Day Two Hundred and One - Firefly: Episode 14, Objects In Space, "Well, Here I Am."

Still needing the comfort of the familiar and pleasing, but not quite so desperate that I can't handle a little heartbreak and longing, today's entry was easy to decide on... being the last episode of Joss Whedon's ill-fated and much beloved Firefly.

There's so much to love about this universe. It's a Western, but Science Fiction. It isn't bothered by its space-faring trappings and strictures, instead using them to great effect when necessary and, the grand majority of the time, not even bothering... choosing to tell quiet, human stories of grit and perseverance.

Objects In Space doesn't spend a lot of time with the actual crew, a rarity for final episodes, instead spending most of its effort on the guest character, Jubal Early (Richard Brooks whom most folks would probably recognize from his work in the early seasons of Law & Order).

I like Jubal... he's an interesting foil.

Obviously a psychopath, Jubal has a calm, mellow charm that is offset both by his odd questions/musings and his stark shifts from friendly to threatening.

Most psychopaths portrayed on television are done so severely, showing their threatening nature with heavy violence and tense soundtracks. Jubal is much more interesting due to his systematic and rational takedowns of the crew and subsequent negotiations with River/Serenity.

For me, all the joy and interest in the character comes from his thought process. I mean, honestly, the "Am I a Lion?" scene with Simon is pure brilliance in its awkwardness... and the only rough parts come from the quick madness cuts while River dresses Jubal down over the comm system.

Objects In Space is also great thanks to all the callbacks to previous episodes. Whether it's the assault on Niska's Skyplex or Jayne getting slashed, it's always good to have a show that doesn't live on stand alone episodes, like Star Trek does for the most part as an example. Rich, organic, self-referencing continuity makes for often tremendous television.

It's sad to see a favorite series end, even though I've been here with Firefly many times before... and even though it does continue with the film Serenity... I just mourn for all the grand potential the series had yet to explore and never rightly got to, even with the movie and the comics. Hell, especially because of the movie, since many compromises had to be made to give the film enough oomph worthy of both a feature and a sendoff.

If you haven't yet become a Browncoat, I definitely recommend the series. It was one of the greatest scifi shows to air in recent years and was cut tragically short by the network.

But the dream lives on in all of us Browncoats out here, subsisting on Netflix and DVDs and Blu-rays.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Sixty-four - Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, "I got this weird brain."

Occasionally cheese is a good thing, both for the diet and the soul.

Of course, I overindulge in actual cheese quite a bit in my life. Movie cheese, though? Well, I tend to have a more moderate attitude when it comes to the figurative. Sometimes, though, it's done just right so as to be a perfect example of both quality and camp.

Tucker & Dale comes pretty damn close to that ideal, if you ask me.

A low-budget slasher flick with the thinnest of premises, Tucker & Dale records the deadly misunderstandings between two jovial rednecks and an SUV full of judgmental college kids who take them for psycho killers.

When Dale (Tyler Labine) saves the beatiful Ally (Katrina Bowden) from drowning when she slips and falls while skinny dipping, her friends think he and Tucker (Alan Tudyk) kidnapped her and want to kill her just like the scary massacre story they just told around the campfire. Setting off to rescue her, several of them manage to accidentally kill themselves in quite a few gruesome ways which only escalates the conflict, much to the befuddlement of Tucker and Dale, who have no idea why college kids are committing suicide on their property.

Inverting the slasher trope, Tucker & Dale is comedy gold that never takes itself seriously, instead relying on the goofy charm of its leads and the many lighthearted scenes of death and dismemberment to keep the audience engaged and laughing.

It sounds terrible, to enjoy the horrendous ways that the frat boys and sorority girls manage to get themselves killed, but Labine and Tudyk play the harmless hillbillies so well that you can't but help be 100% on their side the entire time, even going so far as to feel disgust when Ally is forced to tell Dale just why her group was afraid of them.

