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Our Mrs. Reynolds
"Our Mrs. Reynolds" is the sixth episode of the science fiction television series ''Firefly'' created by Joss Whedon. As an unexpected reward for an unpaid job, Mal finds himself married to a naïve, subservient young woman named Saffron (Christina Hendricks). Saffron is all too willing to play the role of housewife, which leads to an argument between Wash and Zoe and lectures from Shepherd Book, until Mal uncovers a more sinister reason for Saffron's devotion. Plot A covered wagon makes its way through a shallow river. When bandits on horseback hold it up, the driver, Jayne, and his "wife" Mal pull their weapons on them. Mal offers them the choice of jail or death. In the ensuing shootout, Mal, Jayne and Zoe swiftly kill the bandits. The crew then celebrates at a party that evening, thrown in their honor by a rural settlement that had been plagued by the outlaws. Mal dances with a beautiful young woman, who gives him a wreath and a bowl of wine to drink, while the village elde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firefly (TV Series)
''Firefly'' is an American space Western drama television series, created by writer and director Joss Whedon, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as an executive producer, along with Tim Minear. The series is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of '' Serenity'', a "''Firefly''-class" spaceship. The ensemble cast portrays the nine characters who live on ''Serenity''. Whedon pitched the show as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things." The show explores the lives of a group of people, some of whom fought on the losing side of a civil war, who make a living on the fringes of society as part of the pioneer culture of their star system. In this future, the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures. According ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rainstick
A rainstick is a long, hollow tube partially filled with small pebbles, rice or beans that has small pins or thorns arranged helically on its inside surface. When the stick is upended, the pebbles fall to the other end of the tube, bouncing off the internal protrusions to create a sound reminiscent of falling rain. The rainstick is believed to have been invented by the Mapuche and was played in the belief it could bring about rainstorms. It was also found on the Chilean coasts, though it is not certain if it was made by the Incas. Rainsticks are usually made from any of several species of cactus such as ''Eulychnia acida'' and ''Echinopsis pachanoi''. The cacti, which are hollow, are dried in the sun. The spines are removed, then driven into the cactus like nails. Pebbles or other small objects are placed inside the rainstick, and the ends are sealed. A sound like falling water is made when the rainstick has its direction changed to a vertical position. Similar instruments can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Our Miss Brooks
''Our Miss Brooks'' is an American sitcom starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high-school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952–56), it became one of the medium's earliest hits. In 1956, the sitcom was adapted for the big screen in the film of the same name. Characters * (Eve Arden) is an English teacher at fictional Madison High School. * (Gale Gordon) is the gruff and unsympathetic principal of Madison High, a near-constant pain to his faculty and students. (Conklin was played by Joseph Forte in the show's first episode; Gordon succeeded him for the rest of the series' run.) Conklin would often abuse his authority to make teachers work extra hours or perform personal favors for him. * (Jeff Chandler on radio, billed sometimes under his birth name Ira Grossel; Robert Rockwell on both radio and television), is a Madison High biology teacher, the shy and often-clueless object of Miss Brooks' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saiga-12
The Saiga-12 () is a shotgun available in a wide range of configurations, patterned after the Kalashnikov series of rifles and named after the Saiga antelope native to Russia. Like the Kalashnikov rifle variants, it is a rotating bolt, long-stroke gas piston operated firearm that feeds from a box magazine. All Saiga-12 configurations are recognizable as Kalashnikov-pattern guns by the large lever-safety on the right side of the receiver, the optic mounting rail on the left side of the receiver and the large top-mounted dust cover held in place by the rear of the recoil spring assembly. Saiga firearms are meant for civilian domestic sale in Russia, and export to international markets. The Saiga-12 is manufactured by the Kalashnikov Concern (the merger of Izhmash and Izhevsk), in Russia. Kalashnikov Concern also manufactures Saiga 20s and Saiga 410s in 20-gauge and .410 bore, as well as the Saiga semi-automatic hunting rifles in a number of centerfire calibers. Russian armed f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vacuum Weld
Vacuum cementing or vacuum welding is the natural process of solidifying small objects in a hard vacuum. The most notable example is dust on the surface of the Moon. This effect was reported to be a problem with the first American and Soviet satellites, as small moving parts would seize together. In 2009 the European Space Agency published a peer-reviewed paper detailing why cold welding is a significant issue that spacecraft designers need to carefully consider. The conclusions of this appropriately titled study can be found on page 25 of "Assessment of Cold Welding Between Separable Contact Surfaces due to Impact and Fretting Under Vacuum". The paper also cites a documented example from 1991 with the Galileo spacecraft high-gain antenna (see page 2; the technical source document from NASA regarding the Galileo spacecraft is also provided in a link here). One source of difficulty is that vacuum (AKA cold) welding does not exclude relative motion between the surfaces that are t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Tam
