...or is this Dollhouse promo very Tarantino-esque?

Enh. What a middling start to a series. Weird plotting, weird editing, bad acting — it was just weird. Not quite bad but not great either.

When the episode began, I was convinced that I had accidentally selected the wrong option on the DVD. I thought I must be watching some preview for one of those crappy, exploitative procedural shows. Surely, this isn't Caprica.

But it was.

Caprica and I got off to a bad start with the all the gratuitous topless women – I could only pick out one topless man in the sex room for certain – and the use of "lesbian" sexuality as shorthand for debauchery. Avan Jogia and Magda Apanowicz's weak performances did nothing to ameliorate the situation. The episode did improve eventually but never really seemed to hit its stride. While a few interesting moments were sprinkled throughout, I found the episode as a whole rather unfocused and, sadly, pretty forgettable.

Personally, I think I would have started the episode with the Graystones at home rather than in V Club. Zoe and her mother argue, Mom drops Zoe off at school the next day, she runs away to Gemenon, Ben blows up the train. Credits. The "2 Weeks Later" card didn't do much to let the impact of the explosion really set in, while a nice credits sequence could have created a more meaningful pause. I don't think that we should have seen Zoe's avatar until Daniel first visits V Club after she has died. I suspect that most of the audience is looking for pieces of how the Cylons came to be, so why give them one of the pieces in the first scene? Plus, the audience, like Daniel, would be surprised to see her if she hadn't been seen previously. I just don't understand the logic behind that decision. Also, notice how my version cuts Avan and Magda's screen time practically in half. That's not a coincidence.

I have to admit that I might be a little biased against Caprica because something about Eric Stoltz just bugs me, though I couldn't tell you what. In general, he seems to be a solid actor, and I actually think he's kinda sexy. But he bothers me for some reason. I can't point to anything wrong with his performance here, but I must say that I found his character rather confusing. I never bought him as a grieving parent. Never. And it probably didn't help that Stoltz and Alessandra Torresani had a strange, almost sexual chemistry, which made the thought of them being father and daughter quite icky. When Daniel hugs AvatarZoe and scans her, I thought his only motivation was that he wanted to know how his daughter had created the avatar and how he might use that technology in his work, which is a perfectly fine and interesting motivation for his character to have. However, the writers then seemed to want us to believe that he grabbed the code so that he could have a copy of his daughter, and then it seemed like a purely profit-motivated action, and then he was sad that he lost her avatar to a system failure... I don't know. If he was supposed to be both a grieving parent and an unscrupulous scientist, the former felt false to me.

Esai Morales, though also kinda sexy, was less interesting and had some weak spots in his performance. I'm not sure if I like that the father/grandfather of characters from Battlestar Galactica is a main character here just so that the BsG audience can hear a familiar name. I'm curious to see if he will actually feel involved in the main narrative of the series because the connection made between Joseph and Daniel seemed arbitrary and tenuous at best, so Joseph seems destined to be relegated to the B-plot.

Now, the moments that did grab my attention:

• AvatarZoe telling Daniel all the places one can find information about people
• Daniel telling Joseph that in his business "a difference that makes no difference is no difference"
• The Inspector telling the Sister why he doesn't trust monotheism
  

I also found it interesting that some of the discussion around AvatarZoe and whether she was Zoe, whether a person's soul can be copied, sounded very similar to discussions I've heard on Dollhouse. It might be a Battle of the Series to see who addresses the topic "better" or in a more interesting way.

Even though I found this pilot a little lackluster, I think my money would still be on Caprica in that fight.

When I heard that the original Dollhouse pilot was not going to be aired as the first episode of the series, I groaned a little on the inside. I worried the switch foretold the recurrence of what happened to Firefly, despite Joss' insistence that he, rather than the network, chose to rework the pilot. But I admit that "Ghost" wasn't a "Train Job," and I can now say that "Echo" definitely isn't a "Serenity."

"Echo" does feel like more of a pilot to me than "Ghost" did, mostly because it focuses on the Dollhouse, rather than a client, and Ballard's investigation getting too close for Adelle's comfort. However, "Ghost" does a much better job of showing how the actives function rather than telling. "Echo" has a lot of exposition, but it also raises more of the moral and ethical debates regarding the concept of the Dollhouse. I kinda like this speech Topher gives:

You wear the tie because it never occurred to you not to. You eat eggs in the morning but never at night. You feel excitement and companionship when rich men you've never met put a ball through a net. You feel guilty, maybe a little suspicious every time you see that Salvation Army Santa. You look down for at least half-a-second if a woman leans forward. And your stomach rumbles every time you drive by a big golden arch, even if you weren't hungry before. Everybody's programmed, Boyd.

The pilot also affords Eliza Dushku better opportunity to play multiple characters, and she does really well. I enjoy her performance of practically all her personas, especially "Shauna Vickers," and each of them feels very distinct from one another. She even speaks Spanish, and her accent doesn't sound half-bad. I appreciate that none of the engagements in which she participates are particularly salacious, unlike the motorcycle-riding, shirt-dress-wearing persona in "Ghost." I also like that Echo's increasing self-awareness is specifically addressed in the pilot. Since all of the articles I read about Dollhouse mentioned that the plot of the series would be driven by Echo gaining a sense of self, I was surprised that "Ghost" didn't prominently feature a glitch.

I think I agree with Joss' decision to create a new first episode. While I'm usually yelling at him to hurry up and do something, here I felt like I needed to jerk back on Joss' reins. Especially in regards to Ballard, "Echo" jumps into plotlines and introduces ideas really quickly. Most of the first twenty-five minutes of the episode were cannibalized and used in other episodes throughout the season, and those scenes work as well if not better in their new contexts as they do here. The arguable A-story of the episode concerning Ballard and Echo was replaced by the slow-burning Ballard/Mellie storyline, which I prefer. The concept of Echo's first engagement as a Scared Straight-type, and some of the ideas it presents ("I am you, dumb-ass. I'm the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come."), also seems to have been morphed into the pro bono engagement in "Briar Rose."

In addition, Joss decided to hold out on revealing that Lubov is really an active. Even though the Whedonesque community wasn't surprised by the reveal, I think it was a good decision to sit on revealing that Lubov and Mellie are actives because it created a greater sense of paranoia that anyone could be a doll. Because of Tahmoh Penikett's presence, I can't help but compare the revelation of the "undercover" dolls to the divulgement of the 12 cylon models on Battlestar Galactica. Of course, revealing who are dolls isn't near as suspenseful as revealing cylons because an antagonism doesn't exist between actives and non-actives as it does between cylons and humans. But I do think that Joss manages to make the reveals of November and Whiskey interesting and significant, each in their own way. If Joss has any more doll reveals planned for season two, hopefully they won't be ruined.

I think what I find most interesting about pilots is seeing how/if any of the personalities of the main characters had been tweaked for the series proper. For example, in the C.S.I. pilot Gil Grissom is much more outgoing and personable, and in the Wonderfalls pilot, Aaron's disinterest and disconnection from Jaye belies the close relationship they have later on. In the case of this pilot, Boyd is much less fatherly and protective of Echo, sitting casually in the surveillance van reading a newspaper while she has a gun pointed at her heart. Adelle seems more human and less austere, though she still terrifies me with the small smile she gives to Topher and Boyd during their conversation about the mishap with Ballard. And Dr. Saunders seems much more self-conscious about her scars, literally hiding in the shadows for the bulk of a scene.

While Topher doesn't seem all that different, his characterization feels rocky. He has his three major personality traits on display – arrogance, questionable morality, and immaturity – but he seems a lot less nonchalant than usual. He says that he doesn't care about the moral questions surrounding what he does in the Dollhouse, but he becomes pretty intense in the (boring) argument he has with Dr. Saunders. Maybe Joss intentionally wanted to hint that Topher doesn't feel as detached as he seems, but having both his conversation with Boyd and discussion with Dr. Saunders in the same episode feels heavy-handed. Justifying that the imprinting isn't morally wrong, Topher tells both of them that the dolls fall in love, suggesting that maybe Topher envies that aspect of the dolls' engagements because he thinks that he can't or won't fall in love. But again, having him say the same thing twice in one episode feels clumsy. Topher says to Boyd that they are dolls and their bosses are like children who break their toys, which feels out of character. He is too full of himself and his abilities to ever compare himself to one of the actives.

