Farscape or Babylon 5?

[JoeD80]

kirk55555 wrote:

---

But, having the actual writer ruin a character arc in the show is a weird experience.

Well it's a good thing that didn't actually happen. Watch seasons four and five, then we'll talk.

kirk55555 wrote:

---

The new vorlon ambassador is interesting, although I'm starting to wonder he is the vorlon equivalent of Darth Vader

He is definitely a different personality from the last Vorlon.

kirk55555 wrote:

---

It was weird to see Lyta apparently crying blood after the attack, in most things like this the person usually gets a nosebleed.

Remember back in Dust to Dust we saw G'Kar's crazy eyes when he had his telepathic experience as well.

[flavaflav]

kirk55555 wrote:

---

Well, it seems like 90% of the time, my ideas are right, atleast to me. I generally know my reaction to things. I know what I like and dislike. In this case, I dislike spoilers that ruin an arc, except its usually my fault when it comes to spoilers.

the arc you think is ruined hasn't started yet. You're only on page 137 of a 503 page book.

[kirk55555]

Its more like if the publisher screwed up and printed page 503 as 137.

[flavaflav]

but the arc hasn't started so how can it be ruined? explain that one grasshopper.

[Reverend]

kirk55555 wrote:

---

Its more like if the publisher screwed up and printed page 503 as 137.

Look mate, just trust us. You're flat wrong on this one. And no, I'm afraid it's not a matter of opinion, it's fact. Londo & G'Kar's arc is easily the highlight of the whole show and you haven't gotten to most of the *really* good stuff yet.

Put it this way, you know that trope that TV shows like to use to get an episode off to a running start? You know when it jumps right into the middle of the action, with the main character in an unfamiliar situation and say another main character who's supposed to be a friend is chasing them down and apparently trying to kill/arrest them. There's a brief confrontation, perhaps a gun shot. Cut to black. And then it's "48 hours earlier..." and the rest of the episode is about how that "shocking" situation came about.

It's *kind* of like that, but not exactly. Usually that type of scenario isn't done very well and the explanation tends to be pretty cheap since it's often just a gimmick to get an otherwise slow or mediocre script off to a running start.

In this case the point is to make you *think* you know how it's all going to turn out...right up until the point where you're wrong. It's all about misdirection. Even at this point, if you go back and re-watch season one, you'll notice *huge* hints that were telegraphed right there in plain sight, but you wouldn't have thought much of them at the time since they're out of context. And like I said, context matters.

[flavaflav]

Kirk: I have another way to explain.... You start watching the original Star Wars. You watch up to the Cantina when Greedo takes his gun out and has Han sit back down in the booth. Now, your buddy turns 'A New Hope' off and throws in 'Empire Strikes Back' right after Han is frozen in carbonite. At this point, you say "Greedo turned Han into stone and killed him!?! Han's arc is ruined!!!" Of course, we both know that's not the way things pan out. And this is exactly your reaction at the moment to Londo's arc. A lot happens in the next 2+ years.

[Snatcher42]

Here's another example if you're a Doctor Who fan: the classic cliffhanger to part 1 of The Caves of Androzani (spoilers ahead). It would be like saying the show is ruined because we just saw the Doctor and companion executed by firing squad. Yes the scene happened, but no they're not actually dead. The following week we learn that they had been switched out by android dummies.

I'm not saying that happens on B5... But the events of the next few years does change the meaning of War Without End. Kirk, for your own enjoyment, try not to dismiss future Londo scenes by thinking, "well none of this really matters because I already know how he ends up".

[Professor Zoom]

You're all wasting your time. He's made up his mind, and he can't POSSIBLY conceive of a world where he might be wrong.

[Lindley]

A mindset which thinks an episode can be judged on a two-sentence summary, and then rejects all additional data which suggests this might not be sufficient, might have trouble with the notion of not getting answers until an entirely different season.

[hyzmarca]

kirk55555 wrote:

---

The only question is how G'Kar got into his palace to kill him, but at this point I'll just assume he was Londo's slave. Either that, or he gained the ability to teleport. Why not? It fits the stupidity of these sections.

Seriously? I mean, you're completely overlooking the actual emotional context of that scene. I though that Andreas and Peter played that perfectly, making it clear that this was an act of a dear friend

kirk55555 wrote:

---

I guess telepaths are good against them. It was weird to see Lyta apparently crying blood after the attack, in most things like this the person usually gets a nosebleed.

Most battlecrabs are effectively just drone ships "piloted" by cybernetically modified humans like those seen in Ship of Tears, which is why they're vulnerable to telepaths and why the Shadows wanted telepaths.

It's worth noting that we've never really seen a ship piloted by an actual Shadow.

[kirk55555]

Lindley wrote:

---

A mindset which thinks an episode can be judged on a two-sentence summary, and then rejects all additional data which suggests this might not be sufficient, might have trouble with the notion of not getting answers until an entirely different season.

