Babylon 5, worth it?

[Makgraf]

Well I decided I should think about finding some new way to waste my time and someone recommended Babylon 5 to me.

I watched the first 4 episodes, and had a bit of a mixed reaction.

Pros
It's clear that the creator of the series planned it all out. Little details are revealed that (I assume) will bear fruit later, there's a lot of continuality with the characters and the plots.

The universe is very flushed out. Elections, news, bouncers... seems a lot more in depth then some other certain science fiction shows. Along these lines I like references to their past but our future (Although it did annoy me that when he was listing sneak attacks he mentioned "Pearl Harbour" and then "The terrorist nuking of San Diago". I'm sure there'd be some name for it, e.g. "Black Wednesday" or "4/14" or just "San Diago".)

Cons
It seems like there was a firesale of Dune surplus, the Centauri look like they're just wandered over from Giedi Prime or something.

The graphics are very early computer animationish. It seems at some points like I'm watching a video game (except for nowadays video games have better graphics). *zap zap* ship explodes, boss fight! Now go to cutscene with live actors.

So yeah, what do other people think of this show. Is it worthwhile trying to secure and watch a bunch more episodes?

[novaderrik]

if you like good long lasting story arcs- some last the entire 5 years- then, yes, get it.
i personally used to watch it semi religiously after about the 3rd season.
they do have very good continuity, some pretty good physics (at least i think so- it looks pretty good to me), and very interesting and realistic characters.
as for the quality of the special effects- it was the best available at the time and was absolutely breathtaking 10 years ago.

[CTM VT 2K]

The first season is almost a backstory. I remember when it first aired, I watched the occasional 1st season episode, and thought "meh." It felt like just another Star Trek knockoff. Then I hit an episode that turned everything on its head. Then I hit another one. By the beginning of the 2nd season I was watching almost religiously. I was hanging on for dear life through seasons 3 and 4. Season 5 was a bit of a letdown.

I really enjoy expirencing the series vicarously for the fist time... i.e. watching it with someone else who's not seen it before. That first season is packed with juciy details, but you tend to blow them off because you're not expecting such depth. B5 doesn't have the Spatial Anomoly Of The Week, nor the Technobabble workaround.

Forget the SFX. They were groundbreaking at the time, but cheesy by today's standards. So what? I don't care if the SFX were outright cartoons, the STORY is what drives the series, not the SFX.

[jt-3d]

I liked it. Certaintly worth watching. Worth buying? I'm not so sure but definately worth watching.

[mid]

Its a tough decision to call between this, Buffy and Twin Peaks as my favorite series of all time. Series 2 and 3 in particular contain some of the best episodes of any TV programme ever.

[Chip]

By the third season things really get intriguing. I recommend it.
The writing is consistently good with excellent characters, plot twists and flashbacks, and story arcs building to dramatic climaxes. If you buy the DVD sets, you might end up watching several episodes at a time by the third season on. Its that good.

[Moose]

By the third season things really get intriguing. I recommend it.
The writing is consistently good with excellent characters, plot twists and flashbacks, and story arcs building to dramatic climaxes. If you buy the DVD sets, you might end up watching several episodes at a time by the third season on. Its that good.

Yeah, things really pick up around the start of season two, and they don't let up even a little until the end of season four.

[Disinfo Agent]

It's worth it.

[Swift]

By the third season things really get intriguing. I recommend it.
The writing is consistently good with excellent characters, plot twists and flashbacks, and story arcs building to dramatic climaxes. If you buy the DVD sets, you might end up watching several episodes at a time by the third season on. Its that good.

Yeah, things really pick up around the start of season two, and they don't let up even a little until the end of season four.
My feeling exactly. The fifth season was a little bit of a let down.

Looking back, at the time the special effects were pretty cutting edge for TV, it was the first TV series where all the effects were computer-generated (no model work) which meant they could do a lot for a weekly series. They probably look poor by current standards.

[Humphrey]

Never watched the series but i do remember that it was getting alot of talk because of its abysmal budget yet they were resourcefull and did alot fantastic stuff with it.

[Demigrog]

No Sci-Fi series comes close to B5 in writing, depth, characters, meaning, relevance, or drama.

SFX work was groundbreaking, and advanced greatly between seasons 1 and 5. Some things, however, just didn't work out, especially in season 1. I try to ignore that, as B5 is one of the few in Sci-Fi genre where the SFX is secondary to the story.

Acting in S1 was iffy in some S1 episodes, but bear with it-- the "arc" stories will blow you away.

S2 was excellent, S3 was Hugo worthy (and won, twice), S4 somehow improved on S3. S5 was a "letdown" from a story arc perspective, understandable since JMS had to move S5 story into S4 in case the series was cancelled. However, S5 wraps up the lose ends pretty well (though the novels are a big help in that regard). B5 Crusade was great, and tragically killed before its time by a cable network that wanted a better lead-in show for pro wrestling (apparently Sci-Fi fans think too much).

[tracer]

Just to keep this on topic:

There are several instances of bad physics in Babylon 5. F'ristance:

1. At the beginning of the 2nd season, Sheridan is standing in C&C and is shown tossing an orange into the air. The orange travels upward and falls back down at a rate consistent with full Earth surface gravity (9.8 m/s²). However, the Babylon 5 station generates all of its artificial gravity by rotation, and C&C is only 1/3 of the way away from the station's central axis. Since the outer rim is supposed to be at about 1 full g, the gravity in C&C should only be about 1/3 of a g.

(When called out on this gaffe on the rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 newsgroup, J. Michael Straczynski countered by saying, "Galileo proved that all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of how much they weigh." The members of the newsgroup quickly pointed out that this is only true in a given, constant gravitational field, and that objects in 1/3 normal gravity would indeed accelerate downward 1/3 as fast.)

2. Some time in season 3 or 4, I forget which, a couple of characters are shown in the cargo hold of a space ship experiencing zero gravity. However, the space ship's engines were on and burning at the time.

When called out on this gaffe, J. Michael Straczynski countered that the space shuttle experiences zero g even though its engines are on while it's in orbit (!).

[mid]

(wrong series)Damnit Jim, I'm a script doctor, not a physicist!(/wrong series)

[Demigrog]

Just to keep this on topic:
There are several instances of bad physics in Babylon 5. F'ristance:
1. At the beginning of the 2nd season, Sheridan is standing in C&C ..<snip>.. objects in 1/3 normal gravity would indeed accelerate downward 1/3 as fast.)

Even if they had realized it, what could they have done about it? It is difficult and expensive to simulate low gravity for films, and effectively impossible for TV. In B5 they might have used CGI for the orange, but talk about a nit pick... :)


2. Some time in season 3 or 4, I forget which, a couple of characters are shown in the cargo hold of a space ship experiencing zero gravity. However, the space ship's engines were on and burning at the time.

When called out on this gaffe, J. Michael Straczynski countered that the space shuttle experiences zero g even though its engines are on while it's in orbit (!).
The establishing shot is not necessarily coincident with the interior shot. Also, JMS is no scientist or engineer, so I cut the poor guy some slack-- especially when it was some CGI art guy that made the original mistake, and JMS had to cover for him.


And to pick up one I missed from the OP:

It seems like there was a firesale of Dune surplus, the Centauri look like they're just wandered over from Giedi Prime or something.

The Centauri costuming was intended to provide the look and feel of an empire in decline. Also, the Centauri were in contact with Earth for about a hundred years at the point of B5, and Earth had influenced their fashion (borrowing from human culture was apparently a fad for a while). Plus, the Centauri intentionally chose colors and styles intended to impress other races—hence the royal Purple showing up in the Ambassador’s clothing.

I'd argue that the Drazi were more Dune-ish, but I’d have to sit through the movie again to support it. Not going to happen… :)

[Moose]

2. Some time in season 3 or 4, I forget which, a couple of characters are shown in the cargo hold of a space ship experiencing zero gravity. However, the space ship's engines were on and burning at the time.

Sometime in the latter half of season 4. Dr. Franklin and the Ranger Marcus Cole were being smuggled to Mars to liaise with their resistance movement.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Bab 5? Great Series:

I watched seasons 1 to 5 and while I found Season 1 slow (although interesting) I got hooked almost at the end of season 2 (in the episode titled "Comes the Inquisitor"), afterwards there was no return. The Story and Characters were great, and the acting was good (Since I am not really very much interested in SFX I didn't pay much attention to it other than it was all CGI). The attempts at explaining future technology were mostly decent. My only nitpick is regarding the wardrobe, it seemed a bit cartoonish for my taste. The full length movies where ok, although I was not all that crazy about "Legend of the Rangers".

Unfortunately the next series (Crusade) was nowhere as good as the original

My son and I watched it from beginning-to-end. A brilliant piece of escapism...Better than Lost in Space? =D> =D> =D>

[JonnyWishbone]

It is a great series, and the novel series I've read (which are supposed to be 'canonical') are also top-notch.

The rec.arts....moderated B5 usenet group has bags o' physics and astronomy arguments on it, if I remember correctly. From it, I learned what a nuclear bomb would do when detonated in space (Captain Sheridan loves nuclear bombs), among other useful things.

I like the CGI, even when it's primitive, because the ship design for a lot of the alien races was aimed at making them look alien (or at least different from normal sf tv/movie ships), and didn't follow the standard Star Trek or Star Wars look. Some of the older races show up in ships that look like very angry Christmas tree ornaments, and there's a strong organic component to a lot of the design as well -- Minbari ships look vaguely like whales, Shadow ships like spiders, Vorlon ships like squids. The Earth ships look functional and 'clunky' next to the ships of most other races, as befits a younger race relatively new to space travel, a race that still produces artificial gravity through spin and thrust while the older races use...something else...to produce it.

I remember one debate on the group focused on whether improved CGI made some of the ships look less 'realistic' in Season 5, though what the debate ended up really being about was changes in how some ships (especially Centauri ships) were shown. The Centauri ships started doing a lot of swooping and banking in space in Season 5, which drove some people up the wall, although it did tie in visually with the arc at the time (and saying more would spoiler it).

Take care, Jon

[mid]

Better than Lost in Space? =D> =D> =D>

In case anyone never noticed, little Will Robinson from Lost In Space grew up and played Lennier in B5, which is a nice connection.

[HAVOC451]

B5 is the Ion drive of sci-fi. It began from a dead stop (the pilot movie was almost awfull) and slowly built up speed untill by season four you want to cry out "Noooooooooooooooo" when the episode ends and you have to wait a week for another dose.

