Ironic.
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
Actually, the Remaster-iTunes-Versions have 5.1 sound. So I would be very surprised if an eventual Blu-Ray version didn't. And those Remaster-Version already look a lot better then the DVDs we had until now. If you go back a few pages and check out the comparison video a lot of scence are already a ton sharper and that's just in SD.
That's pretty much B5 in a nutshell.
And yes, B5's seasons do tend to start at a slower pace than they ended. JMS is very conscious about pacing and structure. If you frontload the season too with much stuff then you inevitably run out of steam very quickly and end up spinning your wheels for most of the rest of the season before limping to the finish line (see: pretty much every CW/DC show ever.)
It also helps to make the show accessible to new viewers if each season can itself be an antry point. I know when it was first on, I didn't watch the show regularly until midway into season 2 (being on at stupid o'clock at night on channel 4 didn't help matters) and it wasn't until Sci-Fi repeated the whole thing in the early 2000's that I got to see most of season one for the first time.
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Thanks.
The remastered scenes do look as good as I remember from watching the original TV broadcast. The picture quality on the existing DVDs is pretty muddy quality - much like the DS9 DVDs. I'll wait for the Blu-ray release as I don't want to touch iTunes. The version on UK Amazon Prime appears not to be the remastered one.Thank you.
They did, but if I recall correctly, they only used one set of titles for the DVD. Which is why a certain promotion gets spoiled. But again, I may be mis-remembering.
They only redid one set of titles visually, so the spoiler-free version of the credits for the first two or three episodes wasn’t included. However, they used the correct audio tracks, so the narration is replaced with the more dynamic recording when it was originally, on episode 3 or 4.
JMS said that the original version was recorded prior to the sequence being edited. The second version was done with Boxleitner actually seeing what he was talking over.
IIRC, there's a story that when Boxleitner first recorded the opening narration, someone commented that "the other guy [meaning Michael O'Hare] did it better."
Londo and Lennier are quite an interesting and fun little pairing for this episode. A classic take on the degenerate hustler and the wide-eyed innocent. Interestingly, Londo learning how Minbari will lie in certain situations will come in useful in a later episode and be pivotal to solving a problem.
The episode, on the surface, is fairly standalone - another 'alien tech gone wrong' and a 'future crimes' episode. However...
The episode is important in setup, especially for the alien healing device. It'll turn up again fairly soon, in the episode 2.02: Revelations, where it'll be used to revive Garibaldi from his coma. It'll also turn up again, with more heartbreaking results, in 4.20: Endgame, when Marcus uses it to sacrifice his life to bring Ivanova back to life.
The episode also foreshadows Franklin's slow boiling character arc through the next two seasons. Doctor Rosen mentions that she lost her medical license due to an addiction to stims - artificial stimulants taken to keep her awake longer, due to the demands of her job - and over the next two years, Franklin will himself succumb to stim addiction.
The Death of Personality will be explored to lesser and greater extents in 2.19: Divided Loyalties and 3.04: Passing Through Gethsemane. In the former, Talia will undergo her own death of personality and we're shown the new personality that replaces her. In the latter, we get some meditations on the morality and ethics of personality execution, and the character Brother Edward - who is revealed to be a mindwiped serial killer who has become a holyman - struggles with the knowledge of what he is.
The episode also foreshadows Franklin's slow boiling character arc through the next two seasons. Doctor Rosen mentions that she lost her medical license due to an addiction to stims - artificial stimulants taken to keep her awake longer, due to the demands of her job - and over the next two years, Franklin will himself succumb to stim addiction.
The Death of Personality will be explored to lesser and greater extents in 2.19: Divided Loyalties and 3.04: Passing Through Gethsemane. In the former, Talia will undergo her own death of personality and we're shown the new personality that replaces her. In the latter, we get some meditations on the morality and ethics of personality execution, and the character Brother Edward - who is revealed to be a mindwiped serial killer who has become a holyman - struggles with the knowledge of what he is.
I don't know if its mentioned in an episode, but J. Michael Straczynski said that as far as he was concerned, N'Grath had been killed after we last him. Nobody liked the stupid puppet anyway and he was glad to be rid of it.
"Revelations"
The resolution (or at least, continuing) of most of the threads from Chrysalis finally comes in episode 2. I'll split them into sections per character.
G'Kar - An ancient enemy has stirred. This is a story we've all seen before - but when the enemy is as scary as B5 has successfully established, it works. They continue to be a chilling presence - when the Narn cruiser was destroyed instantly upon arriving at the Rim, I got a similar feeling to when I was a kid playing video games, accidentally stumbling upon a forbidden area and getting killed immediately. Like in Doom. There's something so unnerving about that. A place so dark and dreadful that venturing there means instant death - even if they were alerted to the Narn's arrival beforehand.
Sheridan - Dead ex-wife. Again, this isn't exactly the most creative of backstories, but it does give some added dimensions to Sheridan. It actually makes his seemingly upbeat demeanour more interesting, apparently hiding tragedy.
Londo - Getting in deeper and deeper with the creepy Morden. He had a great line this episode: "There, you see! One deserts his post without any explanation, the other one picks the most breathtakingly inconvenient moment possible to explore new career options, like becoming a butterfly!"
Delenn - I assume they're going for half-human, half-Minbari. On the face of it, she's simply grown some hair. Regardless, her explanation of "I did it so I can be a bridge between our worlds" sounds insufficient to me - I doubt that everyone involved is fully onboard with it. But it is an interesting angle.
