Objects in Space (13 Dec. 2002)

The Alliance has placed a bounty on River Tam's head and a bounty Hunter named Jubal Early sets out to claim the bounty and tracks down the Serenity crew. Jubal sneaks on-board the Serenity... See full summary »

Director:

Joss Whedon

Writers:

Joss Whedon (creator), Joss Whedon

Stars:

Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Nathan Fillion	...	Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds
Gina Torres	...	Zoë Washburne
Alan Tudyk	...	Hoban 'Wash' Washburne
Morena Baccarin	...	Inara Serra
Adam Baldwin	...	Jayne Cobb
Jewel Staite	...	Kaylee Frye
Sean Maher	...	Dr. Simon Tam
Summer Glau	...	River Tam
Ron Glass	...	Shepherd Book
Richard Brooks	...	Jubal Early

Storyline

The Alliance has placed a bounty on River Tam's head and a bounty Hunter named Jubal Early sets out to claim the bounty and tracks down the Serenity crew. Jubal sneaks on-board the Serenity while the crew is asleep to capture River and Simon and return them to the Alliance, so he can be paid for their capture and only River can stop him.

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Plot Keywords:

bounty hunter | shot in the leg | eavesdropping | heroine | game | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Mandarin

Release Date:

13 December 2002 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mutant Enemy

Technical Specs

Runtime:

44 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The character of Jubal Early was partially influenced by the Star Wars character, bounty hunter Bob Fett.

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Goofs

(at around 12 mins) While Kaylee is revealing River's extraordinary killing skills in the common area, you can see a crew member on the left side of the screen, bent over the counter reading a binder.

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Quotes

Jubal Early: That ain't a Shepherd.

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Connections

Referenced in Firefly: Trash (2003)

User Reviews

Nice to see the series go out on a high

The good; All of it, very, very good, especially love the opening of Summer as she prowls around the ship listening to everyone's thoughts, the character of Jubal Early, the crew's meeting to discuss River and her plan is inspired.

The bad; River's reluctance to use firearms to dispose of Early seems a little strange, she's never seemed to have any reservations before. Plus shooting him would be a lot more humane than leaving him to suffocate?

Kinky dinky; Early threatens to rape Kaylee to get her co-operation. We take it that when he talks of giving Kaylee and 'present' and ridding her off a 'problem' he means River but maybe he takes her as a virgin and is telling her they're going to have sex? River observes he's all about "Power, control, pain' River voyeuristically 'mindrops' on Wash and Zoe getting kissy on the bridge (aside from Homer and Marge they seem to be the most sexually active married couple ever). Topless Simon for the straight girls and sly boys (Joss admits he doesn't mind giving his audience some cheesecake) plus him playing footsie with Kaylee. He also relates the story of some youthful streaking to celebrate his graduation as a surgeon. Book is celibate but avoids the question of masturbation.

Notches on the Serenity bedpost; we don't know what happens between Kaylee and Early after he ties her up but I don't think so. She also relates a possible story about bedding a 14 year old 'genetic experiment' but again, unconfirmed.

Capt subtext; Mal says that he's perfectly fine with Kaylee never having killed anyone, he wants to keep her the one sweet and innocent thing in his life. Early's fate, left hanging in space with an uncertain future is a metaphor for the series itself. When Jayne threatens that he and Wash will 'Go somewhere' over his teasing Wash says he hopes it's somewhere with candlelight.

How'd they get away with that? Early threatening Kaylee is hard to watch as is his pistol whipping Inara across the face. Early licks the ship? Is he descended from Benton Fraser RCMP?

Fanfic; Plenty about the future adventures of Jubal Early. Amongst the means for his survival are; 1) Venting air from his spacesuit to propel him back to his own ship 2) Boosting the power of his magnetic shoes in order to attract him back to it 3) Remote control of his own ship once Serenity is out of sensor range (it does seem to fly off under some form of direction) 4) Firing his gun to use the recoil to direct himself 5) Picked up by the blue gloves who are also trailing Serenity. Unfortunately some include him making good on his threats to Kaylee.

Missing scenes; or deleted scenes in this case 1. Scene where we see Zoe and Mal being picked up by the rescue ships after the battle of Serenity. Very graphic with the ground littered with corpses and Zoe in particular looking as though she's on her last legs. It's a powerful scene but if they had left it in it would have detracted from Mal's 'loss of faith' moment in the pilot. 2. Zoe tells Simon about the battle of Serenity in all it's gory detail, 500,000 killed in less than 2 months. What makes this more interesting is that she states that the Browncoats leaders left them to rot on the battlefield for a week, they resent the Independents High Command as well as the Alliance.

Well I guess I owe Alan Tudyk an apology, there IS an incestuous subtext between Simon and River (at least on River's part) he didn't just make it up out of the blue in his commentary for War Stories. It's all actually quite innocent, like a little girl playing at weddings and casting her father or brother as the groom. She accuses Saffron of being a thief, the crew think she means snaffling the food but she actually means more than that. Mal's speech to Saffron about standing up for herself shows his attitude towards women and gives her the idea of how to hoodwink him. This scene also explains why Summer Glau had no lines in the whole of Our Mrs Reynolds.

Inara announces she's leaving, excised because of the crazy order in which the show was shown so as to make more sense. Also reputedly Zoe and Wash asking Simon about starting a family

Questions and observations; I had thought it was stupid that Serenity had controls allowing someone to seal the crew into their cabins from the outside but it was pointed out if the ship was depressurised they would need to be able to seal off each compartment. Note Kayleigh is the only one not to have any hidden thoughts for River to read, she's totally open. Book's thoughts make you wonder if he was previously a cop or judge? As early observes, "That's not a Shepherd" Jayne appears to cook pancakes. Note when River has the gun it's Kaylee who backs away most having seen what she's capable off. The crew still don't know about Jayne's betrayal on Ariel. Mal sure does love his double negatives when talking. Wash seems to delight in teasing Jayne although you'd wonder if he'd be quite so brave without Zoe to back him up? He also thinks telepathy is science fiction even when he's on a spaceship, very postmodern. It appears people eat horses in the future. Early is the kind of interesting recurring villain the series sorely needs. Unfortunately this is the final ep. Marks out of 10; 9/10, nice to see the series go out on a high