[Harvestar]

Alas, I have to skip the above posts since I'm in the middle of watching the series. ;) I'm not a huge Sci-Fi fan (like Star Wars, original Star Trek), and had never seen them, but my boyfriend insisted. We're in the middle of season 3 and I really like it (though it's scary the projected parallels mirroring today's society!). I love the fact that's it's a long story and the characters are great. :) I never really care about acting like some people seem to - it just doesn't affect me as much, unless it's abysmal - so I enjoyed Season 1, myself.

There's some great episodes which touch on great philosophical questions.

My favorite is that the Benedictine monks are still going - researching other races. :)

edit - as far as the physics goes, it's one of the only shows to have spaceships fly like spaceships!

[Invader Spleen]

once you get past the first season (which although good, still annoyed me a bit) and into the following seasons it just keeps getting better, sure the CG graphics look a bit dated, but it was produced on a limited budget and even then it looked pretty good, having space battles with hundreds to thousands of ships, sometimes at extreme ranges, and ships that actualy took damage and were destroyed rather than star treks invincible ships always made me sit there going "wow, that was so cool"

also the story lines arcing over entire season and even the entire series rather than alien of the week stuff made me feel like i was watching something that didnt treat me like an idiot.

Excellant series, highly reccomended, far superior to just about anything else in the same catagory

[AstroSmurf]

Seasons 2-3 are the very top IMO, though the last third of season 4 is among my favourites. I am replacing my VHS tapes with the shiny-disk release right now. Mmmm... precioussss.

[Gas Giant]

The rec.arts....moderated B5 usenet group has bags o' physics and astronomy arguments on it, if I remember correctly.
uk.media.tv.sf.babylon5 had its fair share, as well. The canonical one being the long-running discussion about whether starfuries would launch radially or tangentially from the cobra bays. Made my head hurt, that one.

[JonnyWishbone]

Oh, God, the cobra bay thread was a rec-arts staple as well....the nuclear explosion thread went on for quite some time, i remember that, and was brought back to life whenever another nuke got used in the series. The final few minutes of the season-ender of Season Two came up a lot too -- I won't spoil it, but it's the episode that involves the monorail and the station's artificial gravity as a major climactic plot point. At least I think that's the end of Season 2.

The starfury/cobra bay debate, btw, centers around how the fighter launching is shown on B5, for those who don't know. The Starfuries are located in bays close to the outer edge of the spinning station and are 'docked' on what I think would best be described as big robot arms. At launch, the arms swing the cobras into the launch area and release, and the station's rotational force shoots them straight out the door, whereupon they turn on their engines once they're in space. I think I've described that fairly correctly. But anyway, it caused endless fun in terms of directionality.

Take care, Jon

[snowcelt]

I note that throughout this thread that there seems to be a favourable impression as to the series' quality.

Band waggon happening. I thought that this was the best series I have ever seen in the genre of Science Fiction. The original Star Trek is a close second.

I liked B5's edginess. But what made the edginess neat is that it was not nihilist like some Twilight Zone/Outer limits crap. At least you knew that in B5 there was a chance that all would work out in the end. :)

[Van Rijn]

B5 is right at the top of my list of great science fiction series. I agree with pretty much everything here. The story arc is pretty rare in tv shows because you MUST keep up with the story, and until it develops you don't understand much of what is going on. But if you get into it, and if it is good, it keeps you coming back for more to see how it plays out. And it actually hurts a little when it ends.

There were a number of technically wrong bits in B5. When it comes to gravity, though, I was glad they DIDN'T assume that everyone had gravity generators. Hard to simulate, sure, but it made it feel more real.

They were always running on a nearly non-existent budget, which was visually limiting. Still, I wish they could have had more "inside B5" scenes. Since they were almost always in corridor space, it was very difficult to believe they were actually in a large O'Neill Colony like habitat.

[Tobin Dax]

Oh, God, the cobra bay thread was a rec-arts staple as well....the nuclear explosion thread went on for quite some time, i remember that, and was brought back to life whenever another nuke got used in the series. The final few minutes of the season-ender of Season Two came up a lot too -- I won't spoil it, but it's the episode that involves the monorail and the station's artificial gravity as a major climactic plot point. At least I think that's the end of Season 2.

Yeah, it's the end of S2, and it's been discuss on these boards as well.

B5 is a great series. I've been watching the whole thing in order (I did see most of it in the first or second run on TV, but it's better to watch it this way) this year. I'm in the middle of season 4, and it's better than I remember as I watch all of the pieces get put into place.

It's a five-year story, basically an novel in episodic-TV form, and if you're willing to watch the story, I think it's a great piece of work. JMS gets a few things physically wrong, but he's also go a lot right, and that's always nice to see.

Well, that's enough carrying on. You can tell that I like and recommend the series. :)

[dummy]

This thread's made me dig up my box set of series 1 and 2 and watch them through the past few days. I forgot how much I missed this series. I may have to order myself the other ones.

[dgruss23]

Well I decided I should think about finding some new way to waste my time and someone recommended Babylon 5 to me.

...

So yeah, what do other people think of this show. Is it worthwhile trying to secure and watch a bunch more episodes?

Well if they haven't already convinced you, let me add by vote for "Yes, its most definitely worth it!!!!!!"

B5 is an incredible series - my favorite.

[Makgraf]

Well if they haven't already convinced you, let me add by vote for "Yes, its most definitely worth it!!!!!!"

B5 is an incredible series - my favorite.
Okay y'all have convinced me. I can get 12 episodes for $5 (CDN) at my local movie store so that's what $50 for the entire series. Seems like something I should do over a long period of time.

[Tobin Dax]

Well if they haven't already convinced you, let me add by vote for "Yes, its most definitely worth it!!!!!!"

B5 is an incredible series - my favorite.
Okay y'all have convinced me. I can get 12 episodes for $5 (CDN) at my local movie store so that's what $50 for the entire series. Seems like something I should do over a long period of time.

I'm actually doing it about one disk a week from the local movie-rental place. It's a pretty good pace. If you're buying them, then stretching that out over the course of a month or so for each dozen eps could work. I just can't imagine watching only one ep a week right now. :o

[Bob B.]

I was a big Babylon 5 fan when it aired originally. The first season was a little slow but it soon picked up. In season 2 they got rid of the Jeffery Sinclair character and replaced him with John Sheridan (Bruce Boxlietner), which I think was a good move. I thought seasons 3 and 4 were especially riveting - the best sci-fi I've ever seen. Season 5 was a disappointment to me, but that was because they were afraid the show might not last a fifth season, so the wrapped up the main plot in season four.

[Moose]

I was a big Babylon 5 fan when it aired originally. The first season was a little slow but it soon picked up. In season 2 they got rid of the Jeffery Sinclair character and replaced him with John Sheridan (Bruce Boxlietner), which I think was a good move.

Yeah, I definitely thought it was a good move. Not because I didn't like Michael O'Hare, I do. I just didn't feel he was suited to be the central protagonist. He projects a great deal of confidence and enigma, even in the most bizarre situations (especially outside of his inner circle). This isn't a bad thing for a leader to project, mind you, but that cloak doesn't fit so well for a fiction protagonist.

Boxleitner portrayed John Sheridan as highly competant, but human, and fallible. At first, he was more than a bit of a fish out of water in terms of being a military governor at a high pressure post, but grew into his role as time went on. It just made him more believable.

O'Hare's portrayal was simply perfect for what he became after he was transferred: as an ambassador to a mystically-inspired people, a symbolic figurehead and a focus for the Rangers.

[Bob B.]

Boxleitner portrayed John Sheridan as highly competant, but human, and fallible. At first, he was more than a bit of a fish out of water in terms of being a military governor at a high pressure post, but grew into his role as time went on. It just made him more believable.
I agree; I though the Sheridan character was very well developed and really made the show what it was. I once read a quote by creator J. Michael Straczynski in which he said the character switch was not originally planned, but after the first season he realized the Sinclair character was not capable of developing into the person they needed him to be in later seasons.

[Doodler]

Credit JMS with the incredible ability to part company with actors on good terms. Her name eludes me, but the actress who played Talia was the only one who parted under something of a cloud, but even so, it was still executed in a manner that left no lingering hostility. After all, her husband at the time was also an actor in the series and he didn't see any need to follow her because of a nasty scandal.

I think what carried B5 for me, aside from great visuals for a shoestring budget, was the development of the ensemble. The second line characters received as much attention to continuity and development as any one of the main characters, and several of them emerged and came to the forefront by becoming mainstay characters as the series unfolded.

That is something that to my knowledge has never been pulled off before.

[Bob B.]

Her name eludes me, but the actress who played Talia ...
That was Andrea Thompson, who was formerly married to actor Jerry Doyle (who played Michael Garibaldi).

[Gas Giant]

Her name eludes me, but the actress who played Talia was the only one who parted under something of a cloud, but even so, it was still executed in a manner that left no lingering hostility.
Not the only - Claudia Christian left in somewhat strained circumstances.

[Kesh]

Oh yeah, that was a mess.

Basically, the situation was that the cast was in negotiations for the fifth season. The network offered a flat amount per actor for the season.

Claudia wanted more.

Some folks held out for a bit, but finally signed as the deadline approached.

Claudia didn't.

After that, it's a bit fuzzy. Depending on who you talk to, either Claudia intentionally held out beyond the date thinking that the show wouldn't be able to go without her and they'd have to give in; or, Claudia's manager failed to get her signature in time (intentionally or not); or, the producers didn't inform her that the deadline was apporaching (intentionally or not).

Any way it worked out, Claudia was bitter about the whole thing and made a few not-so-nice comments. Luckily, they were able to write her out fairly convincingly at the end of S4, and had already filmed her bits for the series finale.

[Chip]

...Any way it worked out, Claudia was bitter about the whole thing and made a few not-so-nice comments. Luckily, they were able to write her out fairly convincingly at the end of S4, and had already filmed her bits for the series finale.

Did she come back for the later B5 TV movies? I think she made a cameo appearence in at least one. Or did they use old scenes? Anyway - I liked her character. As with many of the others, "Ivanova" had a lot of depth as the series rolled on.

[calliarcale]

...Any way it worked out, Claudia was bitter about the whole thing and made a few not-so-nice comments. Luckily, they were able to write her out fairly convincingly at the end of S4, and had already filmed her bits for the series finale.

Did she come back for the later B5 TV movies? I think she made a cameo appearence in at least one. Or did they use old scenes? Anyway - I liked her character. As with many of the others, "Ivanova" had a lot of depth as the series rolled on.

