PRINCIPAL CAST

• Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds
• Gina Torres as Zoë Alleyne-Washburne
• Alan Tudyk as Hoban “Wash” Washburne
• Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra
• Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb
• Jewel Staite as Kaywinnit Lee “Kaylee” Frye
• Sean Maher as Dr. Simon Tam
• Summer Glau as River Tam
• Ron Glass as Shepherd Derrial Book
• Chiwetel Ejiofor as The Operative
• David Krumholtz as Mr. Universe (more….)

SYNOPSIS

The resources of Earth have been depleted, and humanity has moved to another solar system with many terraformed planets. All the planets are controlled by the supposedly peace-loving Alliance. But a frontier justice still holds sway further from the Core of the Alliance, where outlaws like the crew of Serenity can scrape out a living if they keep clear of Alliance forces and the Reavers, savage, cannibalistic and mindlessly violent humans who dwell beyond the outer planets and raid the Alliance worlds around the rim.

In order to earn her continued passage onboard Serenity, a fugitive from the Alliance, the telepathic River Tam, accompanies Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Jayne, and Zoë on a mission to steal the payroll of an outer planet security company financed by the Alliance. During the robbery, the crew narrowly avoids capture by a Reaver raiding party when River is able to telepathically sense their approach. Wash, the ship’s pilot (and Zoë’s husband) brings the ship to intercept the crew’s surface vehicle, saving the crew from a grisly fate.

River’s brother Simon, the crew’s doctor, angrily reacts to the captain’s willingness to put his younger sister in such grave danger. Captain Reynolds responds by suggesting they leave at the next planet they land on, Beaumonde, where the crew expects to sell their loot. Simon agrees to the arrangement. The Tams do indeed disembark at Beaumonde, but while the captain haggles with the buyers, River starts attacking people in the bar. Despite being a 90-pound girl, she manages to knock out everyone, including Jayne, and is about to shoot Captain Reynolds when Simon arrives and shouts a phrase in Russian, causing her to fall asleep.

Simon explains to the captain that, during her captivity by the Alliance, she was trained and conditioned to become an assassin. The only thing that can stop her after this conditioning has been triggered is the “safe-word” he uttered. Despite knowledge of this new danger, the captain allows Simon and River to continue travelling on Serenity.

The crew contacts Mr. Universe, a reclusive techno-geek who dwells with his robotic wife on a planet surrounded by an opaque ion cloud. After watching the security camera footage of the bar on Beaumonde, Mr. Universe discovers that River’s outburst was triggered by a subliminal message in a seemingly harmless cartoon advertisement that had been broadcast all over the Alliance during the previous weeks. He tells the crew that before her attack, River had whispered the name “Miranda”. He also notes that the footage has been viewed by someone else with high Alliance clearance.

Fearing Alliance pursuit, the crew takes refuge in the Haven mining colony with Shepherd Book, a priest who once travelled with Serenity‘s crew. Book warns Mal that the Alliance agent pursuing River is likely to be an “Operative”, and very dangerous. Shortly thereafter, the captain receives an urgent plea for help from Inara, another former passenger. Knowing that an Alliance agent is hunting for his ship, Mal suspects a trap, but decides to visit Inara anyway. His fears are realized; Inara is held hostage by a ruthless Operative, whose name is never revealed. The Operative offers to let the captain go on his way if he turns River over to him, but thanks to Inara’s quick thinking, she and the captain escape the Operative and return to Serenity, which takes off undetected.

Another of River’s outbursts shows the crew the meaning of “Miranda”. It is the name of an outer rim planet, which had once been inhabited but was thought to be wiped out in a terraforming accident. River had subconsciously learned something mysterious about the planet when she came in telepathic contact with a member of the Alliance Parliament during her training. Travelling to Miranda to learn more would require crossing through what is now Reaver territory, which the crew members agree would be suicide, so instead Serenity returns to Haven and Shepherd Book.

On arrival, however, the crew discovers that the outpost has been ravaged by Alliance forces, and its inhabitants, including Book, massacred. Several other outposts that had harboured Serenity in the past have also been destroyed. Captain Reynolds receives a message from the Operative claiming responsibility, and promising more of the same until River is turned over.

