There was talk that the Outer Limits episode "Demon with a Glass Hand" would get a sequel (or should I say, prequel?) in a B5 episode. Anyone know how close that ever came to fruition?
Last edited:
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
Like I said, I wasn't reading anything into it motivation wise, just curious as to what the thought process was there. And yeah, sure this kind of thing goes on fairly constantly behind the scenes in the entertainment business. However making the Who bid so public (seemingly to try and leverage fan support) rather changes things.
In the highly unlikely scenario that the Beeb went for it, and then the CW also okay'ed the remake, what's the play? Tell the BBC "on second thought, forget about it!" which would make him seem just a little of the flaky side? Or drop B5 and essentially snub the core of his fanbase? Seems like at best he's risking a dog with two bones scenario.
I'm not judging, it just struck me as curious.
It's hard to tell if he was ever actually serious about that, or just bringing it up as a means to rib Ellison into writing an episode for the show. So I guess the answer is "as close as Harlan was inclined to entertain the notion". Which since he didn't do it, probably means "not very".
Now that the man has passed, I doubt JMS will try and revisit the concept.
In so far as it was ever a possibility, it would have been a sequel, centuries after the central character discovered his true nature, while waiting to fulfil his destiny millennia later.
Even though I hope the reboot is good, I'm more excited by the prospect of the reboot marketing push getting the remastered original released on Blu-ray. Is that bad?
https://www.engadget.com/babylon-5-remastered-hbo-max-digital-download-080058907.html
To get digital media to fit comfortably on a physical format, like an 8 inch reel or a laser disk, it has to be confined to a limited size to organize portion control.
If the remasterers said "hey do we have to make these small enough to fit 6 of them on a blu ray" and the reply was "Don't worry about it, physical media is dead" then at worst we may be looking at one episode per blu ray disk, if you want to do it yourself at home and make your own blu rays from legal digital downloadws, which I suspect is not completely a legal thing to do, even though you just gave those m%%her fuckers 4 hundred dollars.
Last edited:
Yeah, but subtlety was never goal with Earth's cultural arc. Bester and Clark were all about the evil's of racial essentialism, fascism, and generally acting like Bester and Clark at the extreme end of the show's themes. They're the antithesis of G'Kar's We are One speech that sums up the ISA's goals. Species after species is shown to be weakened by sticking to it's own and trying to abide by some ideological purity.
As for the asylum question, Earth's rogue telepaths aren't Minbar's problem. That girl could be seen as the camel's nose in the tent but the Minbari never seem all that welcoming to other species. A true seeker now and a again the religious cast will play host to, we've seen Delenn and Lenier underscore that point a lot as do Delenn's friends in the religious caste like her poet pal or Draal. The other castes don't seem as inclusive, certainly not the warrior caste, however a stream of Earth's telepath unwashed is not likely to be looked at as anything but trouble to the Minbari government and people in general.
The problem is not unlike the Jews in the early 30s. Why didn't other nations help get them all out since the Germans didn't want them? Fame, talent, and money to support themselves got individuals out. No one was going to take in countless faceless Jews because of language, lack of support & money for themselves, any number of reasons but mostly just antisemitism. Minbar may have found a cultural comfort with their telepaths, most likely specialized within their castes, but that doesn't mean they'd want an exodus of alien telepaths in their midst. It's a cruel choice but a believable one.
Interesting coincidence that the first produced episode, "INFECTION", dealt with a race that died because of their racial purity dogma.
Even though I hope the reboot is good, I'm more excited by the prospect of the reboot marketing push getting the remastered original released on Blu-ray. Is that bad?
Yes you are bad
But I am hoping the same
I always liked that episode, more so after watching the whole series. The idea of racial purity and the awfulness it spawns comes up again and again. Delenn as a Child of Valen puts the problem square in the face of her family trying to prevent her marriage to Sheridan. No one wanted to admit that the heritage of Valen is alien DNA became part of the Minbari purity.
Sucks to be to you if HBO Max isn't available in your country.
Ah, now available on Amazon and iTunes. They kept quiet about that. Last time I looked they weren't. Thanks!
Also available on IMDb TV with ads, apparently. The upscaled sections that include CGI appear acceptable. HBO TV isn't available in the UK. There might be ways around that but it seems like a lot of bother TBF.
