Thinking Critically About Firefly: The Train Job (Episode 3)

Those of you who are long-time Firefly fans likely know that The Train Job was ordered as a replacement for the pilot episode, which Fox execs loved but, for some reason, didn't love enough to actually air until after they'd decided to cancel the series. As such, it does a lot to briefly and strongly re-introduce our heroes and highlight their pasts and relationships. Fortunately, Whedon and company care enough about and understand these characters well enough that they manage to pull it off fairly organically with a relatively fun adventure, but it does mean that we don't learn a whole lot knew about anybody and no real growth occurs.

The bar scene that the episode starts with is a great example. In the first five minutes or so, we get crystal clear characterizations of much of the crew, from Mal's wit to Jayne's surliness. We're reminded about Mal's history with The Independents, River's time in the "academy", Zoe and Wosh's marriage, and the less-than-legal means by which the crew makes its living. We're even reminded of the show's namesake -- the classification of the ship that is the crew's haven against meddling governments. None of this is terribly atypical for a second-episode recap-wise, but we clearly saw in Serenity that there's more to these characters, especially Mal, than this; and we need to be shown all of that again.

This is why the episode suffers, at least in comparison to the rest of the series. It has its share of other flaws, of course. The way the eponymous train job goes down is questionable at best; and I've rarely watched this episode with somebody new to the series without them commenting on the ridiculousness of Niska's accent. But the biggest problems all come from needing to reintroduce the characters and settings in a single hour without covering too much old ground. Beyond the stagnation aspect already mentioned, it results in some heavy-handed dialog, and I'd even call the melodrama of the dilemma Mal finds himself in a consequence of this fact; as it allows him to show his true colors as a good guy in an episode where we see the depths to which he's willing to go to stay floating.

But, when all is said and done, it's still Firefly, and it's still largely brilliant. From Mal distracting the man in the bar at the beginning to drugged up Jayne, it keeps the series' heart alive; and Mal kicking Crow into the engine is just as effective as his shooting of Dobson in Serenity. We even do get the teensiest bit of advancement with the introduction Hands of Blue. As such, there are far less pleasant ways to spend 45 minutes of your time.

Hopefully this was a bit easier to get through than the beast that was my coverage of Serenity. I'm thinking it's a bit too terse, but I figure virtually anybody reading this has seen the episodes, so an elaborate recap isn't really required. Besides, I want to save my energy for episodes that I really like. We've got Bushwhacked in the way first, though, which may be my least favorite episode. In any case, we'll get to that and why in the near-future (possibly yet tonight!).

And, once again, if you want to see professional commentary on the series, check out Alan Sepinwall's awesome blog on Hitfix. His thoughts on Serenity can be found here, and his post on this very episode will be up tomorrow.