Does Babylon 5 get any better? (pilot episode spoilers)

Cafe Society
41

Wel, I watched Episode ‘2’, or the first episode of the show, and it was significantly better already. They even changed the psychic, though I see she comes back later, but all better actors, and I have to admit, the security guy grew on me a bit.

Though I can never get over the security guy himself going to arrest someone without a security team, or worse yet, the Commander of the station going out on a run! It’s still better than Stargate SG-1 wherein I am reduced to yelling at the screen, “QUARANTINE! QUARANTINE, YOU FUCKS! 8 OUT OF 10 OF THEM CAUGHT THE DISEASE, QUARANTINE THE OTHER TWO!”

I don’t mind the CGI, actually.

42

Reference the list. You can just watch the key 8 episodes or so and get the necessary information, then proceed to Season 2 where things get good. Garibaldi will more than grow on you. He will likely become one of you favorite characters. (And wait until you find out what his password is!)

Parliament of Dreams
And the Sky Full of Stars
Signs and Portents
Eyes
A Voice in the Wilderness
Babylon Squared
The Quality of Mercy
Chrysalis

All the others are skippable or worse.

43

What everyone else said.

I’m slowly watching my way through the boxset and have just finished “Into the Fire” in S4, which was freaking awesome. That’s the way to do a space battle, people.

I watched the show when it was on television but moved overseas between seasons 3 and 4 and only caught odd episodes after that, so I’m now into episodes I’ve never seen before. Yes, Season 1 is clunky but it’s all set-up for the next three seasons so you need it to understand what comes next. It does pick up substantially a few episodes into season 2.

No views on season 5 because I managed to miss all of it except A View from the Gallery the first time around (is that the one with Penn and Teller in it?).

44

No, they were in (Googles to be sure) “Day of the Dead”. Which wasn’t a bad episode, but felt a little out of place to me: It felt like it would have been more at home on The Twilight Zone or the like, than on Babylon 5 (aside from the fact that it depended on already knowing the characters).

45

No, but they do appear. Just skip anything to do with Byron, the telepath we are supposed to care about. I actually think the season is over-bashed. If you avoid the middle of the season, it’s decent.

The final 4-5 episodes are quite good and the finale is amazing(though filmed with S4).

46

Remind me what it was, please? (Spoiler box it if you want).

47

Daddy Duck?

?

-Joe

48

“Peekaboo.”

“Would you have guessed it?” - Michael Garibaldi to Susan Ivanova - “Ceremonies of Light and Dark”

49

Heehee. Thanks.

50

Maybe in the future, strong passwords with mixed case and punctuation have become easily cracked, so everyone’s gone back to just using dictionary words, since it doesn’t matter anyway?

51

Well, it was also verbal, so I’m guessing the computer also has voice recognition built in.

52

And remember that the computer is also an AI, even if they did go ahead and remove its personality.

So, it’s going to be a phrase, biometrics, and double-checked by an AI making sure it looks like the guy.

-Joe

53

I liked it. I thought it was a good concept, hampered by some real world hystrionics that horked JMS’s original story a bit.

  1. The issue with the actor playing Sinclair.

[spoiler]By the end of season 1, he wanted out. But the character was already established as critical to one of JMS’s plotlines. He couldn’t be replaced without some finagling, which lead to

The awfulness that happened when they encountered Babylon 4, and “The One”. I mean really, that was a hamfisted recovery if I ever saw one. Hint: “The One” should not refer to three people. [/spoiler]

  1. The issue with Andrea Thompson (Talia Winters).

[spoiler]Another actor wanting out. The telepath storyline revolves around the psicorps being a bunch of manipulative thugs, with the telepath on B5 being a good person who breaks free. Well, the original actress from the pilot (Patricia Tallman) wasn’t available for the series, so we got Talia, and grew to like her and see her importance. Then the actress wanted to leave. So what does JMS do?

Makes her go insane and turn on everybody.

At least he was able to bring back Patricia Tallman then, so he could smooth the transition somewhat by bringing back a character with some history in order to plug her back in to the telepath hole. [/spoiler]

  1. The fight to keep the show on the air. B5 was such an involved storyline, such a complex arc, that JMS started having difficulty with the network keeping it on the air. Basically, he was fighting cancellation a fair amount, most notably in the 4th season. He had from the beginning planned for 5 season arc, but found it very likely he was getting canceled at the end of season 4, so had to try to wrap up all the major plots in a handful of episodes. So we get an okay ending at that time. They filmed the finale then, too, but didn’t air it because he got a reprieve for season 5. But that left a plot hole, because points had been dealt with. Intead of integrating the psicorps story into the last two seasons, he was forced to deal with it as a major element of season 5 because other plots had been resolved. And that was a weaker plot element overall.

