Babylon 5 - I'm finally going to do it

[tomalak301]

Patterns of the Soul

You know, after The Long Road, I wasn't really sure about this series. Well, after the next three episodes, I think it's safe to say I like Crusade. It's not earth shattering stuff by any stretch, but I've been greatly entertained by it.

This episode's just another example, even though it kinda reminded me of a cross between TNG's The Hunted, and Journey's End. The Hunted because you're dealing with super-human cybornetic guys who are considered criminals, and Journey's end because, well, Dureena's people looked like Native Americans. Ok, so the Journey's end comparison might be a little stretch, but oh well. Anyway, this felt like a show that was starting to push things forward in regards to finding out more about the plague and what it does. We really didn't get that in the last few episodes but here it was nice to get back to the main story. Didn't really like the black guy who played Tim, and the guy who played Black reminded me of John Cena for some strange reason, but it was an enjoyable hour. Really liked seeing Chambers for the first time since the first episode.

Also a plus, it allowed members in the cast to do something, and there was not Galen. Not that I hate the guy or anything, but I've kinda gotten tired of him and wanted to see the other cast members, especially Chambers.

 

[tomalak301]

Ruling from the Tomb

I think I liked everything about this episode except for the main religious plot. I just didn't find it all that interesting, and at the end with Max, Trace, Dureena, and then Chambers in the bar, it seemed more like a lecture on the good and bad of religion disguised as a debate. Like I said, me being religious taken into account, I just didn't find it all that interesting to care.

Everything else though, I liked. I had forgotten about Trace, and it was great to see him again. I loved the dinner scene between Gideon and Lochley. I've been waiting for Crusade to have a humorous moment, and when Lochley brought up her marriage after Gideon was singing the praises of Sheridan, I knew what was coming. Gideon's reaction was priceless.

Again, no Galen. Tonight was a good night for Crusade. Got to know some characters a whole lot better and I'm somewhat warming up to the cast. Not sure if I like the actress who plays Chambers though, but at least finally she is doing something.

 

[Mr Light]

WTF... so I'm watching my S4 DVD for the first time. They cut my favorite line of "Face of the Enemy" out!!! Where Bester says to Garibaldi I could leave you like you are "trapped in a prison of meat and flesh and bone... forever". On the DVD he just said "forever"! That's my favorite line! What happened?! Also in "Vital Powers" I could've sworn there was an Edgars line in there I'd never heard before about having to live on Mars six months a year to retain his tax benefits but maybe I just forgot it?

 

[Reverend]

Ruling from the Tomb

I think I liked everything about this episode except for the main religious plot. I just didn't find it all that interesting, and at the end with Max, Trace, Dureena, and then Chambers in the bar, it seemed more like a lecture on the good and bad of religion disguised as a debate. Like I said, me being religious taken into account, I just didn't find it all that interesting to care.

Everything else though, I liked. I had forgotten about Trace, and it was great to see him again. I loved the dinner scene between Gideon and Lochley. I've been waiting for Crusade to have a humorous moment, and when Lochley brought up her marriage after Gideon was singing the praises of Sheridan, I knew what was coming. Gideon's reaction was priceless.

Again, no Galen. Tonight was a good night for Crusade. Got to know some characters a whole lot better and I'm somewhat warming up to the cast. Not sure if I like the actress who plays Chambers though, but at least finally she is doing something.

The only thing I didn't really like about this one was the fake "we're boned" speech Gideon gave near the end. Don't ask me why, but it always makes me cringe. Oh yeah and that discussion on religion at the end was a little heavy handed, though I wouldn't call it totally unrealistic.

As for Max, I think he may just be the ONLY (non-EF) Martian Born character who didn't grow up poor and oppressed (a nice change.)
I thought the streets named after Sci-fi authors was a nice touch too.

 

[Mal]

Ruling from the Tomb

I think I liked everything about this episode except for the main religious plot. I just didn't find it all that interesting, and at the end with Max, Trace, Dureena, and then Chambers in the bar, it seemed more like a lecture on the good and bad of religion disguised as a debate. Like I said, me being religious taken into account, I just didn't find it all that interesting to care.

i thought it interesting that joan of arc spoke to him in a centauri accent

also, loved the bar scene - "fortunately you're equipped with two flotation devices" - and of course, Max dancing! have i mentioned how much i think Max is da man!

here's my problem. this should have been the second episode. gideon gets the ship on mars in ep 1 (War Zone), and then his mission kicks off with a conference on everything they know, before he head out TNG-style, boldly going, and all that.

Also a plus, it allowed members in the cast to do something, and there was not Galen.

how is this for a Crusade viewing order:

1. War Zone - gideon gets his command
2. Ruling from the Tomb - gideon helps Lochley out on mars
3. The Long Road - dragons!
4. The Rules of the Game -

Spoiler: you haven't gotten here yet

gideon and Lochley do the nasty

5. The Well of Forever - nice to see you again, Galen
6. Patterns of the Soul - Dureena is not alone, plus, cybertech
7. The Path of Sorrows - hey, it's our old friend Galen.

and then we move along from there...

