Babylon 5

[Jan]

There's tons of clunky (from now on that's my favorite word when talking about this two parter) exposition that doesn't quite flow naturally out of Mira's or anyone else's mouths because of all the hurry.

Part of the problem is that all that exposition was supposed to be carried by both Draal and Delenn but it turned out at the last minute that John Schuck wasn't available so everything fell to Delenn.

Another thing I learned when doing the Joe Cuts for the B5 script books is that a LOT of switching around happened when editing the two episodes-twenty-nine instances of changes versus an average of six per episode. My personal feeling is that things flowed better with the script as written than as finally edited but I also realize how hard it had to have been to match all of the set-ups from 'Babylon Squared'

 

[Forbin]

Wasn't there also some awkward rewriting made necessary due to O'Hare's having left the series? B-Squared's flash-forwards were written with the assumption he'd still have been around, and jms needed to write WWE so they still made some kind of sense.

 

[Jan]

Wasn't there also some awkward rewriting made necessary due to O'Hare's having left the series? B-Squared's flash-forwards were written with the assumption he'd still have been around, and jms needed to write WWE so they still made some kind of sense.

WWE had been outlined in fair detail but not pre-written. Here's a bit from the B5 script book that almost makes me go as cross-eyed as time travel stories do...

So my task in writing “War Without End” was to take all the same scenes which would have meant one thing when Sinclair was present, and stitch them together to mean something a bit different now that Sheridan was on board, but in a way that was absolutely logical and consistent with everything that came before, during and after “Babylon Squared.”

To an extent, though, JMS had looked forward to possible changes and mentioned that he'd kept Zathras' babblings in B2 vague enough that they could have referred to the past as well as the present. Given that Babylon Squared was episode 118, we now know that JMS might well have been facing the probability that Michael O'Hare might be leaving after season one.

 

[Reverend]

Wasn't there also some awkward rewriting made necessary due to O'Hare's having left the series? B-Squared's flash-forwards were written with the assumption he'd still have been around, and jms needed to write WWE so they still made some kind of sense.

It's mostly more of a shifting of context, it still basically works as is.

The only overt retcons I can recall are how in "Babylon Squared", they said that there was a flash and Zathras just appeared in the conference room, while in WWE, we see him found by security in one of the corridors IIRC. There's also another one (sorta) in Sinclair's "I tried to warn them" scene. In the original episode a computer voice says something about the atmosphere being breathable again with the time distortion stabilised, that while aspect appears to have been dropped in WWE. Also, in the original footage, you see Delenn's hand being decidedly affectionate with him, which doesn't jibe with how things are staged in WWE.

On theory I like is that thanks to the butterfly effect, the version of the future we saw in 'Babylon Squared' is a slightly different one than we ended up getting. The existence of Ivanova's distress call from a B5 about to be overrun by the Shadows shows that by the rules of the show, parallel temporal states can interact, at least until a definite path is chosen and collapses the wave function. It's part of the mode of thinking that proposes that travelling backwards in time actually splits your reality off into a different universe.
The implication there being that the Valen from the show's past isn't the exact same Sinclair was saw go back in WWE, but a slightly different one from another universe that we saw in 'Babylon Squared' and consequently "our" Sinclair ended up in another, slightly different universe.

 

[JWPlatt]

... constantly blinking...

Blinking? What blinking?

 

[DonIago]

I didn't care for Lochley at all at first, but I think it's a situation where the more backstory we got about her the more she grew on me.

Which I suppose may have been the intention.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The only overt retcons I can recall are how in "Babylon Squared", they said that there was a flash and Zathras just appeared in the conference room, while in WWE, we see him found by security in one of the corridors IIRC. There's also another one (sorta) in Sinclair's "I tried to warn them" scene. In the original episode a computer voice says something about the atmosphere being breathable again with the time distortion stabilised, that while aspect appears to have been dropped in WWE. Also, in the original footage, you see Delenn's hand being decidedly affectionate with him, which doesn't jibe with how things are staged in WWE.

Also, in WWE, Major Krantz knows about the Shadow fusion bombs (and possibly hostile intruders aboard his station), but doesn't mention any of it to Sinclair or the others in B-squared.

 

[Forbin]

One thing new viewers won't get to suffer thru is TNT's painful little season 5 promos, especially Lochly visiting the Planet of the Cheeseheads. Was Notre Dame in the Superbowel at the time or something?