And Ivanova was way better than Lochley (IMHO). :)

I've often wondered what was up with her career around that time period. It had to have been about that she did her guest bit on Highlander: the Series, in a role very clearly intended as a trial for a possible spinoff featuring a female Immortal. They did five such trial episodes. Amusingly, they ended up using *none* of them, but based on how "Highlander: the Raven" finally went, it seems clear that at least the series writers believed they'd be getting Claudia Christian. Instead they got Elizabeth Gracen. It didn't quite work out; Gracen had an established role in the Highlander universe, and that character was significantly different than the role Claudia Christian had played. The series only lasted one season. I often wonder if it would've worked out better with Christian instead.

But getting back to B5, yes, it is ABSOLUTELY worth watching. I'm a Dr Who fan, so I tend to consider the effects quite superb :lol: but really it's the story that makes it so wonderful. It seems like another space sci-fi series, with interesting adventures each week and some character development over the course of the season. I know I didn't really appreciate how much *more* was going on until the bombshell at the end of Season One. And it just gets better. Pretty soon you are so severely hooked you cannot stand to not watch the series and find out what happens next. ;) I was introduced to it on DVD; my hubby watched it on TV and is an avid fan. By the time Season Five came out, I was desperate for more! I wouldn't say that Season Five was a letdown, though. It wasn't as potent as the previous four seasons, but it was still good. I wish it had been another Season One, really -- the start of a new story arc. ;) There's so much more that remains unexplored.

[archman]

Ha ha, the actress who played Lochley (Tracy Scoggins) also had a Highlander episode. She was the ancient druidic witch that new Duncan as a child. Of course MacLeod made out with her at the end of the episode. Gross...

[Launch window]

Well if they haven't already convinced you, let me add by vote for "Yes, its most definitely worth it!!!!!!"

B5 is an incredible series - my favorite.
Okay y'all have convinced me. I can get 12 episodes for $5 (CDN) at my local movie store so that's what $50 for the entire series. Seems like something I should do over a long period of time.

I'm actually doing it about one disk a week from the local movie-rental place. It's a pretty good pace. If you're buying them, then stretching that out over the course of a month or so for each dozen eps could work. I just can't imagine watching only one ep a week right now. :o

seems like a fine idea 8)

[JonnyWishbone]

There's a lengthy page on the Claudia Christian departure at http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html

It's interesting if you're a B5 fan in part because it involves bb/usenet postings by both JMS and CC on the event, and also supplies a lot of info on how Hollywood contracts et al. work.

The B5 theatrical movie The Memory of Shadows seems to be still in the pipeline, though I haven't checked up on rumours lately. Last I checked, filming was to begin in April for a 2006 release, but the last I checked the rumours about complete recasting had also reared their heads. Then, I stopped checking.

Cheers, Jon

[JonnyWishbone]

Btw, Season 5 always seemed like a problem to me, too, in terms of a certain lack of...pacing. As far as I understand what JMS has said on the topic, while there were never going to be more 'arc' stories in the Shadow War and the Earth War, there would have been more standalone episodes in Season 4 that would have pushed the conclusion of the Earth War into the early stages of Season 5 had there been a guarantee of a Season 5 when Season 4 was being planned and made. My guess (and it's only a guess based on how the episode 'plays') is that...

Oh, right. Spoiler space...
















...the episode in which 'bad' Garabaldi lures Sheridan into a trap, Ivanavov is critically injured, and Garabaldi has it revealed to him by Bester how he's been telepathically manipulated was meant to be the Season 4 cliffhanger. Not sure if JMS ever confirmed this online or not, but I know when I saw it (given B5's weird syndication pattern at the time) that I thought it was the season cliffhanger because it sure felt like one.

The telepath colony and the Drakh/Centauri conspiracy were always meant to be in Season 5, but those storylines would have been compressed somewhat, which might have helped a lot -- Garabaldi's alcoholism, the length of time it takes to figure out the Centauri are (sort of) the bad guys, and a couple other things seem very draggy. The amount of time it takes all of Garabaldi's friends to realize he's drinking again is actually the most galling point of this whole dragging-out, as it requires the characters to act...out of character. As in, slow and unperceptive. Darn you, powers that be, for not giving that Season 5 committment earlier!

I think it's interesting that JMS's attention to his own future history and to the 'one year -- one season' format of B5 caused some season 5 problems. The history was revised sometime between the pilot and Season 1 and then revised again whenever the decision was reached to bring in Boxleitner in place of O'Hare but fairly much stuck to afterwards, so far as I can tell, with CC's departure being one exception caused by casting problems; the unavailability of the actor who played General Hague caused another minor one which required Hague to be dead in the ep. in which B5 breaks away from Earth -- ironically, because the actor who played Hague was booked to play a similar character on DS9!

But that committment meant that we couldn't see, for instance, a full-blown Telepath War in Season 5 because it wasn't supposed to happen for another three years. I like the integrity of that. Still, I'd have loved to see the final fate of Lyta Alexander, and the Telepath War that led to telepaths serving as regular officers in Earthforce by the time of Crusade.

Cheers, Jon

[Gas Giant]

But that committment meant that we couldn't see, for instance, a full-blown Telepath War in Season 5 because it wasn't supposed to happen for another three years. I like the integrity of that. Still, I'd have loved to see the final fate of Lyta Alexander, and the Telepath War that led to telepaths serving as regular officers in Earthforce by the time of Crusade.
You nearly did. The Crusade episode The Path of Sorrows Matheson is shown helping a rogue telepath to overcome sleeper drugs, resulting in the destruction of a Psi Corps base. The script was written with Lyta in mind to play the part of the rogue, but unfortunately Pat Tallman had other commitments at the time.

[Kizarvexis]

Btw, Season 5 always seemed like a problem to me, too, in terms of a certain lack of...pacing. As far as I understand what JMS has said on the topic, while there were never going to be more 'arc' stories in the Shadow War and the Earth War, there would have been more standalone episodes in Season 4 that would have pushed the conclusion of the Earth War into the early stages of Season 5 had there been a guarantee of a Season 5 when Season 4 was being planned and made. My guess (and it's only a guess based on how the episode 'plays') is that...


Jms on what might have been different if S5 was approved early (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/find/CompuServe/cs97-07/25.html)

You pretty much hit the nail on the head, except it is the ep after the one you mention that would have ended season 4. I'll post more below after some spoiler space...
























'Intersections in Real Time', episode 418 where Sheridan was interrogated, was where jms would have ended season 4, if the collapse of PTEN hadn't happened. Jms also wrote a long explanation of the overall story and how the show could have ended on 4 or 5 years.

From jms re: year 4 or 5 or both (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/find/Usenet/jms96-12-usenet/39.html)

Kizarvexis

[Kizarvexis]

Resources for those who want more information on Babylon 5.

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html)

It has background info, backstage info, and most importantly the Episode guide. New viewers beware though, the ep guide will spoil the show if you haven't seen it. But it is a great companion to the show, because the Lurker's guide has jms' usenet, Compuserve, and Genie posts about each ep on each episode page. The analysis of each ep in the Guide was mostly done the week the ep initially aired, so a little of the speculation is off. Also, jms was circumspect about some upcoming events in his notes at the time, so as not to spoil future events.


JMSNews.com (http://www.jmsnews.com) is a compilation of all of jms internet posts for every project he has commented about as well as any current event discussions he joined.

Kizarvexis

edit: Added another caution.

[Van Rijn]

Also, the B5 Encyclopedia is a great resource:

http://www.oinc.net/B5/Enc/

The entry on "Spoo (http://www.oinc.net/B5/Enc/display.php?spoo)" is hilarious. Spoo is the anti-Tribble. The ultimate in disgusting, that makes a sound that can drive you mad, that everyone wants to eat, and even the interstellar version of PETA want them dead.

[JonnyWishbone]

Kizarvexis: Actually, that makes even more sense (leaving aside the fact that it's true!).

Gas Giant: Yeah, I know the episode -- and I imagine we'd have seen more such flashbacks if Crusade had survived, and if and when Pat Tallman became available. The Bester novel trilogy (by J. Gregory Keyes, I think) is pretty good, though it skips over the events of the Telepath War, in part (I think) either because that was going to get its own later novel series, or because there were still hopes at the time for showing the war on Crusade or in another TNT movie or two.

Mmm. Fresh spoo.

Cheers, Jon

[calliarcale]

Ha ha, the actress who played Lochley (Tracy Scoggins) also had a Highlander episode. She was the ancient druidic witch that new Duncan as a child. Of course MacLeod made out with her at the end of the episode. Gross...

Actually, she had THREE Highlander episodes. She returned later in the same season (doing the same unconvincing British accent) in "Comes a Horseman" and "Revelations 6:8". That two-parter revealed that she is actually one of the oldest Immortals! And had a rather interesting relationship with Methos once upon a time.... I won't elaborate, lest I spoil one of the biggest plot developments of Season Five (on HL, that is).

Another interesting connection between B5 and HL....

It may have been around the time that Claudia Christian left B5 that HL went into its sixth and final season. It was a pretty lackluster season, and a large number of episodes basically amounted to screen tests for various female Immortals to possibly become the protagonist of a new spinoff, "Highlander: the Raven". (Ultimately, none of them were hired for the spinoff; established character Amanda, played by Elizabeth Gracen, became the protagonist instead. The series lasted one season.) The last of the proposed new protagonists was Katherine, who appeared in "Two of Hearts", an episode notable for its lack of Duncan MacLeod. Many elements of this story were reused in the "Raven" pilot (including the name of the mortal male love interest, Nick), and realistically, the lead actress had the best shot at making it work -- she was none other than established genre actress Claudia Christian.

She was good, too. I have no idea why they didn't use her character in "Highlander: the Raven". Maybe they thought B5 would steal her away again? The world may never know.

[Makgraf]

So I just watched season 1's episode 9 "Deathwalker".

I'm surprised no one made the argument that they shouldn't use the immortality serum because it was obviously developed through war crimes. After the second world war the medical establishment refused to use the data that the Nazi doctors gathered via human experimentation at concentration camps. This seems like a similar case.

Also, isn't Earth Alliance going to mighty ****ed at Sinclair? They ask him to transfer Deathwalker to them so they can develop something that will make the entire population immortal. But instead Sinclair delays, goes to the assembly for a vote to try her (where he votes against her!) and then gives the Vorlons enough time to send in a ship to destroy her.

