This is the one where the amoral jerk idiot character finds out that because he botched a crime years ago in a very specific way, he is now considered a folk hero by the whole town. I am on the record that the big dumb character on pretty much any show will be the one I will relate to, and even though Jayne is a bigger jerk than I prefer those characters to be, I remember on first viewing that I enjoyed him getting a focus episode like this. And I still do. It’s always nice to see a well-done, self-contained episode of television. Even Inara’s sub-plot, which seems unrelated, ties in at the end. And the River/Book stuff deals with the themes of faith and symbols relevant to how the town sees Jayne. Overall, just well made.

But you know what isn’t well made? The statue of Jayne that the town put up! He’s just standing there. That’s not heroic! Why didn’t you have him thrusting a victorious fist in the air or something? You just want a guy with his arms at his side, kinda scowling? That’s your hero? You idiots.

I guess the bit that amused me most in this one was when the doctor was like “Okay, I’ll go, just stop describing me.”

This is the one where a woman sneaks on board the ship, pretends to be from “primitive” society with simple rituals that mean she’s married to Mal, but it turns out she’s a femme fatale trying to steal the ship. The crew deal with that situation and the femme fatale, Saffron I believe, gets to be set up as a potential recurring character. I think she may actually come back before the show ends, but I can’t remember the details of that return.

Not much to report (apart from being disappointed that the idea of men wearing dresses is still meant to be funny in a future where humanity is spread over a bunch of worlds). One thing I did quite like was the idea of using a spacesuit to make sure a gun had oxygen so it could fire in a vacuum. I liked that.

I can’t think of much to say about this one. Another perfectly fine episode. I guess the most notable thing here is the flashbacks showing Simon and River’s relationship and how it all leads to him being willing to be burned at the stake alongside her. It’s all well and good.

There’s also the part where a job goes bad and Book gets shot and, without their doctor, the crew need to find a way to make him not die. There are hints at Book’s mysterious backstory, but that story is more about what Mal is willing to do for his crew. And he’s willing to do a lot, because it is his crew. He’s a possessive guy, which can make him a prick, but also can make him loyal. Lookit this complicated prick. He’s still a prick, though.

I will note that the episode picks up with the crew finishing a cattle smuggling job they got hired for last time. In my memory that subplot lasted longer, with maybe a whole episode taking place while they were in space with the cows. Maybe it was just the fact I liked that they had cows on the ship that made it stand out as something more in my mind. Because I did like that.

People are complaining about how “woke” university students are again these days, because it turns out young people can actually care about things. Go figure! It’s a stereotype that has been around probably since there have been young people going to school and old people who think they know better than those “smart” kid, though of course the term “woke” wasn’t then what it is today. And it was certainly a stereotype that existed in 2012/2013 when I went back to school as an adult. Which is why one of my classes once disappointed me pretty badly.

I had assumed I had written about this before on the site, but I can’t find it. I’ve definitely written about it somewhere on the Internet, but for completeness sake I need it here too.

I think it was one of my first-year classes, one that focused on Popular Culture in general. It seemed like it’d be up my alley. There were probably a hundred or so students in the class, so sometimes it would be broken up into groups of three with my group being taught by a TA (and, I assume the other groups also being taught by TAs, maybe one by the actual professor, who knows, doesn’t matter). So my sub-group of the class was probably thirty-something large.

At some point the TA of my group did a poll of the class asking if we thought there was still a need for Feminism. I was the only one who raised a hand to say there was. Maybe that’s my memory playing tricks on me, it’s been more than a decade now after all. Maybe there was one or two others. But you know what there wasn’t? More than that. Where were all those stereotypical “woke” students I’d want to be learning alongside?

I was disappointed, but I rationalized it. It was a first-year class, these were the youngest kids, yet to learn much of the real world outside their high schools. And I also assumed that there were probably some who thought feminism is good, but were afraid to raise their hands in a class that clearly didn’t agree with them. Maybe if more of them had, hands would have gone up in great number. I’ll never know.

I wanted my fellow students to be the kind of care about feminism and anti-racism and bringing down the man and all that. But that batch wasn’t. Because I’m not that big on the dumb systems we all live under and I would love to believe that there’s a generation out there with energy who might be able to help change things.

Shame how the kids who actually are like that get treated.