Babylon 5

[Steve Roby]

I bought the novels as they were published but still haven't read them all. I read the original nine Dell novels and the Bester trilogy, but three whole books by Peter David and three whole books about the Technomages... well, I'll get to them some day. Heck, I even read one of the Mongoose novels (the one that was very briefly available in paperback, before JMS put his foot down) just to see if it was as ungood as I expected. (It was.)

 

[Jan]

Heck, I even read one of the Mongoose novels (the one that was very briefly available in paperback, before JMS put his foot down) just to see if it was as ungood as I expected. (It was.)

Which one of the Mongoose ones? I tried to read 'Ranger Dawning' and if it had been a physical copy I'd've thrown it out the window. Just for clarification, what JMS did was refuse to endorse the Mongoose novels in any way (strenuously, I'll admit). Mongoose withdrew the plan on their own.

ETA: Re: the Centauri Trilogy, that's my favorite. You'll really believe in Vir as emperor after reading those.

 

[David cgc]

I thought the Centauri Trilogy best captured the feel of the series. The Technomage books were good in and of themselves, but fell down a bit when they crossed over with the TV shows (they added a lot of additional material between scenes or even shots in episodes that retconned what was going on, and it was pretty clear the author did not have a sympathetic read on Londo, who wallowed in mustache-twirlling villainy whenever he turned up).

 

[Steve Roby]

Which one of the Mongoose ones? I tried to read 'Ranger Dawning' and if it had been a physical copy I'd've thrown it out the window. Just for clarification, what JMS did was refuse to endorse the Mongoose novels in any way (strenuously, I'll admit). Mongoose withdrew the plan on their own.

Visions of Peace. I remember very little about it, which may be merciful. In 2006 Mongoose sold a small number of "preproduction copies." At the time I asked them a few questions: "are there likely to be any significant changes between the advance version and the version released later on this year? I've noticed little things like the text layout (spacing between paragraphs instead of paragraph indents), no 'Based on Babylon 5 created by JMS' or reference to Warner Bros or whoever the copyright holder is, etc." Their response was that this was a prototype released in very small numbers, and the official release would be different, though obviously that never happened. Someone's got a copy for sale on eBay now for about US$100 (not me). Mine only cost £7.50.

ETA: Re: the Centauri Trilogy, that's my favorite. You'll really believe in Vir as emperor after reading those.

I burned out on Peter David. I loved his Star Trek comics and his early Star Trek novels, but his style in the New Frontier books just seemed to move from developing his own voice to becoming more and more self-parody. The last few New Frontier ebooks were... well, I could understand why they were only released as ebooks. The B5 books are from long enough ago that they're probably relatively free of the stuff I dislike in his later work, so I'll get around to them eventually. But those ebooks really left a bad taste.

 

[Jan]

For anybody who's been watching B5 on Go90, it looks like the license expired as of yesterday.

 

[RJDiogenes]

We need a MeTV for old Sci-Fi shows.

 

[BillJ]

For anybody who's been watching B5 on Go90, it looks like the license expired as of yesterday.

Which is why I buy the stuff I want to keep. B5 DVD's are down around $17 per season at this point.

 

[Jan]

Which is why I buy the stuff I want to keep. B5 DVD's are down around $17 per season at this point.

Yeah, but a nice number of people were discovering the show for the first time so this is a bummer.

 

[JD]

We need a MeTV for old Sci-Fi shows.

At this point it's proabably old enough they could just put it on MeTV or Cozy.
If not on one of them, then they did just start up Comet, which right now show Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, Men into Space, Andromeda, The Outer Limits ('60s, and '00s), MSTK3, and rotates between the Stargates.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ There you go. That's what I'm talking about. I hope they meet with some success.

I suppose MeTV might pick it up. They do have a block of Sci Fi shows, and they do carry stuff that's pretty obscure these days, like Night Stalker.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

One of my favorite episodes is the generally disrespected TKO, primarily for the Ivanova story of coming to grips with her father’s death. The A story of the Mutai battle (note my username) included a character called,the muta-do. The actor, Oh Soon-Tek died this past week. Here’s a brief notice from Korean news. He also has a huge filmography on IMDB.com.

http://mengnews.joins.com/view.aspx?aid=3046619

 

[Forbin]

Oh no! SoonTek Oh is one of my favorite Asian actors! Damn.

 

[Marsden]

One of my favorite episodes is the generally disrespected TKO, primarily for the Ivanova story of coming to grips with her father’s death. The A story of the Mutai battle (note my username) included a character called,the muta-do. The actor, Oh Soon-Tek died this past week. Here’s a brief notice from Korean news. He also has a huge filmography on IMDB.com.

http://mengnews.joins.com/view.aspx?aid=3046619

Oh, man. He was one of my favorites, too. I was so happy to see him in that episode.

While TKO is not in my top favorites, I've always liked that episode. Yes the whole plot with Ivanova and Uncle Yossel was really nice, but I liked Walker Smith walking in arrogant about everything but learning humility, and I like the B5 tradition of not using obvious tropes too much, the aliens really are decent, the champion is a decent guy, too. And Caliban doesn't have any stupid revenge plan, either.

I think it's an interesting part of B5 to reinforce, this ain't no ship, this is a city in space. I think a lot of us had this "space show is set on a ship" mindset that does not belong on B5, especially the first two seasons. It picks up the ship business a bit with the White Stars later on.

 

[tomalak301]

I decided to start a B5 rewatch tonight but I'm starting with In The Beginning. I haven't seen this movie in at least a decade I think.

 

[Forbin]

It has spoilers!!

 

[tomalak301]

It has spoilers!!

It does but one thing I was struck by was how many of the B5 crew Sharidan met before he took over the station. That's something I'm going to pay more attention with as I go through the series.

In the Beginning was a pretty good movie but it did feel like a cliff notes version of the stuff we already know. I kind of wish there would have been more meat around the human/minbari strategizing that was going on.

 

[Jan]

In the Beginning was a pretty good movie but it did feel like a cliff notes version of the stuff we already know. I kind of wish there would have been more meat around the human/minbari strategizing that was going on.

In a way, that's exactly what it was, just as the Season 5 opening sequence was. That's due to the switch to TNT and the fact that they were running the other seasons daily.

 

[Forbin]

It does but one thing I was struck by was how many of the B5 crew Sharidan met before he took over the station. That's something I'm going to pay more attention with as I go through the series.

Yeah, but that stuff was all retcon, just to get the actors into the movie. It stretched plausibility at some points, especially Franklin - for the whole time of Seasons 2-4, there's no indication at all that Sheridan and Franklin had ever met before.

 

[tomalak301]

In a way, that's exactly what it was, just as the Season 5 opening sequence was. That's due to the switch to TNT and the fact that they were running the other seasons daily.

And that might be why A Call To Arms is my favorite of the B5 movies. It felt like a special made for TV movie and was well written. Like ITB, I really haven't seen any of the movies other than Gathering in a long time so I'm kinda looking forward to the movies again.

 

[Jan]

Yeah, but that stuff was all retcon, just to get the actors into the movie. It stretched plausibility at some points, especially Franklin - for the whole time of Seasons 2-4, there's no indication at all that Sheridan and Franklin had ever met before.

No, but there's nothing that says they didn't, either. We can't assume that we saw all of their interactions. Yes, it did seem that Franklin was acquainted with Sinclair from his greeting but we never saw the first station-based meeting between Sheridan and Franklin.