No question- genius AND mad man! (the two are so rarely apart!) Seriously though- his attention to detail has always amazed me, and every hint has been explained in his other shows- I have every confidence that we would have gotten the answers- and I doubt the answer would have been coincidence- had the show continued. Damned FOX- wonder if I could charge my therapy bills to them?!

i never said it was a sonic device, i said:

"it's probably more than just a noise/frequency weapon"

but that's ok, i'll forgive you (because i don't know who you are to hunt down!). most people ignore my parenthises ;P

i'm not sure i'm on the "psi amplifier" boat, though. unless they're going into telekinesis (to cause hemoraging) or pyrokinesis (to make the blood boil possibly?), i see no reason for killing someone with your brain (even amplified) would cause such bleeding. of course, maybe joss was going to give us the reason. CURSE YOU, FOX!!!

i'm also not sure if i agree exactly on the blue hands. if anything they're from a very different earlier program than river. if they were as smart as river, they would have chased the crew in arial RUNNING. only fools are so sure to chase a treasure like river WALKING. right now i'm just as willing to say they're cyborgs as to say they're psychic assassins like river (i'd buy the fact that rather than trying to produce a false skin for hands that would quickly wear and tear with use and reveal the cyborgs, the creators simply gave them blue sun gloves).

There's no evidence one way or the other for the mechanism of "The Device," but I think it's safe to assume that there's more going on than simple sonics. Especially since the device doesn't seem to have a well-defined "business end."

I had also noticed the thing with the catalyzer and guffawed... gotta love the attention to detail on this show.

As for Blue Sun, even after being told to look for it, I managed to miss it the first five times I watched "Serenity..." and then suddenly that sixth time, whoa! It's everywhere! Conspiracy? I think so.

You know, Joss Whedon has always been a farseeing forward planner. Look to Buffy. Both Faith and Dawn's presences are foretold early...in Dawn's case, much earlier than their actual appearances.

Something else I noticed in this episode...which blew my bloody mind (and also pointed out the stupidity of Fox's decision to run the episodes out of order...)!

In "Out of Gas" (episode 8, originally aired 10/25/02), all the woes of Serenity crew is caused by a nothing part, a catalyzer. But what does Wash fish out of the garbage in the next episode (episode 9, originally aired 11/15/02), dismisses, and throws at the soon to be refitted medical shuttle?

a freakin' Catalyzer!

Now this is the brilliance of Joss and Company. What is life and death in one episode becomes a small gag in the next...that is, unless Fox decides to air Shindig and Safe between the two episodes...

I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg...keep on looking browncoats!

I always thought the Sonic-Whatevers that the Blue-Hands use to kill people don't work on the bad guys, because they're facing away from the bad guys. You know, like the flashy-thing in "Men in Black."

(don't you love all that Technical Jargon in the previous paragraph?)

After the series ran, but before the DVD's, I'd read an article about how, had the show continued, it would have delved more deeply into Blue Sun, and who they were, what they were doing, et. al. The very next time I saw "Ariel" (nay, the entire series), was the first time I began even noticing the PRESENCE of Blue Sun in any form.

Suddenly, I'm seeing it in the crowd scene on Persephone in "Serenity." I'm seeing it on the billboard and on Jayne's shirt in "Ariel." Clever, clever boys......

"He looks better in red."

Never doubt the River.

It's in the script. It was written that way. And I had wondered what pushed River to do that to Jayne because while she is "unstable" she doesn't do anything without prompting in someway. When I read the script I was like "AH HA!" I was excited.

Also, the crybaby used in the opening sequence of Serenity is made from a Blue Sun can.

what about the comment river makes after she slashes jayne: "he looks better in red" (or was it "you look better in red"? oh well).

a little part of me always connected that with the fact that he was wearing blue--like the hands--at least in name if not strictly color.

perhaps it has a tie in to how the hands of blue kill people with the bleeding and such... which brings up the issues of why aren't the hands effected by the "noise" (it's probably more than just a noise/frequency weapon) and what's under their gloves?

i like when river is talking to jayne while macguinness is "processing" the prisoners... her little line about them taking christmas away and the closet being greedy. to me it is a really good connection between backstabbing jayne as he backstabs simon and river and the evil of blue sun with its sinisterly comsumer-centric nature as a company, much like how christmas has become a sinisterly consumer-centric holiday...

I had just noticed this last weekend. ME and a new convert were watching and I jumped up and said "Son of a BITCH!" That's a Blue Sun T shirt! Beyond your astute observations, I think that Jayne wearing a Blue Sun shirt also points to the fact that no one really considers them to be dangerous, yet. How dangerous can you be if you sell soda and T shirts?

Then again, Coca-Cola could be run by Hitler's brain.