Firefly, Fox’s early 2000s sci-fi Western, is still a huge hit among the fans of the show. It might not have gotten big enough ratings to last more than eleven episodes, but its cult following cannot be denied. A few cast members have spoken out recently about their favorite moments on the show, and now Alan Tudyk, who played Hoban Washburne (aka Wash) is adding his thoughts on the subject.
It’s “Objects in Space,” when Jubal Early comes on board. There’s a moment when he comes on board in the middle of space; they didn’t land anywhere, so there’s no way this guy came on the ship. And he’s sneaking around the ship and Captain Mal comes around the corner and [Early] comes around the other corner and they just happen to head face to face. There’s this moment of ‘What are you?’ Then, they just start fighting. It was so cool.
Alan Tudyk spoke with Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin on their Fat Man on Batman show, and let everyone in on what he thinks is the coolest Firefly moment ever. And, this particular episode is one that’s favored by show creator Joss Whedon himself.
Firefly was a show that focused on the crew and passengers of a spaceship in the far future. The crew often steals and smuggles to make their living and frequently runs afoul of law enforcement, those they steal from and other, more unscrupulous, characters, always while dragging the sometimes unsuspecting passengers along with them. Those passengers have a habit of frequently bringing trouble down on the crew, and the passengers soon become integral to the survival of the crew and success of their missions.
The episode that this scene comes from is the fourteenth of the series, and also the series finale. Jubal Early (Richard Brooks) is a bounty hunter who’s been sent by the authorities to capture two of the passengers, Simon (Sean Maher) and River Tam (Summer Glau). Simon has taken his sister River from a secret government facility where she had been experimented on for most of her life, and they want her back. The particular scene that Alan Tudyk enjoys comes when Jubal has first managed to secretly get onto the ship and finds himself face to face with the captain.
Because of the show’s rabid fan base, nearly everything that happened in every episode has been pored over and analyzed, so I’m sure this scene has lots of fans around the globe. It’s telling that Alan Tudyk sees this as his favorite moment of the show, since Joss Whedon declared in a Reddit AMA that if he were forced to pick one thing that encapsulated his entire body of work, he would choose this episode. Looks like Tudyk picked a very special episode to pull his best Firefly memory from.
