Farscape – Season 2, Episode 5 “The Way We Weren’t” and Firefly – Season 1, Episode 8 “Out of Gas”
I had a great discussion with my co-host Jeremy Adams…
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3 responses
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Of course they are! Have a nice day, Farscape,Firefly and Stargate WOW!
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Heh. I watched the wrong episode of Farscape. For some reason 2.05 showed up as “Picture If You Will” so that’s the one I watched. :facepalm: While watching it I was wondering why this was an exemplar episode. Now I know.
When Farscape first aired I really tried to like it but struggled. It seemed really cheesy to me. Muppets in space. It received a lot of publicity in Australia seeing as it was filmed in Sydney with an Australian crew and lots of Australian and New Zealand actors. But it’s ratings weren’t great and I think it was eventually dropped from Australian networks.
A few years ago I decided to give it another try and I got all the way through most of season 3 before I got distracted by something else and stopped watching. I promise I will go back and complete it, plus the movie. I remember quite enjoying it this time around. It was still pretty cheesy but being a bit older I think I could appreciate the cheese. And the puppets are very well done.
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I didn’t need to re-watch “Out Of Gas”. I have that episode memorised and can quote it word for word. What an incredible piece of storytelling. The multiple timelines intercut to tell a coherent story, each timeline revealing just the right amount of information at the right time. The transitions between timelines and the different lighting for each timeline. :chef’s kiss:
It nearly commits what I feel is a cardinal sin in storytelling: Opening the story in the middle of the action that’s actually some point in the future and then cutting back to the boring beginning with a “48 hours earlier” caption. It’s lazy and just means the writer couldn’t come up with an exciting enough cold open. But I think it works in this episode because the scene where Mal falls to the ground after being shot is the “present” and the rest of the story is told as flashbacks, eventually catching up with the beginning of the episode at the end of the episode. It’s so clever. Never in a million years could I come up with something that clever.
I also love that we get an introduction to each of the original Serenity crew. Kaylee’s is the most memorable, of course, but Wash and Jayne’s intros are great as well.
It makes me furious every time I rewatch Firefly and I think about what Fox stole from us. By many accounts Joss Whedon is not a nice person and it’s likely the show would have eventually turned to crap but just think about those 14 episodes we got and there’s not a stinker in any of them! Most shows need a season or two to find their feet, can you image what season 2 would have been like if season 1 was just finding its feet?
I’m glad we got “Serenity” to wrap up the main story but I wanted more! I wanted to see YoSafBridge again. I wanted to see Badger get punched in the face. I wanted to see Niska die in a very painful and messy way. What was Shepherd Book’s mystery past? What was Inara running from? (I know the answers to these from the comics and novels, but I wanted to see them on screen.) Damn you Fox!
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“It nearly commits what I feel is a cardinal sin in storytelling: Opening the story in the middle of the action that’s actually some point in the future and then cutting back to the boring beginning with a “48 hours earlier” caption.”
I wonder if that was a result of the network pressuring him to start the episode with more action. We’d get that note all the time.
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