Hey, I think the premire of Firefly was last night. Did anyone catch it? I wanted to see it, but I just found out today that it was on last night.

Opinions?

I liked it — it seemed like a nice show — but I was glad that it didn't hook me, since I don't plan on watching it.

I was surprised at how much of a Western it actually was: Western music, Western-looking sets and clothes. And it seemed well cast. Some of the lines were funny, and Nathan Fillion rather oddly has the exact same voice and hair as Peter Krause. Does anyone know what the actress who plays Zoe is from? She looked very familiar.

I guess I just have no interest in another Star Trek/Babylon 5/Farscape type show. No Buffyverse characters, no investment for me.

I enjoyed it, but I think I need a second watching to get all the dialog. Despite my own penchant for reading sci fi and fantasy, it seems as if I don't have that many tv shows in that arena, so Im not averse to adding another one. Actually, with the exception of TWW, I wouldn't mind if they were all in that genre- Scrubs in Space would suit me fine.

I was also not expecting it to be so western oriented. I knew it had a cowboys in space theme, but I didn't expect the sets and locations and music to be western themed- I really like it.

This first ep of Firefly didn't grab me, exactly, so I'll give it a few weeks to get its legs. I'm still watching Enterprise, and I don't that that's got its legs yet.

The chararcter of Zoe is played by the woman who was Anna Espinoza on Alias, Sydney's nemesis from K Directorate. Also, the disturbed young girl on the ship- her bio says she was on an episode of Angel, and I can't place her there at all. Does anyone have an idea of which one and what part she played?

Edited to say, I get it. She's a classically trained ballet dancer, so she must have been the Russian ballerina from, uh, I don't remember the name of the ep- the one with Cordy and Angel taken over by lovers' spirits. I hope she turns out to be a better actress than on Angel, because I thought that character was played horribly.

I watched this, and fell asleep toward the end. It was almost impossible for me to hear, despite having the volume turned up so loud. When I eventually woke up, I rewound the tape and watched the last five minutes, but again, was straining to stay awake. Thus, now that I'm wide-awake, I'll be re-watching the episode in a few minutes.

However, what I did see was enough to make me tune in next week. The dialogue was clearly Joss's, despite not being all that funny. Some of the back-story was lost on me, so the second viewing will help a lot.

I don't know that I like Nathan Fillion as the lead. Joss seems to be making him a Third Season Angel, which is not good. Besides him, there were too many damn characters! It's going to take me a few episodes to get all of the names straight. And a lot of them seemed pointless. I do really like Simon the doctor, though. It's too bad his sister is Fred.

According to Zap2it, the ratings were absolutely horrible. I think we're going to have to enjoy this while it's on.

I watched it, and because it was a Joss product I was committed to like it. Which I did..... I think.

I keep seeing the usual Joss archtypes, that has to be on purpose, right? You could have dropped in many of the actors from his other two shows into these characters and they would have fit perfectly.

I also wasn't expecting the theme to lean so heavily into the Space Western catagory. Really, the Space part was very muted, I really got a faceful of the Western. And the theme song? Much like Enterprise's theme song, the less said about it, the better. What's with the trend toward folksy theme songs? Where's John Williams when you need him?

The woman who played Zoe? I keep seeing her dressed like an Amazon on Xena in my mind's eye, I think she was a semi regular there. She's got that Claudia Black-toughness down to an art.

( Hmmm... Claudia Black... Ben Browder.... now that these two are jobless, it's a shame they weren't available for the parts. Hope Joss can find a way to guest them in. Yummy possibilities for interaction with the Mal/Zoe characters.)

I thought the captain was much more of a Xander reincarnated than an Angel. With possibly some Spike mixed in there.

Anna Espinoza — that's it, thanks.

The doctor's a handsome fellow. He looked familiar. According to IMDB, he was on Party of Five... I guess that's it. Very vague memory. Was he a boyfriend of Julia's?

See, that's funny, because about fifteen minutes in I said "oh! I know who that is - that's Riley!" So we're all sticking poor Mal in different boxes...

I thought it was fun - I'll keep watching. There was some clumsy exposition, which I suspect is at least partly due to them rewriting the pilot from two hours to one in a couple of days. Still, the dialogue felt alive, the characters had decent heft to them (some better than others, but I can give them time), the performances were all decent, and I actually found the really western theme charming. I even kinda liked the theme song. (In my defense, the Enterprise theme is awful.)

