TNMC
This site’s design is only visible in a graphical browser that supports web standards, but its content is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
Firefly
Episode 1.04, "Jaynestown"
Written by Ben Edlund
Directed by Marita Grabiak
Air Date: 10.18.02
Check out our double shot review with Ultra Magnus' Review and Hollyfeld's Review.
I was pretty stoked for this episode, given that Jayne is possibly my favorite character and that it was written by Tick creator Ben Edlund. So needless to say I was kind of bummed when I found myself bored out of my mind.
The crew goes down to a planet in order to pick up some illegal goods for a client. Problem is, Jayne's been there before and pissed some folks off - most notably the town magistrate. But as long as he keeps a low profile, things should go fine. But the low profile thing doesn't really go so well though when the group realizes Jayne is something of a folk hero amongst these folks. There's even a Jayne statue. And songs. Seriously.
Um... let's see. That pretty much summarizes the first three acts... then finally in act four there's a brief confrontation between Jayne and his former partner in crime that he screwed over. Meanwhile, there are some attempts at character development between the preacher and River Tam aboard the ship, Inara and a client, and Kaylee and Simon. The developing romance between Kaylee and Simon was the only one I found remotely interesting, and was really the only thing about the episode I liked. The whole Jayne as a hero routine wasn't that funny and they really beat it to death. I also thought River Tam's behavior (speaking somewhat coherently) was totally out of character from what we've seen so far. And as far as their mission, well, there was little danger involved and even less fun.
I dunno. I hate to be so negative, but I just didn't really see much to like in this episode. Despite a few good nuggets of dialogue here and there, this was definitely the worst one so far.
Episode Rating: 5 out of 10.
- Ultra Magnus is a man of few words when he's not amused.
I like Firefly. I think my reviews of the show thus far have made that extremely clear. I haven't quite been able to understand the ire of the internet community in regards to the show. Sure, as a whole they don't seem to hate it, but there's a general sense of disappointment out there that I, were I a member of Joss Whedon & Company, would be very discouraged by. But I myself thought the first three episodes of the show were all kinds of entertaining.
That being said, this week's episode really bored me. This is particularly disappointing, since Firefly's flagging ratings would seem to necessitate a higher standard of quality, for now at least, in order to keep the show alive. Instead, we get "Jaynestown," a surprisingly inferior episode since a) it focuses on the show's breakout character, Jayne, and b) it was written by "The Tick's" Ben Edlund, whom we should all know is one entertaining bastard.
The concept is great - the crew of Serenity land on a planet to do some misdeeding and to give Inara a chance to actually see a client (a first on the actual show). A typical day for all, except for Jayne who last left this area a wanted man. Or so he thought: Jayne discovers a statue of him in the town square, and that songs have been written in his honor. Welcome to a town where the anti-heroic Jayne is a genuinely heroic folk... hero.
And that's pretty funny. It would be even funnier if it hadn't taken half an hour to set up, and if they'd actually gone anywhere with it. Instead of really making the most of the situation, Jayne simply gets drunk, has some sex, then starts feeling guilty. You see, Jayne has become famous for stealing money from the corrupt local politician and dropping it from the sky on the poor community. What no one else knows is that he only dropped it because he needed to lighten the load from his ship. And even then, he only did it after dropping his partner first.
The local magistrate, upon hearing of Jayne's return, takes said partner out of the miniscule holding tank in which he had apparently been held for the last four years, gives him a gun, and basically says, "happy hunting." Apparently the years of isolation have done nothing to cripple the man's physique, so he goes out, tells the town what really happened, and tries to kill Jayne. One of his followers jumps in front of the bullet. Jayne feels even guiltier.
So, having concluded their business, the crew of Serenity leaves. It's a good thing Inara's client was the son of the magistrate and knew that his father had their ship grounded, though. He freed Serenity before they even had a problem with it. At the end, Mal has a Giles-esque "you learned something today" talk with Jayne, about how the whole thing was about the town needing a hero - it didn't matter who it was.
This episode basically proves my hypothesis that the better next week's episode of Firefly looks, the worse it will actually be. This week's episode looked fabulous -Jayne the God... just imagine the possibilities. But as said before, almost none of those possibilities are given a chance here. Jayne leading a revolution - that would have been interesting. Jayne abusing his power and having all the women in town feed him grapes by hand - that would have been funny. Jayne getting drunk and sleeping with a groupie - well, that's hardly inspiring. And again, as said before, the concept takes so long to set up that by the time they had a chance to actually go somewhere with it, it was also time to start wrapping the episode up.
So the main story of the episode was a letdown. It wasn't horrible by any particular stretch of the imagination (and the actual Jayne song was pretty funny), but it's episodes like this that made me so tired of Enterprise, so very fast. Had all the episodes thus far been of this quality, I would be right up there with all the other Whedon fans who are expressing their disappointment with the show.
But all the rest of the episodes have been decent or great, and there some of their charm is present here in "Jaynestown's" subplots. We finally see some actual flirting between Kaylee and Simon, and they're cute together. Simon kind of screws it up, but not so bad that it isn't mostly fixed by the episode's end. We also finally get to see Inara be a "registered companion," and get to see firsthand that it's more than just prostitution and more of a psychological service. And best of all, we get time with Book as he baby-sits River while the rest of the crew are away. Little scenes like River ripping pages out of the bible because they are illogical (or explaining how the bible relates to scientific theory), or River running from Book's domineering 'fro actually saved this episode from getting a genuinely bad rating.
As it stands however, I give "Jaynestown:"
Episode Rating: 5 out of 10
On the upside, next week's episode looks pretty uninspiring (though well-directed), so I just know that we'll be in for a treat.
What do you think? Talk about it on the Forums