[Kizarvexis]

Also, isn't Earth Alliance going to mighty [bad word deleted] at Sinclair? They ask him to transfer Deathwalker to them so they can develop something that will make the entire population immortal. But instead Sinclair delays, goes to the assembly for a vote to try her (where he votes against her!) and then gives the Vorlons enough time to send in a ship to destroy her.

Give it a little time. Actions have consequences in B5 and Sinclair is making a lot of enemies. You'll see things that Sinclair has done come home to roost before the 1st season ends.

Kizarvexis

[peter eldergill]

B5 is one of my all time favourite shows. I thought the plots were excellent and the characters great. There was one horrible episode (Not counting pretty much all of season 5) called "What ever happened to brown 17?" Or something similar. Uggh. Terrible

My absolute favourite scene in the whole series was when Earth was attacking B5 and Delenne (excuse my spelling, please!) came by with a Battle Cruiser and said to the Earth fleet (again, not word for word, but close) :"Only one human commander has ever won a battle against a Membari battle cruiser. He is behind me. YOU are in front me. If you value your lives, I suggest you be elsewhere"

Cool show. One of the battle units in starcraft looks like a shadow vessel

Later

[Moose]

My absolute favourite scene in the whole series was when Earth was attacking B5 and Delenne (excuse my spelling, please!) came by with a Battle Cruiser and said to the Earth fleet (again, not word for word, but close) :"Only one human commander has ever won a battle against a Membari battle cruiser. He is behind me. YOU are in front me. If you value your lives, I suggest you be elsewhere"

JMS mentions on the commentary track for that episode that from the fan mail, it is by far the fan favorite of all scenes throughout the entire series.

The scene, paraphrased only where indicated:

Hermes: [paraphrased] Babylon 5, you will surrender the station and prepare to be boarded.

[Delenn jumps in at the head of a Minbari fleet.]

Delenn: This is Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw. Or be destroyed.

Hermes: Negative. Do not make us engage you.

Delenn: Why not?. Only one Earth captain has ever survived an encounter with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.

[The Earth fleet comes about and withdraws into hyperspace.]

[Kizarvexis]

My absolute favourite scene in the whole series was when Earth was attacking B5 and Delenne (excuse my spelling, please!) came by with a Battle Cruiser and said to the Earth fleet (again, not word for word, but close) :"Only one human commander has ever won a battle against a Membari battle cruiser. He is behind me. YOU are in front me. If you value your lives, I suggest you be elsewhere"

JMS mentions on the commentary track for that episode that from the fan mail, it is by far the fan favorite of all scenes throughout the entire series.

The scene, paraphrased only where indicated:

Hermes: [paraphrased] Babylon 5, you will surrender the station and prepare to be boarded.

[Delenn jumps in at the head of a Minbari fleet.]

Delenn: This is Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw. Or be destroyed.

Hermes: Negative. Do not make us engage you.

Delenn: Why not?. Only one Earth captain has ever survived an encounter with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.

[The Earth fleet comes about and withdraws into hyperspace.]


The scene is my wife's and my daughter's favorite as well. I really like it too, but I like soo many good scenes on B5 to be able to pick only one as the best. G'Kar's speeches are great, the inquistor ep was really cool, 'Signs and Portents' from season 1 is great. A lot of Londo's speeches are great. Just too many good things to pick from to pick only one.

Kizarvexis

[Metricyard]

Babylon 5 is one of the best SciFi shows ever created.
Just about every thing was done very well. If you can get by the first season, you're all set.


Kizarvexis wrote:
The scene is my wife's and my daughter's favorite as well. I really like it too, but I like soo many good scenes on B5 to be able to pick only one as the best. G'Kar's speeches are great, the inquistor ep was really cool, 'Signs and Portents' from season 1 is great. A lot of Londo's speeches are great. Just too many good things to pick from to pick only one.


I loved emperor Cartagia. You just couldn't wait to see him die.

Kosh. Best Alien ever. Shadows come in a close second.

What's supprising is how violent some of the episodes were. I can't believe that the censors let then get away it.

One of the things that turned me off of B5 the first time I watched it, was the religous overtones. But after I realized that the show had religious overtones for every race, I couldn't get enough.

Think I'll got watch "In the Beginning"

[DataCable]

I loved emperor Cartagia. You just couldn't wait to see him die.
Always got a certain Cyprus Hill tune wandering through my head every time his pompous mug was on the screen. 8)

The one thing that bugged me about the show was JMS's frequent use of recap-via-dialogue. Almost made the characters come off as Alzheimer's patients, constantly reminding each other of people and events for the benefit of the viewer. Seems like every episode in the 2nd half of season 3 had at least one sentence begining with "Ever since we broke away from Earth..." I would have much preferred a brief "Previously on Babylon 5" segment at the top of each ep, but that's just me.

[Demigrog]

B5 is one of my all time favourite shows. I thought the plots were excellent and the characters great. There was one horrible episode (Not counting pretty much all of season 5) called "What ever happened to brown 17?" Or something similar. Uggh. Terrible

JMS apologized for the crappy alien (the Zarg) in "Gray 17 is Missing", and admitted that the cult thing didn't work out so well on screen. The "Walkabout" episode was worse, IMO. Those were the only two stinkers in Season 3, and even they contained about 20 minutes each of important arc story. However, as my sister pointed out, those were the two episodes that TNT kept re-running over and over that season... it didn't help us convince our friends to watch the show. #-o


My absolute favourite scene in the whole series was when Earth was attacking B5 and Delenne (excuse my spelling, please!) came by with a Battle Cruiser and said to the Earth fleet (again, not word for word, but close) :"Only one human commander has ever won a battle against a Membari battle cruiser. He is behind me. YOU are in front me. If you value your lives, I suggest you be elsewhere"

Good scene, definately. In fact, the first I heard of B5 (owing to the terrible timeslot and lack of promotion) was a friend at school quoting that line...

[peter eldergill]

Oh yeah, forgot about that piece o' crap (walkabout). I found the doctor to be one of the more annoying characters anyways

I found season 5 so bad that I never bothered to watch it, except for one or two episodes

I had an old classmate who would go to B5 and doctor who conventions, and even he hated those episodes as well!

Later

Pete

[Launch window]

fans have made a PC game

there is a new game which is Freeware (I know the immediate thought is ugh!) but this was done by a consortium of people and is easily done to a commercial level of software.

The games is called "Babylon 5: I've Found Her" it's 210 Megs in size so a high speed connection is a good idea.

The developer and fan site is very helpful



http://ifh.firstones.com/
http://compactiongames.about.com/od/freegames09ac/p/babylon5_free.htm
http://gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk/blueyondergames/b5ifh/ifhsetup.exe

[Launch window]

B5 starts filming in four months, casting notices have gone out to actors and agents, looking to re-cast some of the major roles in the Babylon 5 universe for a theatrical film based on the series, studio seems to have all sorts of fun ideas like replacing the original cast with younger lookin' folk That film, currently titled, Babylon-5: The Memory of Shadows, would take place after the B5 spinoff, Joe Straczynski the Great Maker hasn't said anything yet. It might also be due to recent deaths of a couple cast members, as said before on thsi thread Doc Franklin ( Mr Biggs ) has recently passed away...and Tim Choate who played alien roles

[archman]

Oh wow a theatrical movie, not just another TV movie? I'm not sure how I would feel about that. Too much time would be wasted explaining the B5 universe. But so long as the movie stays true to B5, and doesn't end up like that horrid "Legend of the Rangers" disaster, I'm all for it.

"Legend of the Rangers", that was a travesty. I feel sick thinking about it.

[Doodler]

Doc Franklin ( Mr Biggs ) has recently passed away...and Tim Choate who played alien roles

Having fallen out of the loop on B5, I was unaware of this until this post. Holy heck...

[dgruss23]

Oh yeah, forgot about that piece o' crap (walkabout). I found the doctor to be one of the more annoying characters anyways



Doctors seem to be the most annoying characters in just about every Sci-Fi series except perhaps the original Star Trek. Beverly Crusher drove me nuts in TNG (and her little boy Wesley too!).

[peter eldergill]

Uggh ...embarassing moment coming up. ....

I always thought that beverly crusher was hot!

Please don't hate me for what I am :D

Pete

[Doodler]

Oh yeah, forgot about that piece o' crap (walkabout). I found the doctor to be one of the more annoying characters anyways

I always thought that was one of the better episodes. That whole storyline was pretty well done, IMHO.

[Makgraf]

Well I've finished season #1.

What I think I like most about it is that it's written by a Trekkie. By Trekkie I'm not saying that JMS is a Trek fan per se (though apperently he is (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=19708)) but that he has the same thought processes. So if you pause it when there's a shot of a newspaper there are articles in it. There are characters, situations and lines introduced that will later have a big impact. It's Trek done right.

There have been some really nice moments. The poker scene with Londo in Quality of Mercy was hillarious (and in retrospect, disgusting). Believers was a really powerful episode and did someone I really wasn't expecting.

On the downside I'm still very unimpressed by the graphics and the ships. Plus in the first season alone he's done four "Obsessed and/or creepy official comes to Babylon 5 to meddle" episodes. Oh well.

[Metricyard]

Well I've finished season #1.

What I think I like most about it is that it's written by a Trekkie. By Trekkie I'm not saying that JMS is a Trek fan per se (though apperently he is (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=19708)) but that he has the same thought processes. So if you pause it when there's a shot of a newspaper there are articles in it. There are characters, situations and lines introduced that will later have a big impact. It's Trek done right.

There have been some really nice moments. The poker scene with Londo in Quality of Mercy was hillarious (and in retrospect, disgusting). Believers was a really powerful episode and did someone I really wasn't expecting.

On the downside I'm still very unimpressed by the graphics and the ships. Plus in the first season alone he's done four "Obsessed and/or creepy official comes to Babylon 5 to meddle" episodes. Oh well.

Season 1 is tough to get through. It did have quite a few good episodes, though. But now your going to get into the real fun stuff. the second and third season are going to rock your socks off.

And the graphics will get better. Remember, all they had at the time to create the graphics were a couple of amiga computers. At the time, they were way ahead of the other franchises in computer effects. Until B5 came along, it was pretty much stick as much explosive material into a model and blow it up. I think you'll be pleasanty suprised on some of the SFX in the next 2 seasons.

And why are you reading this post? Get watching season 2 right this instance. :D

[Rich]

There are only about 6 episodes in Season 1 you really need to watch, including the last three. That gives you enough to get right into Season 2 and then whammo! It gets awesome!

