As a spinoff from the "Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV series" threads, if you had to pick just one or two episodes of Firefly to show someone to persuade them it was a really great show, which episodes would you pick? Or would you go with the movie?

There's a detailed episode guide here for those needing a reminder of the titles or whatever. (The page is not recommended for those who haven't seen the series as it's full of spoilers.)

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I tend to think that you need to have seen or at least understand the show a little before watching Serenity. I'd go with Serenity the pilot episodes to indroduce a person to the show. Episodes to sell the show, Out of Gas and Objects in Space would have to be my favorites.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Hm. I'd say "Out of Gas," "Serenity" (the pilot), and "The Train Job." In that order.

Won't say why to avoid spoilers.

Edit: Heck, I'll spill it. No spoilers. The last two are both very good in their own right, and should be watched to introduce someone into the series. As for sheer excellence, though, you can't beat "Out of Gas."

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

I particularly like "Our Mrs. Reynolds" and "Jaynestown", but I don't think they'd be that good at introducing someone to the series. I'm still trying to answer my own question!

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I actually think "Our Mrs. Reynolds" would be very good. You don't have to know any backstory, it does a great job showing Mal's relationship to the crew, and it shows what a dangerous place the Black can be even for an experienced crew.

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

Out of Gas, Our Mrs. Reynolds, and Serenity (the pilot) are the episodes most often mentioned in this context on the Firefly fan boards. My only objection to OoG is that it has a somewhat tricky structure -- three or four levels of flashbacks.

OMR is pretty eye-catching, though it might not be appropriate for the youngest viewers. War Stories is another possibility but is very intense in places, and might put some viewers off.

Serenity was intended to be viewers' first exposure to the series, introduces all the characters, and is an exciting story as well. But it has the drawback of being double length -- and its opening scene is uncharacteristic of the series and could cause some viewers to give up too soon.

I watched Firefly from the day it debuted in 2002, so my introduction was The Train Job. It worked for me! Though in retrospect I wish to blazes that Fox had shown the series in its proper order, and without preemption.

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

I'd have to go with "Train Job", then "Our Mrs. Reynolds".

Or by my pretty blue bonnet I will end you...

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"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

I think Serenity (pilot) is a good place to start, followed by Out of Gas. Serenity introduces all the characters, but we get more details in Out of Gas. I agree that the structure of the story in Out of Gas is complicated, but I can still watch it and get tears. The music is truly beautiful.

I saw Firefly during its first airing so started with The Train Job. My reaction at the time was "Well, it's Ok", until the last couple of minutes, then it was slack-jawed amazement. Everyone who's seen the episode knows the moment I'm talking about.

Marsha

I may be the odd one here, but I don't know if I ever would have even watched Firefly had I not been introduced to it with the pilot. Though some of the other episodes may have been better in some ways, I think much of it will have little meaning without a proper introduction to the characters and setting; like picking up a book and starting to read it on chapter 11.

That holds true for most shows for me. I never liked SG1 until I decided to give it another chance and picked up the entire Season 1 to watch. Probably one of the worst seasons of them all; but it was the introduction I needed. Star Trek TNG was probably the only exception to this; then again I watched that when it first came out back in middle school.

Because of this I introduce others to Firefly (or any other show) with the first episode and work in chronological order. If nothing else you ruin the whole 'box' mystery if you do it any other way.

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Nicholas Bostaph
http://NicholasBostaph.com
http://NightscapeCreations.com
http://FantasyMasterOnline.com

Someone in the other thread mentioned only watching 4 episodes...I borrowed the DVD, watched 4 or 5 episodes, wasn't really impressed.."didn't get it" as it were.

After about 6 episodes I was HOOKED...wanting more...More....MORE!

The Pilot episode was ont of the best, I found

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

I'm awfully partial to "Shindig," myself. But then, I know a lot of girls who would recognize themselves in the sheer delight of having a pretty dress, even if you're the only one who thinks it's pretty. And I tend to believe that you have to recognize a bit of yourself in characters in order to really like them.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Hehehe, I've always loved that adorable grin on Jewel Staite/Kaylee's face when she suggests "interrogating the buffet".

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Uhm, no? But I probably lost interest by then. I watched (mostly) the first couple episodes that aired, and watched a bit of a couple more, then I gave up. It might be that I just don't care much for Westerns and "The Train Job" left an impression that it was a "Western in Space," but it didn't promote an interest for me.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Whichever one it was where they're interogating the crew. Did you fight with Capt Reynolds in the war? Yup. And your husband? Fight with him sometimes too. And where Walsh is describing Cloe, 'Her legs, definitely her legs, and that curve where they meet her body' something like that, he wasn't being dirty. Then he says something like 'nevermind that, have you ever BEEN with a warrior woman?' It's a quote contest. Never understood the new Battlestar Galactica. Felt like when they tried to remake Kojak to me, just isn't right. Course the original had a lot to be desired too, it just had cool ships on it.

Ahh. I misunderstood the premise. I thought it was 2 episodes +the pilot. If the pilot counts as an episode, it has to be shown - there's just too much character intro and development for it to be missed. After that, might as well go right into "Trainjob" - by then, you'll have them hooked anyway, and you'll still be in chronological order

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"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

I'm with Nicholas. In fact, I was there. I have watched "Train Job" when it first aired on Fox, and my reaction was a big fat "meh". Only after I gave the series another chance on DVD in the proper order I became a browncoat.