Favorite lines:

• "Eddie, she lacks ambition." (Echo)
• "You are a dead woman." "Then how can you possibly hurt me?" (Eddie & Echo)
• "Yeah. People are mostly crap." (Lubov)
• "Was that flirting?" "I think so." (Loomis & Ballard)

Random thoughts:

• What's with the anti-woman sentiment? Echo says, "Did you see him crying like a tiny woman?" and, "I'm trying so hard not to be such a girl." She makes both of those statements while she is imprinted, so maybe it's a comment on how society "programs" a certain amount of self-loathing in women? I don't know.
  
• Ashley Johnson from "Omega" appears here, and she is just as good. Johnson has come a long way from being the baby on Growing Pains.
• I don't know if it's the lighting or imperfect make-up, but Dr. Saunders' skin looks almost reptilian-like when she peeks through the files at Topher.
  

I've finally reached an episode that doesn't bore me and is actually pretty good, so of course I'm having difficulty writing about it. Why is it so much easier to complain than to compliment?

I'm not quite sure how to describe the storytelling technique Tim Minear uses in this script. I suppose most simply put it's three different timelines that Minear interweaves, though it doesn't quite feel like nonlinear storytelling to me. I think the inter-cutting between the present (wounded Mal trying to fix the ship) and the near past (how Mal ended up shot on his broken ship) is quite effective because it allows the story to begin in medias res. The plot isn't terribly complicated nor particularly original, so the structure gives it a little pizazz. Not surprisingly, I don't love the deep flashbacks showing how each of the crew members ended up on Serenity. For the most part, I don't think they provide much information about these characters who, on the whole, sorely lack backgrounds.

Wash and Inara's flashbacks irk me the most. Wash's flashback exists for the cheap "laughs" of his mustache and Zoe saying that she "don't like 'im." Of course she didn't like him. No couple in the history of television liked each other at first. Yawn. The flashback with Inara renting the shuttle essentially rehashes what her interview with the Alliance officer in "Bushwhacked" reveals. Nothing new there. And similar to Zoe's "I don't like 'im," Inara tells Mal not to call her a whore ever again, which of course he does all the time. So I guess that flashback does provide new information: Mal is even more of an ass than I thought.

Jayne's flashback is entertaining, though not particularly revelatory. Like I said previously, I don't feel the need to learn more about Jayne's past at this point because it's clear how he ended up flying with Mal, so "entertaining" is perfectly satisfying. I think the final flashback serves as a nice coda to the episode, though again it's not all that telling. Kaylee's flashback is the only one that provides some new background information and character development. I remember being a little shocked by the introduction of Kaylee in flagrante delicto with Bester* because she has seemed rather naive about relationships up to this point in the series, despite all the talk of her nethers in the Big Damn Movie. We also learn that before flying with Mal, Kaylee lived on a farm with her parents and even seemed to have a good relationship with her father. But of course, we never see this father who isn't an overbearing dictator or a deserter.

*Do we ever have any indication of how long the crew of Serenity has been flying together when the series begins? That fact never seemed that important until I read that Jewel Staite thinks that Kaylee is supposed to be around 19-years-old. Staite was 19 and 20 while filming the series, so that's not an outrageous assumption. But if Kaylee is supposed to be 19 when the events of the series happen, then how old would she have been in this flashback? Would she have been over 18? Because Bester is clearly not a teenager. (The actor is 10 years older than Staite.)

I totally don't buy that wounded Mal with his one bitty gun would scare off the half-dozen pirates who shoot him. Even if they find him enough of a threat to retreat to their ship, why didn't they wait until Mal expired to take over Serenity? Mal had a good chance of dying: even if the gunshot wound to the gut didn't kill him, it could prevent him from repairing the ship so that he would suffocate. The pirates could easily have flown away when they saw the shuttles return. Anyway, that's what I would have done.

Nathan Fillion has to spend a lot of time alone in this episode, and I think he does a great job keeping the audience involved, even though he doesn't have any dialogue. He really sells Mal's pain without going too over-the-top or too hammy with it — he really knows how to bring physicality to a role. Even though I know that Mal won't die, Fillion's acting and David Solomon's direction manages to make me genuinely concerned for him. I like the sense of finality Solomon creates when the crew is saying their goodbyes and Mal is closing up the ship after the shuttles depart. Also, having Mal be simultaneously in danger of suffocating and bleeding to death effectively creates dramatic tension at the climax of the episode.

Favorite lines:

• "You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?" (Zoe)
• "'Day' is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. It's not applicable. ...I didn't get you anything." (River)
• "I mean, let's say you did kill us...or didn't. There could be torture. Whatever." (Mal)
  

Also? Simon is so pretty.

Thanks to the folks over at Whedonesque for the link! My blog has actually migrated, so if you'd like to leave a comment you can do so over here.

Of all the relationships on Buffy, Willow and Tara's feels the most separated from the goings-on of the other Scoobies. That separation is partly forced because their relationship is a lesbian one and thus not quite socially acceptable, especially on network television. Willow and Tara are much less physically affectionate in comparison to the show's other significant relationships, and at the beginning of their relationship their intimacy has to be portrayed through metaphor. In the context of the show, Willow does not openly date Tara at first because she is coming out to herself and worries about her friends' reactions. But Willow and Tara also remain conscious of and even maintain a separate space for their relationship to occupy. Because of the "behind closed doors" nature of their relationship, a close look at door imagery, of which there is quite a bit, is warranted and indeed rewarded. Doors, doorways, and entryways help to illustrate the progression of Willow and Tara's relationship and its integration into the "mainstream" of the show.

Of course, each character opens a door at some point, and theoretically everyone has to go through doors all the time to get from room to room and place to place. But doors are interesting. Doors are obviously associated with entry and exit, but often those entrances and exits relate to more than just the physical space. The ideas, people, and values that space represents are being embraced or dismissed as well. Who can open particular doors or pass through doorways into certain spaces indicates ownership, privilege, and power. Doors also provide isolation or privacy, and in the Buffyverse doors and doorways can effectively protect against vampires who cannot cross some thresholds without an invitation.

Doorways and entryways are also liminal spaces or places of transition. Obviously, people go from outside to inside or from one space to another through doorways, but entryways differ somewhat. They are part of a space but at the same time disconnected and, in fact, almost purgatorial: one only lingers in an entryway until accepted into the rest of the building where meaningful interactions take place. Liminal spaces often play a significant role in portraying queer relationships. Because same-sex relationships have been considered socially deviant, they oftentimes can only safely exist in liminal spaces, like a darkened alley or a bathroom stall. But restricting queer characters to liminal spaces ensures that their "threatening" sexuality does not come in contact with "moral," heterosexual spaces like marriage, the home, and the nuclear family. The confinement also implies that they do not or cannot belong in those places.

Images of doors, entryways, and doorways feature prominently throughout Willow and Tara's relationship, but Tara in particular has a lot of such imagery associated with her starting from her first appearance in "Hush." Indeed, Tara choosing to delve into the Scoobies' world of vampires, demons, and monsters is marked by a door. As Tara leaves her dorm room to find Willow so that they can do a spell together, she opens the door and looks back hesitantly at her room before shutting the door behind her. She has a definite moment of exiting one world and entering another. Because Tara is an outsider to the group, her space exists outside of the Scoobies' domain. And unlike Giles and Xander's apartments or Spike's crypt, Tara's room never becomes a place where the Scoobies hang out or even a place they visit sometimes. Because of that separation, Tara's room becomes a place where Willow may explore her sexuality and transition to a gay identity. Or perhaps that relationship is actually inverse: because Tara is queer she must inhabit separate space, which makes her an outsider. Because doors are such an important part of demarcating space, the majority of door imagery related to Tara reveals the limitations of how she may and what space she may occupy as a queer outsider.

Tara's role for much of season four is allowing Willow access to her room – access to queer space – quite literally opening her door so that their relationship may foster. Tara first opens her door to Willow in “The I in Team” when she drops by to ask if Tara wants to hang out after Buffy blows her off to patrol with Riley. Willow had been in Tara's room before to do magic together in "A New Man," but that scene begins with Willow already inside the room. Thus, this little moment of Willow asking if she can enter Tara's room seems more significant than her simply inquiring if Tara wants to "do something." Their body language also suggests something more: Willow is visibly nervous and hopeful, and Tara's smile is on the warmer side of friendly as she lets Willow into her room. Combined with the door closing, leaving the audience outside the room, I'm inclined to believe that this episode marks when Willow and Tara's relationship becomes more than just a friendship. This scene perhaps represents Willow's coming out to herself, choosing to enter Tara's room in a more significant way than before.

