Fair enough.  Who knows, if the FoxTeagues had thought the same way, we might be living in some Fringe-universe where Firefly ran for six seasons.

Meh, probably not.   Firefly wasn't really a good fit for network at the time.  Maybe now in the post-Lost era, it would have a shot.

Or better yet, imagine a world where Firefly was on HBO.   Holy god.

/for one thing, we would have seen Inara's breasts
/a lot

I've seen three of these shows -- Heroes, Futurama, and Curb Your Enthusiasm -- and of the three, only Futurama was love at first episode. Heroes had an interesting-enough pilot that I kept watching, but took some time to grow on me (and then betray me), and I can't think of any show I've hated as much as Curb Your Enthusiasm.

But that's actually a good example of the way I like to do things. I'd heard so many good things about CYE that despite loathing the pilot, I gave it another half-dozen episodes to see if it improved. It didn't, so I stopped, but at least I can say I gave it a chance. I've even occasionally watched episodes or clips from later seasons whenever Twitter starts raving about how great it was last night, just to see if maybe now it's stopped being so ugly and mean. But it's just as I remember, so you're all crazy/monsters.

(Yes, I'm probably going to check out Mad Men. No, I'm probably not going to bother with Lost.)

Another example for my own part: the pilot to 30 Rock is kind of terrible. It takes fully half the first season to hit its stride. But I'm glad I stuck with it because it's one of my fav TV shows.

You magnificent bastard. Now I have THAT to think about for a while. 

Gods damn. Like I needed something else to depress me further today.

I look like such a shithead in that picture, it was only a matter of time. All because fuckin' Herph had to go and make an awesome rug. (Which is still hanging in the middle of my living room.)

If you were bored by the pilot, you'd be bored by the show.

Which was my sentiment as of writing the first post in this thread. You're not on the hook to keep watching it if it's not your bag, and it's not my place to give you shit for it.

(Plus, you *leaped* onto Doctor Who when you first saw it, so I know you're not a stick in the mud.)

Of course not, the point I was making in the beginning was that - supposing all of the Potters were made by the exact same team - they shouldn't have assumed I'd watch the second one if the first one was sucky.

It took me a while to warm up to Firefly as well.  I must have fallen asleep half a dozen times trying to make it through the pilot.  But, I'd spent the money on the discs, and people kept raving about it, so I stuck with it.  I'm glad I did.  I can't say the pilot is my favorite episode though.  It's lacking in some of the humor the evil network insisted on for the replacement pilot, and indeed the rest of the series.  Sometimes the networks do know what they're doing.  Sometimes.

// my 1.2p

I turned off Firefly when I first watched it, because essentially I couldn't see past the goofy Western Sci-fi theme and the obvious cheapness of stealing costumes from Starship Troopers, it was the movie that actually made me come back and give it a proper try, and I'm so much the better because of it.

Sometimes with a series you need a bit of a push. If a series comes recommended I usually give it 3 or 4 episodes and if I still don't find anything to like about it I'll just give up. I might push further, depends really on the recommendation and how similar the interests are of the friend or forum poster who recommended it.

I really disliked the pilot of Babylon 5 and the first few episodes are kinda rubbish too, with a sort of chessy appeal to them. Taken as a whole the series is without a doubt the best sci-fi series ever made, and I'm judging that mostly on seasons 3 and 4 where it becomes the best tv ever. Ignorance is bliss, but sometimes knowledge makes life richer, I'd hate to think that I could be 30 years old and never have watched that great story.

I have a similar story with The Wire.

That's 3 of the best shows ever made that I could have missed. That's why I'm willing nowadays to give things a fairer try. You never know when you could be missing something really great. And you can always come back and try again, didn't care for the new Fallen Skies pilot at all, but I'll likely give it another go later.

But that's the point.  Nobody is saying that picking up a series cold and choosing to not keep watching if the pilot isn't impressive is irrational.  What I'm trying to say is that if someone ELSE decides to forge through and says "investing your time and thought into these characters will pay off for you later, I promise," then that's not a silly opinion to consider.

Say you're dating a girl I used to date, and things are going well for a few days, then she gets in your pants and gives you a really grabby handjob that just isn't all that impressive.  So you come to me and go "man, that... that wasn't all that."  If I tell you "Yeah, that part isn't exactly anything to write home about but if you stick around afterwards she'll fuck you so hard you'll think she signed some kind of deal with the devil," you wouldn't say "Nah, fuck that, the handy sucked.  I'm out."

Or maybe you would.  I'm just saying, Teague, if you want Game of Thrones to make you blow your load so hard your eyes cross and stay that way for a week, you kinda have to deal with the grabby handjob it's gonna give you first.

Lock the thread; I think we're done here.