I don't think I develop a very strong mental picture of most characters in a novel, at least not without the author's explicit help. I just sort of took the casting in the show for granted. The only actor I recognized, in fact, was there just for one episode, I think, Holden(?)'s girlfriend, who played a werewolf for several years on Being Human (US version). Thought the...what would you call all the infrastructure creation, the ships and stations etc., all of it CGI, and thought all of it was really nicely realized. Somehow the term "set design" doesn't seem to come close to the creation of entire universes in a good scifi production.

Speaking of production, I forget to check the credits. But what are the odds it wasn't produced in Vancouver?

I've only read the first two novels in the series, and I can tell I"m not nearly the hardcore fan you are. But I've been planning to continue reading, because I really appreciated the novels, so with the video version too I'm pretty much happy as a pig in...well you know.