If at any point we see horses chasing an RV, though, I'm outta there.

I found it dull and couldn't sit through more than 10 minutes. The initial plotting seemed to be a watered down version of Star Wars. It had a been there, done that feel. I may give it another shot next week in case that was just due to opening episoditis.

See, I don't get the "been there, done that" feel with it being a sci-fi show, because I've never really watched another sci-fi show - and I probably never would've had Joss not been involved. This is all new to me.

However, after watching "The Train Job" for a second time this afternoon, I enjoyed it a lot more. And that's probably due to the fact that I wasn't sleeping through a lot of it.

That said, I found it pretty weak for a pilot. The plot didn't seem to be there. Something happened, but it was all erased by the end of the episode, and didn't really leave possible impact on future plot. Unless, of course, Powerful Evil Guy turns out to be a big bad. In which case, that would suck, because I do NOT want to hear his "accent" for a second longer. The plot was just a weak ploy to introduce to the characters, but it was done in a mundane way.

Anyway, as I said before, it's enough to convince me to tune in next week, and in the future. I just hope something actually happens next week.

I think it definitely left an opening for future plot development, even if only a small one, with the head trader guy coming back for the Firefly crew. I think that might make for a good follow up ep later in the season.

I caught the first episode now. I was disturbed by how much the Captain reminded me of Marc Blucas + 10 years. Both in his voice and his appearce, so I'm with kmm there.

Also, totally seeing where Buffy/Angel chars could be dropped in, Fred for River the crazy sister, Willow for Kaylee the mechanic. Speaking of which, anyone else pick up on the totally homo-erotic scene with Kaylee and the Companion lady? Something about have you ever thought of "experimenting"? Eek!

I'm not a sci-fi or western fan, but I liked it, I'd like to see a few more episodes before I make a decision. I thought the sci-fi/western cross was pretty interesting, although it also threw me for a loop because it was so heavy. Nalian mentioned that sci-fi western mixes are popular in science fiction stories though.

I really liked it. It was campy, a few of the characters were cute and kind of endearing. I didn't care one way or the other for the captain til he killed the ugly faced dude..that nailed my like for the show right there. And I agree, the dialog is definitely very whedon-esque.

Definitely caught the homo-erotic vibe along with you. I also thought there was plenty sexual tension in the Simon/Mal scene, where Mal was stitching Simon up after Ugly Faced Dude stabbed him.

It would be odd to see Kaylee turn any sort of gay - I think Whedon's fearful of creating another bi/homosexual character after the backlash he recieved in response to Tara's death.

I think both Simon and Kaylee could work as gay characters. I'd have to say that they - along with Zoe - are my favorite characters on the ship. I also like Inara, and I hope they'll give her something to do.

You mean, besides the obvious?

Yes. I mean, I want to see her to do something besides be a hooker, er, a companion. Maybe it's stupidity, but can someone tell me what her purpose is on the ship, if she's not allowed to service the crew?

She's a passenger. Like some of the others, she's not crew but just pays to ride around. I guess it's because they're displaced and have nowhere else to go. So she flies around with them and does her business on whatever planet they land on.

I think she's looking for a more long term business arrangement because she asked if Mal will land on any respectable planets so she could scope out prospective clients. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the impression I get.

I just rewatched, and I love the western music, theme, costumes, and general feel of the show. I missed some dialog the first time, and I think that's because the background effects noises are too primary in the soundtrack. The lines seem to be delivered normally, but since the characters seem to be on a train, or someplace kinda noisy, the editors try to balance the sound, and I think some lines draw the short straw. I was listening to the foley footsteps, and some of them seem disproportionaltely loud.

I love that the prostitute of the show is considered the respectable one, and not the priest. She carries herself so well, and the other woman/girl on the show looks up to her. I'm especially happy about the captain's attitude about god in a time in this country when athiesm in a main character could potentially ruin the show- I'd bet the viewing audience for this isn't the normal CBS fuzzy Touched by an Angel Doctor group.

I thought she was talking about respectable clients she could bring to be serviced in her room. How could she have long-term clients if they keep moving around?

Because she has her own ship. I thought if she found a good long term client, she would disengage from the ship and go off on her own. Again, I could be totally wrong.

