Niners Unite...around Babylon 5! - The Lost Threads

The first volume of Babylon 5: Other Voices is now available to order. As with the 14-volume set, the books are discounted $10 off the usual price of $39.99 for the first week (through May 21). This volume includes:

"Born to the Purple" by Larry DiTillio
"The War Prayer" by D.C. Fontana
"DeathWalker" by Larry DiTillio
"Believers" by David Gerrold
"Survivors" by Marc Scott Zicree
"Grail" by Christy Marx

and as a special bonus, the David Gerrold outline for a proposed episode,
"Laser-Mirror-Starweb" is included in this volume. Never made as an episode,
this story was later used as a two-issue arc in the Babylon 5 comic books.

And for those interested, I've done the Script-DVD variations for each episode, too.

Jan

 

Accusations is a decent murder mystery, but I have a couple of problems with it. First, the ending is pretty unsatisfying. A lot of the Earthdome side of the plot is left unresolved, and the murderer of Wallace's assistant is not a character that we met in the novel, just part of a group. Another beef is with the cover art. G'Kar is not in the novel in person or in spirit, so why is he in the top spot on the cover? I don't expect absolute fidelity to the novel text from the cover art, but I do expect it to make sense and not be false. I haven't been this disappointed with a cover choice since Dooku appeared on the cover of The Cestus Deception.

 

By the way, gang...I'll not close this one yet, but Neroon, you might want to consider starting a new thread...

Or do we care about threads over 1,000 on the new board?

 

I've now finished with the third book, Blood Oath. It's a decent adventure story, but it definitely feels like its been done before. Vornholt's Narns come off as little different from Klingons, even though there are a few cool world-building details in the book. Al Vernon was obviously not what he appeared to be, but I thought he was a particular person in disguise instead of an agent of that person. My biggest problem is that the show gives us zero indication that G'Kar has or had a wife. It seems like that would have come up sometime after the sacking of Narn or during the struggles that followed. The first two books feel firmly entrenched in the B5 universe, and I think they could have easily "happened," but I have to consider the third an out-of-continuity (Elseworlds/Infinities/whatever) story.

 

G'Kar's mate was mentioned briefly in "The Gathering" when he tries to broker the DNA deal with Lyta. In the series proper, it was apparently dropped. I don't know why.

 

As long as there's an appropriate subtitle for the new thread.

I'll be starting the Technomage trilogy this month, so I'll post my responses to that here. I've almost completed reviewing every bit of the canon that makes up Babylon 5. I just have the Technomage trilogy and In The Beginning (which I've seen once, but it was before I started reviewing everything).

 

Well, I found the time to watch In The Beginning on DVD this morning. I rather liked it, as I remembered, although I have a few observations.

First, the fanboy gripes:

--The introduction, with our characters circa 2262 speaking to the camera felt unnecessary. The movie should have started with Londo's 2278 framing sequence.
--I understand it was a matter of scheduling, and money, but the way Sinclair is nowhere to be found until he suddenly appears at the end of the movie in a combination of stock shots from various first season episodes feels off. If anything, he should have a scene where he heads the President's call to battle. And the fighter pilot dialogue, mostly taken from A Sky Full of Stars, doesn't seem to fit with the new (extremely cool looking) special effects.
--In that vein, the old footage and the new footage of Delenn onboard the Gray Council Ship doesn't always match, although most of it does.
--The contrived way in which Sheridan, Dr. Franklin, and G'Kar are all thrust together on a last ditch mission to save Earth, despite the fact that (a) Both G'Kar and Franklin act as if they had never met Sheridan before in early season two and (b) Sheridan hardly seems expendable, as the General says, since he's the only propaganda tool the Earth Alliance has. It would be one thing for him to request to go back to the fight, a la Ira Hayes in WWII, but he's ORDERED to go on what appears to be a suicide mission. And then they manages to meet Delenn, and somehow are let free. It's a good thing they waited to use the triluminary until Sinclair showed up--otherwise they might have never found out about the Minbair souls, and certainly not Valen's soul.

Second, the compliments:

--Londo's framing sequence is wonderful, and makes this, in my opinion, perfect material to watch before Sleeping in Light.
--It's nice to see the General who faces off against Sheridan in Endgame appear again here, in the past sequences.
--It's great to see Londo on Earth as well.
--They do a substantial job making Sheridan look younger with the short hair cut and his performance as an unsure commander. Franklin doesn't look a bit different to me, but I guess there's only so much you can do, and he doesn't have many scenes as it is.
--The music is magnificent. Of course I have the album, and enjoy listening to the final track (The War/The President's Call/etc...).
--The effects are spot on. They really sell the scale of the war.
--It's nice to see more of Dukhat, and Delenn's first meeting with the Vorlons.
--The movie demonstrates the true scale of the Babylon 5 universe in a number of ways. That goes a long way.

