Ok…I need a little break, so I currently have Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law at home - after that I’ll go back to B5. 
Thanks.
The bear cracks me up on that show every time he turns up. Such a stupid running gag, but it slays me. 
About 6-7 good episodes, 5 or so average ones, and a lot of disappointing ones. However, you should really just go ahead and watch it at this point. It’s not crushingly terrible.
Not quite. If there had been no uncertainty regarding Season 5, “Intersections in Real Time” would have been the Season 4 finale, and the civil war on Earth would’ve taken up the first half or so of the last season. The Byron arc was always going to happen; it just happened sooner than planned.
It wasn’t a navigational hazard in the sense of an iceberg…it was a navigational hazard in the sense of ready-to-be-occupied-pirate-base, highly defensible with easy access to a hyperspace gate.
The problem I had with blowing it up is that it creates all sorts of debris right outside a jump gate. Why didn’t they just use the Great Machine to place it into a decaying orbit around its star, or just swat it out of existence. Shit, Sinclair didn’t use Draal for fuck-all else during the war. The least he could do is let him zap B5.
Draal helped Ivanova send out her Voice of the Resistance broadcasts, giving the B5 crew a away to defend themselves from the propaganda that ISN was sending out. Also, there was the small contribution of sending B4 back in time, ensuring that the Vorlons and Minbari won the Shadow War a thousand years before, and thus preventing the destruction of B5 as foreseen by Sinclair and Garibaldi back in “Babylon Squared”. All things considered, it got used for a lot, it just didn’t happen to be nearby for much of the action from season 3 onward.
That’s why I said “during the war.” Sinclair was so big on not revealing Draal (except for his broadcast to everyone) and saving him as an ace in the hole, and then he never played him! Biggest waste of a weapon ever.
You’re thinking of Sheridan, not Sinclair. Don’t worry though, white people all look the same to me too. 
It could just be argued that Sheridan ultimately never needed to use the Great Machine, outside if the times we saw it used.
I only bumped this thread to say, I finally finished the series! It only took forever. I ended up liking it so much that I have bought the first four seasons on DVD, and I am starting over - it usually takes at least two viewings of something to “stick” in my head. I am also watching Season 1 with much more diligence than I did the first time, not just watching just the recommended episodes. For example, I don’t think I ever saw the episode where Adira was introduced, so it felt to me as though they just shoehorned her in - obviously not.
It is incredibly amusing and charming to watch Delenn in these early episodes - she is just so young! And yet you can see hints of steel in her and the woman she’ll become.
Garibaldi is thin, and Vir Cotto is fat - both of them switched in later seasons. Frankin is back to being smug, but you know now there’s a fall waiting to happen.
Anyway, i just wanted to say thank you to you all for this seven page thread - I never would have stuck by it if you all hadn’t told me to keep going. Brilliant, brilliant show. And I have turned into a B5 fan - I keep telling other people “It’s better than you think!”
Yay!
LOL. Reminds me of the line about Wagner’s music being better than it sounds.
That’s awesome to read! I, for one, am glad you enjoy it!
One more thing I wanted to add: There’s a couple of Deep Thoughts I got from this show that I really appreciate, value, and agree with. Right off the bat, there’s the central conceit/concept of the show:
“We are the universe manifest, trying to figure ourselves out.”
Meaning the universe didn’t understand itself so it brought forth thinking, sentient creatures to try and figure out what it all meant. That resonates with me, an atheist and secular humanist, in many ways and is an incredibly neat concept.
Secondly, towards the very end of the series, Franklin and someone (I think G’Kar?) have a conversation about why the universe poses us with such difficult problems, and Franklin responds with the classic dilemna: ‘Can God create a rock so big even he can’t move it?’ and amends it to say:
“Can God make a puzzle so difficult, a riddle so complex, even he can’t solve it? What if that’s us?”
And then goes on to say that perhaps in a bit of affectionate pique* for not being able to solve us, the universe (God) presents us with equally difficult dilemnas.
That also made me smile and made me think.
*Grammar complaint: this is the word for this feeling. NOT Peak or Peek or anything else. They all mean something different!
Yep. If nothing else, B5 made you think every now and then. The questions raised by “Passing Through Gesthemane” can keep a discussion group roiled for days.
They also get off some lines that resonate:
Sebastian: How do you know the Chosen Ones? “No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.” Not for millions…not for glory…not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.
One of the very first shows:
[QUOTE=Jeffrey Sinclair:]
Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you’ll get ten different answers, but there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us. It’ll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars.
[/QUOTE]
Sometimes people ask why we should invest money in the space program when there are so many, many things here on Earth that also need care. This is why.
Don’t stop now! There’s the movies, and Crusade, and the Lost Tales! 
Which are three really good reasons to stop now!
Hey now, Galen figures in all three of those! (OK, only one of the movies…)
Mmmm, Galen…
Way back when it was on the air, I would watch an episode and immediately head over to the Lurker’s Guide for notes from JMS. It was indispensable resource and worth checking out. Pleased to see that’s being archived.
And I also know a guy who provided set dressings (astrophotography) for the show. He has a website here and you will recognize many of the prints. Myself, I have 'View from the Shuttle" hanging over my bed, just like Sheridan.
