'The Train Job'
Written by Joss Whedon and Tim Minear, Directed by Joss Whedon

And boy was it strange to see those two names there.

So, the long-awaited new Joss show. Anyone who's been following the development of Firefly probably knows that they shot a feature-length pilot, but Fox didn't like it and they had to come up with something else. As a result this was apparently written by Joss and Tim over a weekend, and it kinda shows. Also, Joss has talked a lot about how it's influenced by westerns. That's not strictly true. It is a western, from the opening bar brawl through the theme tune, and the fact that everyone uses pistols. The fact that it's also set in space appears, thus far, to be almost incidental, although it does lead to some cool effects and an hilarious scene in which the captain pushes someone into his ships engines.

It's set in the aftermath of a civil war (not, it seems, entirely dissimilar to the American civil war) 500 years in the future, the winners of whom were a group called the Alliance.

The story concerns the crew of a ship, led by the captain, Mal (who fought on the opposing side in the civil war, and is still bitter about it), who make their living as mercenaries, performing jobs of dubious legality. They get hired by a rather nasty guy - who shows them the corpse of one of his previous hirings to make it clear what will happen to them should they fail - to steal the cargo from a train which is owned by the Alliance. Which they do. However, Mal and one of his crew, Zoe, get left on the train and detained as the sheriff of the city the train was headed for try to figure out who was responsible. They also discover that the cargo they've stolen was medical supplies, which are badly needed by the city for an illness which is caused by gas from mining. Meanwhile, Jayne (who's a man, honest) got shot in the leg while escaping. He wants to hand over the cargo, and then worry about whether to bother rescuing the captain, while the rest of the crew think they should wait. The matter is resolved when the doctor drugs him, and they send Inara, who's a high-class courtesan and apparently very respectable, to rescue them. By this point Mal has decided that they should return the medicine to the city and return the money they got for the job. Bad guys lackeys turn up wondering what happened, and, needless to say, don't agree. There's a shootout which, obviously, our guys win. They kill some of the bad guys, tie up the rest, but still want to give the money back. Main lackey is uncooperative, so Mal kicks him into the ships engines, and gives the money to someone else. There's also a sign of stuff to come - they've rescued the medics sister, who was held by the Alliance and appears to be psychic, and they want her back, so I guess we're gonna be seeing more of that soon.

And, well, that was unexpected. The western/space hybrid thing is very weird at first, but it makes a strange kind of sense once you get used to it. Possibly as a result of the haste with which it was written, there isn't a whole lot to this episode, and it doesn't really feel like a pilot. It sets the scene, kind of, but it's heavy on action and short on telling you anything much about any of the characters. I can only remember the names of a couple of them. Very enjoyable, however. There's plenty of potential here, which I think we'll see if/when we get more arc-based stuff. The actors are all very good thus far, it looks fantastic, there's some great dialogue (also some really bad, but there you go). The only thing which really lets it down is the Joss-penned theme tune, which is better than 'Enterprise's, but still not great.

Can't wait to see more.