The pitter patter of tiny feet in combat boots – Rewatching Firefly’s War Stories and Trash

Tuesday night J and I watched War Stories and Trash.

War Stories

I almost wish I hadn’t watched War Stories, not because it isn’t a great episode, it is. It’s brilliant, but I really didn’t enjoy watching Mal and Wash being tortured, even though I understand what most of the scenes were trying to achieve for the story.  I did however enjoy watching Zoe being awesome and I love the development of Zoe and Wash’s relationship, the sort of thing you rarely ever see in television science fiction. I also love how the interaction between Kaylee and River is used to begin the unveiling of who River really is.  Oh yes, and the apple is a really interesting metaphor for the theme of the episode, especially as it very neatly draws River into the mix and nicely frames the whole thing within a religious questioning on the knowledge of evil.

“No power in the ‘verse can stop me”, River re-purposing Kaylee’s earlier statement (and in the process evoking the Biblical apple of knowledge of evil).

But, getting back to the torture …

Wanna keep breathing – Rewatching Firefly’s Out of Gas

Tuesday night J and I watched Out of Gas.  Catalyzer on the port compression coil blew …

This is how you do it television writing people. This is how you take a thin, clichéd plot line and write it interesting.  Provided the editor gets the screen transitions right and the colouring works in post-production, the plot devices themselves are actually quite simple.

Internet stalking – Jane Espenson

Click on picture to link to Jane Espenson‘s interview on Talks at Google.

Jane Espenson recently (April 3, 2012) gave an interview for Talks at Google. If you haven’t yet seen it, it’s well worth watching. It’s about an hour long, so Espenson is able to talk more in depth about her writing and experiences writing for television. The interview is helped by several audience questions, which provoke more interesting answers than the usual “what’s X like to work with” and “tell us again about your funniest X story”.

The link to the interview is here.

And we will call it This Land – Rewatching Firefly

Welcome to Tuesday night Sifi. J and I are rewatching Firefly.

Tonight we watched the pilot, and I feel in love all over again.

“We’re not going to die. We can’t die, Bendis. And you know why? Because we are so very pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die.”

Captain Malcolm Reynolds