Well, I liked it. I can't say that I loved it. I think I need to give it a few more episodes to settle in. I think the biggest problem is that I felt like I was walking in late to a movie. I actually did miss the first couple of minutes and watched them later (after my new addiction, "John Doe.") I thought for sure that I must have missed some daring escape or something that introduced Simon and River to the crew. And then I discovered that all I missed was Mal getting a note from a belly dancer and what exactly caused the bar fight.

I think a little more action and a little less exposition would have helped the backstory.

Well, I'm obviously looking forward to getting to see this series, but my expectations just plummeted when I learned that Vondie Curtis Hall is to direct an upcoming episode. That's the guy who did Glitter, dudes.

I liked the episode, but I just wanted to point out that this isn't the pilot, just the premiere. They didn't cut down the pilot but rather commissioned another first episode, which was necessarily a stand-alone (since eps after it were already in the can). So it'll take a couple more episodes to get a feel for the continuity of the series and all.

This fills me with some foreboding since it's how TNT treated Crusade and they only gave it a half season. But hey. Maybe it's really common and I've just only heard of these two cases.

That's interesting. Is the original pilot circulating out there in the world?

A friend downloaded it, but I have remained deliberately steadfastly ignorant about it, since they're said to be holding it for midseason.

They're going to air it, out of sequence?

Oh, right. Because networks do that sometimes, as I'm well aware.

Yeah, I read somewhere that they'd be airing the two-hour pilot sometime during the fall. Personally, I think it's stupid. How is the original pilot going to fall in line with the episode we'd have already seen by then? But, I suppose that they expect obsessed fans to want to see it. I wonder if it'll have an episode number that's not "0," and possibly screw us out of 22 in-order episodes. Am I making sense?

I see what you mean, but, well, unless the ratings go up I doubt there'll be 22 episodes anyway. It is FOX, after all.

I bet they tag a new opening and closing sequence on it, where the characters are all trapped somewhere and decide to tell someone about how they all met and got together ... cue flashback music ...

I wonder how idiotic network execs think people are. Their thinking was apparently "This original pilot is too slow, because it takes a while to introduce people, and viewers would be more likely to get hooked on a story which starts right away." Except that surely all viewers who've ever watched television understand that the first episode of a new series will involve scene-setting and introductions? And it's not like no one's ever pulled off a 'getting together' episode that was also exciting and interesting. I mean, Welcome To The Hellmouth wasn't bad!

I wonder if FOX realizes that their demographic goes beyond seven year olds, and thus, most of us are capable of using our heads - if just for a second - to put two and two together, and develop a frame of mind for a series. Sigh.



You make a good point. Either way, in the fall TV preview issue of EW, there is mention that it will air in December. Like you said, if the series gets that far. Last week's ratings were horrible, and typically, the show loses a large portion of its audience during the second week. I'd be surprised to go 13 episodes, let alone a whole season.

Anyone still watching this show? It appears that it won't be on much longer, after seeing the struggling ratings. John Doe is doing better.

I didn't mind Friday's episode, "Our Mrs. Reynolds," but didn't particularly like it either way. I liked Christina Hendricks on ER, but my God, she should not be a villain. Liked to see some husband/wife interaction between Zoe and Wash, loved not seeing River, but otherwise, it was a pretty bland episode.

I'm still watching! I was only able to see last week's episode last night, however. I thought it was great fun. Not the best show ever but I laughed a good part of the time. There were some great reaction shots and it was well-paced.

My basic stance on Firefly is that it's cheesy and silly but there are some decent ideas behind it. It's cheese with a brain. I don't expect it to ever make me sob the way Season 2 Buffy did or squeal with excitement the way season 2 Angel did (in fact, who knows if it'll make it to its own season 2) but it's good comic fun. As long as I think of it that way, I'll be good.

Well, I enjoyed the third episode enough that I've decided I'm going to be sad when it gets cancelled. Looks likely that it will be, but I'll watch it until it is.

The guy who plays Jayne's doing a wonderful job - the character's a bully and an asshole, but man, he makes me laugh.

Still watching but on tape delay--just saw it now. I like it a lot.

Will they really cancel it? They put it on Friday nights, for cripe's sake.

Ruh-roh, doesn't look good.......



Source.

Isn't it bizarre? I guess I just assumed that everything he did would have ready takers. Then again, the idea of it was pretty off-putting.

Can't wait to see how he transmutes the experience into a Buffy script ...

Well, are they promoting it? I don't watch FOX enough to know.

I liked the latest episode, in an unexceptional but fun kinda way. It has lots of watchers among my science fiction fan friends, but that doesn't necessarily translate to anything in the real world.

