Well, clearly I completely forgot the order, so sorry about that!

I think airing eps out of order is a pretty big problem - especially for shows that have a strong narrative thread. For sitcoms, it may not be that necessary (depending on the show), but think about if ABC had decided to show some of the strong "Lost" episodes earlier instead of where they reside in the narrative thread.

Fox's moving things around fucked with "Firefly" in a big way.

I believe I'm correct in saying Tim was involved in the moving of Firefly episodes around. Unless I'm wrong.

I don't think it made a big problem - the narrative issues were tiny. It was a pretty self contained show, and each episode was clearly written in a way to keep reintroducing the characters.

I do agree for certain shows it would be a disaster - Lost is a great example, as is something like Drive.

the narrative issues were tiny.

I don't agree.

Well, admittedly not airing the pilot first generated a few.

I believe I'm correct in saying Tim was involved in the moving of Firefly episodes around. Unless I'm wrong.

He pushed "Shindig" and "Safe" back until later in the show's run, feeling that they wouldn't work very well if you weren't familiar with the characters (which wouldn't have been a problem if "Serenity" had aired).

Swapping "Objects in Space" in place of "Heart of Gold" was Joss. I think that he just really wanted OiS to air, and at that point there was only one episode other than "Serenity" scheduled.

Airing "Serenity" last was, of course, all FOX.

I think "Our Mrs Reynolds" was pushed forward by Tim and Joss to get the good out early, also. Tim made a bunch of posts on Fireflyfans.net back in 2002 about it, but they appear to have ditched all the old posts. Boo.

Maybe it's in the Wonderfalls thread

I thought this was the Wonderfalls thread.

(IMHO, "Karma Chameleon" is the stronger second episode, because it explains why Jaye is the way she is, her relationship with her family, and Aaron actually gets some screen time.)

I also think "Pink Flamingos" works better fourth because it brings back Gretchen Speck, a sign of continuity, and it feels weird to have that episode second and then go into "Karma Chameleon" and "Wound-Up Penguin," which don't necessarily follow from it (all three only contain previouslies from the pilot). I liked waiting for the return of Gretchen and seeing it as a sign of future continuity. Also, that has more of the relationship between Sharon and Beth, which, in this order, disappears for two episodes longer before its return in "Safety Canary." ALSO, it has the theme of "If you don't listen to the animals, people will get hurt," and, again, it's weird to have her do that and go through the other two episodes instead of having had three episodes of animal nonsense before choosing to defy them. Man, it doesn't make any sense for it to come second at all! Whatevs, Todd Holland.

Maybe in "Lovesick, my Ass!"

Yeah, I think I preferred it in aired order rather than DVD order myself. "Wax Lion" and "Pink Flamingos" were stronger episodes IMHO than "Karma Chameleon" and "Wound-Up Penguin," but I liked them better bracketing the latter two.

Plus, it moves that hilarious phone call with Heidi closer to her actual appearance.

What Tim said about the Wonderfalls episode order in Minearverse 1:

But we're airing the pilot first. And since I haven't been up against airdates, I've had the odd luxury of reverse engineering a few of the epsiodes that we shot later to go earlier -- ON PURPOSE. Who knows what's gonna happen. Maybe it'll be a huge hit. Maybe it'll be a lovely thirteen episode DVD set. I will say that I designed the last six to be a bit of an arc with an ending, viewing the last in the initial order as a season finale of sorts.

Then later:

FutonCritic is wrong, wrong wrong. Jess and Gus are correct. I wrote air-episode two in the production-ten slot. This was the luxury of not being up against air dates. I was able to look at what we had and, with an understanding that only comes with making ten episodes (and actually testing two of them -- a story I will relate after we air epsiode two), I was allowed to create TWO of the later episodes to go earlier.

What you will see as episode two and episode four were shot as 10 and 12. To GO IN THE TWO AND FOUR SLOTS. I promise. I might mention, however, that there is one early episode, an important episode that sets up many things to follow, that the network DID want to push. I wrote a vey specific memo explaining why I felt this was not a great idea. They agreed. Episode five will air where it's supposed to. Fear not, young ones.

And:

One last bit of hopefully useful clarification -- don't ever let production numbers fool you on this show. ep five was shot as ep 2, episode 3 as one. This had to do with cast, location and us just figuring it all out as we went.