Babylon 5

[Guy Gardener]

A fiend of mine tied to encapsulate the revelations from the technomage trilogy before he'd actually finished the book...

Spoiler

They dress all in black and use organic technology? Who do we already know dresses all in black and uses organic technology? The technomages were not a third party in the shadow war, they were conscientious objectors, guilty of being serious bastards over the course of the last million years, but who were now, finally sick of the Shadows shit, and wanted to sit this war out and probably the next one too.

Of course in the books, it's been a thousand years, and no Technomage still alive in 2259 remembers that they work exclusively, loyally and without reservation for the Shadows, they are morons who think that they are the good guys, even though they have no idea where their technology comes from and cannot build more. The have to harvest their organic technology from their own dead, and pass it on to the next generation, which would restrict their birthrate.

 

[Forbin]

A thing to remember when watching Crusade is that TNT interfered with the airing order of the episodes, and caused some of them to be rushed. So some eps had special effects that don't look very good because of being rushed. Also there's a change of uniforms because TNT didn't like the originals, and this results in a stupid episode about, yes, a fashion designer on the ship. Changing the order of the eps also results in some story elements seeming out of place, making you wonder why a character didn't remember something happening before. Oh, and TNT wanted the first ep to have more action, so JMS filmed a new ep with a fist fight and put it first, making the actual first ep seem out of place when it's aired later.
Oy vey.

 

[Farscape One]

Ultimately, TNT messed with CRUSADE so much that JMS just had it with them and left. I have the original CRUSADE box set that contains the JMS commentary where he was airing some of his issues with them. It's been years since I listened to it, so I don't remember the extent he took it, but I'm pretty sure he was pretty blunt.

(If I remember correctly, later reprints of the set removed the commentary.)

 

[David cgc]

(If I remember correctly, later reprints of the set removed the commentary.)

My recollection is that the commentary on the initial release was edited without his consent, so JMS insisted it be removed entirely from later pressings rather than letting them put words into (or rather, take them out of) his mouth.

 

[DonIago]

Geeze...I would rather hear some of it than none of it.

 

[Steve Roby]

The shutdown date is Wednesday, October 29, their 20th anniversary.

Argh. I've got a laptop that's about twelve years old and one that's about five years old. Guess which one has a keyboard that gives me problems all the time. No, it's not the older one. I keep forgetting I have to use the numeric keypad to the right instead of the numbers along the top, which don't work reliably.

 

[Booji]

The Babylon Podcast just released the 20th anniversary episode of their show! I certainly recommend checking out some of the old episodes as they had some really good interviews with cast and crew, episode discussions, and general fun.

Babylon Podcast #299: Celebrating 20 Years of “Babylon 5” Appreciation

 

[DigificWriter]

Thread bump.

I've started rewatching the Babble On Podcast video reactions that are available I through Youtuber LezbiNerdy's channel, and I honestly wish there were more people covering B5 'introcast'-style where fans introduce the series to newbies in real time.

 

[David cgc]

Zack Handlen, who did a popular series of episode-by-episode reviews of Star Trek on the AV Club (getting through TOS, TNG, and DS9, as well as the newer shows as they happened), has been doing a first-time watch of Babylon 5 on his Patreon. He also completed his original run of AV Club reviews with Voyager and Enterprise.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

If you want some first time Babylon 5 reactions on YouTube:

Court Reacts - Star Trek reactor, just finished season 4 of B5.
bunnytailsREACTS - Another Star Trek reactor who only just started B5.
Just Some Bodi's Opinion - They've just started season 2.
Irish Latino Reacts - Just started s3.
Warp Reactor - Midway through season 5.
R Knights - Four guys, they've covered the whole series.
Mega Reacts - Also finished it all.
Shelley - Finished all of B5 and Crusade!
medusa casade - One of the earliest reactors, finished the whole series ages ago.

Also:
Babylon 5 for the First Time (aka The Bad Nerds) - Two guys covered the whole series and are now doing a full rewatch.