I'm also partial to "Shindig". I think that the food scenes in "Serenity" (pilot)(Book's fresh food, Kaylee and the strawberry, the dinner) and "Shindig" best described the state those people live in.

The whole western in space thing was laid on a bit too thick for me as well. It was one of the things I liked least about the show.

Dave Mitsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Indeed. Most of the negative comments I've heard from freinds who said "Meh" seem to center around "hokey" or "cliched", even "forced" old-western dialogue. I don't get that impression myself, but have heard it said by others.

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"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

The concept of a western in space is what kept me from watching the show for so long. Then I decided to give it a try. I really didn't even notice the western aspects when I did.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

It's another moment with which you can identify, which is, again, one of the things that makes me consider the show so great. I don't even like strawberries, and I could feel the desire for them--something fresh! Watching Firefly is full of little moments, like when River is dancing and is just so filled with joy at such a simple thing, because she doesn't have simple things in her life.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I think that really it's unjustily considered just a western in space, it's more about a forntier in space and so it shares similarities with the wild west on occasion, but it is more that that. As to the language, it's not western speak, it's an evolution of our language, pushed further along so that it has its own quirks.

One of the things I really liked is the just hanging in there feel. Mal sums it up beautifully at the end of the Pilot. He says he's had a good day, to which Simon replies by listing off all the bad stuff that happened. Mal's response is wonderful. "We still flying.... That's enough." This is the heart of the show. Unlike Trek, B5 or Stargate, the crew on Serenity are always fight to stay flying. They aren't battling the Alliance, they aren't trying to save the verse, they are just trying to make it through the next day, too the next job, to just keep their heads above water. In that way we can relate to them because so many of us struggle through the same things. With Trek etc we know that nothing bad is going to happen to the ship and the crew (unless they are a security officer.) In fact when they destroyed the Enterprise in the Search for Spock, it probably shocked most ST fans more that them killing Spock in Wrath of Khan. In Firefly you could never be so sure that it was going to have a happy ending. At the end you just held on and hoped that in the end they'd still be flying, because for them, that was enough.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I like Firefly, even though I have to admit the economics of it doesn't make a lot of sense. We see people using horses for transport and windmills for power or even doing without electricity. Obviously they don't have access to cheap energy. Moving a ship through space takes a lot of energy which obviously must be cheap if it's worthwhile for them to transport cattle and so on through space. So it doesn't really make sense. Maybe instead of transporting stuff they should just land on a planet, plug into the grid and sell electricity? I'm sure it would be just as exciting.
"The Alliance is trying to regulate the wholesale electricity market and drive us out of business!"
"The Phobos colony has lost power! If we don't get there fast there's going to be a whole lota spoiled food in a lot of refrigerators!"
"You supplied out of phase electricity to my grid. Now you must die."
"Caydee! We need more power!"
"She canne give any more, Captain!"

People on the rim colonies don't have access to cheap energy or high technology and have to rely on horses if there's a herd available to them. People on the core worlds do have ready access to power and technology.

Contrast the episodes Ariel and Trash with, say, Jaynestown (Jaynestown?) or Our Mrs Reynolds.

Mal doesn't (or can't) refuel Serenity on rim worlds (like Whitefall). He likely needs access to a spaceport at either a core planet (Ariel) or at the very least a border world (Persephone) for that.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

In the Pilot, Mal pretty much explains the difference between the core worlds and the rim ones. They are discussing the poverty and disease or the rim worlds and he points out that the Alliance did what it had to, to make a world as close to Earth the Was norm as it could, then just dumped settlers on it, maybe with a herd, maybe without, and then just left them to make it or die.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

It may well be more than a Western in space, but I sure couldn't tell that by "The Train Job." The story, the language, pretty much everything said to me, "This is a Western in space." If you are trying to sell Firefly to people who don't like Westerns, and if there are episodes that don't push the Western theme so strongly, I'd pick those.

Star Trek, maybe. In B5, however, bad things did happen to many of the main characters, there was a lot of struggle just getting through the day and the direction of the struggle changed repeatedly.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Don't get me wrong - check out my handle, I'm as big a Browncoat as they come - but I recently tried to introduce a good freind to Firefly, and the reason they didn't like it was because they thought "Mal" was merely a Han Solo rip-off. Not saying I agree at all, but if you're trying to sell Firefly to someone, it might help to have a reply to that worked out in advance. I couldn't think of anything fast enough, and that fish kinda got away...

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"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

Mal kicked first.

Actually, there were plans to make such a series, but it kinda fizzled for some reason. Maybe it was the title... "The Enron Chronicles."

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Larry Niven's A Gift From Earth used this theme. It's one of the Known Space series, set in the early days of one of the first off-earth colonies. The plot involves a conflict between an elite who were originally the crew of the transport starship, and a proletariat who were the passengers/colonists.

After the ship arrived at the colony world, it was grounded and became the power plant for the colony. This gave the starship crew their (political as well as literal) power.

But came a day when the peons revolted...

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Van Rijn,
I don't want to post a spoiler, but the jaw-dropper involved Mal and his foot on a bad guy's chest (a hard kick).
Marsha