My favorite lines were: (possible spoilers)



- "Vir! You moon-faced assassin of joy!"
- It's also notable that the mini-speeches delivered early on when Mr. Morden shows up and asks everyone "What do you want..."
- Vir's prophetic responses to that very question... one of the best moments of the series when he later has his flashback to that moment.
- The aforementioned speech from Delenn.
- Sheridan's "We draw the line here!" speech.
- Pretty much any line delivered by Marcus Cole who stole many scenes throughout the end of Season 3 and most of Season 4.
- Ivanova's speech to the Shadow technology earthfleet. Ewww... gives me goosebumps.
- And pretty much every line in the final, final episode when Sheridan goes off to "die".

If that whole episode doesn't send shivers up and down your spine and put a little mist in your eyes after watching the series... well you just can't be human. Quite probably the best final episode of any series I have ever seen ever!

[Doodler]

Heh, my favorite was Londo showing Vir pictures of his wives, "Famine, Pestilence, and Death". Gets me rolling every time.

Andreas Katsulas' performance as G'Kar goes through a major evolution in seasons 2 and 3. Watching him change into a very dynamic character from the one dimensional 'bad guy' from the first season was awesome.

[Moose]

Re: Sleeping In Light --- Oh my yes. Mira and Bruce played that episode to perfection. Mira breaks my jaded heart on no fewer than three occasions, and Bruce another twice. I've seen the episode at least ten times, and I tear up repeatedly every time I watch it.

The cast group shot with the white stars "overflying" the set gets me every time as well, but that may be as much the music as anything else.

[Doodler]

Mira's performances as Delenn in some cases had you stuck between tears and laughter on a lot of occasions. The season 4 ender, which could have been the series end, was the best one. In the second set when she showed up as an elderly version of herself was priceless.

[Krel]

About season two or three I was at a convention where Mojo from Foundation was giving a talk on the effects. He said that the problem was that they were stuck doing a certain level of detail because all the visual effects had to match for the whole series. By the end of the first season the computers had progressed to where they could do much better visuals, but then it wouldn't have matched the earlier shows. This could cause problems with syndication of the show after it finished it's run. Look at their other work they did for movies and tv shows, the effects were much better.

A funny story was that someone asked about the Video Toasters. Mojo explained that they were only used on the pilot, by time the series started they were obsolete, and they were using regular computers. One guy kept asking aout the Video Toasters. And no matter how many times he was told that they didn't use them, this guy just kept asking about how they used them. It drove Mojo up the wall.

David.

[JimTKirk]

...On the downside I'm still very unimpressed by the graphics and the ships. ...

For 1994, I thought the graphics were very well done! It's just hard doing comparisons to current tech... :D

[Charly]

There is actually a noticable improvement in the CGI in season two.

I thought the first few episodes were still quite poor.

By "Coming of Shadows", they are top notch. They *do* make the first season look like a bad computer game.

-----------------------

I still rate the best episode of B5 as being Chrysalis.

I remember when I first watched the series many years ago.

I saw the pilot on Channel 4, and thought it was rubbish. A few year later I met my (now) wife, and after a year or so, introduced her to the (then) pleasures of ST.TNG, by renting them from our local Blockbusters store.

When we had finished, she said, "why not lets *do* DS9. "That pants", I replied - based on having seen the first 5 or 6 episodes. But as there was not much else, we continued to rent the 1st two seasons, and by then end, I was hooked.

About a year later, the first season of B5 came out. Remembering the pilot, I ensured my wife that this was also cack. But she reminded me that I said the same about DS9, which turned out to be better than TNG.

Okay, if she wants to be emberassed, then dont say I didnt warn her. After a few decidedly average, and several poor episonded, including one with Checov in, I saw Signs and Portents.... This was something a bit different. I might have been wrong again? Surely not twice in one lifetime.....

.....I felt some redemption after the very next episode. TKO. Hahahaha. Of course I was right all along.

The average stories kept rolling on. But I was starting to feel something. The characters were developing in a strange way! They were remembering things that actually happened to them in previous episodes.

And then the final episode, Chrysalis. Things moved along at such a pace. Several plot threads that had been building all season suddenly began to converge in this single episode. And then boom!

Suddnenly, like some sad little crack-addict, I was hooked. But there were no more videos to rent. My pathetic cravings led me to buy the entire second second season within the space of a couple of weeks. I didnt want to go out on the **** anymore. I wanted to spend my Friday evenings watching Sheridan and his buddies battling the forces of evil.

But then disaster struck!!!!!

I got to the final episode of the second season - another bastard of a cliff-hanger. Almost as good as Chrysalis. But there was a gap before season 3 came out.

Finally it did.

And then Channel 4 did the most wicked, henious thing possible. They started showing the 4th season while I was only midway through the third. I couldnt help myself, and spoilt a huge part of the story.

After that I went into rehab, and was forced to watch episodes of Andromeda that fell through a timewarp from the future.

So my advice to anyone watching this series, avoid all spoilers!!!!

-----edit....

These are still the *only* two things i have been wrong about during my 8 year marriage------

[Van Rijn]

...On the downside I'm still very unimpressed by the graphics and the ships. ...

For 1994, I thought the graphics were very well done! It's just hard doing comparisons to current tech... :D

Heh. Fairly often I'll see comments about bad FX on classic '50s movies, usually something like "I was told how great it was, but the graphics were terrible!" There really weren't any examples of better special effects until "2001" and then "Star Wars" after that. So as I grew up I thought the FX in the better ones was pretty great, unlike folks who started with "Star Wars."

The impressive thing with B5 is that they did do CGI, which let them tell a different story than would have been possible with models. I thought it was VERY good for a TV series at that time. No, it didn't look real, but light beams and sound effects in space don't feel real either. The good thing about B5 was that the story was good enough that the special effects were secondary, unlike, for instance, Star Wars, where the story is a minor detail meant to show off special effects.

[dgruss23]

On the downside I'm still very unimpressed by the graphics and the ships. Plus in the first season alone he's done four "Obsessed and/or creepy official comes to Babylon 5 to meddle" episodes. Oh well.

Well you haven't yet seen the White Star ships yet. As for creepy officials - wait until the Night Watch takes up residence. But I can't explain any of that because that would give away the story line.

[archman]

A bit more info on some of the characters in the upcoming movie. Hmm... seems like Elizabeth Lochley will at least return. Tracy Scoggins makes those EarthForce uniforms look good.

http://www.isnnews.net/babylon5/movies/b5tmos.shtml

[Jpax2003]

good show

[Charly]

A bit more info on some of the characters in the upcoming movie. Hmm... seems like Elizabeth Lochley will at least return. Tracy Scoggins makes those EarthForce uniforms look good.

http://www.isnnews.net/babylon5/movies/b5tmos.shtml

Actually, to be fair, Tracey Scoggins is part of what made S5 of B5 the sinking turd that it was.

The line "I will do the job with every last breath that I have"

Was possibly the one that made me want her to die, as early as possible. The fact she was also married to Sheridan shows JMS inability to write a convincing story line at short notice.

Crap character, crap actress. But then Mira Furlan made me laugh out loud on many ocassions with her overacting. Its al part of her charm.

Sinlcair v Sheridan v Lochley?

For me I prefered Sinclair. It took me a while to warm to him, but he was a great actor, and more interesting to watch than Sheridan (actually its funny how similar to DS9 b5 was, both having miserable brooding leads, who didnt want to be there, who both end up embracing their eventual religious-icon-hood).

[Makgraf]

...On the downside I'm still very unimpressed by the graphics and the ships. ...

For 1994, I thought the graphics were very well done! It's just hard doing comparisons to current tech... :D

Heh. Fairly often I'll see comments about bad FX on classic '50s movies, usually something like "I was told how great it was, but the graphics were terrible!" There really weren't any examples of better special effects until "2001" and then "Star Wars" after that. So as I grew up I thought the FX in the better ones was pretty great, unlike folks who started with "Star Wars."

The impressive thing with B5 is that they did do CGI, which let them tell a different story than would have been possible with models. I thought it was VERY good for a TV series at that time. No, it didn't look real, but light beams and sound effects in space don't feel real either. The good thing about B5 was that the story was good enough that the special effects were secondary, unlike, for instance, Star Wars, where the story is a minor detail meant to show off special effects.
Fair enough. I agree that B5 was very good looking I just don't think CGI ages very well. I mean, I can still look at Star Wars and it looks good, because it used real models.

Wow the Mimbari are a bunch of hypocrites, eh? When one of their warleaders died they paraded him around everywhere, including Babylon 5, expecting people to honour him as a great warrior. This is the man who led the attack on Earth, hoping to wipe out the species, fighting against people that couldn't even lock on to his ships. That's not a battle, that's butchery.

Now contrast that to the first episode of the second season. Sherridan, against all odds, managed to destroy some capital ships that were invading his home system. For this he's the "starkiller" and shunned and hated by the Mimbari.

Speaking about the Mimbari, who actually makes stuff in their society? The show's said many time there are two classes, the warrior caste and the religious caste. But who actually produces things? Do they have a alien slave-population do it? Robots? A third caste of lesser Mimbari?

[Disinfo Agent]

Apparently, yes. Keep watching.
Pretty benign people, hey? :roll:

[Lycus]

Speaking about the Mimbari, who actually makes stuff in their society? The show's said many time there are two classes, the warrior caste and the religious caste. But who actually produces things? Do they have a alien slave-population do it? Robots? A third caste of lesser Mimbari?
Yes, there is a worker caste. If I remember correctly, they don't get much attention at all until season 4.

[Doodler]

...On the downside I'm still very unimpressed by the graphics and the ships. ...

For 1994, I thought the graphics were very well done! It's just hard doing comparisons to current tech... :D

Heh. Fairly often I'll see comments about bad FX on classic '50s movies, usually something like "I was told how great it was, but the graphics were terrible!" There really weren't any examples of better special effects until "2001" and then "Star Wars" after that. So as I grew up I thought the FX in the better ones was pretty great, unlike folks who started with "Star Wars."

The impressive thing with B5 is that they did do CGI, which let them tell a different story than would have been possible with models. I thought it was VERY good for a TV series at that time. No, it didn't look real, but light beams and sound effects in space don't feel real either. The good thing about B5 was that the story was good enough that the special effects were secondary, unlike, for instance, Star Wars, where the story is a minor detail meant to show off special effects.
Fair enough. I agree that B5 was very good looking I just don't think CGI ages very well. I mean, I can still look at Star Wars and it looks good, because it used real models.

