I don’t know if I’d call it a “protracted exchange” – more like a swap of in-jokes. JMS and Peter David are friends; PAD’s written several B5 novels, and IIRC one of the episodes.
The “teddy bear exchange” was between Babylon 5 and Space Cases, a Nickelodeon sci-fi kid show produced by PAD and Bill Mumy. I don’t remember the details, alas, but I definitely remember it as friendly antagonism more than anything else.
Yup, my biggest disappointment with B5 was the failure to show Garibaldi getting his final revenge. To me, it violated the cardinal “If you show a ticking bomb…” rule of writing.
Hold on now for my rant (spoiler alert, for anyone who cares about these stupid books):
The birth of PsiCorps books totally sucked! Migod, the stupidest, silliest piece of trash I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. All of the important events in the actual beginning of PsiCorps happened “offscreen”; we got a bunch of silly, unconnected events featuring totally forgettable people. And trying to humanize Bester just didn’t work! Long, interminable, boring scenes of him leading a normal life; big wup. And then, the final laugh-fest: Garibaldi stuck in a garbage chute. Unbelievably bad.
I’m amazed that JMS authorized those dumb books; the Garibaldi that he wrote would never be that stupid.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the opinions here that Babylon 5 was great TV, but the PsiCorps trilogy books just stink.
In “Up the Long Ladder,” the Irish sterotype was sweeping up the straw that had been transported up with the livestock and Riker told her that the ship was self-cleaning. Presumably every Star Fleet vessel from Next gen forward was self-cleaning. Unknown about the TOS ships or DS9.
I remember reading in The Advocate several years ago that JMS included the all-too-brief Ivanova/Winters romance subplot in response to the controversy that surrounded the Next Gen episodes “The Most Toys” and “The Host” and Star Trek’s all-around failure to include identifiably queer folk in their vision of the future. One of the ST producers made some comment along the lines of ‘what do you expect us to do, have them swishing through the hallways of the Enterprise wearing pink triangles?’ My thought was, sure, why not? Scotty and Worf got to wear non-standard uniform items which reflected their cultural heritage, so why not have a queer crew member wearing a “tribal symbol” like a pink triangle? Although Riker always yelled at Ro Laren for wearing her earring…but I digress. ST responded to the controversy by producing the horrifyingly awful J’nai episode and B5 developed the Susan/Talia relationship.
And I absolutely LOVED the episode with Marcus and Stephen posing as a married couple! I didn’t much care for Marcus as a character but my estimation of him increased immensely after the “marital bickering” in the tube car. Just watched that again the other night on SciFi and laughed with delight all over again.
B5 also touched on so many issues that most future-set sci fi ignores. It didn’t assume that the problems we faced were goign to be fixed or even could be fixed. It dramatized politics, economics, race relations, behind-the-scenes stuff that normally isn’t given much attention in the utopian series like, um, Trek.
“Passing Through Gethsemane” was an excellent episode, very thoughtful stuff.
Man, I miss B5.
**
I agree. I always felt cheated by Star Trek when they present a future that never comes to pass. And what the hell is it with Star Fleet careers? These people remain at the same assignment for 7 years or more? Riker was offered command of his own ship and he actually turned it down. How dead would his career be at that point?
Marc
I LOVE B5. I got hooked on it during the first round of reruns…one evening in late October of last year, I was flipping channels, and there was Sinclair. I’ve been a Trekkie since 1987, but knew about B5, and had heard it was really good. And I knew this was a first season episode. (Unfortunately, I forget which one.) So I started watching. Within a couple of weeks, I realized I had a new addiction. And my VCR was broken. Imagine the difficulty in being home from eight to nine, every weeknight, for several months. But I mostly succeeded. Damn fine show.
Now I have managed to hook my mom and my brother. Do I get a reward for that? 
And not just Riker! Heck, Starfleet had been decimated and IRL any officer who could find his butt with both hands, and many who couldn’t, would have been given commands!
Yeah, B5 was a better show. Never could convince Wife of that basic fact, though.
I liked B5…unfortunately, they stopped the translated episodes after the end of season 3. The last episode that was aired is the one of Emperor Kush out of his casing to save Sheridan. Someone mentioned maybe they could answer some questions…and here they go:
After Sheridan’s rescue by Kush, the different races mentioned that the figure they saw(Kush) appared in their mytholigies. So…Who the hell was Kush, and what does he(or the race) meant to the other races?
(Again, about Kush)- In the episode where there is an alien sucking people’s lives, they show that the sucking alien uses the dress of Kush. So…was Kush the murderer?
One of my favorite episodes of the show(that I could see) is the one were a whole race is exterminated by a disease.
