A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

Well in real life, Jerry Doyle and Andrea Thompson were married around this time, so you'd think the chemistry would be more natural. Mind you as I recall it only lasted a few years so maybe that observation is more apt then you'd think.

As for the episode, it has one of my all time favourite "G'Kar moments". When he's asked if he knows how much of an insult he's making by wearing shoes, I just love the way he imbues the word "indeed!" with such joy and enthusiasm. Cracks me up.

 

That is a good one.

 

I liked "Soul Mates", oddly enough. The cynicism, chiefly; it was probably Babylon 5's best depiciton of marriage in my view (which no doubt says far more about me than Babylon 5).

Spoiler: Life, the Universe and Everything

Pity Timov is neither seen nor mentioned ever again. You'd think becoming Empress would have been a blip on her radar, but I guess not.

That'd be pretty awesome, actually, but totally gratuituous use of the Shining would improve any series.

 

That was one thing that made B5 an interesting counterpoint to Trek at the time they were both running: B5 allowed its characters to gleefully hate each other.

 

Spoiler: Legions of Fire

She shows up a fair bit in the Centauri trilogy. She and Londo actually develop a fairly affectionate relationship for a while.

 

I guess everyone knows the studio gate story? Jerry and Andrea pulled in to work one morning in the same car and the new guard didn't know who the hell they were. Jerry said "Are you blind? I'm Bruce Willis and she's Cybil Shepherd!" and the guard let them in.

 

Early on, I always used to think it was Bruce Willis on the show, at least whenever I just happened to be casually flipping channels.

 

I can buy that he wants to bone her, he is a man after all and she is an attractive woman, but this episode included scenes of him moping about her with Delenn suggesting it was because they were soulmates in a past life, or some such. I just didn't buy that he was into her that much.

Yes, I'm a soothsayer when it comes to romance, I just know when two people are destined to be together, I can usually tell by watching them committing explicit acts with one another. So if if anybody on this board wishes to avail of my powers to learn if your relationship is meant to be, record yourselves and send the video to me and I'll get back to you after I rigorously study it.

Wait, I forgot what board I'm on. DON'T SEND ME ANY VIDEOS!!


A Race Through Dark Places (***½)

Bester! The man responsible for the stupid Scott Bakula joke finally returns, but now he's... well, he's the same. He did have a nice humanising moment where he discussed having picnics with his son, but I'm not sure that I believe he even has a son. I like Bester, he has clearly been the villain of the two episodes he has been in so far, but I can kinda, possibly, maybe see a little, tiny bit of a good guy in there somewhere.

This episode has done the best job of villain-ising the Psi Corps so far; yes, they experiment on living people and, yes, they might have been involved in killing Santiago, but this episode brings it back down to a human level by telling the story of how they impregnated a woman against her will because they wanted her to give birth to a powerful telepath. I now officially dislike these guys. Well, I dislike the organisation at any rate, I kind of like Bester.

Franklin working to help the telepaths was fairly obvious as soon as Garibaldi mentioned that a senior officer had to be involved; Ivanova was too obvious and Franklin had appeared earlier in the episode so I doubted they were going to waste one of the dozen or so episodes he appears in each season with trivial bar scenes. I'm glad that they're using his character more, but they created this role for him in this episode and then ended by saying that he was wrapping up the operation, it felt a little too neat and tidy. Actually, the whole resolution to the plot felt a little tidy, the fact that Bester was so easily tricked just doesn't sit well with me.

Until we meet again Bester.

 

I always thought B5 could've used more of Bester.

 

^
Absolutely. He's right up there with Mr. Morden and certain others as the best recurring star the show had. It's only from around here on in that he really begins to settle into the character, though, and the little detail about his family is in my opinion very well played - hardly original, of course (hell, DS9 pulled the same trick with Dukat... oh yeah I shouldn't be mentioning stuff like that in this thread), but Koenig actually gives the moment a bit of oily charm - like mentioning his family and his strong family values is another sinister little sales pitch.

The level to which Bester is just so much damn fun is actually kinda subversive - in this episode I cared far more about him, and his moments, then the always dull Talia Winters and the rather amorphously tiresome railroad of telepaths (making Frankin the go-to guy for them was a good call if only to let Briggs's charisma serve as some sort of counteragent). He almost seems to get away from the rather didactic intent of the episode here, which interests me.

 

I liked that the lurker from "Chrysalis" turned out to be one of the telepaths. Especially since we're told they've been coming through since at least "The Quality of Mercy". Gives things a subtle bit of continuity.

 

It's also a handy way to reuse an actor. Babylon 5 is all about turning cost efficency into a plus, story-wise.

 

Me too. In fact, I always thought Bester should have been the one to lead the telepaths instead of Byron. Okay, yeah, that probably wouldn't have worked, but since Babylon 5 liked to take the characters "as far from the people they were at the start", it would have fitted in with where Bester was as a person the first time we saw him.

 

NO SPOILERS!!!

 

It's funny how quickly people can let themselves get carried away by the conversation.

Take it easy, guys. There's no fun in this if you give everything away before TGB can see it for himself.

 

Luckily in this case I got as far as "...leader of the tele" before my eyes shot away from the post. Sykonee's thread in the DS9 forum has given me plenty of practice in avoiding B5 spoilers, although I'm still kicking myself for reading a spoiler a certain Kai posted there.

I watched The Coming of Shadows tonight, and while I'll write up a formal post tomorrow I'll just say this; what an awful episode!

 

Are you joking or did you really think Coming of Shadows was bad. If it's the latter, you might want to stop watching B5 right now on the basis of this show might not be for you.

 

TGB is shifty.

 

Shifty eyes are shifty.

This thread has been giving me B5 dreams. I might have to start rewatching it soon.

 

I'm always confused what is supposed to mean. Is it a shrug, not caring, problems with the eyes? If it was problems with the eyes, wouldn't worth better?