Wow the Mimbari are a bunch of hypocrites, eh? When one of their warleaders died they paraded him around everywhere, including Babylon 5, expecting people to honour him as a great warrior. This is the man who led the attack on Earth, hoping to wipe out the species, fighting against people that couldn't even lock on to his ships. That's not a battle, that's butchery.

Now contrast that to the first episode of the second season. Sherridan, against all odds, managed to destroy some capital ships that were invading his home system. For this he's the "starkiller" and shunned and hated by the Mimbari.

Speaking about the Mimbari, who actually makes stuff in their society? The show's said many time there are two classes, the warrior caste and the religious caste. But who actually produces things? Do they have a alien slave-population do it? Robots? A third caste of lesser Mimbari?


Yeah, but be mindful of the position the Minbari are in. Ten years prior, they had their fleet parked in Earth orbit ready to wipe humans out completely, there's a bit that will come later in the series explaining why they stopped themselves short of turning the Earth into an irradiated cinder. You also have to understand that their society is not completely unified. While they have a Worker, Religious and Warrior caste, each caste is completely self sufficient, with the Religious and Warrior caste controlling roughly half the military strength each. What reads as hypocrisy is really more like a schism.

Also, with Earthgov's funds wiped out with the loss of Babylon 4, the Minbari paid part of the cost of building Babylon 5, with the caveat that they pick the commander. Y'see, the Earth-Minbari war was started by a gung ho human captain who was ordered to do reconnaisance along the Minbari border prior to official first contact. When he came across a Minbari battlegroup, panicked, and opened fire before retreating, the Minbari were a might bit miffed. The humans managed to heavily damage a cruiser and kill the Minbari leader. So you can imagine, they don't have a lot of faith in the human government's ability to pick effective leadership in the field. Of course, they had other reasons for selecting Sinclair as the first commander, but more on that later. Needless to say, the Minbari (rightfully) don't much care for human soldiers.

[Kizarvexis]

Wow the Mimbari are a bunch of hypocrites, eh? When one of their warleaders died they paraded him around everywhere, including Babylon 5, expecting people to honour him as a great warrior. This is the man who led the attack on Earth, hoping to wipe out the species, fighting against people that couldn't even lock on to his ships. That's not a battle, that's butchery.

The impression I got was that Branmer, the warleader paraded in 'Legacies', was brought to B5 for the Minbari there to see him as well as a snub by the Warrior caste against the humans.


Now contrast that to the first episode of the second season. Sherridan, against all odds, managed to destroy some capital ships that were invading his home system. For this he's the "starkiller" and shunned and hated by the Mimbari.

Here is what jms had to say about this.



Why do the Minbari have a grudge against Sheridan? It was wartime, after all.
They don't much like the way he did it, which was rather sneaky. My sense is that the Minbari have something of a superiority complex; the idea of being beaten, even briefly, by a technically inferior race is going to grate on them. Also, bear in mind, that the military caste has not been fully informed about WHY they were ordered to surrender...so there's a great deal of animosity just barely submerged there, which is pointed at the only real human they know from the war...because he cost them.


It kinda bothered their sense of superiority; also, their sense of honor lies more in the direction of one-to-one combat, rather than mining something as a trap. Consider it the way British troops did toward American revolutionary fighters who hid behind trees and used guerilla tactics rather than fighting the way the British *wanted* them to fight, out in the open, in nice, easily shot-at rows....





Speaking about the Mimbari, who actually makes stuff in their society? The show's said many time there are two classes, the warrior caste and the religious caste. But who actually produces things? Do they have a alien slave-population do it? Robots? A third caste of lesser Mimbari?

The worker caste is the third caste and apparently was added in the second season along with other changes jms made to bring in Sheridan. You can still fit first season caste statements into the rest of the series because the worker caste is not really respected and before Valen's time they were pretty much slave workers. The religious and warrior castes tend to ignore the worker caste, so Lennier's statement that there were two castes can still track by assuming that Lennier was ignoring the worker caste in the explanation for Aldous in 'Grail'.

Kizarvexis

[Kizarvexis]

This appeared on the B5Wars.net forum as posted by Tyrel. I have asked for the source of the post as JMSNews.com hasn't posted anything since Feb 14th. Apparently, if this is true, the theatrical Babylon 5 movie "The Memory of Shadows" is dead in the space.


JMS Says:

The rule of thumb in Hollywood is that for every thousand scripts that get written, only a few dozen get into development, and out of those, only one will ever get made...if that.

A little over a year ago, I was approached by a company that wanted to make a Babylon 5 movie. They optioned the rights, and commissioned a script. (It's worth mentioning that I, not WB, own the rights to a B5 movie. When we were negotiating the original B5 deal -- by whose terms
I will never see a dime in profit -- the one thing they did let me have were the movie rights, figuring they'd never be worth anything in the long run.)

Anyway...on December 27th of 2003, the script for "The Memory of Shadows" was turned in, and the process began of trying to make the deal work with all the various forces involved. It is, to say the least, a very difficult process on any movie where the studio does not directly take the financial reins. In terms of B5, Warner's position was esssentially, "We only do big-budget movies with big names, so you're on your own." If there were big-name movie actors in the film,
they'd get behind it; without that, things become very problematic, especially as far as the financing was concerned. You much have to put together a consortium of international interests and business plans rivaled in complexity only by the Allied invasion of Normandy Beach.

Nonetheless, every attempt was made by the people involved to get this deal in place. This was not being done by Doug or myself, but rather by the company/individuals who approached us and optioned the rights. At times, it seemed we were inches away from a deal...stages were reserved at Elstree, actors were contacted, a director was in place, the script went through many revisions, a few key staff were hired, again not by me...it was really a year-long roller coaster ride. During that time, the people involved, with every good intention, tried very hard to pull the necessary pieces together on the deal. The option expired in late December 2004, but I renewed it without cost, to give those involved more time to try and make things work.

In the end, however, the deal could be put together, and it did not look as if that was going to change at any point in the foreseeable future. So the option has reverted, and to all intents and purposes, the project has dead ended. Nor do I think this particular incarnation will arise again at any point in the future, though prognostication has always been a tricky art, especially if you have to do it without the benefit of hindsight.

This was not the first time someone's taken a run at a B5 feature film, and it will not be the last. Eventually it will happen, because such things are simply inevitable. If they can do a Brady Bunch movie, you can be sure that sooner or later, somebody's going to do a B5 movie.
The only thing I can say without equivocation is that when that day comes, as the rights-holder, I will make darned sure that it's done right, because I'd rather have no B5 movie than one that doesn't live up to what fans and I myself would want to see.

To that end...I can wait.

Anyway, just thought you should know the story.

jms


All I can say is poopy. :cry:

Kizarvexis

[Kizarvexis]

Jms had posted the message above on the moderated B5 usenet board. Since my computer has never liked usenet, I wasn't able to verify it. Tyrel did this morning and JMSNews.com finally caught up today.

Here is the link to the post I posted above. (http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17288)

He also had this rant about WB, but it didn't have anything to do with TMoS. (http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17290)

Kizarvexis

[Makgraf]

Okay that makes sense about the Mimbari.

I'm about halfway through season 2, and wow has it picked up. Lots of action, lots of stuff shifting into high gear and lots of casually mentioned things coming back. And Londo becoming evil... wow. Though he's still very funny ("A divorce!")

So Earth Alliance has an interesting way of naming their ships, eh? An exploration ship named the Cortez? Wow I'd hate to see what they call their medical ships ("Captain, I'm transfering to the EAF Mengele"). Cortez was a vicious massmurderer who destroyed an entire civilization. Not really the image you want to project when encountering new species.

Also in A Spider In The Web, several times people say (paraphrasing) , "Well it couldn't be Free Mars who killed him, he wanted a peaceful solution to the problem". I don't think this is a very good point. I can think of lots of reasons why a violent terrorist group would want a man, who is trying to end a conflict peacefully, dead. First of them is if he does there's not much room for the Free Martians in the new order.

Gropos was an excellent episode, though I would've done the last scene a little differently. Instead of showing the HK shot down (was it just me or did the EA hover-gunships look like Terminator Hunter-Killers?) I would have cut that out and had the first part entirely celebratory. A great cheer comes up from the viewers and then the casuality list is handed to Garibaldi. After he and Keefer see it, then it cuts to all of their friends dead, a grim constrast to the antiseptic video-gamish victorious picture shown earlier.

All in all though, this is an excellent season.

[DataCable]

Gropos was an excellent episode
Lame as it may sound, that ep was the first time I truly understood the meaning of "cannon fodder."

[Kizarvexis]

Okay that makes sense about the Mimbari.

Please, please, it is Minbari. I know sometimes it may sound like a 'm', but it is definitely Minbari.


I'm about halfway through season 2, and wow has it picked up. Lots of action, lots of stuff shifting into high gear and lots of casually mentioned things coming back. And Londo becoming evil... wow. Though he's still very funny ("A divorce!")

Oh yes. The arc is moving and just keeps speeding up throughout the season. Don't get discouraged at the beginning of the next season though. You will think the arc has slowed down, but it has not. Just a lull before the storm. (Every season was like that to try an not scare off new viewers with too much info at once.)


So Earth Alliance has an interesting way of naming their ships, eh? An exploration ship named the Cortez? Wow I'd hate to see what they call their medical ships ("Captain, I'm transfering to the EAF Mengele"). Cortez was a vicious massmurderer who destroyed an entire civilization. Not really the image you want to project when encountering new species.

Jms had this to say about the 'Cortez'.

Should a ship have been named after Cortez, considering what effect his arrival had on the native Americans?

If Cortez had NOT landed in northern Mexico, do you think it would have remained undiscovered until now?
Fact #1: somebody was bound to discover the Americas.

Fact #2: any sufficiently advanced civilization or culture will inevitably attempt to exploit any civilization or culture not sufficiently advanced to fight back on a level playing field.

Blaming explorers for exploring has always seemed to me really kind of silly; do people *really* think that if Columbus hadn't landed here, it'd be 1994 and we still wouldn't know the world was round and that this continent was here? It doesn't matter who discovered it, the same result would've come. Somebody had to discover it sooner or later.

Also in A Spider In The Web, several times people say (paraphrasing) , "Well it couldn't be Free Mars who killed him, he wanted a peaceful solution to the problem". I don't think this is a very good point. I can think of lots of reasons why a violent terrorist group would want a man, who is trying to end a conflict peacefully, dead. First of them is if he does there's not much room for the Free Martians in the new order.

