Firefly: 1x1 Full Reaction
Added 2025-10-03 15:07:59 +0000 UTC
Comments
Wow, late to the game on this one but I'm glad I found your channel. Your "post game" recap was great, you're very astute in regard to the characters. Looking forward to catching up!
Lazerx1
2025-10-30 03:40:02 +0000 UTCThe mole doesn't know specifics. It was a top secret project.
Monica
2025-10-28 15:29:25 +0000 UTC1. Inara isn't a robot 2. River is 17
Monica
2025-10-28 15:25:14 +0000 UTCIn this world China and America have "won out" in the culture wars and because of that everyone speaks both Mandarin and English.
Monica
2025-10-28 13:58:16 +0000 UTCCompanions are legal sex workers.
Monica
2025-10-28 11:45:16 +0000 UTCJewel Staite (Kaylee) was on many other things from Nickeledeon's Space Cases to Stargate Atlantis and more. I watched her on SC in the mid 90s.
Monica
2025-10-28 11:39:30 +0000 UTCI think Duck Hunting was an homage to the classic Nintendo game Duck Hunt, where you shoot random ducks on a screen.
Monica
2025-10-28 11:31:45 +0000 UTCHi Cass! I joined Patreon for this and season 5 of Angel! If it were anyone else, I would have waited for the new seasonal updates, but I'm just too used to your thoughts about each episode. I love your theories so much! No spoilers here, but one of the reasons that Firefly looks so rustic with horses and everything is that you can drop off a bunch of horses off on a new planet and they'll magically become more horses. Cattle become more food. Cars and cheeseburgers don't do that. Horses also do better before there is infrastructure. So even though the space/western thing seems a bit odd, it makes a little bit more sense when you think about it. I read though all of the comments and I don't remember seeing anyone mentioning that Bendis (the scared guy from the space battle) didn't make it. He's the one that got shot dead while standing next to Mal after the cease fire.
Brina Blue
2025-10-22 09:24:14 +0000 UTCcant wait for this journey and movie! and yes its a space western
assCrackBandit
2025-10-07 07:54:14 +0000 UTCdon't worry most people didn't watch it on tv (which is why it got cancelled). Most of us watched it on DVD in the correct order!
Jason Harrelson
2025-10-07 01:14:13 +0000 UTCNice Whedon cameo by DโHoffryn Anyaโs demon lord as the captain of the the Dortmonder. He was also the guy who could detach his limbs in season 2 of Angel.
Christopher Drakulich
2025-10-06 04:38:59 +0000 UTCKaylee's "death" brought to you by the same people who had Cordelia's "funeral" in Lovers Walk.
Logan Bruin
2025-10-05 20:41:55 +0000 UTCI love how into the Firefly interstitials you were! Serenity is treated very much like a character (the 10th crew member) in this show.
Test User
2025-10-05 04:41:54 +0000 UTCAw, hell yeah. Here we go! ๐ค
Test User
2025-10-05 03:25:27 +0000 UTCCool! I was checking if somebody mentioned this. It actually works out quite nicely!
Test User
2025-10-05 03:22:43 +0000 UTCOn recognizing Zoe (from Angel) and Mal (from Buffy): the Firefly showrunners didn't want the show to end and put the actors into other projects as they could. The one that folks might not know about is that Tim Minear (the other co-creator of Firefly) put out a show the following year or so with Bryan Fuller called Wonderfalls, and Kaylee does an extended guest arc in that one. More people should watch Wonderfalls, it was pretty good!
Arlo Murphy
2025-10-05 01:47:34 +0000 UTCHi, Cass. I've been following you on YouTube for a long time, but when I saw that you were doing Firefly, I immediately joined your Patreon. People often call this a "space western", but sometimes they think the "western" part is just a style or fashion choice. Instead of "western", think "frontier". There are the richer areas, with lots of high tech, and there are the frontier areas. If you live on the frontier, you make do with low tech, like horses, because the industrial infrastructure isn't in place yet to support the high tech stuff. I find it sort of cute that you take notes while watching, like you're in a class or something. :-) Just be aware that sometimes when you're looking down while writing, you might be missing a significant glance or facial expression that conveys some emotion that the character doesn't express in words.