 

[DigificWriter]

Just Some Bodi's Opinion - They've just started season 2.

Bodi is a fun reactor, although I've only watched his Wheel of Time videos.

If you want some first time Babylon 5 reactions on YouTube:

Court Reacts - Star Trek reactor, just finished season 4 of B5.
bunnytailsREACTS - Another Star Trek reactor who only just started B5.
Irish Latino Reacts - Just started s3.
Warp Reactor - Midway through season 5.
R Knights - Four guys, they've covered the whole series.
Mega Reacts - Also finished it all.
Shelley - Finished all of B5 and Crusade!
medusa casade - One of the earliest reactors, finished the whole series ages ago.

Also:
Babylon 5 for the First Time (aka The Bad Nerds) - Two guys covered the whole series and are now doing a full rewatch.

These aren't really what I wish we'd get more of, but thanks for the effort.

The appeal of Babble On is that it's a reaction and discussion series featuring 2 hosts (LezbiNerdy and a lady named Jenn) who've seen the series in its entirety (multiple times in LezbiNerdy's case) and two hosts (Ali and Gus, the hosts of the Wheel Takes Podcast) who are reacting to and discussing it for the very first time.

Im only going through the reaction video part of the podcast at the moment due to a lack of time, but it's still enough to make me want more commentary from B5 die-hard and B5 newbies.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Bunny tail reacts, who's gone through all of Star Trek the original series, the Animated Series, Star Trek continues and the movies and is currently in the middle of TNG season 2 (Q-Who next week!), started B5 this week.

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[Verteron]

I think I'm due for a rewatch.

Though it saddens me how many we've lost from the cast now.

So many went before their time too.

 

[Steve Roby]

I've been doing a rewatch following along Keith DeCandido's rewatch on reactormag.com. He provides some smart commentary and observations in a written form that takes minutes to get through. I can't imagine watching reaction videos. I'm 63, I don't have that kind of time.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I've been doing a rewatch following along Keith DeCandido's rewatch on reactormag.com. He provides some smart commentary and observations in a written form that takes minutes to get through. I can't imagine watching reaction videos. I'm 63, I don't have that kind of time.

I've found that reaction videos are great if you're doing a task that doesn't involve words or sound, and you could use something to have playing in the background. It's like rewatching an old episode through someone else's eyes, in half the time, with a commentary track. And they often do a bit of discussion afterwards too.

Though if you're already rewatching the series yourself, then I can see how it could feel a bit redundant.

 

[FredH]

One thing that did always strike me as a little odd/arbitrary in Babylon 5: the fact that unlike the Centuari or the Narn, humanity evolves to become new “First Ones” in the far, far future… when we’ve just spent the past four years showing that, with noble exceptions, and even further centuries into the future, we’re at least as corrupt and fallible as they are.

 

[Farscape One]

One thing that did always strike me as a little odd/arbitrary in Babylon 5: the fact that unlike the Centuari or the Narn, humanity evolves to become new “First Ones” in the far, far future… when we’ve just spent the past four years showing that, with noble exceptions, and even further centuries into the future, we’re at least as corrupt and fallible as they are.

Regarding that...

Spoiler

I think that was JMS showing humanity in a bit more hopeful way. (I remember in one of his interviews he said just by us getting to the 23rd century is a mark of hope for us, or words to that effect.)

And we don't know if the Narn or Centauri didn't also evolve, or was about to get there. We only really see a human in that way in "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars". We just have Kosh's judgement of those two races. (Admittedly, he is right FAR more often than wrong, but he wasn't infallible, either.)

 

[FredH]

Regarding that...

Spoiler

I think that was JMS showing humanity in a bit more hopeful way. (I remember in one of his interviews he said just by us getting to the 23rd century is a mark of hope for us, or words to that effect.)

I guess… but five hundred years later Earth (or half of it) apparently has become an Orwellian nightmare. It just feels like for the most part, from what we see, humanity definitely doesn’t earn it, even if the ISA taken as a collective does.