Babylon 5 was incredible, I was a huge fan when it was on and though I don’t watch the reruns as much as I’d like, my appreciation for Straczynski’s work has not dimmed.
It was so entertaining and real because the story was so DEEP. Straczynski knew everything that happened in his universe in obscene detail five years before and after the series; in decent detail for a hundred years each way, and had outlines that spanned a thousand years.
On the subject of religion, it goes beyond Sinclair gathering the leaders of all human religions to give validity to every belief; a lot of the characters were extremely religious (most notably Delenn and Lennier, but also G’Kar, Londo Mollari and Susan Ivanova showed their religious side at times). I wasn’t particularly religious when I fell into the series, but I appreciated that – pretty much the opposite of the time the humans in Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld books derisively laughed at a character who suggested that humans have souls.
Anyway I remember Crusade; I saw most of the episodes (missed the first two; didn’t have cable just then). I loved that show, because it was so incredibly weird. Also it recognized how bizarre it would be to have no language barrier with new aliens: “Either these aliens have had some prior relationship with Earth, or there is one hell of a busy English teacher wandering around this part of the galaxy.”
Ah well; I’m done for now.
Karl:
All of the witnesses except Lando saw the rescue. IIRC, Lando only saw Sheridan falling really slow. I don’t remember the explaination in the episode of what others saw, but Sheridan saw an angel. I think the explaination was that the Vorlons had visited the other races in the distant past.
No. The Bad Men were preying on the fact that no one knew what a Vorlon looked like and people fear what they don’t know. It was a different thing, an alien that Lando was familiar with and scared witless of that was in the encounter suit.
If I’m remembering it wrong (it’s been awhile since I saw it), someone will correct me or add to it.
“So I run to da sea / It was boilin’ / I run to da sea / It was boilin’, Lawd! / Oh hite me, Lawd!”
–Tim
See, y’all are comparing B5 to the wrong Star Trek–you need to compare it against DS9, and that’s where it comes up short.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great–and I am a big fan of Straczynski (regualar reader of Rising Stars, and have started picking up Spider Man now that he’s writing it)–but it just goesn’t stack up.
Um, it’s Kosh and Londo.
Poor, poor DS9. Loved the show, especially when they started to attempt arc storylines - seems the fans of ST were starting to like B5 because of it, and someone at Paramount got a clue. Sadly, because of the way they write ST, arcs just don’t work. Pity - DS9 had some good points to it, but B5 just, IMHO, blows it out of space.
Esprix
But at least in ST they had an explanation for why most of the races were humanoid races. Sure, each one may represent a part of our society (which i think is a cool feature in and of itself), but at least they didn’t leave us in the dark about it.
Thank you. For some reason that didn’t look right when I was typing.
I wrote Kush because that’s the way it sounds in the translated(Spanish) series. I always said Londo, and was surprised Arden wrote Lando.
About Sheridan’s fall:
He noticed there was a bomb in the boxcar(or whatever the name). He decided to jump and use Babylon’s system of gravity to try and soften the fall. Delenn and Kosh noticed that, and Delenn said to Kosh that Sheridan’s action would not lessen the fall (something to do with time and altitude, I think). So Kosh takes out his disguise and saves Sheridan. Yea, I thought that Sheridan saw an angel. But if he saw the human depiction of an angel, did the other aliens saw their “alien” depictions of an angel (or visitor from other place)?
Hmm…if only I had money and a DVD to buy the series…
**
Personally I think it comes out miles ahead of DS9. The storyline was better, the characters were more complex, and in the pilot episode they didn’t change the laws of physics to move an entire space station in a few minutes time.
In what way does it not stack up?
Marc
The Vorlons had apparantly visited many of the younger races in the past. Basically they manipulated the younger races into viewing the Vorlons as whatever version of angels they had. Apparantly it takes some effort on the part of Kosh as that entire incident made him tired and he had to rest for an entire episode.
They also think that Vorlons were the ones who created telepaths in many races including humans. It would certainly explain the relatively recent discovery of telepaths and the genes they have.
Marc
The Vorlon had programed the younger races that when they see a Vorlon outside of the encounter suit, they would see their deitie(sp). This is why everyone saw a different person helping Sheridan. Londo didn’t see anyone because he was touched by darkness (the Shadows)
I loved DS9 too. I still think it’s a really cool show.
But…I still feel a bit weird about B5, just because I’m hooked on it in the exact same way that I was hooked on TNG when it started (I was 11.) In other words, for several months there I was constantly thinking about it. Even DREAMED about it. Tried to tell my mom how good it was even with her comments about the “guys with the funny hair.” (She isn’t laughing at Londo anymore, that I can promise you, even if he DOES have funny hair.)
I have been known to deliberately buy swedish meatballs just to eat during the show, for Chrissake. I’m obsessed.