A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by TheGodBen, Jan 24, 2010.

  1. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

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    I said out, dammit!
    What's worse, I can never get my wife to dress up in ANY genre costume. :(
     
  2. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    My old DVD player did not do the layer changes on dual layer discs, and for some reason on the B5 discs the layer changes are sometimes in the middle of the episode instead of between episodes, so this could affect it as well (I never saw the end of All Alone in the Night because of this until I had a PS3).
     
  3. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Admiral Admiral

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    That sucks. :(
     
  4. AdmiralGarak

    AdmiralGarak Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    He wasn't in the dream. He was in your bedroom, watching you sleep from a dark corner. :shifty:
     
  5. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Scott does that most nights. It really freaks me out sometimes when I get up in the middle of the night to pee and he doesn't say anything, he just smiles.


    My condolences. :(
     
  6. Seven of Five

    Seven of Five Stupid Sexy Flanders! Premium Member

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    My genre dreams are never hot. They usually involve getting muddled up with the stress dreams about work. :eek:
     
  7. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Messages from Earth (***½)

    I have to admit, I found this episode a little disappointing. I feel that there is a problem with the pacing of this episode and that the first 10-15 minutes go by too quickly, then the show slows down to a standard speed. For example, in terms of screen-time, it takes Sheridan about a minute to make the big decision to fly back to Earth, then two minutes later he has already left. At this point the episode slows right down, there's ten minutes of people waiting for something to happen, then there's a space battle for another 10 minutes. Personally, I feel this episode would have felt better as a two-parter, that way the beginning wouldn't have felt so rushed and there would have been more time for nice scenes like the one between Sheridan and Delenn on the White Star.

    The b-story was more interesting, and it actually had an actor from Enterprise for real this time. That's right, Scott Bakula. He played the strangely named Security Guard #1, which shows that his parents had his life planned out for him from the start, and in the future the hash symbol will be a valid character to put on a birth certificate. So, the Night Watch is sinister, big things are about to happen on Earth, and Sinclair is under suspicion of subversion. All while Zack has a crisis of conscience about whether or not the Night Watch are in the right. And it seems like the next episode might go back to this story, which would be welcome.

    One thing, the incident on Mars with the Shadow ship would have happened back when Santigo was President, but presumably Santiago wasn't involved (considering the fact that the Shadows killed him). So the Psi Corps must have been working with the Shadows long before Mordin showed up on B5. Interesting.

    Captain Greyshirt: 14
    Scott Bakula: 41
     
  8. Deranged Nasat

    Deranged Nasat Vice Admiral Admiral

    Is that the "rain" scene? It's been a while since I watched season three. If it was that scene, I really like it. It sold me on the idea of Sheridan and Delenn's developing relationship and had me actually truly invested in them emotionally, which is a refreshing change from most TV. :)
     
  9. Lindley

    Lindley Moderator with a Soul Premium Member

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    Point of trivia: I believe, but am not certain, that the events Garibaldi described on Mars is a recounting of one of the B5 comics. I haven't read it, though.
     
  10. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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  11. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, that's the one. It was a very nice scene, here's hoping there's more like it.
     
  12. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Yes, the event was shown in the comics and the person Garibaldi refers to as "a friend" in this episode is Sinclair. Garibaldi mentions this incident way back in the episode "Infection" as well when talking to the reporter.
     
  13. Aeon

    Aeon Commander Red Shirt

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    I have been reading pretty much all the posts from JMS since the beginning and this reminded me of TheGodBen's thoughts about the current Earth Alliance political situation in his review of The Gathering...

    Interesting background information, but obviously by the time of Messages From Earth the situation has already started to change and not for the better.
     
  14. Neroon

    Neroon Mod of Balance Moderator

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    Back when he was a freshman, my son emailed me one morning. He had trouble sleeping that previous night. While lying in bed and struggling with his lack of sleep, it began to rain. That made him recall this scene you speak of (we used to watch B5 together), and he idly mused that maybe I was outside with a garden hose spraying on the roof, trying to help him get to sleep.

    To him it was a simple sort of throw away email, the kind you send when you want to ask how someone's day is going. To me it meant a helluva lot more.
     
  15. Jan

    Jan Commodore Commodore

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    ...is insane. --JMS
    That's one of the cool things about B5 is that we actually get to see the process of those changes and how they can/do occur gradually enough that the people accept them.

    Jan
     
  16. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    I won't spoil, but I'll point you in the right direction if you want to come back to this after you're done with the DVDs. The event's on Mars have been previously mentioned by Garibaldi way back in season one's 'Infection' as the first time he and Sinclair met, leading to him being hired on B5 and are depicted across 4 issues of the limited run of Babylon 5 DC comics series. Unfortunately the artwork in those books were a little hit and miss (more miss than hit) and for some reason there's this lame framing device where Garibaldi is telling the story to Keffer while they're stranded on some random planet running away from space hobbits. I don't know why they just didn't tell the story straight up.

    As for Morden, his story and that of the voyage of the Icarus is covered in the Novel "The Shadow Within", but yes, as you'll see later on down the line, this and the dig on Mars are related.
    What's more it shows that events and circumstances are fluid and every changing. Without getting too much into future events, even when certain situations are "resolved", or so much as they can be it doesn't reset everything back to a status quo, but instead changes things again.

    As it was put in 'Signs and Portents': "We create the future with our words, our deeds and with our beliefs."
     
  17. Aeon

    Aeon Commander Red Shirt

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    Yeah, something like this doesn't happen overnight.
     
  18. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

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    100 Pages!
     
  19. Jan

    Jan Commodore Commodore

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    ...is insane. --JMS
    And just reaching the "Point of No Return" ;)

    Jan
     
  20. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Because it had to connect to real time of season 2 somehow. I think it worked quite well like that myself, and the art for these issues was better than the earlier ones.