Top Twelve Episodes of Firefly-Number 5

Number 5-Ariel

This episode is a great chance to get to know almost everyone better. The only character you miss seeing is Preacher, and he wouldn't want to be a part of things anyway.

River just keeps getting worse and worse. Her brother decides that he needs to do something drastic to uncover what the alliance did to her mind. He has a crazy plan, that might just work.

Is the Simon some kind of criminal mastermind? It certainly looks that way. It takes a lot of preparation, but the crew is able to break the Doctor and River into the hospital by faking their deaths and pretending to be an ambulance crew. They are able to steal a ton of medication while Simon scans River's brain. It looks like it is going to work perfectly, until someone throws a monkey wrench in the works.

Let's take a moment before we get there to look at some of the character development moments. It's pretty much a tie between Simon and Jayne as far as who has the most character development so we'll talk about them separately later.

• Kaylee and Wash build a medical transport ship out of a scrap yard.
• Mal and Zoe struggle with all the medical lingo.
• Mal has to make some hard choices about who he supports and how he does so.
• Awesome medical scan effects.
• River's head is messed up thanks to the Alliance.
• There are some crazy, messed-up people after River.
• Do not mess with Mal-ever.

Stuff for Jayne

• Works hard to learn his lines and gives them just to prove he could.
• Betrays Simon and River for the money.
• Cares what people think. Even when he thinks he's going to die, he begs Mal not to tell the real reason he is going to die.
• When it comes down to it, Jayne is a fighter.

Stuff for Simon

• Simon comes up with a great plan.
• Simon saves a patient that gets the wrong treatment.

Top Twelve Episodes of Firefly-Number 6

Number 6-Objects in Space

Do you know what Firefly really needs? Someone to make Jayne look a little less crazy. That's definitely what you get with this episode. Jubal Early is definitely the craziest person to ever grace the decks of Serenity. He even makes River look sane.

It's sad to note that one of the best episodes around what is happening with River, is where the story ends thanks to Fox.

Jubal Early is a messed up bounty hunter who is trying to collect the reward on River. He does a great job of dealing with the crew and company. He does some extremely strange things. Check them out here:

Jubal's path:

1. Fights Mal and beats him pretty easily. Locks him up in his room. 
2. Locks up Zoe and Wash.
3. Is really, really mean to Kaylee. (Also suggests he might be Santa or a part of Serenity forever)
4. (He also threatens to rape her, which is not cool Joss Whedon.)
5. Knocks out Preacher.
6. Says lines like this: Doctor: Are you alliance? Jubal: Am I a lion? Doctor What? Jubal: I don't think of myself as a lion. You might as well though. I have a mighty roar. Doctor: I said Alliance. Jubal: 
7. Hits Inara.
8. Has a conversation with River as Serenity.

This episode speaks to so many great components of the show. It's good that this was the last of the episodes, but it's a shame that it had to end at all. "Does that seem right to you?"

Top 12 Episodes of Firefly-Number 7

Number 7-Our Mrs. Reynolds

Yes, pretty much every episode of Firefly is all about Mal. You'll just have to deal with it. In the beginning of this episode, the crew is celebrating with the local on a planet where they have just helped eliminate some local bandits (which included Mal in a dress and pretty bonnet.) Mal dances with a pretty girl and that seems to be all there is to tell. Not much of a story, right?

Wrong.

Back on the ship, Mal discovers his new wife waiting to serve him. No, he doesn't know anything about her until they meet again. Sure he enjoyed dancing with her, but that doesn't mean he wanted to be married to her. The crew takes advantage of the situation to give Mal a hard time even though Mrs. Reynolds doesn't seem to enjoy the situation.

However, it turns out that Mrs. Reynolds is not anything she pretends to be. She takes down pretty much the entire crew and sends Serenity on a course to get dismantled for parts. Here are a few interesting points:

• Mal breaks down and kisses poisoned lips.
• Inara breaks down and kisses Mal.
• Wash doesn't break down, but still gets hit in the head.
• Jayne is just Jayne, like always.