Garibaldi - Out of his coma via the use of the alien healing device. Nice way to make that previous episode more relevant. Winters used her psychic powers to probe his memory - and is it me or does she constantly seem shocked and terrified whenever she encounters anything of substance during these scans? It was also pretty convenient that Garibaldi happened to be looking at the reflection of his assailant at that exact moment in the memory. When apprehending that dude, did the security team need to bother luring him outside into the corridor? Why not just storm the room?
Rating: ***
-I was so hoping that Kosh would say something, anything, about G'Kar's warnings. As ever, he mostly just stood by, watching, listening. Is it that the Vorlons are pretty unbothered by the emergence of this ancient enemy? Is it that they're simply unsurprised by the news, having already known for a while? Or something else?
The resolution (or at least, continuing) of most of the threads from Chrysalis finally comes in episode 2. I'll split them into sections per character.
G'Kar - An ancient enemy has stirred. This is a story we've all seen before - but when the enemy is as scary as B5 has successfully established, it works. They continue to be a chilling presence - when the Narn cruiser was destroyed instantly upon arriving at the Rim, I got a similar feeling to when I was a kid playing video games, accidentally stumbling upon a forbidden area and getting killed immediately. Like in Doom. There's something so unnerving about that. A place so dark and dreadful that venturing there means instant death - even if they were alerted to the Narn's arrival beforehand.
Sheridan - Dead ex-wife. Again, this isn't exactly the most creative of backstories, but it does give some added dimensions to Sheridan. It actually makes his seemingly upbeat demeanour more interesting, apparently hiding tragedy.
Londo - Getting in deeper and deeper with the creepy Morden. He had a great line this episode: "There, you see! One deserts his post without any explanation, the other one picks the most breathtakingly inconvenient moment possible to explore new career options, like becoming a butterfly!"
Delenn - I assume they're going for half-human, half-Minbari. On the face of it, she's simply grown some hair. Regardless, her explanation of "I did it so I can be a bridge between our worlds" sounds insufficient to me - I doubt that everyone involved is fully onboard with it. But it is an interesting angle.
Garibaldi - Out of his coma via the use of the alien healing device. Nice way to make that previous episode more relevant. Winters used her psychic powers to probe his memory - and is it me or does she constantly seem shocked and terrified whenever she encounters anything of substance during these scans? It was also pretty convenient that Garibaldi happened to be looking at the reflection of his assailant at that exact moment in the memory. When apprehending that dude, did the security team need to bother luring him outside into the corridor? Why not just storm the room?
Rating: ***
-I was so hoping that Kosh would say something, anything, about G'Kar's warnings. As ever, he mostly just stood by, watching, listening. Is it that the Vorlons are pretty unbothered by the emergence of this ancient enemy? Is it that they're simply unsurprised by the news, having already known for a while? Or something else?
That's largely because the way this works she's not just passively viewing memories like it's a video recording, she's reliving it as if it's all happening to her, including the subject's emotional state at the time.
Needless to say, commercial teeps are never exactly thrilled when it comes to dealing with criminal cases, like assault, attempted murder and the like. Also; deathbed scans are a thing...
That'd give him an extra second or two to react, and maybe somewhere to bolt to. Best to drawn him out into the open where they can safely control the situation.
I don't know if you are a fan of THE PRISONER, but the gesture he makes, as well as Bester's, is a direct homage to that show.
I noticed you left out the newly introduced character Keffer, Zeta Squadron leader. It was a character that PTEN forced JMS to insert in the show. JMS originally wanted him to be of Japanese ancestry in his late 20s to early 30s named Idori (Dory) Shima. PTEN wanted someone they thought would bring in the female demographic (dashing, young, brash - Babylon 5's under 25 Han Solo) and felt Idori Shima was too thoughtful and not dynamic enough (too old). JMS hated the idea of Keffer, but had to insert him in order to get the show renewed for a second season. JMS didn't hate the actor who played Keffer. In fact he said he did the best job he could, JMS just hated the idea of Keffer.
Because JMS didn't like having to insert a character like Keffer, he was coming up with ways to kill him off at the very first opportunity, in as horrible and graphic a fashion as possible. Knowing that when he did kill off the character, all those at PTEN who insisted the new character was essential to the health of the series ...would not even notice his death.
If you think back to Points of Departure, we already know Delenn is being somewhat economical with the truth. Hedronn was unhappy with her when he visited her cocoon, and informs Lennier that the Grey Council told her to wait before taking action. I think its safe to say Delenn is persona non grata with the council at the moment, especially in light of her ignoring their request that she return to her leadership duties in Babylon Squared. Delenn might not have thought about the consequences of her actions, and there is some doubt at this time as to whether she's acting with as noble intentions as she claims.
And yes, Delenn is at this point a Human/Minbari hybrid. The changes to her biology will form the B-Plot to the upcoming Soul Mates and is treated in a nicely humorous manner when Delenn becomes the first Minbari to ever have a bad hair day.
You could almost say the Vorlons aren't really pulling their weight, what with everything that's going on and is about to happen. You'd hope someone would call them out on it eventually.
They know that he's almost certainly part of the conspiracy that killed President Santiago, so for all they know he could've booby trapped the office in case someone came to arrest him. Plus, you can only fit through those doors one at a time and it would act as a bottleneck. Better to draw him out into an open space like the corridor where he could be surrounded on all sides.
Sounds like typically awful studio meddling - I had noticed the new character but felt he hadn't really done anything to warrant a mention so far.
Funny coincidence... the character of Trace in CRUSADE was created because TNT wanted a hotshot pilot, too.
What is it with networks wanting pilots? (Pun intended.)
What is it with networks wanting pilots? (Pun intended.)
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