Everybody dies alone

"Out Of Gas", Firefly, episode 8


As most of my Firefly friends know, this is probably my personal favorite episode (and possibly what I feel is the best episode also). It's quite a sombre episode and although it has some wonderful humour, it is not as indiciative of the show as say Our Mrs. Reynolds. The success of this episode is the informing (and sometimes contrasting) of the characters via their brief flashback backstories. It is testament to the skills of writer Tim Minear, that so much information is provided so succinctly and deftly. It is quite astonishing that episode, highly regarded by any serious Browncoat, was not written nor directed by creator Joss Whedon. Although I'm sure Joss had some involvement in the episode, Minear is a past hand at ME drama, and was the writer/director of one of Angel's best episodes, "Are you now or have you ever been?".

It is the fractured, sometimes fragile, often muscle tight relationships between the crew that is the strength of this episode, even though they are only all together really for the first two acts. One of the most telling moments is when Zoe sacrifices herself for Kaylee in the opening moments' explosion, and Wash's love for his wife is so great that he is willing to see his captain's bad side. And yet it is the captain who is humanised more than possibly any other character in this episode. There had been previous hints of this, especially his Robin Hood ways, but I think this was one of the first major times that his genuine love of his crew became apparent by the end of the episode.

Technically, one of the successes of the episode is the distinct color schemes utilised for the various time shifts, the metallic blue of Mal trying to fix the engine, the green as he interviews Inara and Kaylee and the yellow as he tempts Jayne. In fact, color is one of the more important aspects of Firefly the show in general - just watch the rustic and earthy browns in the main title sequence. Davd Solomon, the director, cut his teeth on Buffy episodes, and this is probably the highlight of his ME work.

Minear has obviously spent an incredible amount of time, fitting the jigsaw of this episode together just so, so that all of the character interactions contrast between time shifts but don't contradict, and that all of the plot elements (such as the adrenalin shot) are carefully prepared or foreshadowed. The great herring of the episode is that damned RED button, which is judiciously used in David Solomon's cutting.



One of the other important aspects of the episode is the finely crafted score by Greg Edmonson. His is a sparse score and the choices where to spot music is clearly carefully done. Many dialogue and action scenes have no score at all, and then there will be a brief moment of guitar and piano to underscore a moment.