Actually, this wasn't the premiere episode after all. It'll air at a later date. The Train Job was the one shown tonight. I'll move this thread to when the ep's shown at a later date, to stay with the aired order of each eps.

Given that Whedon is a comic book fan and has written some himself, is Bendis, the soldier that Mal and Zoe give orders to in the opening scene, a tribute to comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis? (Interestingly, one of the fighters mentioned fought by Jack Murdock, as mentioned by the guy who tried to get him to throw a fight in the movie Daredevil, was named Bendis, and was such a tribute.)

Recently, I obtained the complete series of Cowboy Bebop on DVD. I was looking at the trailers for some of the other anime serieses and noticed something interesting. For the one advertising something called Outlaw Star, there's a shot of a box with the top removed. Some steam or mist clears away to reveal the contents to be a nude female curled up in a fetal position (to more effectively conceal the naughty bits ). I'm thinking there's no way that could be a coincidence.

I just won a five-book set of Cowboy Bebop yesteray on ebay for my cousin Lauren for Christmas. But the fetal position, when combined with technology, is common. The cover of Ghost in teh Shell features that motif too.

You may have pirated copies there Luigi. The Cowboy Bebop DVDs from Bandai is made up of six disks.

I'm not talking about discs. I'm talking about the books (manga). They're original material, produced before the series, and she already has the movie, so I figured this would give her more material to read on it that she hasn't been exposed to.

D'oh! Anyway, back to the subject of this episode. When I first saw this episode, I thought Mal was being quite a jerk towards Simon. But after watching it again after seeing the rest of the series, I'm a bit more understanding of the way he acted. In Shindig it's made plain that Mal hates slavery and it would certainly look as if Simon was smuggling a slave. Also many of the early episodes have Simon come across as a whiny puke (paticularly Safe) which helped lessen my sympathy for him.

D'oh! Anyway, back on topic. When I first saw this episode, I thought Mal was being quite a jerk towards Simon. But rewatching it after having seen the rest of the series had changed my opinion. It's made plain in Shindig that Mal hates slavery. And their little discovery certainly made it look as if Simon was engaged in slave smuggling. Plus the fact that, in the early episodes, Simon tends to comes across as a whiny puke (particularly in Safe) did much to lessen my sympathy towards him.

Just in case you were wondering why there are two differently worded posts with the same subject matter posted about an hour apart, when I came back, the browser didn't properly refresh. Not aware of this at the time, I tried again. Sorry about any confusion.

For those not in the know, Dobson is revealed alive in Serenity: Those Left Behind.

If you want to discuss that, I had posted a thread for it over at the Comic Books board.

Oh. Since many properties in multiple media (novels, comics, movies, tv) usually have all of those properties under that propeties boards (Trek, Star Wars, X-Files, etc.), I didn't know that. Shouldn't it be moved over here to consolidate all the Firefly/Serenity stuff?

From what I can tell, it looks as if the moderator for this board is AWOL.

*Mod Edit*: Not... anymore. - Merat

I found the Weyland-Yutani logo from the Alien series. Wikipedia said it was on an Alliance weapon's HUD in the pilot. It was in the beginning, during the Battle of Serenity Valley when Mal took over that anti-aircraft gun, it was at the top of that display. The similarities between W-Y and the Alliance is interesting. Both advertise building a better future and both have secret programs with questionable morality, et al. I also caught part of Aliens yesterday and the colonial marines' patch seemed close to the Alliance logo, or visa versa rather.

When Serenity flies off after salvaging that food it doesn't seem to take off as quickly as in all the other eps. I think the Alliance's ships have an interesting shape to them. Why did Dobson feel the need to carry both his guns at the same time? How did the reavers track down Serenity after they passed them? Luigi, are those graphic novels worth looking into? I don't see how Dobson could've lived after being shot in the head and left in the middle of nowhere.

They're okay. The first one, Those Left Behind, which is set in between the end of the series and the feature film, indicates what happened to Dobson after this episode, as well as the Hands of Blue, and contains many plot points that lead into the film's story, so if you're a continuity completist, maybe you'll like it. There's more info on it at the Wikipedia article for that book, most of which I wrote, but be warned that the Synopsis and Notable occurrences sections are filled with spoilers.

I just watched this episode again. I think I can answer one of inblackestnight's questions. It did seem odd that Dobson carried both of his guns at once, but when he grabbed River, he pointed one gun at her and kept the other ready to shoot anyone that threatened him. I guess he felt that being ready to shoot either left him in a better position.

Dobson's not the brightest bloke, is he? Mal is all ready to hand the doctor over to him, but then he pipes up with "everyone on this ship is being charged with harboring fugitives," thereby making an enemy of the ship's captain. Had he been less of a jerk, Mal would've helped him collar Simon and River (and then there'd be no series).

Um, yay Dobson!