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.
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).
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.