Babylon 5 - I'm finally going to do it

^Keffer was added to the cast becuase the network insisted on having a "hot shot pilot" character. JMS wasn't happy about that at all. Still, even though he's a main credited cast member, he doesn't appear much at all.

 

The Long Dark

Interesting stuff reading the Lurkers guide. You get some hints that you might not think of, such as the Darkness being either a Shadow or a servent of the Shadow Race. That wasn't my original thought watching the episode, but the ship was heading towards Za'Ha'Dum so that does add a layer to this season. By itself though, this episode was just OK. There were some good moments, such as what I just mentioned, and finding out the Humans first met the Cintauri and that's when they acquired the jump gate technology but other than that, it was probably the weakest episode I've seen of the night. This was the first time I've seen Shultz do someone other than Barcley, and I think I saw more Barcley in this character than Amis.

 

Too bad you didn't seem to like it - but "The Geometry of Shadows" is one of my favorite "fun and quirky" episodes. So many great scenes and LOL moments...

And the "My followers? No, your victims!" dialog is so chilling and awesome, IMO.

Speaking of funny - the upcoming "Soul Mates" is another funny episode, IMO. But then again tastes certainly differ when it comes to humor!

There are mythology pieces sprinkled in all episodes, but the next major mythology episode is "The Coming of Shadows". (also the overall title of season 2, BTW)

 

A Spider in the Web

So we have Babylon 5's version of Section 31. I really hope we see Bureau 13 again, and I think we will. There is so much there that to not see them again would be really disappointing. This was a very good mystery episode, and I think it's kinda cool Sharidan is a conspiracy buff. I've got a feeling that's going to be a bit important later on too. Other than that, not much to really say about this one. It gave Talia stuff to do, we meet Zack for the first time, and there's an interagency trying to screw up everything. Good stuff.

 

That's funny... I really loved "Geometry of Shadows" and really did not care for "Distant Star". The Technomages were amazing, the Londo/Vir comedy was great, Ivanova gets her first truly wonderful episode that's really funny, the Drazi are amusing, etc, etc...

 

Unfortunately there was some sort of legal issue with the name, so that storyline had to be retooled a bit after this episode.

 

Don't get me wrong. I loved Ivanova in that episode, but the story itself was stupid and actually kind of reminded me of The Star Trek episode "Let that be your Last Battlefield".

 

Speaking of "The Geometry of Shadows", I recommend the audio commentary...It's probably safer to avoid commentaries until you have finished the series but they are worth going back to listen to. Starting with season 2 each of the subsequent DVDs has a cast commentary, usually featuring Bruce Boxleitner and my recollection of them is that they were quite a lot of fun to listen to. They even do a commentary on one of the TV movies, Thirdspace. JMS' commentaries are obviously more insightful, the cast commentaries are just plain fun.

 

Omg, that commentary on The Geometry of Shadows is hilarious! I always fall about laughing listening to it, learning about how much fun they had making the show, and the chemistry they all had/still have together.

Must admit after browsing this thread I'm feeling another rewatch coming on.

 

After I get through the series, I might actually invest in the DVDs. This series is worth it, and saying that now in Season 2 when there is so much more to come only makes it even more worth it. It will probably take a while, but I think I found another series to collect.

 

That reminds me, last year I bought all the B5 DVDs for $20 each, even though we had JUST finished watching the show (introducing it to my GF). I never cracked them open and looked at the bonus features!

 

The commentaries with Straczynksi are great, and filled with information (and sometimes, spoilers). The commentaries with the cast are fun, but mostly filled with light banter rather than depth. The season introductions are actually spoiler-laded season overviews. Everything else is mostly old documentaries from early on in the series, sad to say.

 

Soul Mates

Now this was a great fun episode. So much funny scenes, such as G'Kar talking to Shariden, (Talking about the previous commander taking on a Minbari post in the middle of the night) and the three wives story was fun. I was wondering though if Mariel was a Narn spy or not. Sure seemed like it from that brief scene. Also loved the stuff with Ivanova and Delenn. I tell you, ever since Delenn got the hair and Ivanova let the hair down, they both have become absolutely great characters. Going back to a point I talked about when I started this, they may be more attractive looking than before, but they haven't lost that sense of power and are not being used as just "sex symbols." It's actually refreshing in a way.

As for Talia's story, not that much there. I did like the little touches in this episode too, such as Lennier giving Londo a deck of Cards (From Quality of Mercy).

 

I rather wish Peter David had done more episodes. (He only wrote this and one other.)

 

Agreed, his style suits the Babylon 5 universe perfectly.

 

Definitely. Those two became great characters in S2 after having a rough time in S1, but Talia never gelled for me.

 

Suffice to say that Mariel is...available to the highest bidder.

FWIW, he did write one script for Crusade, too.

In the Other Voices script books, Peter David told how he almost lost this assignment. It took him a while to find the right approach and JMS had spiked the story after he'd gone through the allowed number of outline drafts. Against all advice from everyone from Harlan Ellison to his agent, he wrote the script and sent it in under the weak pretext of submitting it as a possible script for the comics series and JMS bought it.

Jan

 

I don't want to spoil the new folks but what happened to the Season Five script Peter David was supposed to write?

 

A Race Through Dark Places

I'm really really looking forward to the next episode so this might be kind of half-assed more than other reviews. I'll just say it was a great follow up to Mind War and they used Koenig a lot better here then they did in that episode. I'm glad they're giving Talia a bit of an arc to the character to make her not seem as useless, and this episode changes her a lot because of her changing attitudes towards the corps. Like the idea of telepaths being like slavery and I was actually thinking that the Corps kind of resembles something from our dark past, slavery and indentured servitude. The comparisons are eerie.

There were some other great bits, such as the Jokes Shariden was telling (Loved the Minbari Joke ) and the whole protesting rent thing. Also, that dinner date with him and Delenn is the start of something big.

Next up, the title of the season, and I kind of cheated and read the IMDB page for someone who was a prominat member of Season 1 who is making a come back. That's partly why I'm really excited right now. Be back in about 45 minutes.