You get to see more about 'Free Mars' in later episodes and they are protrayed as more freedom fighter than terrorist.

All in all though, this is an excellent season.

Yep, and it just gets better from there.

Kizarvexis

[Makgraf]

Okay that makes sense about the Mimbari.

Please, please, it is Minbari. I know sometimes it may sound like a 'm', but it is definitely Minbari.
:oops:. I've been saying "Mimbari" all this time.

I'm about halfway through season 2, and wow has it picked up. Lots of action, lots of stuff shifting into high gear and lots of casually mentioned things coming back. And Londo becoming evil... wow. Though he's still very funny ("A divorce!")

Oh yes. The arc is moving and just keeps speeding up throughout the season. Don't get discouraged at the beginning of the next season though. You will think the arc has slowed down, but it has not. Just a lull before the storm. (Every season was like that to try an not scare off new viewers with too much info at once.)


So Earth Alliance has an interesting way of naming their ships, eh? An exploration ship named the Cortez? Wow I'd hate to see what they call their medical ships ("Captain, I'm transfering to the EAF Mengele"). Cortez was a vicious massmurderer who destroyed an entire civilization. Not really the image you want to project when encountering new species.

Jms had this to say about the 'Cortez'.

Should a ship have been named after Cortez, considering what effect his arrival had on the native Americans?

If Cortez had NOT landed in northern Mexico, do you think it would have remained undiscovered until now?
Fact #1: somebody was bound to discover the Americas.

Fact #2: any sufficiently advanced civilization or culture will inevitably attempt to exploit any civilization or culture not sufficiently advanced to fight back on a level playing field.

Blaming explorers for exploring has always seemed to me really kind of silly; do people *really* think that if Columbus hadn't landed here, it'd be 1994 and we still wouldn't know the world was round and that this continent was here? It doesn't matter who discovered it, the same result would've come. Somebody had to discover it sooner or later.
JMS is great at making Babylon 5. But he's simply wrong here. The problem with what Cortez did was not the passive after effects of the discovery. For example, I don't blame Cortez for the fact that one of his slaves likely transmitted smallpox to the locals, igniting a massive pandemic. As JMS points out, that would have happened eventually. I blame him for leading an armed band who massacred their way through Mexico. I'm reading his "Letters From Mexico" right now and it's horrific how blase he is about describing entire villages burnt alive or the tortures he inflicts upon people.

Also in A Spider In The Web, several times people say (paraphrasing) , "Well it couldn't be Free Mars who killed him, he wanted a peaceful solution to the problem". I don't think this is a very good point. I can think of lots of reasons why a violent terrorist group would want a man, who is trying to end a conflict peacefully, dead. First of them is if he does there's not much room for the Free Martians in the new order.

You get to see more about 'Free Mars' in later episodes and they are protrayed as more freedom fighter than terrorist.

All in all though, this is an excellent season.

Yep, and it just gets better from there.

Kizarvexis
Well I guess I'll keep watching.

Incidentally where are these JMS quotes coming from? Interviews?

[ToSeek]

Okay that makes sense about the Mimbari.

Please, please, it is Minbari. I know sometimes it may sound like a 'm', but it is definitely Minbari.



There's an actress in one of the blooper reels who comes out with the memorable phrase, "The Minibar War." ;)

[Kizarvexis]

Incidentally where are these JMS quotes coming from? Interviews?

I hesitate to tell you this because of the temptation to read ahead and spoil the series.

JMSNews.com (http://www.jmsnews.com/) has every comment that jms posted on USENET, Genie, Compuserve, AOL, etc. The comments are listed in the order they appeared on the net. Not all are about Babylon 5.

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html) has an episode guide with jms' comments for that ep posted on the page.

I can't stress again that both of these pages have massive spoilers and will reveal the story that is unfolding for you. I ask you as someone who went through the story for the first time with some spoilers, you will want to get as few spoilers the first time you see the show as it is so much more fun that way. Reading about an ep on The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html) after you have seen it should be fine. It has some good analysis by the website creator as well as jms comments on each ep.

Kizarvexis

[Makgraf]

Incidentally where are these JMS quotes coming from? Interviews?

I hesitate to tell you this because of the temptation to read ahead and spoil the series.

JMSNews.com (http://www.jmsnews.com/) has every comment that jms posted on USENET, Genie, Compuserve, AOL, etc. The comments are listed in the order they appeared on the net. Not all are about Babylon 5.

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html) has an episode guide with jms' comments for that ep posted on the page.

I can't stress again that both of these pages have massive spoilers and will reveal the story that is unfolding for you. I ask you as someone who went through the story for the first time with some spoilers, you will want to get as few spoilers the first time you see the show as it is so much more fun that way. Reading about an ep on The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html) after you have seen it should be fine. It has some good analysis by the website creator as well as jms comments on each ep.

Kizarvexis
That is a very cool site. I'll avoid the first one though and just read the Lurker's guide up to the present episodes (thanks for the spoiler warning). It's great that JMS was doing that.

[CTM VT 2K]

It was great to have the Lurker's Guide avialable during the first-run of the show. My station showed the show shortly before the next show got uplinked from WB, so much of the analysis and notes had already been made on it. A group of friends of mine and I would watch the show then go read the analysis right after - we started near the end of Season 2, and were doing so solidly through season 4. There's almost nothing done as a "throwaway" in the series, so much has an impact from week to week.

Having the whole collection to watch, it is tempting to sit and watch the whole series in a few massive blocks. I've found it's best to space it out, either one a day, or one a week - otherwise you loose some of the suspence that was so much a part of the original.

Best of all, is watching it with someone for the first time. I love being Kosh-like in my responces and seeing the reaction to certain events. (Best of all for me, my GF has not seen the series despite it being in a genre she's interested in, so I get to properly introduce her to it =D> )

[Rich]

It was great to have the Lurker's Guide avialable during the first-run of the show. My station showed the show shortly before the next show got uplinked from WB, so much of the analysis and notes had already been made on it. A group of friends of mine and I would watch the show then go read the analysis right after - we started near the end of Season 2, and were doing so solidly through season 4. There's almost nothing done as a "throwaway" in the series, so much has an impact from week to week.

Having the whole collection to watch, it is tempting to sit and watch the whole series in a few massive blocks. I've found it's best to space it out, either one a day, or one a week - otherwise you loose some of the suspence that was so much a part of the original.

Best of all, is watching it with someone for the first time. I love being Kosh-like in my responces and seeing the reaction to certain events. (Best of all for me, my GF has not seen the series despite it being in a genre she's interested in, so I get to properly introduce her to it =D> )

Same here. I loved watching my wife watch the series for the first time. Especially when you-know-who, goes you-know-where, and everyone thinks he is you-know-what. That was an awesome cliffhanger. The show was in reruns but went on a month long-hiatus after that season cliffhanger and my wife made at least one comment about it everyday:


***MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING***








She just kept saying, "Sheridan isn't really dead... right??? There's just no way he's dead.... right??? They wouldn't kill him off... right???"

To which I typically just said, "No. He's dead. He is really, totally dead."

Which of course is completely and utterly true (with a caveat that I always left out so as not to spoil the next episode).

The best part was her repsonse just about everytime: "Liar! He's not dead... I hate you, why would you lie to me about that?" Either that or she just pouted. In the end she was glad I didn't tell her how it turned out, plus I got to say, "See... I told you he was really dead."













***END SPOILER****

Anyway, that was one of my favorite experiences of viewing with someone else. That, and she cries more than I do when we watch the last episode... so that makes me feel better.

[Lycus]

Rich, a useful thing to do for spoilers is to change the color of the text, then people who want to read it can just highlight it. Edit your post and give it a shot. If you don't know the code for this background, white works well enough (especially inside of a quote box).

[Rich]

Yeah, good suggestion Lycus. I just always figure most people can just scroll right past if they really don't want to read... but I suppose precautions should still be taken.

[Jpax2003]

I didn't start watching B5 until S5 on TNT. Even then I didn't watch it right away, but started sometime in S5. Added to this was the fact that they played other episides from earlier seasons right before which had Sinclair and not Sheridan and it was really confusing. I didn't know about JMS on usenet or the lurker's guide at the time. It wasn't until it got aired by SFC that I was able to watch it from start to end with Lurker's Guide commentary linked from the SFC mboards. Funny how I was fairly new to the series in re-runs yet I am still considered a First One on that board/forum. Oddly enough there were still episodes I never saw until I got the DVDs...I always seemed to miss the purple file ep when it aired.

[CTM VT 2K]

Oddly enough there were still episodes I never saw until I got the DVDs...I always seemed to miss the purple file ep when it aired.

I missed Babylon Squared when it aired. Nobody - including the uber-geek who recorded every Sci-Fi show and rand the hobby store in town - had a copy of it. It was a super-critical episode as far as foreshadowing and hints of what was to come

Spoiler Warning
War Without End (season 3) is the ballance of this time-travel episode, and I couldn't get my hands on a tape of B^2 until AFTER I saw WWE.
Part of the problem was that there were only a handful of episodes between B^2 and the end of the season, and the changeover in Commander. The PTEN/WB Execs decided that showing Season 1 reruns after Season 2 started would just confuse people, so B^2 only aired once until it hit syndication years later.


I missed the Purple File episode for a while as well, but it wasn't as critical to the storyline.

The continuing story-line on a defined arc was what made B5 special. It wasn't just another "spatial anomoly of the week" Sci-Fi show, it wasn't a space-based soap-opera or Dallas (there are those who will disagree with me, but soaps and shows like Dallas or 24 may have season-long arcs, but don't have a planned-out story lasting years. It has the Romance Factor for the female geeks, and the cool space battles for the regular geeks (Non-geeks may enjoy it as well, but everybody I know who watched it were geeks of some variety). I think B5 was all too rare a thing, much like the Original Star Trek, and it will be a great while before we see another show like it.

edit: correct a tag

[Jpax2003]

Oddly enough there were still episodes I never saw until I got the DVDs...I always seemed to miss the purple file ep when it aired.

I missed Babylon Squared when it aired. Nobody - including the uber-geek who recorded every Sci-Fi show and rand the hobby store in town - had a copy of it. It was a super-critical episode as far as foreshadowing and hints of what was to comeOh No! I bet you had to suffer years before you got the inside jokes about Fasten-Zip.

[CTM VT 2K]

Oh No! I bet you had to suffer years before you got the inside jokes about Fasten-Zip.