Wow, Farscape will apparently never stop haunting me I'm assuming that's what you're talking about, since the summaries of episodes mostly haven't affected my B5 watching, and the 2-3 episodes I thought would be bad based off the summaries in the paphlet that came with the DVD turned out to be good (Farscape got episodes skipped because of summaries because, by very early in season 2, I lost faith that they could do stuff that sounded bad to me in a good way, while B5 I trust more in that department, even though it has had, like all tv shows, a few bad episodes). Anyway, that Star Wars analogy doesn't quite work. It takes things out of context and hops around a trilogy of movies. This was a scene taken in context in its episode, that we are told is the future which nothing can change. But unless, like in the Dr. who analogy, G'Kar and Londo were robots on a fake Centauri Prime (I think thats the name of the centauri homeworld) and the real ones are relaxing on a beach somewhere on the real planet there really isn't anything else you don't know when it comes to the future. They just tell you everything. All thats left is the hows of a few things. But they tell you that Londo stays an ally of the shadows until his death, and is a literal puppet of theirs for a while, until right before he dies. Unless its his evil twin, there is now no suspense about his character arc. You know he'll remain with the shadows in the end, so they can't tease him redeeming himself and turning against the shadows (until his death when its far too late) since you know he doesn't. He can do unexpected things for the plot in general, and stuff that effects other people, but his personal story arc is now complete, we just have to see him get there. It takes all the guessing or mystery out of the arc, and as a first time watcher it really makes me angry.


Maybe the whole thing should just be left alone. All we're doing is annoying each other at this point. While it may have been said a bit rudely, Professor Zoom had a point. No ones going to convince me that this wasn't a horrible idea that has just ruined the personal story arc of my favorite character. To me its obvious, and we're just not going to agree about it. There is more to talk about with B5 than just Londo (although is is an awesome part of the show). Anyway, back to B5 episodes.

Grey 17 is Missing - More Franklin stuff. He's a bit annoying this episode. I kind of wish Ivanova had refused to leave him alone, and just beat the info out of him. He was going to withhold info that could be vital to the war with the shadows because he wanted his personal space. The minbari warrior caste is back, and the guy shows they are still stupid. did he seriously believe the rangers would follow him? If pushed, they'd probably all just quit, make a new group with a different name, and follow Delenn anyway. Also, apparently the warrior is the minbari version of batman, judging from his dissappearing act I figured Lennier would find a way to stop the warrior regardless of his promise, and Marcus was the best choice. The missing section in grey sector is interesting, and it definately had potential. Little did I know that Garibaldi would be captured by the B5 version of mole people. Not only that, but the lead mole man is easily the most annoying character thats been on the show so far. I could barely decipher his gibberish most of the time, and he just wouldn't shut up. I was hoping Garibaldi would get his gun back and shoot him, but I guess getting rough with him was better than nothing. The Marcus/warrior fight was cool, even though Marcus got beat pretty badly. The monster in B5 looked cool, although I wish Garibaldi had managed to feed the annoying mole man to him. I'm not sure if the homemade guy thing actually makes sense, but it was interesting. Overall, this was an ok episode, and Delenn's stuff was decent, but the Grey 17 parts were not great. I think it had a lot of potential, and I was interested in those parts, but the end result didn't live up to what I thought it would be. It ended up being mostly annoying because of the mole man who wouldn't stop saying stupid stuff. He was beyond irritating.

[JD]

Another analogy would be the first Lost flash forward. Just because we saw that they got off the Island doesn't mean that everything that happened on the Island over the next season didn't matter.

[kirk55555]

hyzmarca wrote:

---

Seriously? I mean, you're completely overlooking the actual emotional context of that scene. I though that Andreas and Peter played that perfectly, making it clear that this was an act of a dear friend helping another.

They're both great actors (and my slave comment was mostly sarcastic) although I didn't really feel the friend thing. Unless G'Kar joins the shadows, I doubt he'd befriend a guiy who has helped the shadows so much. I could see Londo having G'Kar brought there to kill him because no one else would. That part doesn't really matter, anyway. I'm fine with that being their fate, its been hinted at enough anyway, the two mortal enemies killing each other. My hate for the future part is about the fact that the stuff that was more up in the air, like Londo changing his mind about the shadows sometime during the show, not over a decade after, that we now know the answers too. It was spoiled way ahead of time, and makes his personal story arc pointless at this point, since we know how it ends.

JD wrote:

---

Another analogy would be the first Lost flash forward. Just because we saw that they got off the Island doesn't mean that everything that happened on the Island over the next season didn't matter.

Thats different. I mean, from what I've read that show would probably have driven me mad anyway (I watched season 1 a long time ago, before I learned to hate JJ Abrams, and thought it was ok but I didn't care to see it once it stopped being about people trapped on an only slightly mysterious island and just got ridiculous) but it seemed to have a lot of other plot points besides just getting off the island. Its the same reason I'm not angry about learning that they beat the shadows in B5. You assume they're going to do that anyway, and that they show won't end with failure and everyone dead. Saying that the main characters succeed in their overall mission isn't really a spoiler. Londo's atory arc, though, was about him and his choices/future. Will he stay with the shadows? Will he ever join the good guys and redeem himself? Those were important questions, that we now have the answers to, and thats what makes me angry.

[Neroon]

There is little point in belaboring this matter until you've seen more of the series, kirk. I suggest moving on and revisiting this later. Much later.

[JD]

But we didn't get ALL of the answers. We got a small glimpse of one part of a long series of events that take place over the rest of the series and beyond. Why can't you just accept what we are telling about there being more to all of this than you think? It's not like they sat down and talked in detail about every detail of what happened between the present day stuff and the future stuff. It's just a hint about what's to come, and doesn't give all of the details.
And you keep talking about stuff being spoiled, but it really can't be a spoiling anything if it is being done in the manner it was originally intended to be told.

And as for Lost at that point, the whole goal for the cast at that point was getting off the Island, so finding out that they did and it wasn't the end of the story was a huge shift. It "spoiled" things way more than the B5 stuff did.
EDIT: Sorry Neroon, I wrote the post before yours came up.