hehe, the show wasn't repetitive, no more than anything else in so far as it had the same characters and they generally did the same things, tried to make money doing the odd job. The episodes were actually very varied considering, infact, very very varied, the train, the intruder on the ship, the train, the hospital job, theres huge variety.
The reason it was so great, was dialogue, it was funny but not in an out of place way, it was a drama that had very witty and good dialogue, rather than being an out and out comedy. All the actors were great and the characters were VERY diverse, from the nuts, to rich, to poor, priest, hookers, leaders, followers.
I don't think fox did anything wrong showing them out of order, it really doesn't make a difference, though you get the feeling it was trying to be "hip" than for any other reason. IE people love gimmicks, starting off a show one way, then later on doing a kind of "flashback" episode, you can't get away from that kind of thinking in TV these days. Its one extreme to another, flashbacks, flashsideways, flashfowards, or 17 hours of real time tv, that they call 24(- the ad's).
It needed a better timeslot, lead in show, day, and to stay on one day. NYPD blue did great in the states, was a superb show, but in the UK C4 showed the same series at anything from 10pm to 2am, on really whatever day of the week the schedual needed filling, so barely anyone ever watched it in the UK. I loved the show and I didn't watch it, because I never knew when it was on, it would go off for a couple months and randomly come back.
But thats less fox trying to screw a great show, often to promote a new show and give it a great slot, it requires bumping an established show. If you were head of Fox, and were told this new show might do great, but might not and to really make sure of it you had to bump a show with say 10million viewers bringing in millions in revenue, you'd probably make the call to hope the show gains a following in a bad time slot then promote it. Thats how tv works.
Personally I didn't like the film as much, it was far to, classical, I guess, good/bad guys, a quest they go on for the greater good, nicely wrapped up at the end, everythings all good. The show was really very much the anti-typical show, but the film slipped back into the typical feeling feel good film. It wasn't as well writen and while I think the guy who played the main bad guy is fantastic in most of what he's done(redbelt, dirty pretty things are fantastic), his character was too over the top and ridiculous, the fights too silly and it was too made to appeal to the general public, as opposed to finishing off the series as it should have.
). And dam not having friends in USA 
I WANT Firefly on BR so I'm happy to do the research; if it helps others than fabuloso. 