The following episode “Goodbye Iowa” contains a similar scene in which a very smiley Willow comes to Tara's room for help with a spell. They talk about the "spells" they did after the door closed in "The I in Team," and Tara says that she has been thinking about "that last spell [they] did all day," which overtly hints at the romantic nature of Willow and Tara's relationship for the first time. If "The I in Team" represents their first actually sexual (and not just magical) encounter, then "Goodbye Iowa" is their processing of that event. While Willow seems excited by their newly forming relationship, she has yet to fully embrace it because she still needs to knock and be let into Tara's room.

"New Moon Rising" obviously marks an important turning point for Willow and Tara when Willow doubly asserts her queer identity by choosing Tara over Oz and revealing to Buffy that she has been romantically involved with a woman. The first time Willow comes to Tara's room during the episode, Tara opens her door and invites Willow inside. When Willow visits a second time to tell Tara that she has chosen to be with her and not Oz, she steps into the room without a clear invitation. After making that choice and thereby establishing her queer identity, Willow has freer access to Tara's (queer) space and no longer has to pause in the liminal space of the doorway. Indeed, the next time Willow enters Tara's room in “Family” she opens the door without knocking.

While she must open doors to queer spaces for Willow, Tara must be escorted out of liminal spaces and into familiar ones as her and Willow's implied lesbian relationship becomes more explicit. Of course, Willow has to introduce Tara to her friends and their personal spaces, but Tara seemingly doesn't have the agency to enter even public Scooby spaces by herself. When Willow takes Tara to The Bronze in "Who Are You?" Tara had never been to the club before, which implies that she couldn't go there unaccompanied by Willow. Similarly, in “Family” Willow thinks that she hears Tara outside the Magic Box and opens the front door, suggesting that Tara could not have opened the door herself. In "The Real Me,” Tara even has to leave a space that had been familiar to her when the Scoobies begin to occupy it in a meaningful way. Tara says she comes to the Magic Box a lot, and only she knew the dead shopkeeper's name. But as Willow and Buffy investigate the murder scene and Giles begins to contemplate buying the store, Tara leaves the shop and joins Dawn outside, saying that it's "Best non-Scoobies like [them] stay out of the way."

In "Family," Tara finally enters a Scooby space by herself and, not coincidentally, finally feels embraced as part of the group in a way that she hadn't before. As the Scoobies help Buffy move out of her dorm room, Tara makes a joke that no one understands and then walks out the door, which emphasizes her feeling like an outsider despite very obviously wanting to be part of the group. Later in the episode when she walks into the Magic Box with Willow and sees her brother, she fears that his presence might jeopardize her ability to occupy that space, because her family could reveal her misguided belief that she is a demon. Even her personal space becomes compromised when she walks into her dorm room and finds her father inspecting her belongings. Feeling potentially excluded from the group, and indeed even from Sunnydale, Tara is pushed to liminal spaces and must perform her demon-hiding spell from a doorway in the magic shop. While that spell endangers the Scoobies by blinding them to demons, it also creates an opportunity for Tara to help them without any assistance from Willow. And Tara enters a Scooby space by herself for the first time when she walks into the Magic Box and warns Buffy about the Lei-Ach demon about to attack her.

Tara's incorporation into the Scoobies becomes conflated with the group's acceptance of Willow's new queer identity and their relationship. When Willow and Tara visit Giles' apartment in "Primeval” the morning after Willow outs their relationship, Giles must open his front door for them. Where they could barge into Giles' apartment in “Who Are You?” as an anonymous couple, after their relationship has been revealed they no longer have that power and privilege. As the Scoobies' create a place in the gang for Tara during the course of “Family,” they also must resolve their lingering uncertainty about Willow and Tara's relationship. Toward the beginning of the episode, Buffy and Xander are quick to say “it's cool” that Willow is now “Swingin' with the ['lesbian'] lifestyle,” but they also express a sense of alienation, worrying that they won't fit in at Tara's birthday party. And while they think Tara is "nice," “real nice,” “super nice,” they say that they “don't necessarily get her” because they don't understand “Half of what she says.” All they really seem to know about Tara is that she likes Willow, that she is a lesbian, which seemingly hinders their ability to communicate with her. By accepting Tara they also accept her sexuality and relationship with Willow, even though they may not understand it. Willow and Tara dancing together at The Bronze at the end of the episode, their first public display of couplehood, underscores that their relationship has also been newly acknowledged.

Tara does become more integrated into the Scoobies to the point that in “Bargaining” she helps a physically and emotionally exhausted Willow enter the Magic Box – where Willow once had to escort her into places the Scoobies frequent, Tara now helps Willow enter those same spaces. But unfortunately because Tara doesn't receive much character development outside of her relationship with Willow, her acceptance as a Scooby remains tied to her being in that relationship. Therefore, her persistent lingering in doorways seems appropriate, emphasizing her tenuous place in the Scooby gang.

As their relationship begins to strain, Tara is forced out of Scooby spaces and back into liminal spaces. She realizes that Willow has cast a spell to make her forget a disagreement while standing in the doorway to Dawn's room in "Once More With Feeling." Similarly in "Tabula Rasa," Tara stands in the entryway of the Summers' house when she snaps at Willow to hurry getting dressed. At the end of that episode Tara leaves Willow because of her abusive overuse of magic, walking out the front door of the Summers' house. When Tara returns to the house in “Smashed” and "Wrecked," she distances herself from the house's more personal spaces, remaining in the hallway when Dawn goes into Buffy and Willow's rooms to look for them. Her leaving the Magic Box in "Dead Things" also evidences her return to the fringe of the Scooby circle. She also only enters the Summers' house by invitation: Dawn asks Tara to keep her company in “Smashed” and Buffy invites her to her birthday party in “Older and Far Away.” In "Normal Again" Tara can enter the Summers' house without invitation and without knocking, seemingly because she is there to see Willow, which suggests that they could reconcile. When they do finally reunite in "Entropy," Tara can leave Willow's doorway and enter the bedroom as she verbally renegotiates her place in their relationship.

In the context of Willow and Tara's relationship, doors often represent both barriers that they must hurdle to connect with each other and safeguards that isolate their prohibited sexuality. In "Hush," Tara finds herself being chased by the Gentlemen as she goes to look for Willow, so she pushes through double doors into stairwells and knocks on dorm room doors as she tries to escape. The audience is misled into thinking that Tara is knocking on Willow's door, but when the door opens she is faced with a Gentleman holding a freshly harvested heart instead. As Tara runs away from the demon, Willow walks out of her room and they collide. But instead of retreating back into Willow's room, they run through more doors, downstairs, through more doors, and ultimately lock themselves in the laundry room. They then join hands and combine their magic to move a soda machine and barricade the door. In light of the later metaphor of magic representing lesbian sex, that bit of magic can be understood as their first sexual encounter, which takes place in a laundry room behind a locked door. It's almost as if Tara couldn't find Willow's door, they couldn't hide in Willow's room because the forbidden nature of their relationship precluded them from such personal and intimate spaces. They had to retreat through many doors and spaces until they reached the liminal space of the laundry room where they could engage in prohibited sexuality behind a locked, barricaded door. Interestingly, Willow and Tara are never shown alone together in the dorm room that Buffy and Willow share. Willow's room cannot be an intimate space for them as Tara's room is, until "The Real Me" when Willow has a single room and no longer lives with Buffy, making her room an assured queer space.

After running into Faith at The Bronze in "Who Are You?" Willow and Tara return to Tara's room and close the door behind them, which feels like a retreat of sorts. They had held hands at the club, and almost as punishment for being physically affectionate in public, they had been outed and ridiculed by Faith. The closing door coupled with Willow closing the curtain on the window emphasizes the isolation needed to perform the "Passage to the Nether Realm" spell, a thinly veiled metaphor for lesbian sex and the most graphic "sex" scene between the two women ever shown on the series.

Willow and Tara's passages through doorways in "Tabula Rasa" are intriguingly reminiscent of their interactions in "Hush" and readily comparable because they newly discover their attraction to each other after losing their memories. Due to some not unconvincing circumstances – and the fact that no one ever thinks that two women could be dating – Willow falsely assumes that Xander is her boyfriend. Much like "Hush," Willow and Tara have to descend into the sewers before their mutual attraction first surfaces. Then as they run away from a vampire, they hide behind walls and in drains until Willow pushes Tara out of harm's way and they almost kiss. Willow needs to experience a physical attraction to Tara to realize she's "kinda gay" though she never seems very attracted to "Alex." Even with blank slates, heterosexuality is still presumed and more acceptable. While Giles and Anya can explore their falsely assumed heterosexual relationship above ground in a familiar setting, Willow and Tara must again submit to a labyrinthine journey into impersonal space to discover their genuine attraction, even though they have come out and been together for almost two years. However, had Willow and Tara kissed, they would have done so in front of Xander and Dawn, and it would have been an actual display of lesbian sexuality rather than sexuality coded as a "spell." The similarities between "Hush" and "Tabula Rasa" suggest their relationship may not have become more socially acceptable over the intermediary two years, but their insistence at being out and their friends' support has allowed more freedom of expression.

