I've been watching B5 in its entirety for the first time in a few years. I love the show, but one thing that always bugged me was that we never found out whether Garibaldi got even with Bester after what was done to him in season 4. I know there are B5 books, but I never read them. However, I've heard they don't offer much of an answer. Did JMS plan to resolve it in Crusade? Has he commented on this? Did it bother anyone else?
Why was their no resolution to the Garibaldi/Bester story?
- Thread starter Captain Worf
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Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester by J. Gregory Keyes offers a pretty definitive answer.
Bester would have appeared in Crusade, but it would've been prior to his novel appearance.
Interesting. I just looked up Bester's entry on Wikipedia. Not sure whether I'll have the time or inclination to read the books. Which B5 books are worth checking out? I haven't bothered with Crusade or any of the other stuff after A Call To Arms, as I figured it would just be frustrated and disappointing. I've been tempted to buy the Crusade DVDs since I am a completist; are they worth getting?
From what I gather most of the B5 books are a royal pain in the ass to track down. You may have to do some work to get them
As for Crusade, I liked Crusade alot but it definitely had its rough edges. That said, it started off better than B5 did in my book and had ALOT of potential. It just didn't have the chance to show us what it was made of
As for Crusade, I liked Crusade alot but it definitely had its rough edges. That said, it started off better than B5 did in my book and had ALOT of potential. It just didn't have the chance to show us what it was made of
Those by Jeanne Cavelos (Shadowtech/Techno-mages), Peter David (post-series Centauri Prime, as well as novelizations of In the Beginning and Thirdspace that I feel are both worth the time--that he knows the show is obvious from reading them), J. Gregory Keyes (history/future of Psi Corps and Bester), and Kathryn M. Drennan (Sinclair between "Chrysalis" and "War Without End").
As posted above, if you read the Psi Corps trilogy, you'll definitely find out what happened to Bester. It wasn't resolved in B5 because it was well outside the 5-year 'history' of the station.
While JMS may have planned to flesh out parts of the Telepath War in 'Crusade', he's never said that he intended to resolve the Bester/Garibaldi conflict in that series. It's unlikely since he wrote the outlines for the Psi Corps books in late '97 at the time that he was still writing Season 5 so he planned what happened in the novels before Crusade.
The feeling has always been that JMS planned to save the Telepath War for whatever feature film might come along though he was keeping the concept alive in viewer's minds by referring to it pretty regularly in 'A Call to Arms' and 'The Path of Sorrows' as well as the Avery script.
Jan
While JMS may have planned to flesh out parts of the Telepath War in 'Crusade', he's never said that he intended to resolve the Bester/Garibaldi conflict in that series. It's unlikely since he wrote the outlines for the Psi Corps books in late '97 at the time that he was still writing Season 5 so he planned what happened in the novels before Crusade.
In Fiona Avery's script, 'Value Judgments' which featured Mr. Bester, at the end of the episode was a scene where somebody reports to Garibaldi that Bester escaped again.
Jan
I don't remember the exact quote, but if you turn on his commentary on the "A Call to Arms" DVD, you will hear him say when the aftermath of the Telepath War is mentioned at the beginning of the movie, "there's the set-up to the mystery for the show" or something along those lines. It sounds like he was planning for the telepath crisis to be an integral part of Crusade, rather than just as background that would later be covered in a feature film.
One tidbit that came out, or rather, would have come out in Crusade was a flashback scene in "The Path of Sorrows" where we see both Lyta and Lennier's fate. Unfortunately they couldn't come to an agreement with Pat Tallman so the scene had to be rewritten.
As I recall there were some flashbacks to Bester's trial in "Value Judgments", but that's all.
Jan
I echo what others have already said. The Psi Corps trilogy is definitely worth reading, as well as the Centauri and Technomage trilogies. I had a hard time getting a hold of the second book of the Centauri trilogy, but the Psi Corp and Technomage ones were pretty easy to come by.
Aside from the trilogies mentioned above, the only stand-alone books worth picking up are "To Dream in a City of Sorrows" which covers Sinclair's activities on Minbar, how Marcus joined the Rangers and what happened to Catherine Sakai and to a slightly lesser degree "The Shadow Within", which covers the mission of the Icarus and a fairly forgettable b-story about Sheridan taking command of the Aggie. I gather they're both somewhat easier to find than some of the trilogies so that might be a better place to start.
I always felt like Garibaldi's character, after settling down with the woman he loved and becoming a very successful businessman, was fulfilled beyond the need for some sort of rouge revenge.
At the end of "Rising Star", I agree he seemed like he was in a good place. But in season 5 he became an alcoholic again, and they kind of just left it there, which felt unsatisfying.
We saw him drying out before he left for Mars with Lise. You don't stop being an alcoholic, you just stay sober. I think the implication was that with him taking control of Edgars Industries, he'd have the control over his life he needed to allow him to stay sober.
Jan
There were the scenes with Garibaldi attending a meeting drunk and Sheridan trying to figure out what to do about it, and also with Lochley finally telling Garibaldi that she was an addict too as well as some others. In the end Garibaldi thinks a lot of his problems stem from Bester messing with his brain.
In the episode Wheel of Fire, it seems pretty clear that Garibaldi is going to go after Bester no matter how many good things happen to him.
In the unfilmed Fiona Avery script "Value Judgments", there's a scene
where somebody reports back to Garibaldi that Bester has escaped before they arrived.
Jan
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