Wally Hartshorn
2025-10-04 14:58:32 +0000 UTCjust like you sci-fi usually isnt my thing but i really enjoyed this and i am excited to see where it goes! :)
Frelle
2025-10-04 04:57:35 +0000 UTCThere's not a good way for that.
Kevin Charley
2025-10-04 04:12:52 +0000 UTCOh, and just to lay this information out for you (no spoilers, this is all in this episode): "Serenity" is the title of this episode, and is also the name of the ship itself ('Firefly' is the TYPE of ship). 'Serenity' has two shuttles, with Inara renting one (That is what we see her fly and dock with the ship when she rejoins them at the beginning). The battle we see in the opening took place in "Serenity Valley". In a DELETED SCENE from this episode (available on the DVD), Zoe quotes an apparently common saying "no one leaves Serenity, you just learn to live there". You are correct that the later movie is ALSO called "Serenity". It can get confusing to keep all of the 'Serenity's straight.
JBK405
2025-10-04 03:38:58 +0000 UTCA lot of people say similar things to you at the end of the episode, that there's a lot in this episode and it's hard to jump in right at the start. So don't think you're behind the curve. If you re-watch it with what you already know about the characters, it will be a lot more impactful. The show came out in 2002, and you're correct that the special effects were great for the time (and I say still hold up now). It was a pioneer in attempted photo-realistic CGI for space travel, since they attempted to portray realistic physics when it comes to motion and sound, and they even put in fake camera effects (Like zooms, blurs, etc.) to make the CGI look "real". The 2003 series "Battlestar Galactica" and the 2015 series "The Expanse" are usually viewed as the successors to this show in the portrayal of space travel. Inara was named earlier in the episode, so it wasn't a reveal or surprise when Mal said her name at the end, but it definitely did have a lot of Emotion when he said it. Others already pointed out that she's not a robot (or sexbot), "Companion" is a job title. The closest analogue in real life would be to say that she is a 'courtesan'. She is paid to ACCOMPANY people. Sex is included in that, but so is conversation, philosophy, cultural rituals, etc. She's a very high class woman in this world, and the crew call her 'Ambassador' because she is the one who can get fancy, high class worlds and space stations to let the ship dock at all. On this ship, despite being a 'whore', she's the legitimate businessman with political connections. River, the sister, is played by Summer Glau. You saw her in the "Angel" episode "Waiting in the Wings", where she played the Prima Ballerina. That was her very first ever acting role, and this show was her 'big break'. Carlos Jacott, who played Dobson the fed, was in both "Buffy" and "Angel". He played demons both times. In "Buffy" he played the cult-leader demon in season three when Buffy ran away from home to LA, where he was kidnapping humans as slave labor in his private hell dimension. In "Angel", he was the demon who was going to marry Doyle's ex-wife in season one, and wanted to eat Doyle's brain to bless the wedding. He is one of the "hat trick" actors who appeared in all three shows. SUPER excited to go through this series with you!
JBK405
2025-10-04 00:27:37 +0000 UTCThe first episode is *a lot,* no question. The series' whole schtick is kinda that we get dropped in very much out of context and then do the world building as we go.
Preaching to the Horse's Mouth
2025-10-03 23:08:08 +0000 UTCGet well soon, Cass Looking forward to re-watching this series. Regarding the Chinese dialogue, the societies in Firefly have a mixture of American and Chinese cultural elements. The crew are seen using chopsticks at dinner , there several examples of Asian art styles in the crew quarters this episode, and all the characters occasionally speak un-subtitled Chinese, most of it can be guessed at by context (like how you knew that Wash was probably wishing Zoe good luck), and the rest tends to be swearing so that it wouldnโt get censored for TV. Regarding the release order, Firefly aired in the Fall of 2002 on Fox. Fox released the episode out of order; sometimes the show was preempted by special events, sometimes by baseball games, sometimes seemingly for no reason at all.
James Smith
2025-10-03 23:00:20 +0000 UTCWonderful reaction... I've seen other reactions to this show and one thing I can say, people seem surprised at how quickly they absorb the details as the episodes go on. Also; please keep up with the theories, they are fun when the answers come into the picture. Also, they are part of what makes your reactions good ones to see.