 

[chrisspringob]

Ruling from the Tomb

I think I liked everything about this episode except for the main religious plot. I just didn't find it all that interesting, and at the end with Max, Trace, Dureena, and then Chambers in the bar, it seemed more like a lecture on the good and bad of religion disguised as a debate. Like I said, me being religious taken into account, I just didn't find it all that interesting to care.

i thought it interesting that joan of arc spoke to him in a centauri accent

also, loved the bar scene - "fortunately you're equipped with two flotation devices" - and of course, Max dancing! have i mentioned how much i think Max is da man!

here's my problem. this should have been the second episode. gideon gets the ship on mars in ep 1 (War Zone), and then his mission kicks off with a conference on everything they know, before he head out TNG-style, boldly going, and all that.

Also a plus, it allowed members in the cast to do something, and there was not Galen.

how is this for a Crusade viewing order:

1. War Zone - gideon gets his command
2. Ruling from the Tomb - gideon helps Lochley out on mars
3. The Long Road - dragons!
4. The Rules of the Game -

Spoiler: you haven't gotten here yet

gideon and Lochley do the nasty

5. The Well of Forever - nice to see you again, Galen
6. Patterns of the Soul - Dureena is not alone, plus, cybertech
7. The Path of Sorrows - hey, it's our old friend Galen.

and then we move along from there...

I would put "Appearances and other Deceits" immediately after "Ruling from the Tomb", and then do the five gray uniform eps. The gray uniform eps really should come before at least the majority of black uniform eps.

 

[tomalak301]

Re: Crusade

The Rules of the Game

It's one thing to dedicate an episode to a producer or writer or actor but I don't think I've ever seen an episode being dedicated to someone's cat. That is quite unusual, and after reading the lurkers guide to confirm, I figured it was JMS's cat. Unfortunately, the picture of Mr. Kitty could have been a little better, but that's not really important right now.

As for this episode, I think the same thing I said about Ruling from the Tomb applies here. We have an alien of the week wanting to kill Gideon because he would corrupt their society. That's all well and good, but the reasons why a bit weak and forgettable in the long run of things. The actions that follow though, are awesome, mainly because I'm realizing the more I watch Crusade the more I wish there was more episodes just to get some hot Gideon/Lochley action. Both those two have awesome chemistry together and I loved the porn music going along with the shower scene (Which we didn't see, even though this episode wasn't going to air ). Just watching them together in the last few episodes have been great, and this one had another fun moment where they are both walking in down below and Lochley's all casual asking for the usual and it dumbfounds Gideon again.

As for the Max storyline, I thought this was Max's best episode of the season. He took center stage and the scene with the neck thing and Bueller was great. I wish I had seen more of this in the previous episodes, especially Well of Forever where he could have been center stage.

Also, I think it was great that this episode took place entirely on Babylon 5. I just love when spinoffs do crossovers just to make it one long universe (Kind of like how TNG and DS9 did it with the Maquis in Seasons 7 and 2 respectively) and the last two episodes here have cemented Crusade into the B5 universe for me.

I was amazed though Lochley has been running B5 for 6+ years, longer than Sheridan and Sinclair combined. Kind of a pity we never saw her in CIC actually commanding. She must be good.

 

[tomalak301]

Re: Crusade

Appearances and Other Deceits

Well, there was Crusades run of the mill invasion of the body snatchers episode. Not nearly as good as the two that came before it (in the order I am watching) but it was decent enough. Really was touched by the ending, which has Gideon writing death letters to affected loved ones. You don't see that much with captains in other shows. Also, I like the black uniforms rather than the gray. I liked that all "Army of Light" by wear black motif so seeing that gray just feels out of place, even though this is Crusade and not B5.

 

[Reverend]

Not sure if this has been explained here yet, but the Grey bellhop uniforms were what they actually started out with when they first began shooting. Midway through there was a hiatus (a part of the behind the scenes shenanigans with TNT that plagued Crusade), after which they took to opportunity to re-design the uniforms and build a few new sets, which is where the black uniforms come from. It's also when they went back and shot a new, network mandated first episode ("War Zone") which required the sub-plot in "Appearances and Other Deceits" where they get to grey ones to explain why there are two types of uniforms. When you get to "Racing the Night", THAT is the actual first episode of Crusade and how JMS wanted to kick off the series.
So when you see a "black uniform" episode, you're seeing the later episodes written and shot after the hiatus while the "grey uniform" ones were shot before. There's a bunch of other things like Dureena's make-up keeps changing (TNT thought she shouldn't be so "alien" in appearance, but "alien by attitude"...don't ask) and I think the conference room gets redressed every other episode, plus the character inconstancies caused by the reshuffle (most noticeable in Max.)

