Niners Unite...around Babylon 5! - The Lost Threads

Oh...well, I guess that's a relief.

Dunno - I'll have to watch the movies first, and go from there.

od0

 

I meant to address this earlier and was reminded when you posted it to your LiveJournal. I'm no expert on credits, mind you, but I *think* that this may have had something to do with the number of episodes that Tracy was contracted for. Previously, Claudia, Bruce and Jerry were all contracted for 22 episodes per season whether they actually appeared or not. Others, for instance, might only have been contracted for 13 or so. JMS mentioned in Script Book #11 that he'd deliberately left the new character of Lochley out of some episodes early in the season in order to allow him time to cast that character. Season 5 also had a fair number of stand-alone episodes like "The Corps is Mother..." and "The Very Long Night...". That may be why Tracy/Lochely appears as 'Also Starring' instead of in the "Starring" tier.

The only other thing I know about credits is that it's often a matter of negotiation.

Jan

 

^

Yeah, I know, its almost always all about negotiation when it comes to how folks get into the openin' credits of a series. I just think that her placement shows that she isn't as important, considerin' she was essentially doin' the jobs of two first tier characters.

Of course, her lack of importance in the credits translates to lack of importance in the series - she really didn't do that much, did she?

Just finished watchin' Babylon 5: The River of Souls, and that's the sort of stuff I wish Lochley had gotten durin' the series. She's central to the story, gets to do some action, and has some nice interaction with the other characters.

And the holographic version wasn't bad, either.

 

Part of the problem was that she joined the cast in the fifth season, hardly a good time to start any major arc for a character. You commented on the lack of momentum in the first half of the season and that's due in large part to the fact that so many of the arcs had been tied off in the fourth. All things considered, I think we learned at least as much about her character in this one season as we learned about Ivanova in the first season.

Jan

 

^

I don't know about that. Ivanova had quite a bit goin' on, character wise if not development wise, durin' the first season. The most Lochley had was a quarter of a story in 'Day of the Dead'.

Of course, B5 could have gone the "Ezri Route" and devoted half a dozen episodes of the final season to the new character.

 

^^
Would have been better than giving all that screen time to Byron. Ugh.

 

This brings up an interesting query. If, as it turns out, Lochley is in command of B5 longer than either Sinclair or Sheridan (as proven by Crusade and Voices in the Dark), why wouldn't she have been one of the crew saying goodbye to the station in "Sleeping in Light" ?

Of course, we know the "real world" reason, but what could possibly be the "in story" reason? I think there's only one option.

 

I can think of two.

There's the obvious one.

And there's the less obvious one.

 

Or maybe she sailed off into the sunset with Captain Gideon. Or maybe she just moved on to something bigger and better. Maybe she had a falling out with Sheridan and co. for some reason. Maybe she just became fed up with the station and decided to retire. There are so many possibilities that nobody can say with any certainty that she died.

 

^^
True, but ten (or nine) years is a long time for things to happen. Consider the change Lyta underwent in just three years, really.

 

For anyone interested, I've got my toughts on Babylon 5: The River of Souls posted at my LiveJournal -

http://od0-ital.livejournal.com/237124.html

 

^ And some of us who do would still prefer to chat about the episodes here, where you guys who don't can participate.

 

Well, 'til about twenty minutes ago, I had it as an open entry.

And then some "anonymous" user decided to spam the comments section, so I closed it.

I've just been tryin' to be nice about the spoiler stuff for the other B5 newbie.

 

^^
You could just spoiler code everything, though I guess that could start to be a pain.

I'm interested in hearing what you have to say about River of Souls. Personally, I think it's by far one of the ten worst hours of the entire franchise, and probably at the bottom end of those ten hours.

 

Alright, let me try this one...

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

After finishin' the fifth season before dawn yesterday, it was time to go back to Babylon 5: The Movie Collection, in this case, the fourth movie in the set, The River of Souls, which features Martin Sheen as the Soul Hunter.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

The movie is set a short time after President Sheridan & Delenn left the station, so, unlike the fifth season where Captain Lochley had someone lookin' over her shoulder & second guessin' her decisions, Tracy Scoggins got to take center stage, really for the first time. She even get a better credit in the movie than she did on the series, with her name right there on the screen with Jerry Doyle's. He still got billed before her (left to right), but hey, he'd been on the show longer, so it makes sense.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

I actually kinda liked this movie, mostly because Lochley had stuff to do, and she got to show a little of why Sheridan wanted her in command of the station after he was forced into retirement. It made me wish Scoggins had gotten this kind of stuff to do durin' the fifth season, maybe it wouldn't have been such a disappointment.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

And she looked pretty good as a holographic slut, too.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

I thought Martin Sheen was pretty cool as the Soul Hunter, though I was kinda spoiled that he would play one by the booklet thing in Babylon 5: The Complete First Season - Signs and Portents, which used Sheen's promo pic as a Soul Hunter from the movie, and had someone else as the Soul Hunter in the second episode of the series. I liked the character's evolution, mostly demonstrated by the way he talked to the other characters, and finally by him seein' Lochley once his own soul had been collected.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

Richard Biggs had an interestin' cameo as Doctor Franklin, I thought it was odd that Lochley would picture him, but they were on the station together for a year, and maybe she just wasn't used to the doctor that replaced him after he left for Earth.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

And, of course, Garibaldi is almost always cool to see, and the scene where he & Zach see the holo-Lochley for the first time was great, cracked me up.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

The side story with the holo-brothel on the station was kinda silly, an put two actors familiar from every damn thing that was on in the '80s - two guys that are instantly familiar, but damned if ya can remember where ya saw 'em before 'cause they have been in every damn thing.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

But, hey, it got us holo-Lochley, so woo.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

And hoo.

Spoiler: Babylon 5: The River of Souls

I think that The River of Souls is my second favorite of the Babylon 5 films in this collection, after the premiere movie, The Gathering. But, I still have the fifth movie, Babylon 5: A Call to Arms, to watch tomorrow.

...and yeah, that is a rule pain in the ass.

 

^ I don't understand how some of those are spoilers. And why did you split them all up?