  2. Yet another cast member leaving.

[spoiler]Claudia Christian was unhappy with her compensation. When they all signed on, they didn’t know how the show would do, and had low salaries. But as the show got popular, she felt she deserved more compensation. The production company balked, so she walked. So Ivanova disappears for season 5, but returns for the finale. Um, not really smoothly handled, but he did the best he could. So instead we get a new cast member to replace her.

Sheridan’s ex wife, to replace him as Captain of B5 since he is President of Earth now. [/spoiler]

I also wasn’t thrilled with the direction JMS took several of the characters, notably Garibaldi. I liked him from season 1, so season 3/4 pissed me off a bit.

Particularly his “going off the wagon”.

I like the way characters grow and change, some for the better, some not so much.

[spoiler] G’kar’s change from womanizing jerk to decent leader of his people is pretty good, until

his vendetta with Londo

Londo getting caught up in circumstances is interesting, and kind of fitting. [/spoiler]

54

I think you’re wrong there. The network wanted him gone, and as someone who watched the show (not until S4 broadcast, sadly), I would have wanted that terrible actor gone myself.

However, I do think that the whole B4/One thing worked out perfectly, and I would not be surprised if it was always planned. It fit together perfectly.

-Joe

55

The real irony there was that that cast member decided to leave right after the logical point, plot-wise:

JMS has stated in an interview that if he’d known that Christian wanted to leave, he probably wouldn’t have had Marcus give his life to save Ivanova, and just let her die.

56

You may be right. I don’t know the details, just that he was no longer on the show, and they gave a standard politically correct explanation.

On a personal note, I liked Sinclair and had no issues with Michael O-Hare. But apparently I can’t judge these things, or something, because I hear lots of complaints “So and so can’t act” that I don’t get.

Well, I think it’s ridiculous, for the previously stated reason. He already had the first half of that encounter in the can - it was a first season episode. So he had to shoehorn in an explanation for dialogue and themes that already existed, in order to cover for the change.

I know he had the Sinclair plot in mind, and the exchange with Delenn, but the whole “the One” part was stupid if the intent was to refer to a set of people. It only makes sense as an after the fact patch to fill a gigantic hole. He was trying to put some of Sinclair’s mojo onto Sheridan.

Well, but technically she didn’t want to leave, she wanted to be paid more. Sure, she left because they wouldn’t pay her more, and from JMS’s standpoint it makes no difference. If he’d known he could have adjusted for her departure differently, and not included her in the finale movie. But that’s really my point - decisions made in the real world intruded on the storyline he wanted, and gave us twists that were his best effort to cover for the changes.

I don’t think any of the cast changes really crippled the overall arc he had, he was able to paste over the holes and plug alternate characters in early enough to make it work. But they were patches, and left tell-tale rough marks in the overall flow. I think the significant one was the cancellation fear in season 4 that caused him to crunch two seasons’ plots into one, then stretch to fill season 5. I think the pacing for both seasons would have been better without that problem.

57

This would have been horrible if not for Zathras. Talk about a character that should have been uber-annoying but wasn’t at all!

My favorite character is still G’Kar.

58

“Zathras understand. No Zathras not understand, but Zathras do. Zathras good at doings, not understandings.”

59

http://www.loyd.net/osz/wisdom.html

"Zathras used to being beast of burden. Zathras have sad life, probably have sad death, but at least there is symmetry "

60

As a story, absolutely. As a TV show, it gets worse with every passing day. It has not aged well, I’m afraid to say. Still, there’s lots for someone who hasn’t seen it yet to enjoy, like Garibaldi’s world of hurt during the third and fourth seasons.

Patricia Tallman’s acting improves quite a bit, which is a nice thing. I really enjoyed where JMS took Lyta, other than to the commune in downbelow in season 5.

And since this is a B5 thread and there are other fans here, it’s as good a place as any other to ask: didja ever notice how obsessed Zack is with food? He’s always either offering to buy someone lunch, just off for lunch, just coming back from lunch, or showing up with lunch. And he’s insistent about it. “Hey, I’m just off to get something to eat, wanna come?” “No, I can’t. I have to polish Kosh (or whatever)” “Are you sure?” I’m sure Zack that conversation (such as it is) at least three times, with different people.