I seriously have yet to find anyone who doesn't at least like the show a lot, once they see it.

::points to a couple of Buffistas or three::

I suspect the best it could have achieved was to be perennially on "the bubble," facing potential cancellation every year (as Buffy and Angel were almost every season).

Unfortunately, it was a favorite show of someone at Fox who'd already been let go by the time it started airing, and replacements never want their predecessor's shows to succeed, so that is the main reason it was shuffled off to the Friday Night Fox Death Slot, where it unsurprisingly died.

Lost was also the favorite of a no-longer-there exec, but it's numbers are putting ABC in a position it hasn't been in for a very long time, so it gets to stay.

Still, it remains that Seinfeld and Friends struggled in the ratings at first, until they found their numbers, even if they were much bigger numbers tha Firefly could have hoped for.

I hated it on first viewing. Deeply, in fact. I enjoyed it much more in bigger blocks, and I'm still not very excited about "The Train Job".(Well, Westerns and Sci-Fi are neither one my favorite genres, so...) But by the end of the DVDs I got to like it. I would still rather watch Buffy or Angel but I did change my mind about it. I bet if it had gotten another season, I might have become a fan.

Honestly, though I grew to love it, if it hadn't been Joss and Tim's baby I would have stopped watching halfway through ""The Train Job," and never given them the chance to snag me with the engine scene.

Firefly had me at Wash and his dinosaurs, and completely in love when Mal shot Patience's horse. Serenity just did for me.

It's my bestest favouritist show in the world ever.

Ah but see, Jars, you got to see the actual pilot. The actual pilot, I think, would have hooked me more than "The Train Job." There were more space hijinks, plus the River mystery was more at the forefront.

If they would have promoted Serenity as a two-hour "event" launch of the series, and all the usual trappings, I daresay we would have gotten at least a whole season, if not starting to complain about the upcoming holiday mini rerun hell for Season 3 in December.

So, if we want to, we can think of the Serenity movie as the Season 3 finale...

Loathe as I am to say anything positive about the decision making process at Fox, I've found that people who've never watched Buffy or Angel respond far better to The Train Job than to Serenity. People who have heard of Joss and Tim and enjoyed their other stuff are far more willing to go with the pace of Serenity.

Really? Cause that was the most "Episode one bored." I've ever been, ever. With all due respect to Minear, of course. Cause he does it for real and I'm just some bitch talking to her TV about how she can do better than that while watching L&O 7 million.

I think perhaps showing a 2-hr pilot is just a bad idea. Made my best friend watch Serenity a few months ago, and it took her a bit to get into it.

And I couldn't win her over for the series because she kept running into "Why don't they have energy weapons?" and wouldn't drop it. I grow so tired of fanwanking that. ("Well you see, the parts for plain old firearms are cheaper" - and her argument was "But that's like us using rare antiques." "Well no they aren't ORIGINAL six-shooters they're modernized replicas, see...")

...dropped in to say a thing and then will add two others based on posts way up earlier -

1. SO excited about new show! Like, made noise, had to explain to boyfriend why. (But the statement [ Tim + Jane ] was simple enough for him to understand.)

2. Happy belated birthday, Tim!

3. Re: Matt's statement that [ Tim + Jane = Joss ] and the subsequent allegations that [ Joss never existed ], I thought we had already established, per Shawn and Tom, that [ I am Joss. ] I'm sure some people are tired of that very old joke but I never cease to find it funny, mostly because Shawn and Tom are such brilliant writers.

I seriously have yet to find anyone who doesn't at least like the show a lot, once they see it.

• cough*I didn't like it.*cough*

Now, admittedly, I watched maybe an episode and a half. But nothing drew me in enough to give it another chance.