Firefly Teaser

TEASER

EXT. RUN DOWN TAVERN

The edge of nowhere, a run-down town in the distance, many stars shining
overhead. The tavern’s lights are on, and you can hear some music and
merrymaking inside. This is a dive bar, on a dive planet.

INT. TAVERN

The place is crowded, the clientele not dressed for a formal dance. ZOE,
JAYNE, WASH, SIMON and KAYLEE sitting around a large table, having a drink,
decompressing. Many empty bottles around the table. They are clearly
HAMMERED. They are drinking, laughing loudly, and blowing off steam.
WASH is telling a joke.

WASH
( pantomiming, very much into the joke he's finishing though clearly
hammered. )
...The daughter gets off the ship, along side a huge naked man with tribal
scars and a bone through is nose. Her father slaps his head and yells at her
“You idiot! I said you should marry a –rich- doctor!"

Everyone LAUGHS, a bit too loud and long at the ancient joke. Feeling bold,
SIMON tries his hand, improvising. Gathering his focus and wading in…

SIMON
A Captain and a Companion walk…

( a beat )

SIMON
…into a temple…

A Pause as SIMON looks confused; he had the joke, but now he lost it. After a
heartbeat they all BURST OUT laughing, definitely –at- him, not with him.
SIMON looks lost.

KAYLEE
( recovering for SIMON )
The Captain and Inara ought to make a shiny contact here for future work-

JAYNE
( dismissively )
We need work –now- We ain’t been paid in a fort-night.

No one agrees with JAYNE, but they clearly don’t disagree either. JAYNE’s
scowl disappears with another swig of “beer”.

ANGLE ON WASH, as he’s looking OC beyond the table, towards the door of
the TAVERN.

WASH
Okay. A smoking monkey walks into a bar…

JAYNE
( laughing, drinking )
Ooooooo I love this joke…

Some YELLING where WASH is looking. CUT TO see ANDREW the ape
STANDING in the tavern doorway, looking very much worse for wear, afraid
to enter, but held there by desperation. Old brown shirt in tatters, and he has
a lit cigarette dangling from a HUGE HAND. Some LOCALS are yelling at him
to shoo, to go away.

ZOE sees ANDREW and gets up immediately, for some reason concerned.
She moves to ANDREW and kneels, a long look on her face. She GESUTRES
to JAYNE to keep the crowd back, and he does with a MENACE and a GROWL,
but he’s clearly not liking the look of ANDREW, or ZOE being so close to him.

The crew is SHOCKED when ZOE starts using hand signs with ANDREW, and
the ape seems to understand.

ZOE
( nodding, then to the crew )
We’re leaving

ZOE takes ANDREW’S arm around her shoulders and helps him limp out, the
rest of the group files out, confused. JAYNE is in a foul mood

JAYNE
This ain’t how that joke’s supposed to go

JAYNE makes a last FEINT at a LOCAL who looks like he might interfere, and
the LOCAL backs off.
EXT. night in a pasture, Serenity landed, interior lights on

INT. Serenity cargo hold

KAYLEE
( a bit clearer, now )
How exactly is Zoe talking to a monkey?

SIMON
( focusing, hard, somewhat lucid )
He’s an ape, actually., and it’s a form of sign language. The Alliance had a
program years ago where they “elevated” some of the more complex
primates with genetic therapy in vitro. Smart as some men, when they
matured. They were be trained for various functions-

As he talks, RIVER pokes her head in the crowd, perfectly mimicking

ANDREW’S expression and going nose-to-nose with him

ZOE
( cutting in )
Alliance trained ‘em for war. As scouts, to flush out snipers, to look for mines.
Heel work they didn’t see fit for a man. Slave labor.

KAYLEE
Oooooh… that’s terrible

SIMON
( continuing )
The program was discontinued. At least that’s what they told us in medical
school.

SIMON starts to sign to Andy, apparently knowing the rudiments of the

language, and the ape shakes his head “No”.

ZOE
Surely. It wasn’t something they shouted about. Some of the Independents
took kindly to them, The Elevated; they never wanted to fight in the first
place, and as the Alliance surely didn’t treat them with kindness. We’d look
after the ones that straggled, as best we could.

ZOE
( signing, enunciating )
What’s your name? “unit,-name”?

ANDREW
( signs back, looking sad, pointing to his tattered brown coveralls )
ZOE
( nodding )
ANDREW escaped. Ran from the fighting. But where to? Years, since the
war…

O.C. BOOK
There’s an Alliance facility up in the hills, here.

CUT TO BOOK , just entering crowd

BOOK
( disdainful )
Very hush hush, Not on any map. Maybe they kept him there, for some
reason.

ANDREW
( nodding, yes )

JAYNE
You know the strangest stuff for a Shepherd, Shepherd

SIMON
( signing )
His mate’s still there…

KAYLEE
( shocked, then in Chinese )
Ounnn gin reh my dae yu!? [How could they do that!?] That’s awful!

RIVER is entranced, now signing herself

KAYLEE looks to the others

Well, we gotta go get her

JAYNE
( agitated )
I don’t see the percentage in –that-.

( SIMON signs, questioning, then SIMON, ZOE and RIVER speak at once

SIMON, ZOE, RIVER

Shiny rock.

WASH
( looking to them )
That means there’s gold? In them there hills?

They all nod, in unison, SIMON and ZOE looking at ANDY, RIVER looking at
WASH.

JAYNE
Mal’ll never go for this

ZOE
I say he will. Capn’n me both fought along side of Elevated. He’d do right by
him.

JAYNE
Maybe he’s lyin’.

WASH
( incredulous )
That’s right. The injured, escaped, talking monkey is lying to us.

JAYNE
He ain’t talking-

SIMON
He’s not a monkey-

ZOE
We help him, and that’s that.

They all look on hapless ANDREW, who looks back, silently.

WASH
( after a beat, as if reciting a joke )
A monkey walks onto the ship, offers us a job…

JAYNE upset
I don’t much like that joke.

END OF TEASER