Good as always. The audio was fine, although it's amusing that the low quality equals a huge file size. It's still not in the iTunes feed so I just downloaded it from the web site.

The Blake's 7 references were nice, as there is some things in common between the two shows. You have an evil Federation, and a small band of criminals resisting them. Of course, on Blake's 7 main characters drop like flies (If you haven't watched the show, do it. Incredible stuff)

Invid (and everyone else for that matter): here's the deal with the file this week; usually what happens is Teague puts together the mp3, and sends it to me to m4a-ize.  If you look at the bit rates for the mp3s of past shows, they're kind of all over the place; Garageband exports the m4a at 64 kbps.  On average, the m4as we usually push to iTunes are half the size of the mp3s, and personally I don't notice any difference in fidelity.  There may be behind the scenes issues having to do with required bit rates for the Flash player, but I am not privy to those details.

This week I volunteered to do the rip from Justin.tv, and rather than tossing files back and forth all weekend, I just did the mixing myself, so when it came time to export, I decided the default 128 kbps would be best given how much was already lost in the compression from the Justin.tv feed.

This is also where I apologize for no m4a this week; I rather famously said to myself "How hard could it be..." and spent the entire day putting the mp3 together, leaving me with no time to do the enhancement.

As for the movie...

Remember when Universal put the first 10 minutes up on their website?  Well, I am a Firefly fan because of that.  I went out and bought the series DVDs intending to get through them in time to catch Serenity in theaters.  I have to say, I was not immediately hooked.  It took several attempts to get through the pilot, but eventually I did finish the series, by which point I wondering how this show got cancelled.  Also by that time Serenity was out of theaters, but I was there day one to get my copy on DVD.

Teague put it best, in that Firefly (as well as Star Wars / Trek) is a huge part of the filter through which I look at the world.  When I stop and think about it, it really saddens me to think that all we have of this 'verse is one movie, and 14 episodes.

I only said stop at s3 as the whole High School arc ends there and everything is nicely wrapped up. I was establishing a get out point for Trey as he said he didn't have time to watch all 7 seasons. I think the first 3 are fine for this. As dull and uneven certain seasons occasionally become (s4 and s6, mostly) I still love the hell out of the show. 

I'd at least watch the pilot (Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest) and Prophecy Girl. More stuff will make sense after that (what happens in Prophecy Girl is mentioned a lot, especially concerning the arrival of a certain person in s2 and another certain person in s3 )

Yeah, apart from s6, obviously but then if you've got that far, what's one more season?

Just don't watch Beer Bad (s4) or Doublemeat Palace (s6). Ugh!

Is this one supposed to be showing up in iTunes?

Because it's not showing up in mine.

This is not true considering Season 6 is the 2nd best season of the series

Some episodes of season 1 can be skipped, but at least watch Hellmouth/Harvest (I mean missing the frist two episodes of any series is bad form), Witch, then watch Angel and Prophecy Girl, although I do like Nightmares.

(Season 3 is my favorite season btw)

Last edited by Mr. Pointy (2011-02-08 23:36:25)

One must watch "Hush" from season 4 btw

This.

It's up on iTunes now.

I think season 1 of Buffy gets a bum rap. The effects aren't nearly as good, but I don't mind cheesy fx, so maybe that's it.

(and probably enough Buffy talk, hehe)

Loved the commentary, will definitely revisit this one. Serenity is so enjoyable to watch.

I'm not a big  fan of Serenity, probably mostly because they killed off Wash.

I get that it's the Serious Business cue, but it just messed with my impression of the characters in the wrong way. The way I saw it, Wash was one of the few things holding Zoe together, and Zoe was one of the few things holding Mal together. That and the ship, which was also trashed.

Which leaves us with bitter angry characters becoming even more bitter and angry. I'm not very interested in that character arc, myself.

If we have to kill someone off, kill Zoe off in some heroic way and have Wash grow up a bit. It still sucks, but I would have been slightly more with the movie until the end.

Last edited by Phi (2011-02-17 02:47:12)

David clarified his statement. It wasn't personal, Tudyk just wanted to bow out of the franchise (assuming it would become one), so his character was killed off.

As I said on the recording, Wash was probably my least favorite character. He reminded me of that kid in middle school who's convinced that he's really funny so he's always saying "funny" things but it's really just obnoxious and a little sad. Meanwhile he's surrounded by so many actually funny and witty people that it just becomes more apparent. Maybe it was just Tudyk more than the character -- he pulled the humor to its knees in his KNOCKED UP cameo, too.

It wouldn't surprise me if Joss thought to some extent "Gee, what the fans are speculating about Book is so much better then what I had planned, it'll be cooler to just kill him and let them keep thinking that"