In "New Moon Rising" contrasting door imagery related to Tara and Oz also delineates a difference in power and privilege between gay and straight relationships. The episode begins with Tara attending her first Scooby meeting in Giles' apartment, where of course Willow had to escort her. When Oz first returns, he stands in Giles' entryway having entered the apartment without knocking. His ability to walk into the Scoobies' personal space without permission underscores his privilege and perhaps even his status as a more socially acceptable partner for Willow. Later in the episode, he opens Willow's door when Tara knocks, which again emphasizes Oz's privilege, in this case to occupy Willow's personal space and even grant others access to it. The action also asserts Willow and Buffy's room as a heterosexual space that Tara cannot enter. In fact, there's a sense throughout the episode of Oz forcing Tara out of places, reclaiming them as heterosexual space and making her retreat. When Oz returns at the beginning of the episode, obviously wanting to regain his place in Willow's life and by extension the group, Tara "has to" leave Giles' apartment. Oz prevents Tara from entering Willow's bedroom, even though she had performed a spell with Willow and Giles there in "Where the Wild Things Are," and Oz literally chases Tara at one point in the episode when he becomes a werewolf.

Despite being forcibly segregated to an extent, Willow and Tara also maintain separate space for their relationship. Willow takes her time in introducing Tara to her other friends because she “kind of like[s] having something that's just, you know, [hers].” In "Restless," she says that she "never worr[ies] here," marking Tara's room as a safe space separate from the rest of her world. Similarly, in "After Life" Tara encourages Willow to be honest about her concerns as they get ready for bed, saying "This is the room where you don't have to be brave." Then as Willow expresses her worries about Buffy, she closes their door before she really starts opening up. After something that looks like Buffy violently wakes them, they peer into Buffy's bedroom without stepping inside and then return their room, closing the door behind them, before discussing the strange occurrence. They maintain a separate space in which they may converse meaningfully. And just as Willow and Tara need to be invited into Scooby spaces at times, Buffy must knock on Tara's door and wait for Willow to let her inside when she comes to check on Tara in "Superstar."

Because of Buffy and her mother's (and later Dawn's) positively portrayed relationship with each other, the Summers' house comes to represent the ideal nuclear family on Buffy. Therefore, Willow and Tara's presence in the house as an openly gay couple demonstrates how their relationship is becoming intermingled with more traditional ideas of relationships and family. Season five begins with the Scoobies having a day on the beach in "Buffy vs. Dracula," and Willow and Tara's relationship seems to have been acknowledged by the group, which Xander confirms when he tells Willow that "Everybody knows." But not quite everybody seems to know. Later in the episode Joyce tells Willow and Tara that when older women date they sometimes "feel like giving up on men altogether," causing Willow and Tara to exchange surreptitious little glances. They stand in the entryway during this conversation with Joyce, emphasizing that they are, at the moment at least, confined to a liminal space because Joyce doesn't know about, and thus has not accepted their relationship. The following episode "The Real Me" indicates that Joyce has become aware that they are a couple, and when Willow and Tara next come to the Summers' house in "Checkpoint" they can occupy the living room. After Buffy passes away, leaving Dawn without a guardian, Willow and Tara move into Buffy's house to take care of her. They demonstrate their newfound comfort in domesticity by moving through doorways in the house and even sharing a kiss in the hallway. In Joyce and Buffy's absence, not only can their relationship exist alongside the traditional nuclear family, they have redefined it.

Doors receive a lot of attention on Buffy. If someone were to take the time to note all the characters' interactions with doors, Tara might not stand out in comparison. But because of Willow's appreciation of her relationship with Tara as "something that's just [hers]" coupled with its socially taboo nature, Willow and Tara's association with doors seems more significant. The doors that the show runners choose, and sometimes are forced, to use also reveal the restrictions of portraying a lesbian relationship on network television at that time. Few lesbian relationships on network TV compare to Willow and Tara in regards to its duration and the amount of screen time they receive. And though instances of "lesbian" sexuality have become more common and less coded since 2002, the number of significant, recurring lesbian characters has not increased. If a network show were to tackle a long-running lesbian relationship not intended to titillate men or garner sweeps ratings, I wonder if it would still have to develop behind all those doors.

— List of Every Single Time Willow/Tara Are in a Doorway Ever

"What? Women are supposed to stick together no matter what? Come on. I stopped believing that when I threw away my 'You've come a long way, baby' keychain."

– Christine Cagney, Cagney & Lacey

I've been putting off writing about this episode. It's not that "Jaynestown" is horrible — the plot doesn't make much sense, but that just means it's on par with the rest of the series. It's no worse than "Shindig" or "Safe" and it annoys me less than "The Train Job," but I've been avoiding it because I don't care about anything that happens in this episode.

I like Jayne fine, but I think he is decidedly a supporting character. I love that I can laugh at him and that he actually serves a purpose in telling stories, but I have little interest in learning much more about him. At least not right now. I find Jayne's mercenary attitude refreshing amongst all these criminals with hearts of gold, so I really don't understand this lengthy, blatant attempt to humanize him, especially with an effort this shallow. Moments in "Serenity," "Ariel," and even "The Message" flesh out Jayne as a character better than this half-baked plot.

Immediately I'm perplexed when Zoe stays behind while Kaylee, Wash, and Simon tag along on the job. Zoe says she stays with the ship because she outranks Wash, but that's not really an answer. Why Mal wants Kaylee and Wash to help out remains a mystery: he doesn't give a reason at the top of the episode, and they spend most of their time being drunk and, in Kaylee's case, barking up the wrong tree. Kaylee, sweetie, Simon is gay. He's gay. And possibly very close to sleeping with Mal if the intense once-over – that's really more of a thrice-over – the captain gives him is any indication. (Seriously. Watch that scene on the cargo ramp. Mal gives Simon some lusty glances and checks out his ass at least three times.)

So Mal allows himself to be talked into bringing Simon along (like he needed much convincing) because Simon can pose as a buyer and distract the foreman of the mud fields. Except after alerting the foreman to their presence, they all leave and go to the bar to meet Mal's contact. Shouldn't Simon have stayed at the mud fields and, you know, actually distracted the foreman? Mal and NotKessler seem so concerned about slipping their goods past the foreman, but I think someone "magically" pulling a coin out of his ear would have distracted him sufficiently. And why can't they move Serenity so that they don't have to bring the cargo through the mud fields? It's not like they landed in a port or something. It's just a field. Surely there are other fields. And why does Mal think that he has to arrange some Jayne Day celebration the following day to distract that oh so alert foreman? The town already seems plenty distracted by Jayne's presence when Mal makes that suggestion. Plus, it's nighttime. Which means it's dark. Which provides cover for criminal activities. Mal is the WORST. THIEF. EVER. The thieving is obviously not important to the plot of this episode. We don't even know what the cargo is. So stop pretending like we should care, writers.

OK, and how did the mudders know who Jayne was and that he dropped the money on the town? I mean, not only did they know his name, which is a stretch if he just came to the moon to rob the magistrate, but they were able to make a statue that's a pretty good likeness of him. Was Jayne, like, passing out his school picture at lunchtime before he stole the money?

Book and River have an utterly inconsequential subplot that involves Book explaining that the Bible:

It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you.

What? Faith is believing in something that you don't think can actually be true? Wow. Book is the WORST. PREACHER. EVER. River screaming and running away from Book's hair is too ridiculous for me to find it anything but silly. However, I do like when River says that even if Book puts his hair away, "It'll still be there...waiting." I understand, honey. I feel the same way whenever I know that Book is going to be in an episode. It makes me want to hide in the cargo bay too.

Inara has the sex in this episode, which means that she can be helpful. She uses her feminine wiles, which I think means she asked, to get Fess to release the landlock on Serenity. I don't understand how that landlock works, but I'll just leave it alone at this point. Inara also gets to deliver some nonsensical words of wisdom when she tells Fess that, "A man is just a boy who's old enough to ask [if he is a man]." Um, OK. WORST. SPACE HOOKER. EVER. No, I'm kidding. I'm sure she's a fantastic space hooker.

