this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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"The Train Job" is the original series premiere and second episode of the American science-fiction western television series Firefly created by Joss Whedon. It was the second episode produced and aired on Friday, September 20, 2002, on Fox. The episode was written by Whedon and Tim Minear as the second pilot to the series following Fox after executives were unsatisfied with original pilot "Serenity", which later aired as the series finale. According to the 2003 DVD commentary, Whedon and Minear had only two days to write the script.
Synopsis
Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds, Zoe and Jayne Cobb are in a bar. When a drunk patron celebrates the sixth anniversary of the Alliance's victory on Unification Day with a toast, Mal, a former Browncoat soldier, picks a fight. Zoe immediately backs him up, and Jayne hesitates before reluctantly joining. Outnumbered, Mal radios his pilot, Wash, for help. Serenity rescues them, despite the ship not having any weapons. In the ship's infirmary, Dr. Simon Tam tends to his mentally disturbed teenage sister River. Another passenger, "Shepherd" (preacher) Book, tells Mal that Simon is brave to sacrifice his life of luxury to go on the run and protect his sister.
On a "skyplex" (an orbiting space city), Mal, Zoe, and Jayne meet crime lord Adelei Niska and his hulking lieutenant, Crow, to arrange a job. Niska sadistically shows them the body of the last person who failed him. The job is to steal two crates from a moving train, which Mal shows no interest in knowing the contents of.
During the heist, Mal and Zoe sneak past an entire squad of Alliance troops who are coincidentally on the train. They break into the locked train car and find the crates, while Serenity flies over the speeding train and lowers Jayne on a winch to collect the cargo. Meanwhile, a curious trooper sets off a booby trap that Zoe had set. Jayne is wounded, and Mal knocks out the soldier before he can see what is happening. Jayne and the crates are hoisted onto the ship, whilst Mal and Zoe covertly reenter the passenger car and pretend to be regular passengers.
Wash parks Serenity in a nearby canyon. Jayne wants to get to the rendezvous point and finish the job, but Wash refuses to leave without Mal and Zoe. When Jayne tries to take the ship by force, Simon sedates him. Meanwhile, Mal learns that the stolen cargo is desperately needed medicine. The nearby mining town is afflicted with "Bowden's Malady", a degenerative disease caused by mining activity. The local sheriff is suspicious of Mal's cover story that he and Zoe are a married couple looking for work. Inara appears and uses her considerable status as a Companion, falsely claiming that Mal is her runaway "indentured man" who persuaded Zoe to leave her husband. The impressed sheriff lets her take the "runaways" back into her own custody.
Mal decides they will deliver the medicine to the townspeople and return Niska's money. Niska's henchmen find them first, and a fight ensues. The Serenity crew wins, and secures the villains. Mal and Zoe drive the cargo to the town, intending to drop off the crates discreetly. They are surprised by the sheriff and his deputies, who realize what they have done. They are grateful for the return of the medicine and allow them to go free. Mal tries to negotiate with Crow but he says Niska will refuse, and promises to hunt down and kill him. Mal casually kills Crow, and the next henchman agrees to cooperate. Elsewhere, on an Alliance cruiser, two mysterious men in suits and wearing blue gloves inquire about a girl and show the captain a photo of River Tam.
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I'd hope so but I always thought the Alliance colonized the whole system. Isn't said that they're the ones terraforming moons and making them habitable? If that's the case the outer moons are breakaway colonies more like the US and Brittan, India and Brittan, and well most of the world and Brittan. ๐
Opening Narration for first 4 episodes.
Book: After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying.
I went back and watched the full credits on my version and I realized the voice-over introductions are only on the iTunes and any original TVRips you can find. The DVDs are lacking the voice-overs and the previously on. So I'm guessing the voice-over was added later by Fox.
Well that's what I kept skipping over I guess. What threw me was the flag.
We see it in the Train Job and it sure looks like a US/China Alliance. So who did the terraforming then?