Had the series continued, the plan was to explain the disappearance of the grey uniforms by Gideon basically getting rid of them and telling Earth there'd been an "accident" in the ship's laundry room, allowing them to switch to the black ones from there on out.
If memory serves that was scripted for the very next episode that would have been shot before the cancellation, which also dealt with the origin of that funky shadow vessel that destroyed the EAS Cerberus.

 

[Forbin]

IIRC, the effects in the gray-uniform episodes don't look very good because TNT insisted on putting the black-unifrom eps first and giving them finished effects, and the budget crapped out before they could polish the effects on the gray-uniform eps.

Or something like that.

 

[Mal]

Re: Crusade

The Rules of the Game

I was amazed though Lochley has been running B5 for 6+ years, longer than Sheridan and Sinclair combined. Kind of a pity we never saw her in CIC actually commanding. She must be good.

it gets worse: Colonel Lochley is still in charge of B5 after 10 years in The Lost Tales.

 

[tomalak301]

Re: Crusade

The Rules of the Game

I was amazed though Lochley has been running B5 for 6+ years, longer than Sheridan and Sinclair combined. Kind of a pity we never saw her in CIC actually commanding. She must be good.

it gets worse: Colonel Lochley is still in charge of B5 after 10 years in The Lost Tales.

Well, I haven't seen Lost Tales yet but wow, that's a long time. I think the only time we really saw her in a bonafide leadership role was River of Souls but it wasn't actually commanding Babylon 5.

 

[Mal]

Re: Crusade

The Rules of the Game

I was amazed though Lochley has been running B5 for 6+ years, longer than Sheridan and Sinclair combined. Kind of a pity we never saw her in CIC actually commanding. She must be good.

it gets worse: Colonel Lochley is still in charge of B5 after 10 years in The Lost Tales.

Well, I haven't seen Lost Tales yet but wow, that's a long time. I think the only time we really saw her in a bonafide leadership role was River of Souls but it wasn't actually commanding Babylon 5.

well, at least Lochley wasn't still in charge of B5, 19 years later in Sleeping in Light.

 

[Jan]

As I recall, the only time we saw Lochley actively involved on C&C was in 'A View From the Gallery' when the unnamed aliens were attacking, wasn't it? Otherwise she was out and about the station. Which Sheridan and Sinclair were, too, most of the time.

Jan

 

[Mal]

As I recall, the only time we saw Lochley actively involved on C&C was in 'A View From the Gallery' when the unnamed aliens were attacking, wasn't it? Otherwise she was out and about the station. Which Sheridan and Sinclair were, too, most of the time.

Jan

i think she spends just a whole lot of time in her room - either catching up with the ghost of zoe, or doing the nasty with gideon, or talking to a priest about her... well, ghost problems.

every now and then we see her in other people's rooms - like garibaldi, or, again, gideon. she must love staying in. i just wish she would stop by my place...

 

[Booji]

Re: Crusade

As for the Max storyline, I thought this was Max's best episode of the season. He took center stage and the scene with the neck thing and Bueller was great. I wish I had seen more of this in the previous episodes, especially Well of Forever where he could have been center stage.

Max is my hero Easily my fav character ever in a sci fi show.

 

[chrisspringob]

As I recall, the only time we saw Lochley actively involved on C&C was in 'A View From the Gallery' when the unnamed aliens were attacking, wasn't it?

Wasn't there a similar scene in "Movements of Fire and Shadow"? (It's been a while, so I might be imagining this.)

 

[David cgc]

Yep, when they had to shoot down the Centauri fire-ship that was going to attack B5's jumpgate.

 

[tomalak301]

Racing the Night

I think I liked this as the premiere rather than War Zone. It had drama, Action, and it took the main basic plot center stage while also introducing the characters instead of the exposition we got in the actual pilot.

As for this as an episode, I liked it. Interesting moral dilemma, even though there was a part of me that was kinda hoping Gideon would take the deal. In War Zone he came across as a no-nonsense guy who would stop at nothing to get something done. Here he's willing to sacrifice getting an ally because of the moral high ground. That's all well and good, but Max does have a point. You have 4 years to find a cure (As the drazi said), wouldn't you stop at nothing to do it, no matter the cost?

Anyway, as for the sets, costumes and make up and stuff like that, thank god they changed it to the black. Don't like the Grey, and Dureena looked so much better in the black uniformed episodes. Also, nice to see the return of the Apocolypse Box, even though I had to remind myself that Gideon was given it after he won a poker game.

 

[tomalak301]

The Memory of War

This episode was ok, but I really liked how it ended. Love those fill-in-the-gaps stuff I might be getting in these final five. They've actually used the nano-virus before but now we see how they found it. Not much else to say about this one other than that.