I wish that I liked this episode more because without "Our Mrs. Reynolds" there couldn't be "Trash," which is one of my favorite episodes of the series. And while this episode is definitely one of the better ones, I just can't get behind the conceit of the plot. I struggle to believe that goons who run a chop shop would go through the trouble of hiring a thief to go undercover in a colony, wait for a passing spaceship to come through, and arrange to marry someone on said ship just to get on board. It's too convoluted. Why not go to a port like Persephone and pay for passage on a ship like Simon and Book did? They wouldn't even have to stow away because the ships invite people to come aboard. Seems much easier. I would like this episode 35% more if Joss had not implied that Saffron was working for the seedy guys. Instead she could have sent Serenity toward them because she happened to know about the chop shop, which could have been accomplished by the deletion of two lines. In fact, you don't even need to have any scenes with the chop shop guys because Book explains what the sparkly Ring O' Death is, and removing their scenes would avoid this really stupid exchange:

"It's a wreck."
"No, no. This is good."
"It's parts. A lot of cheap parts we'll never unload."
"This is why you'll never be in charge, Breed. You don't see the whole. The parts are crap –"
"I said exactly that –"
"– but you put 'em together, you got a firefly."

...Yes. The parts of a firefly do make a firefly. But it's already assembled, see? You shouldn't take apart the ship and put it back together again. That's just creating a lot of extra work for yourself.

I'm also bothered by this episode because Mal is charged with giving lectures about feminism to Saffron and Jayne. Mal who regularly degrades Inara by calling her a "whore," who doesn't respect the boundaries Inara sets regarding her personal space, and whose female crew members, and just the female members, call him "sir" deferentially. I also dislike that one of his feminist tirades goes from, "She's not to be bought. Nor bartered, nor borrowed or lent," which is fine although overly didactic, to, "She's a human woman, doesn't know a damn thing about the world and needs our protection." I know it's not Joss' intention, but it reads like because Saffron is a woman she is clueless and defenseless. I'm not saying that Mal is an out-and-out chauvinist, but as I have previously noted he enforces patriarchy, so schooling Saffron on feminist thought should not be left to him. The situation also reads like women can only achieve empowerment through men or by men's permission.

The argument between Wash and Zoe is stupid. I hate that Zoe, one of the most level-headed people on the ship, suddenly becomes jealous about something petty, and that her jealousy is assuaged when Wash doesn't kiss Saffron like Mal does. ...Because faithfulness is something to be rewarded rather than expected from our partners.

Also, shut it, Book. Where's Simon and River?

Because Joss Whedon wrote this episode, some of the dialogue may be snappy, but the plotline is pretty weak. The rising action doesn't happen until 20 minutes into the episode when the chop shop is revealed (Jayne "threatening" Mal doesn't count because who actually bought that misdirection?), and the main piece of the plot doesn't start until 25 minutes in when Saffron drugs Mal. Then the end feels completely rushed when it cuts from Kaylee fixing the ship's navigation controls to finding Saffron on some planet where it's winter.

Finally, stuff I do like. I like Christina Hendricks, though I don't think she gets to be as awesome here as she does in "Trash." That welding strip she uses to seal the doors to the bridge is also neat. It's nice to see Zoe get to display more colors of emotion, and Gina Torres shows that she can do line deliveries besides deadpan. Morena Baccarin cracks me up with her "You stupid son-of-a" fall and trying (poorly) to deflect suspicion that she kissed Mal. I wish she had had more opportunities to be this silly-funny instead of her usual dry-funny because she is very entertaining.

"I'm fine. I don't need to be examined. I'm comfy." (Hee!)

"Safe" continues the boring precedent that "Shindig" established, but I have sort of a soft spot for this episode because it's about Simon and River. Theirs is probably my favorite relationship on the show because I feel like I so rarely see a platonic yet loving relationship between a man and woman. I also finally started to like River when I first saw this episode, because she gets to be lucid for a few moments. And she dances. I like almost anyone a little bit better if I get to see them dance so unselfconsciously as River does here.

This episode begins with a flashback, which usually would make me cranky. But the flashbacks in this episode actually aren't so terrible because they provide information that isn't rehashed a thousand times during the course of the series, namely that Simon was the beloved child and he severed his relationship with his parents when he rescued River. I only wish that the first scene had been written a little better. And didn't involve Zac Efron. But isn't that Summer Glau's voice coming out of young River's mouth? I think so. Joss does the same trick in The Big Damn Movie, which makes me wonder why he thinks having Summer voice all of River's incarnations is so important.

I don't understand the inclusion of the scene with the mountain people in the teaser. That moment telegraphs the main plot of the episode and kills any suspense that could have been created in the moment that Simon is kidnapped. Not that the kidnapping plot is at all interesting. I never feel as though Simon and River are in real danger.

The writers jump through an impressive number of hoops of contrivance to separate Simon and River from the crew so that they can be kidnapped. Mal says he wants River to leave because she makes his disreputable dealings "not be smooth," but if one considers the previous episodes, River had little to do with Mal's criminal activities not going smoothly. River has yet to be a benefit or a detriment to any of the jobs. Mal has managed to screw up all by himself. Then Mal sends River and Simon into town rather than into the ship and to their rooms. If Mal were really concerned about the sale going smoothly, I would think he would want the fugitives safely tucked away out of sight. Even if the Alliance doesn't regularly patrol a "backwater" planet like Jiangyin, Mal knows that criminals are afoot. And criminals might turn in River and Simon for a reward or to bring trouble down on Mal. Or the criminals may be pursued by law enforcement officials, you never know. It could happen. Apparently, the mountain people conclude that Simon is a physician because Mal calls him "Doc." Maybe it's the academic (and the Back to the Future fan) in me, but I would need a mention of treating wounds or stitching people up to decide that Simon wasn't just a really educated person.

And does Simon walk through an alleyway and end up in a field? Who planned that?

Book receiving such quick medical treatment from the Alliance is intended to add to the "mystery" of his past, but personally I don't find his background all that intriguing. So he's a preacher who knows about nefarious dealings and has an in with the government. There are several explanations, all of which have been explored in literature, film, and television before. I'd be interested in Book's mysterious past if the explanation finally showed up and was something new and different. These "hints" are tiresome.

I'm rather fond of some dialogue from this episode. Mal's "Morbid and creepifying I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like," gets a chuckle from me, and Simon scores with "I'm very sorry if she tipped off anyone about your cunningly concealed herd of cows." "Safe" also features the "big damn heroes" line that Browncoats seem to like, but it sounds awkward to me. I think the situation calls for an f-bomb or some other two-syllable curse word. "Big gorram heroes" would have worked.

I'm not sure if I dislike "Shindig" more than "The Train Job," but this episode certainly represents a nadir of the series' short run. Where "The Train Job" is schmaltzy, "Shindig" is boring, and both are predictable.

This episode attempts to illustrate that Mal doesn't really belong in "his world" of thieves and Inara doesn't belong in "her world" of manners and fancy parties. No, they belong together! on Serenity! because they luuuuuuuurve each other! Or something. But really "Shindig" acts as a vehicle for Mal (and others!) to degrade and objectify Inara even more than usual. Also, Inara has the opportunity to establish that the only way she'll ever be useful on the series is when she can sleep with someone. The only part of this episode that I find somewhat unexpected and refreshing is the gender role reversal of Mal asking Inara to teach him how to fight.

Mal also gets to assert his patriarchal authority over Kaylee when he pretty much orders her to come to the ball with him, telling her that she "got no need to speak." Just to look pretty on his arm at the dance. Mal is real different from Atherton, ain't he? Yeah, yeah, I know that Mal buys Kaylee the layer cake dress to make up for being rude to her earlier, but I'm not as easily won over as she is. As much as Hollywood tries to sell me on the idea, I don't think that someone being an asshole is actually endearing and romantic.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew sits around, and Summer Glau gets to show off her ability to do accents. Her Cockney isn't as impressive as her Russian accent from the Angel episode "Waiting in the Wings." However, next to Mark Sheppard who makes a living doing ridiculous voices, Summer doesn't look so bad. But I don't understand why Badger reacts so congenially to River after she completely humiliates him.

The only bit of this episode that I really like is Kaylee. I like her walking back to her bunk from the engine room and lying on her bed to stare at her layer cake dress and listen to classical music. I think Jewel Staite looks so sweet but also sexy with the top half of her coveralls dangling around her waist. I also love her beleaguered "Hi" when she returns to Serenity as the captive of Badger's henchmen.