Wanna talk socks?

I am not having this conversation.

[Metricyard]

I missed the Purple File episode for a while as well, but it wasn't as critical to the storyline.

That was a great episode. Well, the story wasn't important. But I have a thing for scantily clad bald ponytailed women. Lady Adira should have married me. What did she get for going out with that low life Londo? (I can't say because of spoilers).

[Doodler]

I missed the Purple File episode for a while as well, but it wasn't as critical to the storyline.

Actually, it was, just in a VERY subtle way. A lot of what drives Londo towards the end stems from his run in with Adira in the Purple File episode.

[CTM VT 2K]

True enough, but by the time the show got that far, I had caught it. Besides, all along I had the Lurker's Guide to cover the eps that I couldn't/didn't catch.

[Jpax2003]

Oh No! I bet you had to suffer years before you got the inside jokes about Fasten-Zip.

Wanna talk socks?

I am not having this conversation.Speaking of socks, Sheridan does have a conversation about socks later in the series. JMS always likes to link everything. Perhaps Garibaldi meant Sox as in Baseball. But in retrospect I think he liked the Dodgers, based on his affinity for Daffy Duck and a certain female Gropo...

[Van Rijn]

Oh No! I bet you had to suffer years before you got the inside jokes about Fasten-Zip.

Speaking of which:

http://b5.alienharmony.com/other/fasten.htm

If you know the B5 characters, you will get these jokes. If you don't, you won't have a clue.

[Jpax2003]

Oh No! I bet you had to suffer years before you got the inside jokes about Fasten-Zip.

Speaking of which:

http://b5.alienharmony.com/other/fasten.htm

If you know the B5 characters, you will get these jokes. If you don't, you won't have a clue.I got some for them. Some possible spoilers, so highlight to read.

Al Bester: The Corps is Fasten, The Corps is Zip.

Lyta Alexander: Oh, I want to help you but I can't fasten-zip, you know that!

Elizabeth Lochley: Which side was I on, Fasten or Zip? I was on the side of Pants.

Marcus Cole: You can get more with a Fasten-Zip and a two-by-four than you can with just a Fasten-Zip.

Vir: I want to live just long enough to see your pants on a clothesline as a warning to others that some Fastens come with too high a Zip!

[Charly]

Forget Sheridans socks...

What I want to know is what he did with the fragments of the Black Star Ivanhova gave him for Christmas??

I wonder if he took it with him to Minbar, and put it up on the matlepiece. Could be an interesting topic of conversation if they ever had any guests over....

[Makgraf]

I just realized what I'm posting are spoilers as well. So I guess all my posts should have big SPOILER alerts on them.









Okay, so I'm almost finished season 2 and it's really picking up. The scary thing is events have shown that JMS will do anything. I mean he's replaced the captain, made a major character a traitor and wiped out an entire race.

G'Kar is doing a terrible job as ambassador. I can sympathize with his position, but he's got to get his emotions under control here. I know it's hard for a proud race like the Narn to play the victim card (note even the propaganda movie he shows them shows a Narn ship boldy sacrificing itself to save civilians) but he probably could've drawn Earth into the war, or at least caused a major diplomatic incident. As it was the events of And Now For A Word was more of a "Pox on both their houses type thing".

And wow, was that a great episode. Something completely unprecedented, interesting and hilarious. I loved the fake commercial with the subliminable [sic] messages in it. It seems that ISN is growing more and more under the influence of these new orwellian sounding ministries.

And speaking of Orwellian... In the shadow of Z'ha'dum has an actual Orwellian ministry in it. I see the Nightwatch recruiter as a very ironic person because he jokes about calling his ministry by the newspeak name. I see him as a former ad executive or salesman or something, sitting around the office laughing at the absurdity of making real propaganda for a change.

In Confessions and Lamentations everyone was scratching their heads as to why the Pak'ma'ra, out of all the alien species on babylon 5, had picked up the plague. I was yelling at the tv (actually, my computer): "Hmm... could it have anything to do with the fact that they eat corpses?!?" As it turns out, no, it didn't. Kinda disapointing that. And can I say something again about JMS' chutzpah in destroying an entire race that he'd developed and paid for costumes. Can you imagine in Star Trek, them suddenly saying "BTW, the feregini are all dead".

The latest episode I've seen, Divided Loyalties was really a shocker. Three big relevations here, Ivanova's telepathy, Talia's treachery and Ivanova's 'choice of lifestyle' (not necessarily in that order). Not only does the sleeper personality make Talia a traitor it also makes her a real [deleted]. Lyta seemed like an interesting character, I probably should see The Gathering at some point (the first season dvd I got started off at Midnight).

A prediction for the future. There will be a new telepath on Babylon 5. Ivanova is going to have serious issues with him/her.

Oh and isn't it funny how the introduction starts by saying B5 is the last, best hope for peace" and then follows it up by saying that that was the year the great war started. Obviously, misplaced hope.

[JonnyWishbone]

I envy you, Makgraf -- I remember how much fun it was watching B5 as it unfolded, being fairly consistently surprised and delighted, watching characters change. By the end, my two favourite characters were ones I hated when they first appeared -- G'Kar and Marcus, who you've yet to meet. Well, and Garabaldi. Got to like Garabaldi.

I've always thought of the plague episode and the first season episode in which the doctor operates on the alien child despite his species' religious beliefs as being defining moments that said 'this series is not Trek.'

Cheers, Jon

[DataCable]

I've always thought of the plague episode and the first season episode in which the doctor operates on the alien child despite his species' religious beliefs as being defining moments that said 'this series is not Trek.'
And I've seen both explicitly referenced as examples of JMS's aversion to "cute." Both had cute kids... who died. :-({|=

[JonnyWishbone]

Also makes perfect sense, DataCable, especially when you include the B5 episode in which the robotic dog that's been built to replace a mourning moppet's dead real dog turns out to be a particularly nasty piece of ShadowTech.

Cheers, Jon

[Doodler]

I've always thought of the plague episode and the first season episode in which the doctor operates on the alien child despite his species' religious beliefs as being defining moments that said 'this series is not Trek.'

Cheers, Jon

I thought his Trek-slap from end of one episode of Crusade was absolutely beautiful.

If any of you have seen the episode that was a homage to the X-Files, you know the conversation. :)

[Damburger]

so I'm almost finished season 2 and it's really picking up

The latest episode I've seen, Divided Loyalties

Oh, you've not seen anything yet :D

IIRC the next episode you are going to watch is The Long, Twiglight Struggle. Thats quite a :o episode, I'll say no more...

EDIT: Anyone else notice how the Narns and the Markabs were the only two races really trying to warn people about the Shadows in Season 2? No wonder the Minbari were keeping quiet.

[Metricyard]

so I'm almost finished season 2 and it's really picking up

The latest episode I've seen, Divided Loyalties

Oh, you've not seen anything yet :D

IIRC the next episode you are going to watch is The Long, Twiglight Struggle. Thats quite a :o episode, I'll say no more...

EDIT: Anyone else notice how the Narns and the Markabs were the only two races really trying to warn people about the Shadows in Season 2? No wonder the Minbari were keeping quiet.

Man, I wish I was seeing B5 for the first time again. You (Damburger) haven't even reached the top of the roller-coaster. Finish up season 2, because season 3 is where the fun really begins.

One thing that JMS was really good at was character development. The characters you hated in the first season turn out to be quite different by the end. The characters you liked the most change too. Whether the change is good or bad really depends how far in the show you are.

I've always wanted to go to the Vorlon home world. I can relate to them. Maybe someday.

[Damburger]

Man, I wish I was seeing B5 for the first time again. You (Damburger) haven't even reached the top of the roller-coaster. Finish up season 2, because season 3 is where the fun really begins.

One thing that JMS was really good at was character development. The characters you hated in the first season turn out to be quite different by the end. The characters you liked the most change too. Whether the change is good or bad really depends how far in the show you are.

I've always wanted to go to the Vorlon home world. I can relate to them. Maybe someday.

It's not me who is watching it for the first time. I've all 5 seasons on DVD and have watched them all.

As for the Vorlons - never really liked them - if they were so wise they wouldn't treat the younger races like insects. I'm not a big Minbari fan either - arrogant hypocrites with a genocidal streak. The Centauri are shallow and callous. The Narns are the only race I can relate to at all.

[Metricyard]

Man, I wish I was seeing B5 for the first time again. You (Damburger) haven't even reached the top of the roller-coaster. Finish up season 2, because season 3 is where the fun really begins.

One thing that JMS was really good at was character development. The characters you hated in the first season turn out to be quite different by the end. The characters you liked the most change too. Whether the change is good or bad really depends how far in the show you are.

I've always wanted to go to the Vorlon home world. I can relate to them. Maybe someday.

It's not me who is watching it for the first time. I've all 5 seasons on DVD and have watched them all.

As for the Vorlons - never really liked them - if they were so wise they wouldn't treat the younger races like insects. I'm not a big Minbari fan either - arrogant hypocrites with a genocidal streak. The Centauri are shallow and callous. The Narns are the only race I can relate to at all.

Oops, sorry about that. :oops: That should have been addressed to Makgraf (too many embedded quotes. Well, not really, but I'm sticking to that excuse.)

As far as the Vorlons are concerned, I think Kosh was an exception. I liked Kosh. Seems like alot of the older races had a bit of an attitude.

[Doodler]

SPOILER WARNING
































That's part of the reason Lorien finally steps in and ushers them off beyond the rim. The older races had developed so far beyond the newcomers that there was no real way the two generations of races could relate. The First Ones had outgrown this region of the galaxy and needed to move on.

The Earth-Minbari conflict was really a meeting of the two worst aspects of each race. Humans thinking that one major victory against a more advanced culture meant that they could stand up to anything and the Minbari having been unchallenged for so long that they had become dismissive of the possible threat of the lesser races. Two species at the peak of overconfidence walking headlong into each other.

The Centauri were a race all too aware of how far they had fallen. Even as far back as The Gathering, Londo admits as much to Garibaldi. They had fallen so far, their only hope of legitimacy was to ally themselves with the humans. They were a has been empire making a living off their own pomp and circumstance.

While I'm at it, let me dissect the Humans of this little drama. Earthgov wasn't exactly on the side of the angels with the Shadow War either. EarthForce had to be subjugated after the First Ones were gone. And while it grated me at first, it was only after I realized JMS probably hit the nail on the head with his portrayal of Earth's provincial attitude towards its colo