SHOCKING News About Polycarp and Babylon 5

Cafe Society
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My dear fellow Dopers, I’m afraid I have just got off the phone with our esteemed brother, Polycarp. While we were talking I learned something which left me absolutely shocked!:eek:

Brace yourselves.

He has never watched Babylon 5! I found out when I made a reference to “purple files” which left him a bit whooshed.

Brother and sister Dopers, on this Easter Sunday, I implore you to carry out the holy mission given to you by Cecil, our great high priest, and help me to eradicate our stricken brother’s ignorance. He knows I’m doing this (although maybe not the way I’m doing it), so go ahead. Tell him what he’s missing, why he shouldn’t miss it, who the Minbari, the Centauri, the Narn and the Drazi are, why some of us would like to be Ivanova and others of us would like to do certain things to her (OK, maybe you shouldn’t post all of the things you’d like to do to her – I hear this board has some standards!). I’ve mentioned the monks on the station, but not how they got there. I’ve also mentioned Bester and Clarke, but not much about them. Then, of course, there’s the whole business with Kosh, which has implications I think he’d love.

Your challenge lies before you. I expect you to rise to the situation (especially you guys thinking about Ivanova) with your usual skill, aplomb, and thoroughly warped and twisted minds. I expect myself to be thoroughly entertained by it.

CJ

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What’s the BFD with Babylon 5, cjhoworth? I’ve never watched the show, either. I fail to see that my quality of life has been impacted.

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I’ve seen a few episodes, but I don’t think it’s the masterpiece everyone makes it out to be. I find the acting to be overwrought and full of “significant look” shots, which aren’t all that significant. On the other hand it seems to have less technobabble than Star Trek, but that’s still my preferred show.

4

Let’s put it in terms of religion.

I was raised in the faith of Star Trek-TOS. I watched it the first season it was on, when, get this, *you didn’t even know what was coming next! * I accepted the later testaments of the movies and series.

Then I watched Babylon 5. I fought against its growing appeal to me, certain that nothing could be as spiritually satisfying as hearing Dr. McCoy say, “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!”

But I finally saw the light and was baptized into the faith of Babylon 5. I retain respect and nostalgia for the faith I grew up with, but Babylon 5 gives me something Star Trek lacked, as in a plotline without obvious continuity errors and lapses in logic. Better humor too.

The characters are more rounded. They may even have flaws and make mistakes, and they don’t stay the same, they grow and develop. They even have, in some cases, religious beliefs, something most television series ignore.

My favorite episode is “Passing Through Gethsemane”, from the third season. Brad Dourif plays a Catholic monk who is forced into the discovery that he was once a serial murderer, who was mindwiped. One little exchange between Michael Garibaldi, security chief for the station, and Delenn, the Minbari ambassador, show some good writing. MG describes to D how mindwiping was developed to replace capital punishment. But he describes himself as someone who might prefer the latter, as “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth sort of guy.” When Delenn, who prefers peace when possible says “So, you would leave the whole world blind and toothless” G replies “No, just the bad guys.” Instead of painting with a broad brush, in black and white, neither character is supposed to be good or bad, just themselves.

Check out how Londo Mollari, the Centauri ambassador changes from something of a buffoon, to a hard-ass politician, to a guy who sacrifices his own freedom of choice to save his people.

Second favorite episode “A Late Delivery from Avalon” in which a man who believes himself to be King Arthur arrives at the station.

Darn, I could go on and on. But **Polycarp ** is a poster I admire. Tell him if he want to see the series from the beginning and in order I have a double collection. I can lend him the tapes a few at a time. I’ll even pay the postage, and I’m actually serious here.

No fanatic like a convert I guess.

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Thing is, those significant looks are significant in the long run. The show was meticulously plotted. Things would be hinted at in Season 1, and it was four years before the look someone gave someone else or the inflection of a voice in a comment really made sense. Brilliant. It was utterly brilliant. But you can only see that if you take it as a whole.

The downside of that wonderful way of storytelling was that, when things reaches their peak in Season 4, if you missed more than one episode in a row, you ended up pretty much lost.

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Ivanova is god

But seriously its to me the difference between watching a kids sci/fi show (star trek) and an adult one.

To give you an example , in one episode Doc Franklyn was forced with an ethical dilemma of a young alien child that had been brought to the station, the doctor could treat and cure the child , but the procedure was similar to a veterinarian procedure on the childs home world.

So the parents of the child decide not to have the procedure and let god decide if the child makes it or not. Franlyn upholding his hippocratic oath , administers the procedure anyways and the parents go ballistic and treat the kid as if he was already dead.

Now at this point , Bones would have done the same thing , cured the kid and then counceled the parents that it was the right descision and everyone one would go away all happy , all this in the last fifteen minutes.

Oh no , not babylon5

That ending was some what different.

This is a show that takes place in the next two hundred years , but its very watchable as science fiction.

Some fav moments

Spacing a teddybear :slight_smile:

The Ivanova mantra

To go where every man has gone before

Anatomically correct dolls and the possible start of a war

Declan

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“So, you feel you’ve been symbolically cast-- Uh, in a bad light.”

Kosh was what made the show for me. An alien who was truly alien.

[Vorlon translator sounds]

“I have always been here.”