"Bushwhacked" takes a familiar premise and pairs it with a weak plot, resulting in mediocre storytelling. Like "The Train Job," this episode attempts to play catch-up after losing "Serenity" as Firefly's pilot, and it includes a lot of exposition. The first scene exposits at length about Simon and River's situation, and the later interrogation scene provides an opportunity to recite information about Inara and Mal's backgrounds. The Alliance and Reavers also receive an "introduction."

Even though Reavers don't come off as intimidating here as they do in "Serenity," this episode better presents the spectrum of civilization in the 'verse with The Alliance on one side, Reavers on the other, and the crew of Serenity somewhere in the middle. Or to a Freudian, the three entities would represent the psychic apparatus: Reavers are the unchecked id, The Alliance represents the moralizing superego, and Serenity the pragmatic ego. Joss & Tim missed an opportunity to invoke a Western motif of women acting as a socializing force, i.e. the superego. They should have made one of the female members of the crew, instead of Book, insist they investigate the abandoned ship or cast a female actor as the Alliance officer.

The plot takes too long to get going, especially since anyone who has ever watched a sci-fi show has seen a version of this episode before. When a crew stumbles upon a mysterious abandoned vessel in the middle of nowhere, the audience knows that the ship will be full of dead bodies or some disease that's fatal to only certain members of the crew or something else equally ominous. Kaylee disarming the booby trap left by the Reavers proves to be pointless filler, and the interrogations create an awkward pause in the middle of the episode. I also don't believe that the Alliance officer would let Mal lead them in searching Serenity for Mr. Proto-Reaver, nor do I completely buy that the officer would release the crew of Serenity after Mal saves his life.

Not surprisingly, both of my favorite moments involve Simon. Especially on Angel, Joss far too often uses badly written misdirection that's telegraphed within the first seconds of the scene. But Jayne tricking Simon into putting on a spacesuit and entering the other ship genuinely surprised me. That bit of misdirection also works to establish relationship dynamics amongst the crew. I also really like the scene with River and Simon hiding from the Alliance. River staring wondrously out into space while Simon blanches at the same view reveals a lot about these two characters.

Though they interrupt the narrative flow, the interrogation scenes do provide a couple humorous character moments. I love Kaylee's rant about a ship that really would be junk, unlike Serenity, and Zoe's terse conversation with the officer. "You fought with Captain Reynolds in the war?" "Fought with a lot of people in the war." "And your husband?" "Fight with him sometimes, too."

Mal continues to assert his patriarchal authority. As the Alliance is boarding the ship, he tells Simon to fetch his sister without telling him why. I know the writers are attempting to create some dramatic tension here. But in the time it takes to make Simon obey the instruction, Mal could have said something like, "I'm not gonna turn you in. Just get your sister," which still would leave the reveal of Simon and River clinging to the side of the ship a surprise. Instead Mal, with inexplicable support from Book, imposes his authority on Simon because he doesn't follow orders blindly.

I really hope the production designer didn't think those Chinese checkers would suggest an Asian cultural influence because Chinese checkers? Not so much Chinese. Zoe, Mal, and Jayne should have been munching on fortune cookies too. That would have been really "Chinese."

I know that FOX deserves some if not most of the blame for the lameness of this episode. For whatever reasons, the network elected not to air "Serenity" and instead made Joss & Tim write a different pilot. Give us bigger than life villains! they said. Make the main characters snuggable, little bunnies! they said. And while you're at it, give us 37 minutes of exposition! they said. OK, maybe they didn't say that last part, but that's what they got.

Perhaps Joss & Tim didn't have a choice but to include all of the background information presented in "Serenity" in their reworking, but I don't think they really needed to. Pilots should demonstrate the interpersonal dynamics between the main characters, but they do not necessarily have to reveal all the characters' histories. Why Simon and River are fugitives, for example, could have been addressed in a subsequent episode, which would have reduced the exposition by about 40%.

Mal and his merry band of thieves are supposed to be our morally ambiguous but relatable antiheroes; however, FOX really isn't comfortable with that "anti-" part. So Joss & Tim brought in Nishka of the fake accent and Crow of the intimidating face tattoo so that the audience knows who the real bad guys are. The crew of Serenity may steal things, but they don't cotton to torture. And they aren't foreigners or have unsightly body art. They're also touched by the hardships of others and would never steal medicine from thems that need it...except when they do that a few episodes later in "Ariel." As well as providing the one surprise in a terribly predictable plot, Mal shoving Crow into the turbine offers the only evidence that the captain might actually have some bite.

You know, Mal invites Simon and River to stay aboard if Simon earns his keep, treating wounds and the like, but Book just stays on the ship and no one says a word. I really doubt that Book has the money to pay for being shuttled around everywhere they go, he doesn't really do anything as a crew member on a regular basis, and Mal doesn't particularly seem to like having a shepherd on his boat. So why does no one question Book's continued presence on the ship?

A doped up Jayne is the only somewhat enjoyable bit of this episode. "What? What do you mean back? I waited for you guys!"

Also, in my quest for HoYay! I note that when Inara is brushing her hair, Kaylee asks if Inara ever brushes her clients' hair, which suggests Kaylee thinks of hairbrushing as something that's done between people who sleep together. Heh heh heh. And Mal goes to the infirmary to wash his cuts from the fight. He could have done in his quarters, so I think he just wanted to see Simon.

While I think that the idea of a space western is actually quite germane, I'm not thrilled with Joss' execution. Outer space is a very appropriate setting for a western, which is a genre that explores the effects of men having a lot of space. Instead of relying on really stylized production design, I would rather Joss focus on common themes of westerns to make Firefly seem westerny, such as civilization encroaching on wilderness, morally ambiguous justice in the absence of law, and the subordination of nature and the original inhabitants of the frontier. While the more primitive, seemingly more agrarian conditions on the outer planets make antiquated lifestyles and simpler, homemade styles of dress practical, most of the western dress and props feels stylishly "retro" and ridiculously over-the-top so that the audience knows IT'S A SPACE WESTERN. A WESTERN THAT'S IN SPACE, GEDDIT? Greg Edmonson's score and Joss' terrible theme song also try too hard to be folksy. I don't so much mind the western dialogue, when it's done well, because it isn't pervasive: it's used to differentiate class and implies greater association with the outer rim rather than the central planets.

The production design also fails to sell the integration of American and Chinese cultures. Sticking some chopsticks and a paper umbrella into frame suggests that someone made a run on World Market rather than two cultures have blended. I also wish that the Chinese dialogue had been used less as creative cursing and more to create a language like Tex-Mex in its beginning stages. I think the meimeis and dong mas are on the right track.

The episode begins with a flashback to the Unification War, showing Zoe and Mal fighting on the losing side. Joss thinks that flashbacks are a lot cooler than they really are, and he overuses them, especially on Angel. In this case, I find this scene poorly executed. It would be one thing if the flashback revealed how different Mal was before the war and leave the cause of his change in disposition a mystery to uncover in the series. But instead the flashback shows why Mal lost his faith and became (sorry) a malcontent, leaving little to reveal later on. I could convince myself to legitimate its inclusion if it hinted at why the Independents are fighting the Alliance or what exactly the Alliance is, but the scene accomplishes neither. I would rather the little bits of information this scene offers be doled out gradually throughout the series.

Another something that I wish Joss would stop doing is writing all these crazy people: first Tara, et. al. on season five of Buffy, then Fred on Angel, and now River on Firefly. No babbling crazies on Dollhouse yet, thankfully. Again, they are not as cool as you think, Joss. Mostly they are just irritating. I think that Summer Glau does a good job with the material she is given, but having a character that doesn't make sense most of the time becomes tiresome.

This episode also sets up the romantic tension amongst the characters, namely Mal and Inara and Kaylee and Simon. But I never saw much sexual tension between either of the pairings. Sean Maher does a really good job playing Simon as kind of sexless, completely focused on protecting his sister and interested in little else. And I always thought Simon would turn out to be gay. Similarly, I thought that Inara and Kaylee might end up being love interests from their little "Hey you" exchange in this episode until the scene between Inara and Mal in her shuttle made it clear that they were the intended pairing. Though they make good sparring partners, Morena Baccarin and Nathan Fillion don't have much romantic chemistry, and I would rather see Inara be with someone who doesn't belittle her or try to dominate her. So if Inara and Kaylee hooked up, then Simon could be Mal's love interest, I guess. They do often argue very intensely.

Joss includes some ridiculous shots of Inara and River because they're artsy or some shit, but I really like the shot of the Alliance ship reflected in the visor of Mal's space suit. It's a really nice effects shot and makes the spaceship seem very commonplace in this 'verse. I also like Kaylee eating the strawberry, the fuss over the fresh vegetables, and Mal selling food supplements on the black market, which give the audience a bit of a glimpse of what the lives of people "on the edge" are like.

