No argument there. The only telepaths that truly scared me were Bester and post-Vorlon Lyta. The others deserved to burn, if for no other reason than basic annoyingness.
But parts of “Day of the Dead” made up for a lot.
I really liked “Day of the Dead”, but it really didn’t make up for the rest of the season which was pretty blah.
Of course, what do I know, I liked “A View From the Gallery”, which was generally reviled by everyone and their senile grandmother.
-Joe
I really wish we got to see more of the First Ones though. I guess that would be one of the things I thought they dropped the ball on during the excellent seasons 2-3. They spent all this time building up the First Ones, how they were so strong and so odd and spread out across the galaxy that I thought there should have been more payoff than a few seconds of space battle with quick glimpses of their warships.
The episode (sorry, I cannot remember any episode’s name at all) where they found the First One race and actually talked to them and their glowing faces should have been repeated a couple more times with a couple more First Ones. Maybe get into battle with one of them because they wanted to test the humans’ mettle before Lorien went all crazy with THE First One power or something like that. He was a glowing squid that can bring back people from the dead, yeah, but it would have been nice to see him throw a plasma ball or create a black hole.
My favorite Season 5 episode 
I loved the way you got the completely different perspective on things… And an original take on it all. Mack and Bo where made memorable to me from that one episode.
actually I thought it was “how efficent of you” not convenient.
More good Ivanova
If you fire on us you will find our firepower quite impressive, for a few seconds.
No Boom today, maybe boom tomorrow, but no boom today.
Favorite sheridan lines
“If the primates we descended from knew that bureaucrats would be part of our species they would have tossed the whole evolution thing as a bad idea and stayed in the trees.”
“…and I’m sorry…that I waited as long as I did to blow them straight to hell. After all, its the thought that counts.”
I could watch the “severed dreams” episode over and over again about 20 times and not get bored.
After this series, Patricia Tallman will always be a favorite in my spank bank. She was in ST:TNG too but as Lyta, she was so much hotter.
He’s a stage actor and he did not make the transition to TV well. I really didn’t hate him as much as some people. I just think he was miscast.
Everybody’s always ragging on season 5. The episodes the centred on the Mollari and the Centauri war were some of the best episodes in the series.
I did hate the psi refugees with their self-entitled bullshit though.
You offer your services in exchange for living on the station, but refuse to do the only thing your actually useful for. And the whole spy on Aliens to blackmail them to get a home world for psychics was really smart. Then there was that whole thing when they demanded a home world because psychics helped defeat the Shadows and Vorlons. It’s not like any other group sacrificed men and women in that war. And I don’t recall any human psychics fighting, all the psychics I saw were Minbari. I’m glad they all killed themselves.
I know that’s the story…but really, in my experience stage actors need to have access to more than one facial expression. I don’t think O’Hare ever mastered that.
-Joe
Oh and how could I have forgotten this. Another reason why B5 is awesome:
Centari have 6
Vir.
One of the great secondary characters that gets the best line/followup in the whole series.
Morden: “What do YOU want?”
Vir: “I’d like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this.
[waves]
Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?”
Mollari (quietly, through gritted teeth): Attributes!
…followed by an Ivanova line that’s too good to spoil.
“What is that Earth animal? Feathers, long bill, webbed feet? Goes quack?”
“Cats.”
Huh, I liked that one, too. It was a little slow at first, just another standard crisis-du-jour, until I realized we were going to see the whole thing from the two nobodies’ point of view, which really was a fun new twist.
The President Clark/Nightwatch stuff is interesting to watch post-Bush.
I don’t get how the Sinclair actor was bad, he was playing him in contrast to Sheridan, as the creator says in the DVD commentary, Sinclair was someone where Sheridan was going to be built up towards, and by that I mean his style of leading and command.
I always thought Sinclair was being played as a well reserved serious character who reflected what a real commander type would be like. I thought Lochley was ridiculous for her She-Ra Princess of Power act.
How about a couple of my favorite G’kar quotes:
“No boom today, boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow! BOOM!”
And my favorite Londo quote:
“WHAT DO YOU WANT, YOU MOON-FACED ASSASSIN OF JOY?!”
I think we only have two seasons of Babylon 5 right now (2 and 4, probably) plus the “movie” collection. And I have the annotated script book thing for “Day of the Dead.”
Besides the quotes already listed (especially what Vir wants, and “Ivanova is God”) my favorite is this exchange:
“You want to be president?” “Yes.” “Put your hand on the book and say, ‘I do’.” “I do” “Fine. Done. Let’s eat.”
There is an episode from Season 3, “Point of No Return” where Londo is editing Vir’s report of Minbar. Some of the highlights:
Do not say they are fond of music, literature and art. Instead say the Minbari are a decadent society in pursuit of dubious pleasures. The “dubious” is very important. It doesn’t mean anything but i scares people.
Don’t not say they are tolerant of other cultures. Say they have no well-defined sense of morality.
Do not say the Minbari have three classes: priest, workers and military. Instead, say one-third of their economy is devoted to war.
I loved that line. It was badass the first time I saw that episode.