A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

[Brian]

sidious618 wrote:

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You say it like an awkward pat on the bum is a bad thing.

It's never as good as a determined pat on the bum, but I'll take one any day.

[Forbin]

brian wrote:

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It's never as good as a determined pat on the bum, but I'll take one any day.

Tell that to my wife! Sure, I usually do it while's occupied with housework or cooking, and I usually sneak up on her and scare the hell out of her - but she's so damn CUTE when she's preoccupied.

[stonester1]

This ep was awesome. But the one coming up is probably my favorite of all. The "We REALLY mean business" ep of B5.

[Reverend]

Let's just lock down and keep to ourselves any thoughts and opinions on the next episode until he's seen it. Let's just wait and see what he thinks.

[tomalak301]

Reverend wrote:

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Let's just lock down and keep to ourselves any thoughts and opinions on the next episode until he's seen it. Let's just wait and see what he thinks.

Yeah. There wasn't this much participation when I was reviewing B5 last year and I liked almost every episode. I guess Ben has a way to bring out the energy in people I suppose.

[JoeD80]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Although I'm not sure if I believe the prophesy of a woman who didn't have the foresight to tell her husband to push up his visit to B5 by a few days before he died of fatal plotitis.

She might have told him; but he really wanted to see a Vorlon according to his dialogue in that episode and he was thinking that going at that time to Babylon 5 was when he could see one. So even if she told him, he would have gone at that time anyway.

[Can]

LoL...TGB would watch a very special episode next right ?

[chrisspringob]

tomalak301 wrote:

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Yeah. There wasn't this much participation when I was reviewing B5 last year and I liked almost every episode. I guess Ben has a way to bring out the energy in people I suppose.

Did you individually review every episode though? I don't remember another B5 review thread in which the reviewer took the time to review each episode separately. I could be misremembering though.

[tomalak301]

chrisspringob wrote:

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Did you individually review every episode though? I don't remember another B5 review thread in which the reviewer took the time to review each episode separately. I could be misremembering though.

Yes I did. I did it faster, but I talked about all of them, the movies, Crusade, and Lost Tales. Only one I haven't talk about is LOTR which I haven't seen yet.

[chrisspringob]

OK, I'd forgotten that.

Btw, when "Point of No Return" first aired in the US back in 1996, it was followed by a month of reruns. That was a long wait to see what happened next.

[Kegg]

TheGodBen wrote:

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The b-story with Londo left me ambivalent. It wasn't bad, it just felt like an excuse to have a famous sci-fi figure on screen. That's right, the Queen of Star Trek made an appearance;

And that's basically how JMS pitched it on the messages back on the internet in those days. He even went into the Star Trek forum to inform the Trekkie geeks that he'd scored this (while IIRC also making a swipe at the then unpopular move by Viacom to stop fans from using images from the show on their websites.) It's been argued her reverential respect for Turhan is sort of a nod to the guy she was actually widowed from.

However the Majel Barret story is basically an excuse to do that scene with MacBeth and Banquo from... uh... the Scottish Play, that's right!

[Forbin]

Kegg wrote:

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However the Majel Barret story is basically an excuse to do that scene with MacBeth and Banquo from... uh... the Scottish Play, that's right!

Okay, you can say the character's name, but not the play's name? I never could get that straight. I have an actor friend I love to taunt.

[TheGodBen]

sidious618 wrote:

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You say it like an awkward pat on the bum is a bad thing.

It is when it comes from another man in the middle of a boxing match being watched by millions of viewers.

tomalak301 wrote:

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Yeah. There wasn't this much participation when I was reviewing B5 last year and I liked almost every episode. I guess Ben has a way to bring out the energy in people I suppose.

I seem to have a natural instinct to provoke people into saying "You're wrong!" or "You're a complete fool for thinking that." or "Sexy though you are, you should be sterilised for the good the the gene pool." Personally, I think people are just jealous of me.

Kegg wrote:

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while IIRC also making a swipe at the then unpopular move by Viacom to stop fans from using images from the show on their websites.

But how did we have caption competitions? Or endless photoshop threads?

That must have been a dark time in the history of online Star Trek fandom.

[hyzmarca]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Dust to Dust (***)

Recently, something has been bugging me about the show and I think that this episode is a good point to voice my concerns. I've seen a few people saying that one of the great things about this show is how subtle it is, and that's true in some cases, especially when it comes to Londo and G'Kar, but when it comes to President Clark and the Psi Corps I'm just not seeing it, at least not yet. For example, in this episode Bester seems to be mostly on the level and he's genuinely trying to sort out the dust smuggling operation on the station, but at the end we learn that they actually created dust in the first place in order to create more telepaths, here they're just covering their asses.

What have the Psi Corps ever done that was good? Why are they always scheming and sinister? Almost everything I have seen them do so far appears to be self-serving, where's the subtlety?

A drug that can give mundanes telepathic abilities is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. It is most defiantly a good thing. The biggest social problem in the EA is the persecution of telepaths, and while the Psi-Corps is the one doing the persecuting most of the time, they're driven mostly be the mundane population's (not quite unwarranted) fear of telepaths. The Psi-Corps was created for a dual purpose, to protect mundanes from telepaths (who can do some nasty things if they really want to) and to protect telepaths from mundanes (humans have never been particularly kind to the things that they fear). It is that dual purpose that really lead to its corruption. It created a Psi-Corps that was insular and paranoid.

If dust actually worked properly there would be no need for the Psi-Corps, as everyone would have access to telepathic abilities. Not that the leadership would use it that way, of course, but there are still some idealists in the Corps. Most members are good people just doing what they thing is right.

[TheGodBen]

Severed Dreams (*****)

I think my feelings about this episode can be best summed up by my good friend, George Takai. Take it away George.



GEORGE TAKAI: Whoa! Oh my!

What? I can be friends with George Takai and Scott Bakula, why can't I? The three of us meet up at Scott's ranch regularly. We usually ride ponies down to the river and have a picnic. We were even in a band together: "Scott Bakula and the Shirtless Wonders". I had to quit because George kept laughing at me, but we're still good friends.

Oh yes, review!

This is the knock-out punch I've been waiting for, and it was definitely worth it. Episodes like this are the reason I love serialised story-telling, moments like the one where Sheridan declared B5 independent from Earth would have been cool in a standalone story, but when it has years of back-story building to this one moment it is much, much more.

I don't know that there's much more I can say, to be honest. I always write up these reviews before watching the next episode, and right now I'd rather watch the next episode than sit here writing this, so if you'll excuse me I think I'll take my leave now.

Scott Bakula: 44