Out of Gas

For this assignment I decided to watch episode eight of Firefly titled “Out of Gas”. This episode was a lot different than “The Train Job” because all of this episode took place aboard the ship and therefore had extremely little of the Western theme incorporated into it. Although the episode was almost entirely science fiction rather than a hybrid of sci-fi and Western I still enjoyed it very much. The episode is mainly comprised of flashbacks from the captain’s point of view. These flashbacks show how many of the crew members, including Hoban “Wash” Washburne, the pilot, and Kaywinnit Lee "Kaylee" Frye, the mechanic, came to be living and working aboard the ship Serenity. The flashbacks take place while the captain, Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds, is stumbling around Serenity trying to fix the engine while bleeding out from a gunshot wound inflicted by attempted hijackers. I found it very interesting that the director chose to wait so long into the series before going back to reveal how some of the crew members came to be on the ship. Not only did the flashbacks provide insight into some of the characters pasts but it also served to make the view more curious about the characters whose origins on the ship were not revealed. Even though, as I previously stated, the episode was primarily science fiction it still touched on many universal themes such as trust, camaraderie, and guilt. This made the episode easy to relate to, and even easier to watch and enjoy.