I would prefer Blu-rays but it does seem unlikely for the moment that they will ever appear.
ETA: I bought the 4:3 SD version on iTunes last year. They appear to have upgraded me to HD for free so I need to redownload. Ace.
Last edited:
But Minbar is a fictional planet whose religious caste has shown a history of putting moral right before nationalism and equal value on all sentient life. And has a special reverence for telepaths. You’d think someone would at least raise the question and they could have it derailed by lack of confidence these telepaths wouldn’t stay politically active toward Earth.
At the very least it seems out of character for Delenn not to make an effort.
Fun fact: A minbar is the pulpit from which a khutbah (sermon) is delivered in mosques.
It was certainly odd Lyta didn't go to Delenn over the issue with Byron. There were a lot of forced choices that didn't feel fully thought through based on what had happened in the series. I can understand Sheridan being upset with Lyta over her blowing up ZaHadum but she did have a better handle on the dangers of the place than John and Bester wasn't someone to give access to the place or anyone else for that matter. All the same, he had a pretty good run with her help through the Shadow War and the fight with Clark. I think he left her up shit creek pretty casually after everything and open to Bester's manipulation even though he and the station owed her quite a lot for their success.
All that said and in spite of Minbar being fictional, being fictional isn't reason to cast off reason. The religious caste doesn't run the planet and there is plenty to suggest the other two castes find the religious caste acts awfully high handed like the religious are wont to do even on earth. They are likely to put up a stink against the religious caste taking it on themselves to bring in boat loads of alien telepaths. There were plenty who hated humans among the Rangers. Bringing in countless more to just be refugees isn't likely to sit well. Also, Delenn isn't likely to force the issue if the castes resist it staunchly, like Dukhat advised, being right doesn't give a leader the right to impose their will on the majority.
I think it was also political calculation. Psi-Corps probably wouldn't be happy about losing any telepaths to alien factions. A single individual refugee isn't really worth to make an interstellar situation out of, but if they lose quite a lot of telepaths this way, and it gets to a place it is seen by human telepaths as a valid alternative to joining the Psi-Corps, then they use their sway on Earth government to make a fuzz about it to the Minbari.
With Byron, it was easier for his group to be granted asylum on Babylon 5, as it was still under the command of an EA officer and mainly staffed by humans, and the asylum was granted by an IA president who happened to be from Earth, so it couldn't be turned into a diplomatic issue, but even there they got push-back from Psi-Corps and the Earth government.
With Byron, it was easier for his group to be granted asylum on Babylon 5, as it was still under the command of an EA officer and mainly staffed by humans, and the asylum was granted by an IA president who happened to be from Earth, so it couldn't be turned into a diplomatic issue, but even there they got push-back from Psi-Corps and the Earth government.
Was The Gathering protected for widescreen? I was watching it last night on HBO and it looks bad just strictly from the shot composition. Everything looked cropped and too close including on screen text, the other episodes being shown in 4:3 look way better.
What in the world are you talking about? There have been season sets of TV shows on Blu Rays at the comfortable rate of four hours per disc (same as DVDs) since there have been Blu-Rays. Regardless of the size of the master files, they'd be converted to Blu Ray resolution and bitrate for disc, same as anything else that has ever been put on a disc.
Look at the recent re-release of the Star Trek movies, a 4K remaster put out on 4K and conventional Blu Rays. They didn't go, "Oh, if we put the new master on a normal Blu Ray, each movie would need to be spread across two discs, because the 4K files are too big," they just shrunk them down to 1080p and that was that. And since nobody is downloading 12 gb per episode on a streaming service, the master files as reformatted for streaming are certainly already smaller than they'd need to be to fit on a Blu Ray.
No, "The Gathering" was the only episode not protected for widescreen (so it, ironically, ended up being the best-looking overall on DVD). I think I've heard about the HBOMax version looking off elsewhere, but I don't remember any details.
It seems the opposite on HBOMax, so it's the only episode in widescreen, go figure.
It's the blown out to widescreen version from the SyFy channel release of the TNT special edition, aka JMS' preferred cut of "The Gathering." It's also the only episode that isn't upgraded to HD.
On Amazon Prime, you can purchase the original 1993 "The Gathering" pilot film (original music in 4:3).
Similar threads
