The only one I've found is from April 2002, in which they (questionably) describe the 1970's series as ground-breaking and innovative.

Had any scifi movie or TV show featured a robot dog before?

Found an article that contains it (It's in the gray box):

[link]

ETA: On re-read, it still ticks me off. Whether he was developing this before Firefly or not, the fact that he claims "this has never been done before in Sci-Fi" and most of his points are things Firefly was doing/had just done makes him sound like a pompous ass, regardless of whether he decided to do this before Firefly aired or not.

Had any scifi movie or TV show featured a robot dog before?

Doctor Who.

I guess I believed the SFX guys whenthey were interviewed about the effects in Firefly. They were saying Joss was pushing them to be sloppier, and it really helped that he was open to that.

Then the same team did the BSG miniseries sfx and the BSG press mentioned above kind of made me twitch.

Another way to challenge the audience visually will be our extensive use of the multi-split screen format. By combining multiple angles during dogfights, for example, we will be able to present an entirely new take on what has become a tired and familiar sequence that has not changed materially since George Lucas established it in the mid 1970s.

Hey! He totally didn't do that! I want my multi-split screen dogfights, dammit!

I can't make the link work, and it's ticking me off (that I can't link, not that there's anything wrong with it. Just to be clear). Making me twitch, even. I want to see the article. It's working for others?

the fact that he claims "this has never been done before in Sci-Fi" and most of his points are things Firefly was doing/had just done makes him sound like a pompous ass, regardless of whether he decided to do this before Firefly aired or not.

I believe that this was an internal memo, not intended for outside release. It's the memo mentioned in that NYT piece.

eta:

It's working for others?

It works for me.

Worked for me.

::checks::

Still works, using Firefox 1.0.6

Damn. I'm usually the queen of links working for me when they don't for others. Knocked me off my high linking horse. I'll make it work. I swear I will...

Here's the text for those the link might not be working for:

Battlestar Galactica: Naturalistic Science Fiction

or Taking the Opera out of Space Opera

Our goal is nothing less than the reinvention of the science fiction television series. We take as a given the idea that the traditional space opera, with its stock characters, techno-double-talk, bumpy-headed aliens, thespian histrionics, and empty heroics has run its course and a new approach is required. That approach is to introduce realism into what has heretofore been an aggressively unrealistic genre.

Call it " Naturalistic Science Fiction."

This idea, the presentation of a fantastical situation in naturalistic terms, will permeate every aspect of our series:

Visual. The first thing that will leap out at viewers is the dynamic use of the documentary or cinema verite style. Through the extensive use of hand-held cameras, practical lighting, and functional set design, the battlestar Galactica will feel on every level like a real place.

This shift in tone and look cannot be overemphasized. It is our intention to deliver a show that does not look like any other science fiction series ever produced. A casual viewer should for a moment feel like he or she has accidentally surfed onto a "60 Minutes" documentary piece about life aboard an aircraft carrier until someone starts talking about Cylons and battlestars.

That is not to say we're shooting on videotape under fluorescent lights, but we will be striving for a verisimilitude that is sorely lacking in virtually every other science fiction series ever attempted. We're looking for filmic truth, not manufactured " pretty pictures" or the "way cool" factor.

Perhaps nowhere will this be more surprising than in our visual effects shots. Our ships will be treated like real ships that someone had to go out and film with a real camera. That means no 3-D "hero" shots panning and zooming wildly with the touch of a mousepad. The questions we will ask before every VFX shot are things like: "How did we get this shot? Where is the camera? Who's holding it? Is the cameraman in another spacecraft? Is the camera mounted on the wing?" This philosophy will generate images that will present an audience jaded and bored with the same old "Wow -- it's a CGI shot!" with a different texture and a different cinematic language that will force them to re-evaluate their notions of science fiction.

Another way to challenge the audience visually will be our extensive use of the multi-split screen format. By combining multiple angles during dogfights, for example, we will be able to present an entirely new take on what has become a tired and familiar sequence that has not changed materially since George Lucas established it in the mid 1970s.

Finally, our visual style will also capitalize on the possibilities inherent in the series concept itself to deliver unusual imagery not typically seen in this genre. That is, the inclusion of a variety of civilian ships each of which will have unique properties and visual references that can be in stark contrast to the military life aboard Galactica. For example, we have a vessel in our rag-tag fleet which was designed to be a space-going marketplace or "City Walk" environment. The juxtaposition of this high-gloss, sexy atmosphere against the gritty reality of a story for survival will give us more textures and levels to play than in typical genre fare.

Editorial. Our style will avoid the now clichéd MTV fast-cutting while at the same time foregoing Star Trek's somewhat ponderous and lugubrious "master, two-shot, close-up, close-up, two-shot, back to master" pattern. If there is a model here, it would be vaguely Hitchcockian -- that is, a sense of building suspense and dramatic tension through the use of extending takes and long masters which pull the audience into the reality of the action rather than the distract through the use of ostentatious cutting patterns.

Story. We will eschew the usual stories about parallel (continued...)