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The thing that made the show something wonderful to me was the long-term plotting, as has been mentioned before. Things could come up in the first season that wouldn’t be at all important… Until three seasons later. Being an aspiring screenwriter, and a stickler for continuity, it’s that sort of thing that just takes my breath. That, and having met Kosh (the actor inside the suit) right before his… Er… Choice about helping the humans before his ‘time’. The night I met him I watched the episode where he says (misquoted, I’m sure) "I will not be there with you at Khaza Dum.’ It sounded like such a ‘well, you guys are jerks so I’m not going to help you’ line, but then when it was revealed what he was -really- talking about… Wow. My jaw just dropped.
So, to re-iterate / clarrify- the continuity and -forethought- of all the actions and their consequences absoultely made it one of the best Sci-Fi series I’ve ever seen. However, such depth could make it hard for someone who had not seen it before to understand.

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The second season DVD will be out on the 29th!

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It restarted on the Sci-Fi channel on March 31, weekday mornings. “TKO” is on tomorrow, “Grail” on Tuesday. This is a good place to pick up the series - the first few episodes aren’t as important.

How can you not watch a show that has writing like this?

If that doesn’t convince Polycarp, nothing will. (For his information, it’s from a key episode at the end of season 3).

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I saw the two-hour pilot episode many, many years ago. All I can remember of it today is that I thought it sucked.

I never gave it another try.

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I’ve never seen Babylon 5, never seen Star Treck. Nope, not once.

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Not to be mean, just from reading the Master’s books, I knew you were from “Charm City” before reading it.
A large part of some peoples lives would be missing without either of those two shows

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Well, that’s 'cause the pilot did suck, and a goodly portion of the first season, with it. I saw the pilot, and skipped the next two years of the show before a friend talked me into going back. Easily the best sf show in TV history, although Firefly could have given it a run for it’s money, if it had had the chance.

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i didn’t care for the early runs…think i really picked up in season’s 3/4 when the shadow war plotline was really heating up. the ship designs are what caught me, and the plots/acting kept me. some of the most incredible lines delivered on tv (or anywhere else). very complex issues discussed, and not dumbed down.

the story arc is just amazing…i went back to see the first couple of seasons, and saw things that would tie in later.

love the space battles, and the politics.

Sheridan: what are you supposed to be preparing me for?
Kosh: To fight… legends.

That, and Ivonova’s ‘god sent me’ line. shiver

and…it was the first sci-fi series w/ Jack the Ripper (comes the inquisitor) that was not completely stupid. now, i don’t know what sci-fi people’s fixation w/ JtR is, but this one was good.

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You’re darned right it’s misquoted!

It’s Z’HA’DUM. Khaza Dum is from Tolkien.

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I’ve never made it through an entire episode. I’ve never made it more than 15 minutes.

I kept hearing from everyone, “the plots are wonderful,” “The plotting is brilliant,” on and on and on. Problem is, the actual dialogue and acting used to convey this alleged brilliance sucked. And so, while I might have been observing some huge plotting genius, it was too painful to watch for very long. No way could I make it to the end of the episode, much less an entire multiple-year story arc.

I could forgive bad Trek (until Voyager) because it was Trek, and well - I had some emotional investment there, father-daughter bonding moments, childhood memories, etc. But with B5, there was no reason not to change the channel.

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Strangely, Poly’s life and mine parallel yet again. Poly: until the series came out on DVD (the first season anyway), I’d never seen an episode.

A friend got me the first season for a birthday present. I am dying for the second season. It’s the best science-fiction TV show ever. The characters are three-dimensional, not the annoying, smug pricks on Next Gen. The detail and texture to the world is astounding: I know more about the politics and society of Babylon 5’s universe after watching one season that I know about Star Trek’s after 30-some years. The characters grow and change too. One of my favorite characters early in the first season turns out to be an utterly morally bankrupt craven wretch by the end of the season. And there’s a character with a reverse sort of change. In short, they act like people.

Believe me, Poly when I assure you: Trust me. Start with a movie called “The Gathering” (DO NOT SEE “In the Beginning” even though it’s on the same disk. I’ve been told it contains spoilers for the second through fourth seasons) and then watch the first season. Y’know the thrill you got when you first read Heinlein? The Sensawonda? You’ll get it here, somewhere around the third or fourth episode of season 1.

It even has a positive view of religion (even though many of the characters aren’t religous). There’s a heartbreakingly good episode where one of the charaters, (A Russian Jew) refuses to sit shiva for her father and her family’s Rabbi visits to try to get her to reconsider. Unbeliveably well done and it had me in tears.

I’ve been told that season one’s the least of the 5 seasons. If so, I can’t imagine how good the next four seasons’ll be!

(People I know and trust, like Mockingbird have assured me that each season gets better and better. I’m stunned at the thought)

Fenris

BTW: I’ve been told (and I’m tell you, Poly), to threaten to beat to death anyone who tries to give you spoilers.

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Um…just for the record, there is a missing :stuck_out_tongue: at the end of that BTW:

I do not advocate beating people to death for giving away TV shows.

(Breaking their kneecaps, however… :wink: )

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DOH! This is what I get for quoting with too little sleep! Thank you!

:smack: :smack: :smack: