Caltrops - Peter Molyneux's The Movies





	[quote name="Arbit"][quote name="Fussbett"]01_Serenity So this is the two-hour planned pilot episode, which FOX said started too slow. They pushed it deeper into the season in favour of The Train Job kicking off the series, which is "all action". So did Serenity originally air as a two-parter or was it just a special two hour episode in the middle of the series? Either way, it's clear what a wonderful day it will be when episodic TV content is run right off TV and moves to the internet, leaving programming executives with greatly diminished jobs they can suck at. It'll also never happen, but that makes the thought even more wonderful and precious. So this episode is awesome. It's basically prequel to the movie. Serenity 0.5. The battle of Serenity Valley is a little low-budget, but everything else is either interesting backstory or interesting "first occurance of". It's crazy to think of this as a flashback episode mid-season. I'm outraged. Where's my petition?[/quote] [quote]02_The_Train_Job I was a little put off by how overtly western this episode was. The western town, the sheriff, the train robbery, the noble theivery... If I came across this episode as the first one, I might not have been hooked if I didn't give it my full attention right away. However, as invested as I am in the story now, this episode was satisfying enough, and has a great punchline with the speech given to Niska's monster enforcer guy. Two Alliance agents with "hands of blue" show up at the end of this episode, and still haven't appeared again in 6 more episodes. What is this, Lost?[/quote] My reaction to these two episodes was reversed. The first episode seemed like they mashed a bunch of character archetypes together and waited for the magic to happen, only there wasn't any magic, just some awkward pairings so we know who's going to be fucking who in the future. Little camaraderie and little humor, besides the "Kaylee's dead WAIT LOL NO SHE ISN'T aren't I a card" bit, which came off pretty asshole-y and genuinely psychopathic. In fact, between that and him angrily calling what's-her-face a WHORE over and over again for no other reason than he appears to enjoy it, the captain came across as a dipshit. The Jayne betrayal subplot lacked any tension because both characters were annoying and the stakes were way too high - murder your captain in cold blood because a desperate, weaselly little fed offers you money when you wave a knife in his face/balls? Not going to happen. That's <b>definitely</b> not going to happen in the first episode, if I may get a little meta. By contrast, I had no trouble believing Jayne could convince himself that the captain was dead so he could seize power. Mal exhibits a sense of humor and compassion. What's-her-face risks her status as a Companion to rescue Mal and is justified when Mal returns the meds. I hate the cloyingly cute, overt nerd-pandering that is Kaylee. Just though I'd throw that last one in to mix things up. The enforcer guy getting killed was great. "You're going to kill this guy, right? I know this is prime time TV but when someone swears to kill you like that you don't just walk awa" - BAM sucked into the turbine like so much duck[/quote]