Nathan Fillion wore a picture of director Joss Whedon over his private bits during some of the nude scenes. For other takes, he wore a sack displaying a figure reminiscent of Wilson from the film Cast Away (2000).
The tattoo visible on Mal's hip is an Egyptian glyph meaning peace. Nathan Fillion got it at the age of 19 and reportedly regrets it.
While Mal, Saffron, and Durran are having their confrontation in the artifacts room, Mal sarcastically calls her "YoSaffBridge." This is a contraction of all the aliases he has heard her use during their acquaintance (Yolanda, Saffron, and Bridget). Interestingly, the English-language DVD subtitle for the made-up name "YoSaffBridge" misidentifies it as a Chinese word; later streaming versions of the subtitles corrected this error.
This is one of the 3 episodes that had been completed but never aired during the initial run of the series on Fox.
When Mal and Saffron land on the island, you can see a ship fly by in the background that is shaped like the SR-71 Blackbird spyplane.