Stacey's post elsewhere just caused me to go read the summary of the original Firefly pilot. I guess I'm going to be alone on this, but I think it sounds fantastic.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Answers

I'm still downloading the pilot (it's huge, and will probably take hours even on my fast connection), but I'll report back once I've seen it. I'm a little worried about not liking it because I'm not a Western fan, but assuming I can get past that, I fully expect to like it. The main complaints I've heard thus far are that it's dreadfully slow and not action-y enough, but I'm not overly fond of lots of action anyway. And anyway, most of the people I know of who've seen it so far are Kittens, and thus determined to hate it because it's a Whedon production.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Not alone, Beth. I think it sounds almost too good to be true. I can't understand the rampant negativity.

--Cherry

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Forgot to include this before, but here's another in-depth summary of the original pilot:

http://www.geocities.com/bbovenguy/Firefly.html

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Kittens?

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Someone who saw the pilot told me that what seemed to be missing was the trademark Joss dialogue. If that's true, and if it continues in additional episodes, I'll be very disappointed. That's the best part of Whedon shows.

I have high hopes though. Joss really seems to throw himself into new projects, and at least when he starts them, and is completely involved, they tend to be great.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

PhilipF, kittens are the posters from the Kitten board, a board devoted to the Willow/Tara relationship. Many of them got very upset when Tara got killed off and have gotten really hostile towards anyone related to ME. A lot of them only started watching the show for W/T and no longer plan to watch. Many are lesbians who feel W/T were their only representation on TV. Also, many feel that the Tara death was a "lesbian cliche", but that's a *whole* other topic.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

(If anyone's curious: Kittens.)

The script bits I've seen so far had some definite Joss-ian lines. I'm thinking that maybe as more scripts get written, they're getting more comfortable with the characters and modes of speech for this setting, so that aspect of things is getting better. (Said script bits could be provided via email to interested parties, as could instructions for downloading the pilot. Although the bloody thing's only 20% downloaded and says it has 360 minutes to go. *sob*)

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

I'm very psyched for Firefly. I have tremendous faith in Joss and I think he's going to do good things both with the Western/frontier/pioneer stuff and the group-in-confined-space dynamics, both of which interest me greatly.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Thanks for the info on Kittens.

That pilot sounds pretty good to me. I guess there could have been problems in the execution, but for some reason I'm more inclined to believe that the Fox executives were just being stupid.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Ooh, now I might just be willing to feed my crack habit with Firefly stuff, since my supply of other spoilers is pretty scarce at the moment,if someone might be willing to e-mail said Firefly goods.

And yeah, I bet you're right -- as the writers get to know the characters, the dialogue will start to get more jossian. I know that when I rewatch WTTH, for instance, I can tell that the dialogue isn't really pefect for each character yet.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

I know I'm totally easy, but I crack up every time I see that teaser for Firefly where Dude One looks at Injured Guy and says to Dude Two, "I thought you were just going to scare him!" and Dude Two shrugs and says, "Pain is scary."

(Is Dude Two Knoel Rohrer or whatever his name was from the last couple of seasons of The X-Files? Will he have a bump on his neck?)

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Wait, there are teasers with dialogue now? Dammit, the only ones I've seen just have a ton of really fast flashing images!

I guess I need to watch more Fox in the hopes of seeing a newer teaser. Grr.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Hell, I'm looking forward to Firefly and I've neither seen any teasers nor read any plot summaries. If it's good, then wonderful, but if it's not at least I won't be able to say I came into it with any preconceived notions of "badness".

In Joss I trust.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Me too. I blame the suckiness of season six on lack of attention by Joss.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

When I left my office at 8 pm, the computer was on and downloading the pilot, although the monitor was off.

When I returned this morning at 9 a.m., the computer had been turned off and the monitor turned on. This would usually be a mild oddity, but since it cut off my download, it's a huge annoyance. However, I have valiantly re-started the download. Perhaps one of these days my download will succeed and I can report on the damn pilot.

In the meanwhile, perhaps I should hang a large DO NOT TURN OFF sign on my computer. Though the janitors never have before, so I don't know why they'd start last night.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

In the meanwhile, perhaps I should hang a large DO NOT TURN OFF sign on my computer. Though the janitors never have before, so I don't know why they'd start last night.

Because they were using it, I'd expect. I had massive problems with security and others using my computer; I kept coming in to discover open websites with nekkid womens on my screen. (Needless to say, not something I normally look at.)

I hope the show turns out to be pretty good. Not that I'll ever see it. I'm never home on Fridays anyway, and I never remember tos et the VCR. Ah, well.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I'm all confused now. scoopme's latest article says that they are holding the two hour pilot to show later in the season and the first episode they show will be one that Joss and Tim basically wrote overnight to get it done on time. Now, I don't think the writing it overnight thing is a problem. Joss has written many episodes overnight. But I thought that they scrapped the original pilot and rewrote it. So, this second pilot is also not being used now? But it's being shown later? I'm assuming if this is true they'll somehow make it work with the order. (Unlike the Andy Richter show, which they showed out of order and it make no sense at all.)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Yes, the original two-hour pilot is on hold. It basically deals with how the crew all met and came together to begin with, and the current plan is to air it later in the season as a special event type thing.

The first episode that will air will be the overnight miracle pilot that Joss wrote to keep the whole show from being cancelled, and I believe it just throws us right into things with the crew already together.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Newbie question: I am almost at the end of season three and Angel is going to leave Buffy, supposedly because he's immortal and she's not but really to start his own tv show. Do I have to watch Angel too to follow the Buffy storylines? Is there more involvement between them than between, say, the Jetsons and the Flintstones?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2002

There are a couple of cross-over storylines that are fairly important, although they did structure it so that you could watch Buffy without necessarily having to watch Angel. However, it would be a shame to miss some of those episodes -- if you can find them, since Angel is not in syndication (and may not be, if it doesn't reach the minimum number of episodes, I guess).

I'd recommend reading the TWOP recaps for "In the Dark" after the Buffy episode "The Harsh Light of Day" (not so important for continuity, but there's good Spike snarkiness here), "I Will Remember You" after "Pangs" (very sad closure on the Buffy/Angel relationship), "Five by Five" and "Sanctuary" after "Who Are You" (really good episodes and important for bringing the Faith storyline up to date), and "Darla" after "Fool for Love." Also, lots of season 2 of Angel deals with Drusilla and Darla, so if you care about them you can read those episodes. Darla is also pretty important during some of season 3.

And "Disharmony" in season 3 is about Harmony from Buffy. It's not a crossover but it's okay.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2002

I don't know if this has been posted in a Whedonia thread before, but I just saw Jonathan in a commercial for Rolling Rock.

He still looked geeky, but it was strange to see him actually drinking a beer.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2002