Episodes: 14 | Released: 2002 | Certificate: 12 | Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Director: Joss Whedon
Actors: Nathan Fillion
, Gina Torres
, Alan Tudyk
, Morena Baccarin
, Jewel Staite
After taking aboard a group of passengers bound for another planet, the crew of the spaceship Serenity encounters lawmen, double-dealers and savages as they attempt to rid themselves of precious—but easily traceable—cargo salvaged from a wrecked vessel adrift in space.
Mal and his crew are hired to pull off a train heist but the cargo turns out to be badly needed medication intended for sufferers of a deadly disease.
The crew discovers the sole survivor of a Reaver attack aboard a derelict spacecraft, leading to an encounter with an Alliance commander bent on capturing Simon and River.
After ridding a peaceful planet of a group of bandits, Mal and his crew are honoured for their heroism. But when he returns to the Serenity, a horrified Mal is told he inadvertently married one of the local women during the celebration.
When the Serenity crew travels to a planet to strike a smuggling deal, Jayne discovers the populace worships him as a hero; Inara makes a man out of a magistrate’s 26-year-old virginal son; Book’s nerves fray as he tends to River.
The crew is forced to abandon ship when the Serenity is crippled by an explosion, leaving behind a dying Mal, who recalls how he first acquired the vessel and assembled the crew.
Hoping to initiate a smuggling transaction, Mal attends an elegant social event with Kaylee. But when Mal upsets a wealthy man who hired Inara as his companion, he is challenged to a sword fight.
Book is critically injured when the crew of the Serenity is caught in the crossfire between policemen and outlaws; a backward people in need of a doctor kidnap Simon and mistake River for a witch.
Disguised as medical personnel, the crew infiltrates a hospital with the intention of stealing valuable supplies. Meanwhile, Simon uses a high-tech imaging device to study River's brain in hopes of curing her, only to be betrayed by Jayne.
The crew stages a rescue mission when Niska takes Mal prisoner and subjects him to torture; Inara raises eyebrows when she takes a female client.
The Serenity crew defends a bordello from a gunslinger who got a prostitute pregnant and now intends to collect the child; Mal falls for the bordello’s madam.
A bounty hunter bent on apprehending River (and collecting the reward for her capture) boards the ship at night, catching the crew off-guard. He soon grows confused when River claims she’s become one with the Serenity.
Mal’s “wife” Saffron resurfaces with a plan to steal a valuable gun from a collector, but the plan goes awry when the gun’s owner turns out to be another of Saffron’s husbands.
Mal and Zoe receive a crate containing the body of an old wartime friend, but the man turns out to be very much alive; and smuggling a secret cargo.