River Tam is a fictional character of the ''Firefly'' franchise. River is portrayed by actress Summer Glau in the 2002 TV series ''Firefly'' and the 2005 film '' Serenity''. The nature of the character and her role in the franchise has garnered praise. In 2005, Summer Glau won the '' SFX'' magazine award for Best Actress for her role as River in ''Serenity''. Glau later won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, again for her role as River in ''Serenity'' in May 2006. Glau was also runner up for ''Best Actress/Movie'' in the SyFy Genre Awards for 2006. Production details Joss Whedon selected Summer Glau for the role after having previously worked with her on another of his shows, ''Angel''. River Tam was Glau's first major role. Glau's inexperience assisted her in playing the character: she likened River's emotional withdrawal to her own initial apprehension on the set. In many of the hand-to-hand combat scenes featuring the character, particularly those in '' Serenit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chop Shop
A chop shop is a business, often mimicking a body shop, that illicitly disassembles stolen motor vehicles and sells their parts. Chop shops are often linked to car-theft rings as part of a broader organized crime enterprise. In the United States, the federal Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act of 1984 and Federal Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992, as well as U.S. Department of Transportation regulations issued under those acts, require automobile manufacturers to label many different auto components (with some exemptions for new automobiles with selected anti-theft devices). A 1999 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice estimated that parts marking reduced the rate of professional car theft (with "between 33 and 158 fewer cars" being "stolen by professional thieves per 100,000 cars that were marked between 1987 and 1995"), inhibiting chop-shop operations. See also *Carjacking *Motor vehicle theft *Pawn shop References External lin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wash (Firefly Character)
This page lists characters from the television series '' Firefly''. Major characters Malcolm Reynolds Malcolm Reynolds ("Mal"), played by Nathan Fillion, is owner and captain of the Firefly-class spaceship ''Serenity'', and was a volunteer in the war between the Alliance and the Independents (aka "Browncoats"). He got the name for his spaceship from a famous battle he fought and commanded in, the Battle of Serenity Valley. When asked why he named his ship after a lost battle, Zoe comments "Once you're in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn how to live there." He is fiercely loyal to those he calls his crew. Malcolm's main mission is to keep his crew alive and to keep his ship flying. As ''Firefly'' writer Tim Minear stated in an interview: "It's just about getting by. That's always been the mission statement of what the show is—getting by." In "Serenity", Mal says of himself: " f theWind blows northerly, I go North." Screens from ''Serenity'' suggest that Mal was born ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narcotic
The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "to make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates and opioids, commonly morphine and heroin, as well as derivatives of many of the compounds found within raw opium latex. The primary three are morphine, codeine, and thebaine (while thebaine itself is only very mildly psychoactive, it is a crucial precursor in the vast majority of semi-synthetic opioids, such as oxycodone or hydrocodone). Legally speaking, the term "narcotic" may be imprecisely defined and typically has negative connotations. When used in a legal context in the U.S., a narcotic drug is totally prohibited, such as heroin, or one that is used in violation of legal regulation (in this word sense, equal to any controlled substance or illicit drug). In the medical community, the term is more precisely defined and genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derrial Book
Derrial Book (commonly called Shepherd Book and born as Henry Evans) is a fictional character played by Ron Glass in the science-fiction/Western television series ''Firefly'' and its sequel movie, ''Serenity''. He is a Shepherd (the literal English translation of the clerical title "Pastor", from the Latin), and provides frequent spiritual advice and perspectives for the crew of ''Serenity''. Production details During production of the film ''Serenity'', Book's first name was Meria, and it appears as such in the documentary "Re-Lighting the Firefly". However, by the time the film was completed, Joss Whedon changed his first name to Derrial, which is the way it appears in all printed official works based on ''Firefly.''Whedon, ''Firefly: The Official Companion Volume One'', 166. Casting Glass, a veteran actor well known for his role as Detective Ron Harris in the television sitcom ''Barney Miller'', had rarely tackled the science-fiction genre and was hesitant about this role when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serenity (Firefly Vessel)
''Serenity'' is a fictional spacecraft that appears in Joss Whedon's '' Firefly'' television series and related works. Set in the 26th century, the series follows the nine-person crew of the ''Firefly''-class vessel, a small transport ship, as they earn a living through various legal and illegal means. The ship is the main setting; it appears in all fourteen episodes, the film, and several comics. The ship was designed by director Joss Whedon, production designer Carey Meyer, and visual effects supervisor Loni Peristere. The collaboration led to more consistency between the live-action and digital effects representations of ''Serenity'' than is usual in science-fiction works. Two contiguous sets were built, between them containing the entirety of the ship's interior, which provided several advantages to the cast and crew during filming. The digital model of the ship was created by Zoic Studios, who also developed methods to digitally replicate live-action filming techniques, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