Top Twelve Episodes of Firefly-Number 8

Number 8-Shindig

This episode is a lot of fun. Not only to you get to see Mal in a duel, but you also get to see Kaylee in one of the most ridiculous outfits ever. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself again. Let's take a step back and approach this from closer to the beginning.

The crew gets a lead on a transport job, but because of a variety of issues, Mal has to prove to the client that he is respectable enough to take the job. This involves a variety of problems, but Mal manages to overcome each of them.

Inara takes a Companion job with a guy that turns out to be a complete jerk with control issues. He expects her to leave her life and become his Companion full time. She holds off on the question. Meanwhile, Kaylee is overcoming the silliness of her dress the only way that she knows, being an amazing engineer. After she gets put down by the mean girls, she's surrounded by men that are impressed by her knowledge.

At one point, Mal get frustrated by Inara's date and somehow ends up on the wrong end of a sword duel. Somehow Mal survives this and even gets the contract.

One major point for this episode is that it may or may not have the moment where Mal gets stabbed in the place of the pressure point the bad guy in the movie uses against him. I'm not 100% sure that is right, but it's pretty darn close.

Top Twelve Episodes of Firefly-Number 9

Number 9-Heart of Gold

How can you complain about an episode that tells us a lot about most of the characters and really pushes the limits of Mal and Inara's relationship? The answer is simple, you can't. To make things even more interesting check out the setting of this episode. (Let me step back and make a different approach to this.)

So Inara gets a distress call from a former companion and friend who has an emergency situation. She has a house of unlicensed companions and they are about to be attacked by a man that is convinced that one of the woman is pregnant with his child. Mal and company agree to help the women out and all sorts of interesting stuff happens.

Here are a few major elements to the story that develop character arcs:

• Preacher doesn't judge the women for what they do, continuing the character development of him as being nonjudgmental of sinners.
• Jayne joins the party because of the sexual favors offered.
• Jayne also shows off his love affair with guns.
• We get to see deeper into the relationship between Mal and Inara when Mal sleeps with the former companion and we see that Inara is not OK with that. 

Even as good as this episode is, there are better ones that happen on either side of this story. Be on the lookout for them down the road. 

Top Twelve Episodes of Firefly-Number 10

Number 10-Message

I had to give the whole list another look when I saw this was next. The main reason is because the rest of the episodes are really good, and I'm not sure how I managed to rank all of them. Of the 10 remaining episodes, this is the least, and that's still an amazing place to be.

In this episode, we learn a lot about Mal and Zoe and their experiences in the war against the Alliance.

While checking on their mail, Mal and Zoe discover that they have received a dead body of a former war buddy. He plays the sympathy card and the two decide to take him home to his family.

Unfortunately, he isn't all that dead, and he's just trying to use Mal and the crew of Serenity to steal a genetically engineered heart. There is a group of government agents after him and the crew, and they aren't afraid to do some unsavory things to get what they want.

I won't give too much more away in case you haven't seen this episode. (If that is the case then what are you even looking at the list for? Go watch Firefly now.)

Here are some important moments:

• Jayne gets a hat from his mother. The hat explains a lot.
• Kaylee gets shot-again. Seriously, why does she get shot so much?
• We get to see more of Preacher and his strange mix of characteristics. How does he manage to almost save the day?
• "When you can't run, you crawl, and when you can't do that, you get someone to carry you."

New Year's Resolutions

I know that your resolutions should be specific. I know they should detail the exact changes you want to make, but that's not my style. I don't need all the pressure of trying to reach a specific goal. I don't want to feel like a failure just because I lost 9 pounds instead of 10.

I do have some things I want to accomplish, but aside from a list of writing goals, none of them are specific enough to lead to failure if they don'e happen exactly. Just in case you're curious about my goals, here they are:

• Lose some weight. (No amounts or measurements, just get a little thinner by the end of the year.)
• Figure out the next year (whether that means an actual teaching job or another year of AmeriCorps)
• Win NaNoWriMo 2012
• Get a car

I'm sure there are other things I should/could put on this list, but I'm just working off the top of my head and 6 days late.