The script has a few weak spots:

• Mal's comment about not interrupting Inara so that someone can make an honest living seems very out of character for him. Usually he speaks with nothing but vitriol in regards to her profession. That line should have been given to Wash or Zoe instead.
  
• The first scene between Inara and Book in her shuttle mostly repeats what the previous scene in the galley conveyed, that Mal is protective of his crew and doesn't much care if people like him. They also say that Mal is "a mystery" to which I say, huh? Mal is conflicted, sure, but mysterious? Not so much. He's a cynic with the heart of an idealist, but aren't they all.
  
• I can't reason why Book is involved in the discussion about River in the galley. He is hardly part of the crew at this point but acts like he is.
• Dobson looks like the most incompetent federal agent ever.
• I'm also not convinced that Mal would think it's worth the risk keeping Simon and River aboard his ship at this point.

Mal's annoying, patriarchal attitude that persists throughout the series is abundantly evident here. He tells Inara not "to tell [him] what to do" on his ship and dismisses everyone's opinions about whether Simon and River should be killed. He even takes away their efficacy, telling his crew that they "don't vote on [his] ship." Mal systemically belittles Inara because of her legal profession in effort to control the only woman on board who doesn't follow his orders. His continuing invasions of Inara's personal space also assert his authority and degrade her sense of empowerment.

Looking at "Serenity" as Firefly's pilot, this episode functions a hell of a lot better than "The Train Job," which aired as the first episode. All of the characters, as well as The Alliance, border planets, and Reavers, receive a proper introduction without too much exposition. Sure, this episode feels self-indulgent on Joss Whedon's part and a little padded, but most of the filler is pretty interesting so overall "Serenity" succeeds.

Does Summer Glau only choose shows in which she's naked in the pilot?

Jane Espenson and I have a complex relationship. On the one hand, she wrote "Band Candy," "Earshot," and "Superstar." On the other hand, there's "Doublemeat Palace."

And "Triangle" joins "Him" on the Just Godawful list. I mean, this episode offends me.

"Triangle" attempts to soften Anya around the edges a little, but in order to make Anya sympathetic, Willow has to act like a callous shrew. Granted, Willow is not at her most likable during the first part of season five, but I find her behavior in this episode wildly uncharacteristic. She has expressed antagonism toward Anya in the past but never to this extent. And stealing ingredients from Giles? First, I have a very hard time believing Willow would do that, and second, I think that Anya would have had ample time to observe whether Giles occasionally lets Willow use inventory for free, so their argument over the ingredients seems contrived.

Emma Caulfield and Alyson Hannigan are — or at least were — good friends, and it’s obvious that they are having a lot of fun working together. And while both of them do some nice comedic acting, Willow and Anya’s bickering wears thin very quickly. But I do actually kind of like the suggested root of Willow and Anya's antagonism toward each other, namely that Willow fears Anya might hurt Xander and Anya feels a little threatened by Xander and Willow's history. That final argument about Xander does drag on a bit, but it feels like more old-school Buffy with a potentially sentimental moment undercut by the fact that Willow and Anya are yelling at each other and just as they reach an understanding a troll breaks down a door. However, if the writers were going to reach back to season three for the Willow/Xander stuff, couldn't they have pulled out some "Doppelgangland" baggage too? I mean, Willow does punch Anya for using her and joining forces with her evil alter ego to try to kill people in that episode.

I also cringe at Olaf's ultimatum to Xander. In an episode when, for the first time ever, Xander feels like he has to choose sides between his best friend and his girlfriend, he's actually asked to pick between the two women? Boring, obvious, and derivative.

While Willow and Anya's quibbling annoys instead of amuses, the episode's failure is only compounded by Buffy's "I have to keep Anya and Xander together because my needy, insecure boyfriend just left me" subplot. Sarah Michelle Gellar is a pretty decent actress most of the time, but she cannot funny cry or fake laugh. Her attempts here to weep humorously are agonizing, killing any entertainment potential that story might have contained. And though I didn’t really take offense at first, subsequent viewings have made me increasingly offended by this subplot's conclusion. Buffy blubbers about seeing Xander and Anya "good and alive and together" while completely ignoring Willow and Tara, who are also good and alive and together and standing right next to them. I know that Buffy has focused on Xander and Anya throughout the episode because she thought that they might be breaking up. But seeing as though their relationship was never in real jeopardy, her not recognizing Willow and Tara’s good, alive togetherness suggests that Buffy (and the show) doesn’t see the same sex couple as a real couple.

Spike trying to prove himself to Buffy is the only consistently amusing piece of this episode that's trying really hard to be a hour-long sitcom. I love his hopeful approach to Buffy when she arrives at The Bronze and his inability to understand why not feeding off accident victims doesn't win him any points with her. "What does it take?" And Anya does get some good lines when she is taunting Olaf. "Your roar is less than full-throated!"

I have trouble laughing at Olaf's dialogue that suggests the devouring of infants and raping of women. I'm just too much of a humorless feminist, I guess. The gratuitous destruction does not enamor me of this episode either. As I said before, excessive wreckage makes me twitchy.

I do like that Tara interacts with members of the group who aren’t Willow on more of an individual basis. She has two whole scenes alone with Buffy, and I always smile when Xander amends his "two favorite girls" comment to include Tara. But Willow and Tara's dynamic frustrates me. Tara's "I said 'quirky'" bit nicely hints at intimacy, but Buffy and Xander get more play from Tara and Willow respectively than the women give each other. Their "reunion" at The Bronze feels particularly awkward. Sure, Willow didn't know that Tara was worried about her, but she barely acknowledges Tara when she arrives with Buffy. So Tara is left staring at her girlfriend as if she wants to say something or to touch her but cannot because she has been inexplicably forbidden. It's ridiculous and uncomfortable and wouldn't have happened if they were a straight couple.

To compensate for Willow and Tara's lack of touching, Espenson includes two "Willow is gay" comments. The "Hello, gay now" statement annoys me because it oversimplifies gay identity, which the show never dealt with very well when Willow first came out. Also I hope that Willow wouldn’t break up Xander and Anya because, you know, she is committed to her relationship with Tara and learned from past experiences. I know that Espenson is going for a joke, but like most of Willow’s remarks in this episode the "gay now" comment comes across as too glib and facile. The second "Willow is gay" comment delivered by Anya puzzles me a bit. I like Alyson Hannigan’s nod and accompanying "Yep, it’s really true because they keep having me say it" look, but I can’t decipher the meaning of Xander’s reaction. He looks almost depressed by her confirmation of her gayness. Maybe it’s just the broken hand.

As a retrospective nitpick, how is it that Xander is hit repeatedly with Olaf's hammer and suffers only the broken hand while Buffy uses the hammer to pummel Glory in "The Gift"? Also, the blond curl sticking out from the nun's veil in the teaser looks absolutely ridiculous. If they really wanted to go for that extremely pointless mislead, the costume department should have used a postulant's wimple (think Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music), which doesn't cover as much of the head as the veil does. And Buffy looks like an idiot when she hastily throws away her stake after killing the vampire in the nunnery. The nun just saw a man turn to dust and explode and Buffy thinks a piece of wood is incriminating?

Unlike "Him" I cannot entirely dismiss this story concept, which could have been entertaining if the bickering had been characterized differently and no one had made SMG try to funny cry. Oh, wait. They made that episode already.

Of course some episodes of Buffy are lackluster. "Beer Bad," "Spiral," and much of season seven are equal parts ridiculous and dull. But few episodes, in my opinion, are as embarrassingly, insultingly awful as "Him." If not for its last nine or so minutes, I would easily call it the worst episode of Buffy ever.

First, the writers are ripping themselves off. "Him" is an obvious retread of season two's delightful "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" in which Xander accidentally casts a spell on himself that causes all the women in Sunnydale to love him...to DEATH. (I know that sentence sounds like a crib from a Lifetime promo, but I couldn't resist.) Why does "Him" fail where "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" succeeds? Because the latter is not an exercise in the complete humiliation of every female character on a supposedly feminist show.

In "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" it becomes clear pretty fast that the females are acting strangely due to Xander's botched spell. Xander acts quickly to reverse its effects, and he doesn't take advantage of any of the girls who throw themselves at him. Giles chastises him for his foolish use of magic, and the women's escalating emotions for Xander threaten his well-being. As for the effects of the spell on the women, it causes them to be sexually assertive toward Xander, but none of their initial come-ons make me feel embarrassed for them. And the later mob scenes are so over-the-top that I know they would never happen without the spell.

