"Objects in Space" is the fourteenth and final episode of the science fiction television series Firefly created by Joss Whedon.

Joss Whedon explains in this episode's DVD commentary the inspiration for this episode came from Tim Minear, who gave Whedon the idea by merely mentioning Boba Fett. Whedon expanded upon the suggestion and extrapolated it into the villain of this episode, the "preternaturally cool, nearly psychic bounty hunter" Jubal Early -- who shares a name with "Jubal Anderson Early", a Confederate general in the American Civil War.

Later in the commentary , Whedon says the dialogue between River and Early is a tribute to his admiration for Jean-Paul Sartre's existential novel Nausea .

Serenity encounters Jubal Early, a ruthlessly professional bounty hunter who will stop at nothing to retrieve River. But River, feeling unwelcome on the ship, takes a novel approach to escaping from the long arm of the Alliance.