Firefly

(S01E05) I’m glad the creators of Firefly were able to get this episode created and aired before the end of the series. Many times these "how they all met" episodes are saved for later seasons, though thankfully we got to see it early.

I’d have a hard time deciding which one of the crew had the most surprising introduction to the ship. Wash looks like a reject from the 70’s, complete with gnarly ’stache and floral pattern shirt. Kaylee takes the engineer job from the man she was bedding in the engine room, Bester (who knew she was so ... promiscuous?) Jayne gets a job on the ship by holding up Mal and Zoe. And Inara ... well, her story’s not all that surprising.The introduction to Serenity herself shows how special this ship is to Mal and why he ultimately decided to stay behind with her. If there was ever a look of love at first sight in Mal’s eyes, the end of this episode had it.

This is one of my favorite episodes that aired on television. The transitions from past to present and back again are well done, when they could have easily made things confusing. If only we’d get a chance to see how Mal and Zoe came to meet and how Wash and Zoe wind up together.

Jayne-ism of the episode:
Marco: "Do we look reasonable to you?"
Mal: "Well, looks can be deceiving."
Jayne: "Not as deceiving as a low down, dirty, deceiver."
Mal: "Well said. Wasn’t that well said, Zoe?"
Zoe: "Had a kind of poetry to it, sir."