In contrast, when watching "Him" I wasn't certain a spell caused Dawn's behavior until Buffy starts to hit on RJ, which doesn't happen until halfway into the episode. Sure, Dawn pushing that guy down a flight of stairs is creepy, but I wouldn't put it past her even when she's spell-free. I experience physical discomfort watching Dawn's attempts to win RJ, humiliating herself in front of him and his friends. The petty backstabbing and catfights between girls competing for him is nauseating, but none of it is behavior I haven't seen before on other shows and in movies as representative of how women might actually behave. Despite the girls' degradation, RJ doesn't suffer any ill effects from wearing the enchanted jacket. Because he doesn't seem to know about the enchantment, he doesn't have to learn a lesson about exploiting young women. Both Buffy and Principal Wood give him small lectures but to little effect, and having his jacket taken away by Spike and Xander hardly seems like much of a punishment.

Another important distinction between the two episodes is that "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" provides character and story development for two main characters. Xander gets to show he's really a good guy when he refuses Buffy, and he and Cordelia become an official item when Cordy calls her friends out on being sheep and decides that she doesn't care what they think about who she dates. "Him" doesn't further story or reveal anything new about any of the main characters, though it does prove that Dawn really would win Miss Teen Angst Sunnydale.

I wouldn't give this episode a second viewing if it weren't for the nine minutes following Willow and Anya falling under RJ's spell. I love the shot of Willow and Anya reacting to the love spell because of Alyson Hannigan's wistful expression that morphs into confusion tinged with disgust at lusting after a guy. Much of the following dialogue is very quotable and excellently performed by Hannigan, Emma Caulfield, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Buffy: "Willow, you're a gay woman."
Willow: (So?)
Buffy: "And he isn't."
Willow: "This isn't about his physical presence. It's about his heart."
Anya: "His physical presence has a penis!"
Willow: "I can work around it!"
...
Anya: "Well, you're gonna have to do better than that—I'd kill for him."
Willow: (scoffs) "You'd kill for a chocolate bar."
Buffy: "No. Yes! Kill for him. I'm the slayer. Slayer means kill. Oh, I'll kill the principal."
Anya: "Ooh, that is hard to top."
Willow: "Yeah, well, I have skills. I can prove my love with magic."
Anya: "Yeah, right. What're you gonna do? Use magic to make him into a girl?"
(Willow's eyes widen with realization and delight.)
Anya: "Damn!"

The wonderful comedic acting continues with the montage and split-screen of the women doing their things to win RJ's heart, with the exception of Dawn who has to spoil the fun by wallowing on the railroad tracks. Willow and Xander have a fun exchange after he stops Willow's spell ("Will, honey, RJ's a guy." "I know. 'S why I'm doing my spell, 'cause, you know, he doesn't have to be."), which leads to some excellent physical comedy by SMG and James Marsters as Spike tries to take the rocket launcher away from Buffy. I also enjoy Dawn's line about Buffy having "sex that's rough," and Spike and Xander wrestling RJ's jacket off of him and running away. The writers hadn't managed to churn out that amount of continuous comedy for a while, and they don't for the rest of the season. (This moment comes earlier in the episode, but I also like Willow commiserating with Xander that "she is right there with him" feeling disturbed at finding Dawn attractive. It's one of the show's more subtle "Willow is gay" moments.)

This episode includes a lot of callbacks to previous episodes. Dawn wears Buffy's cheerleading outfit from "Witch," Buffy tries to use the rocket launcher from "Innocence," and Xander references the events of the above-mentioned ripped-off episode "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered."

I really like the music in this episode. UPN seems to have made Buffy's music supervisor use songs that people might have actually heard of instead of the California alterna-rock of the first five seasons. I applaud the show for trying to use music from lesser-known, local bands, but sometimes they tended to be indistinguishable from each other. "Him" features a song by The Shins, a song by Coldplay, and a couple from The Breeders, who are playing at the Bronze. The Breeders are one of my favorite bands and I was happy to see them on the show, but their music seems an odd choice for dancing tunes. I also really like the Charlie's Angels-ish music that plays over the split-screen montage. Kudos to Robert Duncan if he composed that score.

Despite this episode's solid comedy and trendy indie music soundtrack, I feel bothered and bewildered (but not bewitched) that the writers thought this story had a place on Buffy. I do not tune in to a show about a young woman with super powers who kills vampires to watch women bicker pettily about a boy and then be saved by two men.

I wouldn't call "Who Are You?" one of my favorite Buffy episodes, but it's definitely a season-four highlight even though it leads to an appearance of sanctimonious and downright unlikable Buffy in "Sanctuary." I love the dynamic between Faith and Buffy, and even though you know they're stunt doubles, there's just something viscerally appealing about watching these two characters fight. Eliza Dushku tries to play all coy at "Oh, people thought Faith and Buffy had this deep down love for one another, I'm not sure why," but how can we not think that when she's saying lines like, "Let's have another go at it. See who lands on top," so dirty-like.

But as much as I like this episode, I’m always slightly annoyed by the TV conceit that a character’s closest friends and family wouldn’t realize that a body switch happened. Or short of that, that they wouldn't at least realize something was wrong. Especially when Faith is being about as discreet as a foghorn in some scenes. At least Tara notices. I really like Amber Benson’s performance in this episode. I love her delivery of "She was kind of mean," and her small, pained smile after Faith teases her about stuttering breaks my heart every time. But I don't like how Tara confronts Willow about being kept a secret from her friends. I wish Joss had found a less passive-aggressive way to get to the "I am, you know...Yours." But otherwise, Tara is very endearing here and it’s nice that she gets to be the intuitive one, even though it's at the expense of making Joyce, Willow, Riley, and Spike look like idiots. Well, I don't really care that Spike looks like an idiot. Or Riley either, actually. But note to Riley: if your girlfriend starts coming on to you sexually in a completely different way than she has before, even if you can't figure out that her soul has been mystically swapped with that of a self-loathing psychopath, maybe you shouldn't have sex with her. Try talking about it next time.

This episode is obviously a showcase for Sarah Michelle Gellar's fantastic mimicking skills that she puts to use again in seasons five and six with her portrayal of the Buffy-bot. At times in this episode I think she goes a little over-the-top with the physical mannerisms, but they're not too distracting. Her delivery is spot-on, and she even takes a stab at saying "about" the way Eliza Dushku does. (Is that a Boston accent? I've always been curious. It sounds almost Canadian to me.) But SMG doesn’t wear leather pants quite as well as Eliza does. Sorry, Sarah.

Yes, Eliza’s performance doesn’t stand out as much as SMG’s, but to be fair Buffy doesn’t have as many obvious mannerisms as Faith does. Buffy puts her hands on her hips a lot when she is speechifying and crosses her arms for various reasons, but that’s all I can think of offhand. Faith is a psychologically traumatized murderer while Buffy is a pretty average college student: these actors can play Faith a little more heightened where Buffy should be more subdued. Buffy also spends half of this episode tied up or semi-conscious, which means that Eliza doesn’t have as much obviously Buffy dialogue as SMG has Faith dialogue. The only time I felt like Eliza really wasn't Buffy was when she threatens to kill one of the Council's goons. I think Eliza rocks Buffy's conversation with Giles, giving especially the “What’s a stevedore?” line a perfect SMG-style delivery.

Ah, the "Passage to the Nether Realm" spell (snigger!), also known as the big flaming O. (OK, but why a "flaming" O? There isn’t any fire. I think it's more of a sparkly O.) I admit that when I first saw this episode I didn’t quite realize the sexual connotation of the spell. I remember thinking, "Huh. That spell is a lot of work. Look how sweaty they are." I was 16 and very naive. Now that I’m, um, more informed, I’m amazed that they got away with it, especially in combination with Faith's pretty sexually explicit conversation with Spike. The spell could have been really hokey, but Joss manages to make it sexy, even though both actors have all their clothes on and are only touching hands. Hmm, a metaphorical lesbian sex scene directed by a man that eroticizes hands? Not bad, Joss. You might even argue that because it's not a literal sex scene Joss could actually show more, i.e. Willow "comes" in a more graphic way than I usually see on network TV.

Though "This Year's Girl" and Angel episodes "Five by Five" and "Sanctuary" don't quite measure up to "Who Are You?" I like Faith's post-coma arc because it leads to the Faith of "Orpheus," the Faith who is trying to make amends. Also, her reappearance in season seven of Buffy was a small bit of happiness in an incredibly boring season.