Alan Tudyk will always have a special place in my heart thanks to his performance as Wash in Firefly and Serenity and Tyler Labine was great as the feckless sidekick in Reaper, both short-lived series being fun in their own rights... though, Firefly is much superior to Reaper, despite Ray Wise's genius portrayal as the Devil. While there's never really much of a stretch for Katrina Bowden in terms of acting, I think she performed pretty decently and will have to keep an eye out for her in the future.

While I probably wouldn't want my kids seeing this film till they reach the age of reason, for all it's blood and gore, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is good old harmless fun that turns the horror genre on its ear. Honestly, the only films that do it better, to my eye, are Killer Klowns and (the pinnacle) The Cabin in the Woods.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Sixty-three - Firefly: Episode 13, Heart of Gold, "Poor, poor Inara."

There is a reason that Firefly has become the go-to series for the internet and its geeks (of which I am one).

For one thing, it has tremendously simple, yet deviously charismatic and witty dialogue. For another? It's just so damn fun.

I had personally given up on the Space Western in the 80's when Ice Pirates and Battle Beyond the Stars hit, the (only) Star Wars Trilogy having been wrapped up rather neatly and Scifi as a genre banking more on grand, sweeping visions of the future where the trials and tribulations of man are all alien based instead of centered on more human stories.

When I heard Joss Whedon, creator of my favorite camp horror show of the late 90's/early millenium, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was making a new series on FOX, I was on board... and avidly supported the show as best I could, watching it (out of order and with episodes missing) and posting to the forums as often as I could.

The inevitable happened and, like most of my favorite shows, it was cancelled.

But... you're on the internet. Odds are you know this story. Odds are, you're probably a Firefly fan. Even if you're not, I'm still going to assume you are for the rest of this article because, unlike many of the other series I've watched for the blog, I'm going to skip ahead to the penultimate episode of the series.

Not the pilot. Not three or four in. No, I'm going for the gold... the Heart of Gold, as it were: episode 13... where Mal gets laid for the first time we've rightly seen and Inara? Well, poor Inara puts on a brave face, but it's a conundrum of her own design.

On the surface, Heart of Gold is your typical Western tale where the salt of the earth types hire gunman to protect their meager assets, but when you dig a bit deeper, the episode is more about Inara and Mal and the inevitable conclusion of their mating dance.

Having been hinted at passive-aggressively and with stolen, sleepy kisses in the past, Heart of Gold brings things to a head when Inara brokers Mal and the crew of the Serenity to help an old former Companion friend of hers. Seems an easy to hate villain wants to force his patrimony and misogyny on a Bunny Ranch that won't truck his control. In the process, Mal & Co. are hired as bodyguards and Inara all but thrusts Mal into the arms of her lusty friend. Not ever getting a kind word from Inara, Mal allows himself to be reluctantly seduced... and it all ends in tears for Inara.

I love this episode for that simple fact... it forces a confrontation of feelings for both characters, perhaps moreso for Inara, but you can't tell me that Mal isn't constantly reminded of just how much he desires and cares for his passenger, only to be rebuffed by her time and time again.

It's weird to me how much viewing pleasure I get from Inara's breakdown. I'm not happy that she's hurt (other than glad to see her admit, even in private, to her real feelings), it's just that there is such a surge of emotion inspired in me because of it. To see her so distraught when she is normally so prim and composed creates that extra emotional oomph that is a delight to see, no matter how sad I am because of it.

Aside from that juicy bit of drama, there are plenty of other cast interactions to please: Kaylee needles Simon about their own unresolved chemistry, River acts wise and naive in her delightfully quirky way, Jayne gets lucky (keeping him happy), Wash and Zoe argue over babymaking, and the Shepard... oh, his look when several girls relay how the last preacher to visit their whorehouse acted is just priceless.

The actual plot is weak and one-dimensional, which is disappointing when you consider the episode just before it (The Message) was very strong... but the dialogue and crew drama for the episode are just divine. It ranks very highly in my book, in spite of its weaknesses... but the whole series pretty much does that.

If you haven't watched Firefly yet, DO IT. Don't mince, don't dally or dither or some other d-word (like "delay," for instance). It's well worth it... and is one of my acid tests for "mah kind'o'people."

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~