Michael Labs
2025-10-03 22:44:49 +0000 UTCFirefly is such an odd show, I have a lot of affection for it but some of it is really 'moment in time', half of the ideas that make up its bones would just be instinctively approached so differently (especially the 'hey, China's probably solidly half of culture by the time we get to space travel' stuff that gets real Yellow Peril at times). It's a fun entry in the general lineage of 'space western' / 'wagon train to the stars' genre - usually they're not so explicit (ironically the show's big innovation is just making the subtext text), but the original Star Trek is half western (frontiers, lawmen, and the general structure of its episodes taking a lot from the TV Westerns whose sets they often borrowed). If Firefly ends up being your jam, that might be a fun thing to check in on to broaden out the sci-fi knowledge, since it's kind of the Big One as far as TV Space Shows go.
Jon D Arthur
2025-10-03 20:20:53 +0000 UTCI think I died a little inside when I saw this post. In a good way, to be clear ๐๐
Preaching to the Horse's Mouth
2025-10-03 19:56:15 +0000 UTCThereโs a lot to take in for this first episode. Even though I think it was a mistake, I do understand why Fox demanded that they make The Train Job (the next episode) as a faster, punchier pilot. So, youโll have a kind of second intro to the world and characters. There's a lot about the setting that they don't explain much or sometimes, at all. For example, in this setting, the colonists that set out from Earth during a time when the US and China were the two big superpowers, so there is an extensive Chinese influence. Most of the Chinese spoken is curses. Also, just in case it wasn't clear by the end of the episode - Inara is not a robot. I don't think that's a spoiler since I don't think it was intended that you take away that impression. She's a human sex worker and her title is Companion. Calling her Ambassador is just a snide dig from Mal. Who, as you have observed, is sometimes a good guy, but is often just kind of a dick.
R. Chang
2025-10-03 18:45:19 +0000 UTCIt happens fast so it's easy to miss, but Bendis dies at the end of the flashback. You see him getting shot standing next to Mal
Neill Shaughness
2025-10-03 17:45:09 +0000 UTCJust fyi, in regards to the Chinese spoken in the show. The brief lore is that back on Earth there was a WWIII and the two main superpowers that emerged were the US and China, so it became useful to know both English and Chinese. In practical terms while watching the show you don't have to be too concerned with knowing the exact translations, it is usually obvious what they mean based on the context and the way they say it. Its used as a way to bring a little depth to the world building and sometimes so they can use expletives without using English bad words.
Matthew
2025-10-03 17:33:50 +0000 UTCI think Jayne is an important character for the tone of the show. The fact that Mal keeps a guy as rough as Jayne around informs us how dangerous this lifestyle is. Without Jayne I think the show wouldn't have the same edge.
Neill Shaughness
2025-10-03 17:05:11 +0000 UTCI agree, the first 20 minutes are a bit hard to get into (and for what it's worth, this is one of the reason Fox didn't air the episodes in order, testing showed this first episode was a bit too hard for casual viewers to get into, so they changed episode 2 a bit to make it a more "friendly" introduction to the show and aired it first). The rest of the first episode does such a good job introducing everyone and their personalities though, it's a shame they didn't trust in it enough at the time. Glad you're enjoying it so far :) !
Arronax06
2025-10-03 17:03:58 +0000 UTCWhen I get home I am watching this immediately!!!
MaggieStormborn
2025-10-03 16:38:43 +0000 UTCThe original plan was not to have the cargo on board while they had passengers, but Badger backed out of the deal so they had no choice
Neill Shaughness
2025-10-03 16:37:15 +0000 UTCHope you feel better Cass, it always sucks when you can FEEL the illness coming on. I'm at work so I can't watch your full reaction yet, but I saw your intro and the thing with the same actors appearing on Buffy and Angel is because Firefly originally aired DURING Buffy S7/Angel S4. When it was cancelled, Joss brought several of the actors onto his other shows for the rest of the season. So as it goes along you'll recognize several more shared actors as well (Of varying levels of importance).
JBK405
2025-10-03 16:17:40 +0000 UTCThis episode is twice as long anyway!
aeronitz
2025-10-03 16:06:46 +0000 UTCI'm so excited to rewatch this with you! Thanks for doing this despite not being a sci-fi girl!
Kevin (kpix01)
2025-10-03 15:41:11 +0000 UTCFOX made The Train Job air first because they wanted more action to attract viewers or some BS, which ironically confused viewers and resulted in worse ratings
Kevin (kpix01)
2025-10-03 15:15:47 +0000 UTC
