h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Relatively speaking that is. All Firefly is good (repeat that as your mantra

It seemed somewhat slower after the hectic pace of The Train Job. Not always a bad thing, some later slower paced eps are even better, but my general impression is that this was not Firefly at it's best (though still better than most other stuff) Nice crew interaction, nice physics at the end with silent explosions in space (a first for a modern TV SF show?)and some clues about the feared Reavers, but not much more than that. A brush, well, potential capture by a huge Alliance ship wasn't handled that believably, they got off too easily IMO, but then no more story if they get captured, so I can forgive that. Neat hiding place for the Doc and River. I wouldn't call it a filler episode, because it still manages to expand your knowledge of Firefly's universe and the individual characters (Jayne is such an evil sod, someone said he was the funniest mercenary they'd ever seen and I'd agree) with a potentially dangerous situation, it just seemed to lack the edge from the previous episodes. This is all relatively speaking of course

I'll add this comment that I posted on the Niven list, relevant to Firefly:

"On a related note, spoke to my comicbookguy at the weekend and put in my order for all 3 Serenity comics. He asked if I wanted all the variant covers (3 variants for each issue so every one of the 9 principal characters gets a cover, by various well known comics artists) and I said that for once I'd play the geek boy and get all the variants. He told me that every single person who has ordered these has said the same (wants all variants) and that he can never recall a similar situation with other variant cover options. He also told me that he'd also heard that a second season had been commissioned, but whether the source of that was the Jewel Staite (sp?) interview that someone mentioned (Alex?) or some other source, I don't know. Either way, the interest in Serenity is there at grass roots level without a huge load of hype which I'm hoping is a good sign. I guess what I see in my head is all 9 comics arranged in display bags pinned to a wall. Never felt the urge with any other comic, always went for the standard newsstand editions as I was interested in the story rather than a foil/embossed/glow in the dark/black and white/whatever gimmick more expensive cover. The tasters on Dark Horse Comics site look very good.

Nick

I agree, this is probably my least favourite of the Firefly series.

Everything about the survivor seemed contrived.

a) The Survivor, and noone else having heard of reavers leaving survivors like this.
b) Survivor killing the medi team, and getting out of a heavily patrolled alliance city ship.
c) Alliance letting them all go so easily.
d) Trap that only goes off when you leave, and uses great big obvious cables. And presumably kills the turned 'survivor'

Having said that I still enjoyed the episode. Looking forward to Shindig, the next in the series.

I must agree with most of the above.

The Raevers don't make much sense, but rumour is they feature in the Serenity movie, so mayber all will be revealed?

Maybe the "survivor" was actually a reaver all along?

The bit the freaked me on first viewing was when Kaylee cut the "DC line" and it appeared to blead (as a cut electrical cable shouldn't leak hydraulic fluid), however nothing more is made of this moment.