The captain responds by heading for Miranda to find the secret the Alliance is willing to commit mass murder to protect. Serenity, disguised as a Reaver ship, passes through the Reaver armada that surrounds the planet Miranda.

Upon reaching Miranda, the crew discovers a normal, terraformed planet, with an earth-like environment which is completely habitable. The strange part is that the towns are empty. Inside the buildings and cars are badly decomposed corpses, with no apparent cause of death. There are no signs of violence or disease. It is as if the people simply laid down and died.

The crew discovers a log recorded by an Alliance search and rescue team after the disaster. The log recounts what has happened: the Pax, a chemical substance designed to remove aggression and thus render the planet safe from crime, without violence, had worked too well, and the populace simply stopped working, or eating, or caring about anything. They simply laid down and died in their newfound non-aggressive state.

There was a small minority of the populace (approximately a tenth of a percent) for which the drug had the opposite effect. They became aggressive and mentally unstable, mutilating their own bodies, and killing the researchers who had come to investigate. Thus, the Alliance was actually responsible for the creation of the Reavers.

The crew then decides to “do the right thing”, and reveal this secret to the Galaxy by using the transmitter equipment belonging to Mr. Universe. When they contact Mr. Universe, it is revealed that the Operative is already waiting along with an Alliance fleet. Serenity leaves Miranda, but is challenged by a Reaver ship. The crew opens fire using a gun turret salvaged from Shepherd Book’s settlement, causing the Reaver fleet to give chase. When they arrive at Mr. Universe’s secret planet, Mal and the crew are able to use the Reaver fleet to cause chaos amongst the Alliance, giving them a chance to make it to the surface of the planet. During the attack, the Operative flees the battle in an escape pod and follows the crew to the surface.

Serenity is followed by a Reaver ship, which fires an electro-magnetic pulse at them, disabling power. Wash is able to restore emergency power at the last minute and effect a crash landing; however, just as the crew looks to be out of danger, Wash is killed by a harpoon shot from the following Reaver ship that pierces the cockpit. Unfortunately for Wash, the cockpit was the only point that the Reaver harpooners could attack from the outside. There is no time to mourn and Mal pulls Zoë away from Wash’s dead body just as another harpoon is fired into the cockpit. Fleeing Serenity to continue their assumed mission of getting the word out, the crew decides to set up a last stand in a small corridor to hold off the Reavers and give Mal the time he needs to make way to Mr. Universe and transmit the message.

Mal arrives to find Mr. Universe has been killed. However, before he died, he was able to leave a pre-recorded message with his robotic wife which informs Mal that there is a secondary transmitter in another area of the complex. Meanwhile the crew is losing ground to the Reavers and is forced to retreat when Zoë and Kaylee are injured. They try to close the blast door, but it stops leaving a small opening. This buys them some time, but then the doctor is shot by a stray bullet meaning there is no one to tend to the injured. He tells them he needs his medical bag which he left in the preceding room. River tells her brother that it’s time she looked after him, and she heads back through the blast door to face the Reavers.

In the meantime, Mal has reached the second transmitter and finds it is inconveniently located on a platform surrounded by a large drop. He is about to attempt to reach the platform when the Operative shows up. They have a stand-off, which results in Mal being quicker on the draw and shooting (but not killing) the Operative. He then proceeds to try and reach the transmitter, but a revived Operative follows him. There is a fight between them and then the Operative uses a move which is designed to completely disable his opponent – however it has no effect on Mal due to an old war injury.

Mal does not kill the Operative, and instead disables him with a similar move and leaves him trussed up to watch the recording from Miranda. Back with the crew, River has been using her academy training to finish off the Reaver onslaught and the crew is saved. As she finishes, the Alliance troops enter, but instead of giving permission to shoot her, the Operative orders the squad to stand down.

The crew patches up Serenity and leaves the planet, while the Operative makes his own exit, possibly to become a fugitive from the Alliance himself. The crew buries the bodies of their friends Mr. Universe, Shepherd Book, and Wash, and leave the planet with Mal in Wash’s seat at the helm, and River acting as his co-pilot.