| rdfs:comment | - River Tam was the teenage sister of Dr. Simon Tam, both of whom take refuge aboard Malcolm Reynolds' Firefly-class transport ship known as Serenity. She is considered a child prodigy, intelligent beyond her years and athletically gifted. After intense experimentation by Dr. Mathias on behalf of the Parliament—the Alliance ruling body—River was partially transformed into a mentally unstable psychic weapon intended for secret governmental use. She was rescued at great cost by her brother Simon but tracked relentlessly by several agents of the Alliance, primarily Lawrence Dobson, two blue-gloved men, McGinnis, the bounty hunter Jubal Early, and finally the Operative. Almost all of her time on the lam was spent with the crew of the Serenity, who became her extended family.
- River Tam was on a boat!
- Joss Whedon selected Summer Glau for the role after having previously worked with her on another of his shows, Angel. River Tam was Glau's first major role. Glau's inexperience assisted her in playing the character: she likened River's emotional withdrawal to her own initial apprehension on the set. In many of the hand-to-hand combat scenes featuring the character, particularly those in Serenity, Glau's own experience in ballet dancing was incorporated into her fight choreography.
- River Tam was a brilliant child. She made her parents very proud, and was able to pick up on anything she wanted to learn. Above all, she loved to dance. River is very flexible, as a dancer should be, but almost inhumanly so, and she is able to move around areas with some less-than-conventional ways. Because of her intelligence, the small age gap between her and her brother, Simon, was bridged easily. They got along as more than best friends, and often played with each other and joked around. But River also was able to correct his spelling and point out errors in his text books, causing an obvious difference between the two of them.
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| abstract | - River Tam was the teenage sister of Dr. Simon Tam, both of whom take refuge aboard Malcolm Reynolds' Firefly-class transport ship known as Serenity. She is considered a child prodigy, intelligent beyond her years and athletically gifted. After intense experimentation by Dr. Mathias on behalf of the Parliament—the Alliance ruling body—River was partially transformed into a mentally unstable psychic weapon intended for secret governmental use. She was rescued at great cost by her brother Simon but tracked relentlessly by several agents of the Alliance, primarily Lawrence Dobson, two blue-gloved men, McGinnis, the bounty hunter Jubal Early, and finally the Operative. Almost all of her time on the lam was spent with the crew of the Serenity, who became her extended family.
- River Tam was on a boat!
- Joss Whedon selected Summer Glau for the role after having previously worked with her on another of his shows, Angel. River Tam was Glau's first major role. Glau's inexperience assisted her in playing the character: she likened River's emotional withdrawal to her own initial apprehension on the set. In many of the hand-to-hand combat scenes featuring the character, particularly those in Serenity, Glau's own experience in ballet dancing was incorporated into her fight choreography.
- River Tam was a brilliant child. She made her parents very proud, and was able to pick up on anything she wanted to learn. Above all, she loved to dance. River is very flexible, as a dancer should be, but almost inhumanly so, and she is able to move around areas with some less-than-conventional ways. Because of her intelligence, the small age gap between her and her brother, Simon, was bridged easily. They got along as more than best friends, and often played with each other and joked around. But River also was able to correct his spelling and point out errors in his text books, causing an obvious difference between the two of them. When River heard about The Academy, a prestigious school hosted by the government, she knew she had to go. It had the most challenging programs, and she was looking for just that. She chose the Academy over all other places she might have been able to go, and was thrilled to be able to attend when she heard she was accepted. Things slowly proved to be less than perfect. At first, it seemed like nothing was wrong; only rumors. River sent letters to Simon and all was fine. But then they started to ask her not to write to her brother, and they started having this strange questioning sessions. It only went on from there, they started experimenting with her brain, and went so far as to cut pieces from it. Because of that, she couldn't not feel anything. Every worry, every fear was amplified in her mind and she couldn't push it away. River was haunted by terrible nightmares and worried for her well-being. She wrote again to Simon, in code, begging him to come and get her and bring her home safe. Time passed, and he still hadn't come for her, and she started to really worry that maybe he would never come back, or worse, that he hadn't received her message and understood it. Simon did come to her rescue and he sprung her out, making them both fugitives. He put her to sleep, and when she woke up she was on the Serenity, a place she had never been before, amongst people she didn't know. Mal, Inara, Kaylee, Book, Wash, Zoe, and Jayne, the crew, she learned about quickly. In some cases she became friends, and in others enemies. In one instance, she even stabbed Jayne, which did not bode well for their standing on this ship. She and Simon got into many situations while they were on their stay there, and it became increasingly unsafe to be on the Serenity any longer, the constant entangling with the Alliance, or sometimes being attacked by Reavers was no longer a viable option. The plan was to get off at the next planet, but River was drawn to a house on a desolate planet they had parked before. She wandered in, and became lost from the group. If the Serenity left without her, she didn't know, but she was certain she wasn't going to be able to get out the way she had come.
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