See, the description of the episode is making me think of Teorama, this totally crazy, pretentious Italian film where a stranger arrives at a family's home, seduces everyone, and shatters their lives. So I'm picturing something obtuse, with weird sub-titles, and featuring a very hairy back.

Needless to say, it gives me the giggles.

Well, we've been told that there's going to be some shocking twist. Maybe River will stumble across the waifish stowaway waxing her shoulderblades at some point in the episode?

I've read what's posted of the pilot episode, and I have to wonder what Fox was thinking. I really, really hope they air it now.

The funny thing with the original pilot is, hello, all the exposition is right there on the page. I can't imagine that filming it can have slowed it down so much that the suit who approved the script suddenly realized what he was getting into when he saw the finished product.

Dumbasses.

I'm gathering, however, that as a result of the rewrite, we got a kinder, gentler Captain Tight Pants. For one thing, he hasn't smacked Simon once. I'll be curious to see how the character hews to his original premise. Although I'm glad Wash got perked up a bit in the casting/acting. I'd hardly call Alan Tudyk a shlub.

t /whitefont

Wanda at E!online mentioned that this Friday's episode was originally the 5th episode in the series, but Fox liked it so much that they moved it up. Way to mess with the timeline Fox!

Also, I keep looking for the resentment that Wash seems to feel towards Mal in the pilot, but I haven't seen even a hint of that.

The most important part of the pilot for me was where Mal shot the guy in the face. I gasped, cheered, and loved Mal.

Furio and the turbine was a paler echo of that, but lovely, and helped me with the Mal-oost in the same way.

I also loved the more explicit Inara (have they, onscreen made much reference to a SEX trade?), sulkier Wash, and River bothered me less.

Well, in episode one Book asks Inara how long has she been on Serenity, and she says 8 months, and in this episode it is almost a year. I figured they were just skipping time, but that does explain the leap.

In reading the script, I did enjoy the bit where Book rather efficiently clobbers and disarms the Alliance spy.

I look forward to hearing more about his past.

I'm not used to spoiler threads, so correct me if I'm wrong ... we don't need to white font, right?

He knew about Nikos by rep, also.

I'm suspecting his maybe something like a non-denomonitional Jesusist, sort of philosophical shock troops and information gatherer for his order.

Taking a walk in the world, out in the frontier. Doing a survey of what is really like out there.