Grade: A-

I graded Thirdspace as an A- way back when. I was probably a bit too generous. If I were to go back, I might re-evaluate it as a B+. In the Beginning is by far the best Babylon 5 movie.

 

Here are my thoughts on the last B5 books I've read.

Clark's Law: The prologue is awesome, but the rest of the book never matched it. I give it props for trying something different, and it's got some good stuff for those with station and alien fetishes. The novel does suffer from being written concurrently with such a tightly woven TV show. Several of the characters acted in ways that I felt were out of character for them at that point in time. The events also crossed the line from interesting to something that should have had an effect on the show, such as the attack on Londo.

The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of Your Name, This Title is Too Long for Such a Useless Story: A strange phenomenon causes temporary insanity. The crew barely keeps things together until it passes by. The End. I think Carbon the Harley guy got more interesting dialogue than any main character. I'm still irked that the buildup was basically to a nonresolution, but at least the reading was very quick.

 

They don't, actually. The audience may assume that's what their behavior means the first time around, but there's really nothing to back that up.

We don't see introduction scenes for any of these three characters in the show. The first time Sheridan and G'Kar are seen together is in council; and the first thing we here from Franklin about Sheridan is, "I haven't seen much of him, but what I have seen I like."

 

Franklin's line has always left me with the feeling that it's the first time they've met in season two. And when G'Kar asked Sheridan how he's fitting in a few episodes down the line in season two, the conversation also carries the implication that G'Kar hasn't known Sheridan before he arrived. Neither case is explicitly stated, but that was always my impression. And, having the three characters come together like that is a case of "small universe syndrome" that I don't think was needed. Cut those scenes out of the movie, and I don't think it would be any worse off.

Just my two cents though.

 

Well guys, I think I'm going to take the B5 plunge and buy all 5 seasons next paycheck. It's gotten to the point with DS9 that I can recall intricate plot details for most episodes just by reading the episode name. I need a new sci-fi series bad. I didn't watch BStar and I didn't watch Stargate so those two are on the list as well. I do have one question:

I read an overview for all 5 seasons. They mention something about Shadow world or Shadow War? Is that about the undead? I don't like much of that stuff in my sci-fi.

 

Shadow War. No, nothing like that at all, don't worry.

I envy you your first time viewing. Enjoy!

Jan

 

No undead monsters in the fantasy sense, at least.

Although you are missing some fantastic programs with that requirement, along with the lame ones you're just as well avoiding.

As for G'Kar's attitude towards Sheridan, it's not like they were the best of friends. They had one mission 10 years before that ended badly and produced no results of consequence. I'm sure Sheridan had passing acquaintances with lots of aliens due to his time in command of Agamemnon.

 

Cool. Decided not wait and ordered it tonight. Kind of afraid I might like it more than DS9.

 

Personally, I like Deep Space Nine more, but Babylon 5 does some things better than Deep Space Nine (some things far, far better). On the other hand, there are some things that it doesn't come close to Deep Space Nine in doing. So... YMMV.

I'm sure we'd all love to know what you think.

And, before everyone says it, don't be deterred by the quality of the first season, but don't skip any of it, either, at least not on your first go.

 

I can see that, but it still seemed to me that JMS was leapfrogging with his retcons much in the same way with Delenn's "love" for Sinclair in the first season. Mira Furlan, in an interview in the defunct Sci-Fi Universe magazine, stated that she played the character as being "in-love with Sinclair." JMS later said that it wasn't love but reverence. Watch the first-season and you'll see that it is very much the former than the latter, which of course had to change with Sheridan coming on board.

 

Just finished watching No Compromises.

I was a bit underwhelmed but I'm not surprised. I've felt that way after watching numerous pilots including: Encounter at Farpoint, Emissary, The Caretaker and Serenity. The exceptions being Broken Bow and the first episode of Buffy. But I already know I'm going to keep watching because a couple of the characters peaked my interest.

I want to see how things develop between Captain Lochley and Garibaldi, now that Garibaldi is heading up military intelligence. I'd like to know what side Lochley fought on in the war. I'm curious about PsiCorps and the entire notion of non controlled telepaths being dangerous, directly opposite of how Trek treated them. And I wonder how often Sheridan is going to decide that a matter is "political" just to override Lochley.

But most of all I'm looking forward to a series that isn't confined by canon and the Roddenberry vision of what the future should/will be.

So here I go....