Finally watched my first full episode of Joss Whedon’s late lamented (sort of) series, Firefly. It started airing in Australia last week, but I taped that one and still haven’t got around to watching it. And a good thing too, because I can see that tonight’s was really the pilot.

I’d heard how the show got screwed by Fox TV in the US, and now I’m starting to see how. We’re getting it here in the same order they played it there – an inane and illogical one. Last week’s episode (which I saw moments of) had all the characters established already, but then this week’s introduced them all, including the arrival of several of the characters on the ship for the first time. It’s actually done pretty well in the true pilot, but this poor ordering must have confused the hell out of the wider audience – and damaged its overall chance of success.

Needless to say, if I had a little more money, I would have bought the series on DVD already – and now I’m seeing what it’s like, I’m thinking even more strongly of just buying it anyway, money be damned.

As for the show itself? Looking damn interesting – definitely the most self conscious “space western” ever, because it literally is a western in space, right down the to clothing, musical choices and overall asthetics. It’s got a touch of the “anti-Star Trek” again, because the heroes are people who lost a galactic war against an all-ecompassing alliance. I’ve seen it compared to the post US civil war period, but I can’t see these heroes being compared to the southerners. Though I don’t know much about the history there yet – what the war was about, who started it and so on.

Liking the characters very much – pure Joss. Nathan Fillion’s Reynolds is laid back but tought, Jewel Staite is gorgeous in a very Willowesque/Alyson Hannigan kind of way, and Adam Baldwin’s Jayne is quite deliberately nuts. It’s a big ensemble, and one that I hope gets a good airing in the limited space they’ve got.

That’s it, I really should just buy the DVDs…