I just watched the pilot to “Firefly,” am renting the rest through Netflix, and will probably buy the DVD set eventually. I am impressed with it.
I’ve never seen Buffy or Angel, as they don’t appeal to me. (Not that I hate them, or anything.)
No, they’re different parts. I think the part that failed in “Out of Gas” was a “catalyzer” or something of the sort.
Oh, and I’m a middling fan of Buffy, have never seen an episode of Angel, and am hugely fond of Firefly. Incidentally, I’ve been wondering if Whedon et al. were familiar with Blake’s 7…
I just finished up the last episode 20 minutes ago. Try as I might I couldn’t make the series last any longer. 
Of course, now I can go through and watch the commentaries. And I just converted a friend to series by showing him the pilot. So, I’m not hurting too bad. Should last a ways longer until the movie becomes more of a reality. 
Although I really wish Whedon was trying to do a miniseries or two with the Scifi Channel instead of a movie…simply because it would last longer…
That dvd set was the best 40 bucks I ever spent.
Erm, not to get in an argument about the relative value of Robert Heinlein - I’m not a huge fan myself - but to say that he’s “generally” synonymous with utter dross is a gross misstatement. He’s regularly held up as one of the giants of science fiction literature, by fans, critics, and his fellow writers. I’m not saying you have to like him, but I hope you at least acknowledge that your sentiments are at odds with the popular and critical consensus.
You do, however, have to like Firefly. It’s required. So get crackin’, dammit!
More heinlein + spoilers, sorta, for the last episode:
Having a character named Jubal and a self-concious ship (well almost) seems like a big reference to RAH, even though I found out that ‘Jubal’ was a reference to an actual person during the American civil war.
I was a loyal buffy fan and an on-again off-again Angel watcher, and I thought Firefly was ok. My best friend, on the other hand, loved it. It’s what got her interested in Buffy, finally. She still doesn’t seem all that interested in Angel, though.
[hijack] Just to be clear here Osip, are you saying you’re friends with James Marsters?
It was a catalyzer, but the catalyzer was established as being part of the compression coil.
I’m a big Trek fan. Never watched Buffy or Angel - not my genre of choice.
I watched the Firefly pilot. Not impressed.
Watched the second episode. After about 20 minutes, turned it off.
The show did absolutely nothing for me. I gues it’s one of those “you get it or you don’t” shows.
I didn’t.
But they aren’t - not for post-spung Heinlein, anyway, and Firefly is definitely post-spung.
Firefly is one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. In the episode I watched, the acting was abysmal, the script terrible and the direction so piss-poor that I couldn’t see what was going on, much less make sense of it. If this ep had been shown as the pilot, Firefly would have been axed after two episodes instead of twelve.
Since that episode was “Serenity” and is exclusively masturbated over by fans of the show, I decided that I wasn’t going to waste another attosecond of my life on it. Chalk Whedon up as a one-hit wonder, and move on.
Not quite sure what you mean there. Serenity was the pilot for the show, the first to be filmed but not broadcast till the end.
Yeees … so it wasn’t shown as the pilot, was it? :rolleyes:
Evil Death, sorry you couldn’t enjoy it; personally I think it’s a brilliant show. De gustibus and all; I hope you can find a thread around here about tv you do enjoy.
Daniel
I thought a “pilot” is a sample used by the studio to sell the show to a network. Do networks air an episode “as a pilot,” i.e. to decide whether to produce the show?
In any case, you’re right that Serenity wasn’t the strongest episode of the series. Nevertheless it was IMHO a very necessary introduction, and I think the show would have done better if it were shown first. Not that it matters now.