Friday's episode was excellent. It's great to see how they all come together before this show is cancelled. After seeing this episode, I love all of the characters even more - especially Kaylee. Seeing how she got her job was absolutely hilarious.

And Minear should be given some sort of award for writing this. The pacing, the back-story, the time-line and three tenses: present, past, and past-the-past. Excellent episode, and I can officially say that I'm hooked. I'm start to really hope that this picks up in the ratings.

Ooh, Minear wrote an episode of Firefly? I'm sorry I didn't see that.

He's written two, but the first one wasn't terribly impressive. This one I liked a lot. Apparently three more scripts have been ordered, so they're not quite dead yet.

While I thought that "Our Mrs. Reynolds," the one with the wifey, was more fun and faster paced than "Out of Gas," I found out of gas to be touching and more compelling. I sure hope they don't cancel this- my dad likes it also, and we seem to have few shows in common these days besides "Angel."

I really liked "Out of Gas". Well-conceived, well-structured, and that excellent mix of humor and drama I was fond of in classic Buffy.

I wasn't pleased with last night's episode. I'm sure that some of this can be blamed on the fact that I could barely hear a single thing throughout it because of random annoying people fluttering about the house. Like, for example, I didn't quite catch why Mal went to the ball in the first place. I understand that Dodger had a job for him that involved attending the ball and locating someone specific, but I have no idea exactly what it was.

I was kind of disappointed that Jane Espenson wrote it, because I figured she could do better. While there were some pleasing moments, I found most of the episode boring.

But every week, the character of Kaylee just gets better and better. For example, "How can we know unless we question it?" was a great line with great delivery. Other than that, I thought it was mediocre. Maybe my expectations were set too high after last week's "Out of Gas."

Mal went to the ball to find guy-who-used-to-be-on-LA-Law, because guy-etc. had a job but guy-with-Irish-accent couldn't fit into High Society well enough to talk to him. In public. So they sent Mal and Kaylee instead. Because... look, they needed Mal to hit the guy, okay! Don't ask for logic!

But yeah, that was a cute bit with the buffet. I liked Wash and Zoe, too. I always appreciate seeing sex scenes that aren't deadly serious.

Just seen the first ep (The Train Job). I'm thoroughly spoiled for this series and just as well, because I think I'd have found it awful dull and confusing otherwise. I really think Fox totally dropped the ball by making that the first episode - it's a terrible introduction. Not that the show was terrible, but it's so clearly a filler episode and all the characters are confusing. I thought it was alright and all, and I hear it gets better, so I'll certainly watch again, but I really wouldn't be if this was just a random show and not a Whedon/Minear effort - and since I'll watch most sci-fi (I mean, I like Andromeda), I'm not fussy. However, I absolutely love Zoe, even though she had nothing to do in this one, just because I love that actress. I'm seeing Mal as Riley as well.

Have now watched the next two episodes. I liked Our Mrs Reynolds more than either of the others, with some good lines, but even in parts of that I was cringing. Overall I've got to say I don't get this show at all.

Gina Torres can do better.

I'd think she could, yeah, but Zoe's lots of fun. "Remember that sex we were going to have... ever?"

Our Mrs. Reynolds and Out of Gas are my favorites so far, so hold on that far. :) I think Jaynestown and Shindig are pretty good too.

Has anyone here downloaded the unaired original pilot? Does Out of Gas indeed incorporate scenes from it? One episode guide tells me so, but I find it unlikely given the internal structure of the episode... it'd just be too convenient if the scenes from the pilot worked into it that well.

*sigh*

Gina Torres

Pan: This mean that your VCR likes the tapes?

Amazingly, yes!

I watched it again tonight, and came away with the impression that the characters are just that — character sketches, rather than the living, breathing people they should be.

But there was a nifty shoutout... at one point, Jayne says, "Things will be a lot easier without those two Fugees around." The episode was written by Drew Greenberg. You don't think...?

Snerk - I thought the same thing. Well, not seriously, but I was amused.

I think Simon's been fairly well-drawn, but they've got a large enough cast going on that they really can't make all of the characters breathe at the same time. (Otherwise known as S5 Buffy Syndrome.) So several of them *have* multiple dimensions - Simon, Kaylee, Mal and Jayne to some extent - but we don't get them all at the same time.

C'mon, though. Cows! In the spaceship!

I know, I'm easily entertained.