Big Damn Heroics: R. Tam, Session 416 - Second Excerpt & Episode Death Tolls

Spatial Anomaly also covered the first of The R. Tam Sessions, Session 416 - Second Excerpt.

Accompanied by an article about episode death tolls exclusive to patrons.

Please consider popping over to Spatial Anomaly for a butcher's.

My 2021

It's been another weird year.

I can confirm that looking after a two year old, is much more difficult than looking after a one year old. This rate of mathematical progression does not fill me with confidence in light of my impending duty to look after a three year old.

As far as I am aware I did not not get Covid, but instead I did get two vaccine doses and booster, which was pretty incredible given where we were this time last year.  

I wrote twelve articles for Hero Collector: Doctor Who Top 10 Modern Cliffhangers, Beat Blue Monday, George Lucas' THX 1138 @50, Star Trek End of the Enterprise, X-Men: First Class @10, Attack The Block @10, The Earth is Doomed!, The Expanse @10, Captain America @10, 007: Top 10 Pre-Title Sequences, Dark Season @30. and The Expanse Boasts A USP For Sci-Fi Fans. That's almost one a month.

Outside In Wants To Believe was published containing my article, You Say Goodbye, And I Say Hello.

Spatial Anomaly published Big Damn Heroics episode guides about the Firefly episodes: Serenity: The Pilot, The Train Job, Bushwhacked, Shindig, Safe, Our Mrs Reynolds, Jaynestown, Out of Gas, Ariel, War Stories, Trash, The Message, Heart of Gold and Objects in Space, as well as The R. Tam Sessions 416 Second excerpt, 1 and 22.

While there were articles that were exclusive to patrons about the deleted scenes from Serenity: The Pilot, Our Mrs Reynolds and Objects in Space. episode orders, opening narrations, character profiles of Badger, Niska, Saffron and the Hands of Blue, A History of the 'verse Part One & Two, Top Ten Firefly Flashbacks, Screentime, Top Ten Death Tolls and an analysis of the opening titles. 

Spatial Anomaly was neglected in the second half of the year, but I'm planning on continuing it in the new year.

There was also a top secret project that took up any free time that I had. I'll let you know what it was as soon as I can...

Big Damn Heroics: Objects In Space & Objects In Space Deleted Scene

Over at Spatial Anomaly, Big Damn Heroics has reached the de facto Firefly finale, Objects in Space.

Alongside an article about a deleted scene from the same episode with a complicated history.

So, please drop by and have a look at Spatial Anomaly.

So Your Legend Tells

I made another appearance on the Sudden But Inevitable Rewatch podcast to talk about the Firefly episode Heart of Gold. 

I was their first recurring guest and we talked about Asian representation in the series, the nature of villains and the supposed differences between companions and prostitutes.

We had a great time, but don't just take my word for it. You can listen to the podcast here. 

In an unexpected development, the videos of the podcast that were the live experience and I think recorded as a back up were now being shared on YouTube and so there was a visual representation of the time difference over my shoulder towards the end of episode.

Big Damn Heroics: Heart of Gold & Screentime

Big Damn Heroics moved onto Heart of Gold.

And there was an article regarding amount of screentime dedicated to each character that was only available to patrons.

So, please drop by and have a look at Spatial Anomaly.

Big Damn Heroics: The Message & Flashbacks

In the same way that this blog suffered so did Spatial Anomaly. Big Damn Heroics continued its examination of Firefly with an article about The Message...

And another that is exclusive for subscribers about the use of Flashbacks in the series.

So, please drop by and have a look at Spatial Anomaly.

Uplifting with Swords

I appeared on the Sudden but Inevitable Rewatch earlier this year in the episode dedicated to the Firefly instalment Shindig. They ended up using something I said to name the episode and so it was ultimately called Uplifting with Swords.

I was their first guest and it was the beginning of a great run of guests, mostly from other podcasts. 

Jesse, Josh, Kylie and Ricky were very welcoming and it was a lot of fun. Due to the time difference between the UK and Colorado, I had to get up very early in the morning to take part, but it was definitely worth it. I heartily recommend the Sudden but Inevitable Rewatch to listeners far and wide.

Big Damn Heroics: Trash, Saffron & War Stories

This week, Big Damn Heroics covers Trash, exclusively for patrons for the next week.

Also, exclusively for Patrons is a character profile of Saffron.

The War Stories article has gone public.

So, please drop by and have a look at Spatial Anomaly.

Big Damn Heroics: War Stories, Niska & Ariel

Over on Spatial Anomaly, Big Damn Heroics has now reached War Stories. It's exclusive to Patrons for the next week.

This week's Patreon exclusive is a character profile of Adelai Niska.

Meanwhile the Ariel article is now free to read, as is the schedule for March.

Why not pay Spatial Anomaly a visit?

Big Damn Heroics: Ariel, Hands Of Blue Character Profile & Out Of Gas

Big Damn Heroics on Spatial Anomaly has reached Ariel. It's exclusive to Patrons for the next seven days.

This week's Patreon exclusive article is a character profile of the Hands of Blue. 

Meanwhile, the Out Of Gas article is now free to read. 

Come on over and have a butcher's at Spatial Anomaly.

Big Damn Heroics: Whedon, Out Of Gas, Jaynestown & Chronology, Part 2

Spatial Anomaly's current project Big Damn Heroics was thrown a bit of a curveball this week. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the recent and detailed accusations about Joss Whedon.

On a happier note, the Out Of Gas article is up. It's exclusive to Patrons for the first seven days.

The Jaynestown article is now free to read.

