The Serenity comes across a vessel that Mal decides to salvage, but there's one person left on board after an attack who spells danger. That and the fact that an Alliance ship passing by is interested to know what's going on...

I don't want to come down too hard on this show so soon, so I'll go steady. This isn't really a bad episode again, and I can see why it's here. While it's not really introducing the characters (although there's an element of it in here during the interrogations), it does explain a little more about the Alliance and their purpose.

The main problem here is that the show hasn't developed a sufficient stylistic approach that it can properly create an atmosphere of suspense or happiness. Some of the images featured here are quite horrific, but most of them happen offscreen or out of focus, or in some way hidden. Tim Minear brings his writing and directing talent with him from Angel but he's not quite sure how to put it to use here, it seems. Towards the end the episode really starts to get atmospheric and creepy, something Minear has learnt well from his other show, but it's too late after the amount of time it takes to get to this point, and the threat is dealt with quickly by sheer weight of numbers.

The thing is, anyone who's read anything about Firefly will know that it's a no alien zone, so on that basis talk of 'Reefers' doesn't instil much concern in the viewer as it's still just a human. If a bunch of them had turned up, fine, and I appreciate that seeing one man by overtaken by insanity after meeting some of them makes its own point, but it's just not that great a storyline. As a chance to chuck in a bit more backstory and throw out a few hints and tips about the main characters, it works well enough, but the Alliance captain is a poor enemy, and there's a lot of wandering about in near-darkness before anything happens. I'll give it a few more episodes to set some pieces in place, but then we've really got to start seeing some movement and some proper stories about this unexplored future.

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