Welcome to the Fold, Mr. Lileks

Does your Browncoat fit nice and comfy? Like an old, worn in leather jacket I suspect.

He's just started watching the oft-hyped Fox sci-fi series from a few years back... "Firefly". Gushing, now... he's in full swoon mode.

I remember silently scoffing at a friend who recommended the series a few years ago. Analog Kid claimed it was the best sci-fi series ever. He also likes Buffy and Angel... so I took that excessive praise with a fifty pound saltlick.

(It's not that I don't like Buffy... it's that my wife does and that's enough for the household. My bag, it ain't. It probably isn't bad, in fact I enjoyed a couple of episodes... but I have no need to wade into yet another geek-pool. I'm drowning as it is.)

Watched it... the same pilot episode (double-length) in the same frame of mind that Lileks did.

So I watched the pilot... out of obligation, really – arms crossed across the chest, remote in hand on the FF button, looking for an excuse to bail, because it just can’t be that good.

Lileks really likes the pilot. I don't dislike it. The rest of the series is much better. It's fairly long. It tells some of the backstory that the audience doesn't need. Cut to the chase... the audience will get it.

The suits at Fox apparently had the same opinion... if rumor is to be believed. They broadcast the pilot much later. (It might have been the last episode aired on Fox.)

Lileks will love it. The series has fun adventure... good characters... no real pandering... some good sci-fi cliches and conventions, but without the half-hearted attempt at working them into the setting and characters. No shoe-horning.

Plus, the space-slang isn't that lame. Most sci-fi slang is lame. Most of the slang in "Firefly" is Chinese... so even if it is lame we can't understand it.

I dare him not to like the episodes "Shindig" or "Heart of Gold". Or "Our Mrs. Reynolds".