I think I'll leave that typo. It expresses my feeling for both the promos and football.

Anyhoo, that promo helped to turn me off Lochly at first. I warmed to her eventually, sorta, but Tracy has never exactly been a A-list actress.

 

[Reverend]

Also, in WWE, Major Krantz knows about the Shadow fusion bombs (and possibly hostile intruders aboard his station), but doesn't mention any of it to Sinclair or the others in B-squared.

It's been a while so I may be misremembering, but I don't think he knew about the bombs specifically, just that something blacked out their sensors right before all the weirdness started. It would be fair to surmise he assumed it's all the same thing. As for the intruders, we see he has Zathras already and he's already aware of the mysterious, disappearing blue spacesuited person, so I don't think there's a direct contradiction there.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Cousin Brucie as Krantz's first officer...

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I may have missed it, but is there a mostly-intact idea of what WWE was supposed to be? Was the aged Sinclair always supposed to be a sort of fake-out?

When I watched B2, that last scene instantly gave me the impression that Sinclair and the gang were stealing B4 in order to bring it forward and to use as a base during the Shadow War, though not necessarily to replace B5. That part I know was the intent... But I'd thought that the point that Sinclair had come from would have matched his age - that ir'd be years into the future.

Edit - okay. This spells it out somewhat.

http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/synopsis-of-jmss-synopsis-of-the-original-arc-for-b5-spoilers.53739/

Mark

 

[Andru]

Regarding Season 5, it's probably has been mentioned many times before but it reminds me so much of the last book of Lord of the Rings... when the heroes return home to find things have changed while they were away fighting the more obvious enemy. Many similarities there.

 

[theenglish]

Regarding Season 5, it's probably has been mentioned many times before but it reminds me so much of the last book of Lord of the Rings... when the heroes return home to find things have changed while they were away fighting the more obvious enemy. Many similarities there.

Yes, but let's let Kail discover that on his/her own. Don't want to give away details of upcoming episodes.

I have to say it has been at least fifteen years since I've watched this series and reading through this thread has made me want to go back to revisit it. It is anguishing to me that B5 is not available for streaming as far as I can tell.

 

[Jan]

I have to say it has been at least fifteen years since I've watched this series and reading through this thread has made me want to go back to revisit it. It is anguishing to me that B5 is not available for streaming as far as I can tell.

While it's been available for reruns in a few European countries, here in the US, the only way to see it legally online is via services such as Amazon and Hulu for $2 per episode. I don't know if that applies anywhere else. Unfortunately the #FreeBabylon5 campaign never made any headway with Warner Bros.

 

[RJDiogenes]

P K Tech Girl was season 1 episode 5. Some of the episodes in season 1 were quite weak although they do connect to later ones -- a bit like B5 -- although not as strongly.

Hmm. I thought I had watched at least through episode 5, but I guess not. I'll give it a try.

 

[theenglish]

Hmm. I thought I had watched at least through episode 5, but I guess not. I'll give it a try.

Yeah, I looked at the episodes--I saw that episode back on the original run on HBO international when it was placed much later in the season. That was the first episode I liked though as I didn't see the pilot episode until much later. I would try starting with DNA Mad Scientist perhaps--but Farscape does have more than a few stinkers in any given season.l

 

[DonIago]

Oh, I really liked DNA Mad Scientist. PK Tech Girl didn't do much for me on its own.

 

[Forbin]

I liked PK Tech Girl 'cause I like the PK tech girl! What a cutie!

 

[Jan]

Regarding Season 5, it's probably has been mentioned many times before but it reminds me so much of the last book of Lord of the Rings... when the heroes return home to find things have changed while they were away fighting the more obvious enemy. Many similarities there.

It's pretty well known that JMS structured the show like a novel: Introduction, rising action, complication, climax and denouement. That would fit in with the tone you mentioned.

 

[JD]

Yes, but let's let Kail discover that on his/her own. Don't want to give away details of upcoming episodes.

I have to say it has been at least fifteen years since I've watched this series and reading through this thread has made me want to go back to revisit it. It is anguishing to me that B5 is not available for streaming as far as I can tell.

While it's been available for reruns in a few European countries, here in the US, the only way to see it legally online is via services such as Amazon and Hulu for $2 per episode. I don't know if that applies anywhere else. Unfortunately the #FreeBabylon5 campaign never made any headway with Warner Bros.

Didn't it use to be? I swear I remember seeing it come up under the sci-fi TV section on Netflix.