Burn Notice And Firefly

[MikeH]

I saw Serenity first, really liked it and found most of the Firefly season disappointing in comparison up until about half way through when it started to really get going, then got cancelled.

Spoiler:

And killing Wash was good, and did make me think they might all die at the end of the film. I thought they might get the message out but die in the process.

[Sprayber]

Burn Notice is a fun, distracting show but has little in the way of substance. Firefly was awesome but somewhat short on novel premises for each episode.

After watching a few shows back to back Burn Notice does get a bit repetitive, but I do enjoy the humor. On a weekly basis it is a good show.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It is a USA show . By which I mean, "Characters Welcome" isn't just a catch phrase. The shows on USA are geared towards characters over plots (which is also why re-runs of House, MD fit very well).

[Dinner]

I saw Serenity first, really liked it and found most of the Firefly season disappointing in comparison up until about half way through when it started to really get going, then got cancelled.

Spoiler:

And killing Wash was good, and did make me think they might all die at the end of the film. I thought they might get the message out but die in the process.

The original pilot episode was "Out of gas" which tells the back story of how Mel bought Serenity and got the other crew members to join up. Fox thought it didn't have enough action and demanded a new pilot which later became the first episode but I always thought the middle episodes with the back story were the most interesting.

[DanS]

The original pilot episode was "Out of gas" which tells the back story of how Mel bought Serenity and got the other crew members to join up. Fox thought it didn't have enough action and demanded a new pilot which later became the first episode but I always thought the middle episodes with the back story were the most interesting.

Just watched the "Out of Gas" episode last night. Fox was right.

[Nikolai]

That's a first.

[Q Classic]

The original pilot episode was "Out of gas" which tells the back story of how Mel bought Serenity and got the other crew members to join up. Fox thought it didn't have enough action and demanded a new pilot which later became the first episode but I always thought the middle episodes with the back story were the most interesting.

Er, actually the two-hour long episode "Serenity" was the pilot; when Fox said no, that's when "The Train Job" became the pilot...

[Q Classic]

I saw Serenity first, really liked it and found most of the Firefly season disappointing in comparison up until about half way through when it started to really get going, then got cancelled.

Spoiler:

And killing Wash was good, and did make me think they might all die at the end of the film. I thought they might get the message out but die in the process.

Yes, that was actually Whedon's intent, if you listen to the commentary.

Spoiler:

Especially because it's kinda evident most people wouldn't have really minded Book dying...

[Kuciwalker]

Re: latest Dollhouse episode:

Spoiler:

For god's sake, Whedon, the whole 'hunter decides he wants to hunt humans thing' hasn't been interesting or clever since the original short story. Your B plot was way more interesting.

[MikeH]

The original pilot episode was "Out of gas" which tells the back story of how Mel bought Serenity and got the other crew members to join up. Fox thought it didn't have enough action and demanded a new pilot which later became the first episode but I always thought the middle episodes with the back story were the most interesting.

On the DVD version I got they are in the proper order. But the original pilot episode was actually Serenity which was broadcast #11 on TV in the US.

So I watched them in that order. Serenity first. As here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)#Broadcast_history

[Dinner]

Just watched the "Out of Gas" episode last night. Fox was right.

You can't jump in at the middle, you have to start at the beginning. Start with "Serenity" which is the very first episode. Make sure it is the Firefly episode called Serenity and not the movie which uses the same name.

[Dinner]

On the DVD version I got they are in the proper order. But the original pilot episode was actually Serenity which was broadcast #11 on TV in the US.

So I watched them in that order. Serenity first. As here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly...adcast_history

I was watching the DCD extras which includes interviews with the writers. They said they made two pilots with the first proposed pilot being "Out of Gas" which Fox rejected saying it didn't have enough action so then the writers went back and wrote a second proposed pilot entitled "Serenity" which Fox liked better and which later became the actual pilot which got aired. "Out of gas" was later turned into just an episode.

You can download the Firefly DVD with extras off pirate bay and watch the interview yourself.

[MikeH]

I was watching the DCD extras which includes interviews with the writers. They said they made two pilots with the first proposed pilot being "Out of Gas" which Fox rejected saying it didn't have enough action so then the writers went back and wrote a second proposed pilot entitled "Serenity" which Fox liked better and which later became the actual pilot which got aired. "Out of gas" was later turned into just an episode.

You can download the Firefly DVD with extras off pirate bay and watch the interview yourself.

I have the DVD with extras at home. You are wrong or have misremembered. Serenity was the original pilot that was rejected by Fox. There are millions of references to that on the interweb, and it's described in the notes on my DVD set.

Out of Gas doesn't make sense as a first episode. It relates the back story a lot of stuff that's happened in earlier episodes. It's a filling in the blanks episode, not an intro. And The Train Job was the one that specifically created to be and was aired as a pilot.

The wikipedia link has all that detail.

[Dinner]

Hmm, I'm going to have to rewatch the DVD extras tonight.

[Alinestra Covelia]

The guy who does the narration of Burn Notice is a douche. I can't actually see the show, I just hear his voice, and it makes me want to turn it off. (I can't, because it's my roommate's favorite show and he watches it while I'm doing my law studies in the living room.) If you've ever seen the cinema release of Blade Runner, where Harrison Ford does a really pissed-off sounding, sullen, resentful, angry voiceover, this is just like that. Except Harrison Ford had an excuse for it - the studio execs had come back in and forced him to record the (highly unnecessary) narration, against his own wishes and those of his director. But the star of Burn Notice doesn't have that excuse: he's just genuinely unlikeable all on his own merits.

Gabrielle Anwar continues her arm-candy roles. The last time I saw her she was in Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead, and her character was completely extraneous to the movie and served only to slow down the pace with some ill-fitting romance interest. In other words, she seems to fit right in here.

Firefly was a good series, but some of the character interactions were a bit farfetched and you were left holding the rope on the backstories (which were never satisfactorily explained before the show got axed). Serenity is a faithful movie adaptation, but they still don't really resolve the character anomalies in that. And in the case of River, they just pump up the psychosis to ridiculous levels and hope that you won't look too closely.

Still better than anything Whedon's ever done elsewhere. I had a very low opinion of him in Buffy and Angel. That opinion had a brief spike with Firefly, but it was always a fragile thing, and after reading this New Yorker review of Dollhouse, I don't have any burning desire to invest time and attention in anything else he's done either.

As a side note, I watch so little TV I'm trying to get my roommate to take me off the monthly cable bill. The counterweight to this is that I use the Internet a lot, and it's the same bill...