First, discussing Maniac's stuff:
I plan on watching Buffy at some point soon, probably as soon as finals are finished and my graduation stuff is finished and I find myself with more free time. I look forward to it, though it'll be a much larger commitment and probably slower moving, especially if you consider that seeing Buffy pretty much means I have to see Angel, too (at least in my opinion). Leverage I've heard little about, but the concept seems interesting. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy Farscape, though if it's as character driven as you say, I think I could enjoy it. I've never had the urge to watch Star Trek or anything like that, so I don't know how much the same kind of environment would appeal to me. It's not something I'd put high on a to-watch list at this point.
I can go along with your reasoning for them going back. It makes sense, and I never really doubted that loyalty was probably the main reason. Mal would probably be easy to risk everything for. I had not, however, ever picked up on Inara not being afraid to die, nor having a suicide kit, nor even potentially be already dying. That is all new to me and I would be interest in hearing how these theories came about and the examples in the show.
You bring up an interesting point about the Kaylee-Simon relationship. It is a very convenient one, but I guess I don't really have a problem with it because it seemed like something that would naturally happen. As in, it didn't feel forced at all. Both characters seemed to have the disposition that would lead them to gravitate towards companionship, and Simon's goof up in Jaynestown and The Message is a good summary of it. However, I felt there was just enough quirks from Simon that it didn't seem like something that was thrown together for people to d'aww over. And I also chalked Kaylee's affection towards Tracy as her having been rejected affection before, and Tracy being a lot more open and loose than Simon, so it was something should would easily be drawn towards. Now of course if I had to rank the things I wanted tied up in the movie, Simon and Kaylee's relationship would be near the bottom, but I still didn't mind. They were cute together.
To answer Bartz, I saw Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along blog, but it wasn't knowing that Joss Whedon wrote it that made me want to watch Firefly. It made me want to see more stuff with Nathan Fillion since I thought he was amazing in the short film, and Firefly was the only immediately accessible thing to me. If Castle ever comes to Netflix, I'll probably start watching it relatively soon after.
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