My understanding is that this was intended as episode 3, and that the original series premiere/pilot, which is a stripped down Storm Front in an hour, is now airing fifth. SciFi Channel appear to have made the decision to reshuffle at an executive level, I think because some implementation details were changed between pilot and series go-ahead [ animating a talking skull convincingly is just out of their budget range, for one. ]

As I may have said before, while I like the series a lot, it really shifts up a level in general tightness and skill in book 3, and it's doing interesting things with long-wavelength plot stuff that both build very well as it goes along and make the earlier books read more strongly in the light of seeing what they were setting up for [ am rereading the whole series over the next few months preparatory to the next one coming out. ]