of joke.

In this one a brothel is in trouble and the Firefly crew come to the rescue. It’s definitely one that leans into the Western aspect of a Space Western.

In fact, the planet they’re on here looks pretty dismal because of how far it leans into Space Western.I would not want to live on this dustball. No wonder people on planets like that become scumbags, look at where they have to live. Still, this is an episode where the villain gets a blowjob in front of his henchmen, which is maybe a little more than I expect. Anyway, apparently Amazing Grace still exists in the far future.

One thing that special effects for television really need to work on is cheap but convincing fake newborns. All of television would be improved by this. I want to have enough money to start a special effects company, design that, and then rake in the cash or a million shows buying the product.

I said I was gonna watch to see if there was a lot of shaky cam on the show, but I kinda forgot that. Makes me wonder if there wasn’t that much of it. This time I saw a lot of it though. Maybe that’s why I didn’t connect much with the episode, I dunno. Old war friend involves the crew in some crap, crap goes down, the crew gets through it, old war friend doesn’t. I’m not calling it a bad episode, but it never grabbed me.

There’s good stuff, though. The market on a space station is impressive enough. While most of what we see during the war flashbacks is on a small set, they do some one or two second shots of the city that make it look more like a sprawling battle.

It does make me happy to see some villains who threaten to kill someone but then don’t. That’s usually such a cheap and easy way to make villains seem threatening that not having it is actually more effective. Shame they also make some hacky prison rape jokes.

I primarily remember this one as the episode with butt.

If I were designing this show from scratch I’d’ve said it was too early for Saffron to come back. She’s clearly intended to be a recurring character, but I would have given her until the second season. But this show didn’t do that and it’s a good thing they got back to her because they got all cancelled and whatnot. I also would have made sure Monty became a recurring character. I don’t think this show gets the chance to do that. More the pity.

Anyway, we’ve got a heist. This time they do the thing where we see them planning the heist while we see them doing the heist, which always cuts down on things that can go wrong. Of course, things do go wrong because they have to for the story to happen.

One thing I will never understand about these kind of heist setups is why the security system always has those laser tripwires that you have to be all agile to get around. Just use a motion detector! We have those now, you idiots.

Most of the action planetside takes place on what appears to be a standard rich people manor, so it doesn’t require the cityscape and extras that I crave, but it is a floating rich people manor, so that’s pretty futuristic.