This week's Patreon exclusive article is A History Of The Verse, Part Two, which to the surprise of no one is a follow up to A History Of The Verse, Part One.

So why not pay Spatial Anomaly a visit?

Big Damn Heroics: Jaynestown, Our Mrs Reynolds & Chronology

A Spatial Anomaly update: Jayne Cobb plays Robin Hood for a spell as Big Damn Heroics reaches the halfway point of Firefly: Jaynestown. It's exclusive to patrons for seven days (or a week). 

The Our Mrs Reynolds article has gone public.

There's an exclusive article for Patrons about the historical chronology of the 'verse.

Please come over have and have a look at Spatial Anomaly. 

Sudden But Inevitable Rewatch

I'm a guest on the Sudden But Inevitable Rewatch Podcast live tonight at 10:45pm US Mountain Time, which is 5:45 in the UK (and technically Saturday morning).

I'm really looking forward to it. We are going to be talking about the Firefly episode Shindig, which by sheer coincidence, shameless plug, I recently wrote about. It'll be available on their Facebook and their Instragram as well as wherever else you can get your podcasts.

Big Damn Heroics: Our Mrs Reynolds, Safe & Deleted Scene

Some Spatial Anomaly news: Big Damn Heroics has reached Our Mrs Reynolds, the episode in which Mal gets married and Christina Hendricks gives a bravura performance.

There's also an article about a delete scene from the episode that's exclusive to patrons. 

The Safe article has gone public. 

Big Damn Heroics: Safe, Opening Narrations & Shindig

This week on Spatial Anomaly, there's shooting, kidnapping and cattle rustling as we look at Safe, the episode which tests the definitions of crew and passengers. The Safe article is exclusive to patrons  for the next seven days.

As if that weren't enough. We also have an article that is exclusive to patrons about the no less than four different opening narrations that were shown at the top of most episodes on their first broadcast. They aren't on the DVD and a great many people that love the show have never even seen them.

Meanwhile, the Shindig article is now available for public consumption.

Come and join for a spell on Spatial Anomaly

Spatial Anomaly Exclusives So Far

I probably haven't done enough to draw attention to the Patreon exclusive articles that I've been writing and posting each week. At this point, there are three articles about Firefly that remain steadfastly only available to Spatial Anomaly's patrons.

The first concerns the deleted scenes from the pilot episode, what they would have revealed about the characters and whether they should have been included in the episode as broadcast.  

The second Patreon exclusive article is about Firefly episode orders. The differences between the order the episode were broadcast, production order and Joss Whedon's preferred order, and perhaps more importantly, why it matters.

And the third is a character profile of Badger. I'm going to to one of these for each of the recurring and regular characters.

The only way to read these three articles and any of the subsequent Patreon exclusives is to become a Patron, but I would imagine that the only way you would know whether that's something you want to do, is if you head on over and have a look at some of the free stuff and see if it takes your fancy.

Don't Be Blue

Today is Blue Monday. Apparently the most depressing day of the year.

I wrote this list of suggestions of uplifting sci-fi to help you beat the blues. Between them that's a seven hour schedule that's sure to cheer you up, however Blue your Monday is.

Big Damn Heroics: Shindig & Bushwhacked

Big Damn Heroics has reached Shindig, as Mal tries to do business at a fancy party and finds himself duelling. Kaylee's frock, Mal's sense of honour and River's impression of Badger, it's all here for patrons of Spatial Anomaly.

In other news, Bushwhacked, the episode which shows us that Alliance bureaucracy can be as deadly as gorram Reavers, is now free to read for non-patrons. Please have a look and consider becoming a patron.

Big Damn Heroics: The Train Job

With one pilot done, Big Damn Heroics has moved onto the other. The co-pilot if you will: The Train Job.

The Train Job is a fantastic episode that seeks to introduce all the necessary elements from the other pilot without repeating itself. It's a tall order and it succeeds admirably. Let's do some crime.

Announcing Big Damn Heroics

This is something of an experiment: I plan to write about an episode of Joss Whedon's science fiction/western series Firefly every week for the next approximately fourteen weeks and if wildly successful, possibly beyond. I'm calling it Big Damn Heroics

Firefly concerned the spaceship Serenity, its crew and passengers and the adventures that blurred line between the two. The TV show premiered in 2002, was sorely mistreated by its network and cancelled all too soon after. 

In total, there were fourteen episodes broadcast, albeit in the wrong order, in varying timeslots and often pre-empted by sports events or movie repeats. I'm going to be writing about the series in its intended broadcast order, which is also the how the episodes were presented on the DVD and Blu-ray releases. I would argue that it has pretty much supplanted the original broadcast order. That said, I'll be definitely making lots of references to the contradictions and confusions that this caused. 

Each Saturday, I will publish an article on Patreon about a new episode, beginning with:

1) Firefly: Serenity - The Pilot

2) Firefly: The Train Job 

3) Firefly: Bushwhacked (16th January 2021)

4) Firefly: Shindig (23rd January 2021)

5) Firefly: Safe (30th January 2021)

6) Firefly: Our Mrs Reynolds (6th February 2021)

7) Firefly: Jaynestown (13th February 2021)

8) Firefly: Out Of Gas (20th February 2021)

9) Firefly: Ariel (27th February 2021)

10) Firefly: War Stories (6th March 2021)

11) Firefly: Trash (13th March 2021)

12) Firefly: The Message (20th March 2021)

13) Firefly: Heart Of Gold (27th March 2021)

14) Firefly: Objects In Space (3rd April 2021)

If these first fourteen find an audience then we can talk about the movie, the webisodes, the comics, the short stories and the novels in subsequent articles.

So please join me every Saturday for some Firefly.