Wow, I'm up to the exact episode that Thegodben is up to.. TGB I have read all your reviews and found them most interesting. This is my first time through Bab5 too after hearing "if you love DS9 you MUST watch Bab5" for years. So far I've found it enjoyable, cheesy, amusing, cliched and offering some promise. I haven't found it as wonderful as years and years of hearing it praised led me to believe but I'm patient.
Remember the B5 first-timer's mantra; "It will get really good in season 2. Just keep going, there's only x episodes to go."
And if all else fails just remember that there'll be a kickass war at some point. At least I think there is, it might end up being a boring two-parter.
It occurred to me that until I read your reviews I've actually never heard a bad word said about it.
Oooh, that's quite the compliment.
A Voice in the Wilderness, Part 1 (***½)
There's a similar tone to this episode as there was in
Signs and Portents, a feeling that something big is about to happen, although it's not quite as notable. The idea that something is alive on that hunk of rock I've seen in the background a dozen times is intriguing so I was interested in the attempts made to find out what was down there. Unfortunately what was down there was a bunch of science-fiction corridors and a big purple elevator shaft, but I had no doubt that the significance of this place would be explained in the second part.
Commander Greyshirt: 7
What Sinclair and Ivanova do find is an old alien man that has appeared in visions on the station, and that's my biggest problem with this episode, the visions were a very hokey science-fiction staple, it's a weird looking translucent alien calling for help. It doesn't take precognition to be able to tell what they're going to find down on the planet.
There's a b-story about the Red Faction rising up against the Earth Defence Force, which I found interesting because it gave us another insight into the workings of human governance. We also learn that the PsiCorps have a top secret base on the planet, and I wouldn't be surprised if that comes up in a later episode.
I'd like to talk about the humour on the show for a second because it is starting to grow on me. I'm not sure if this is because the writing is more polished than in the early episodes, or if the writers and directors are getting used to JMS's style, or if this is some form of Stockholm syndrome, but I found myself chuckling a few times in this episode. The two most obvious times would be Garibaldi in the elevator and Londo singing the Hokey Cokey, both of which raised a smile. Why do we teach children the Hokey Cokey anyway?
Although I must admit that I'm to getting tired of Ivanova's "I'm Russian..." schtick.
Overall the episode was interesting enough that I watched the next episode afterwards.
A Voice in the Wilderness, Part 2 (***)
Once again this season an episode suffers by having a poorly motivated antagonist, in this case there is two. The first is Captain Pierce, a man willing to put the lives of 250,000 people at stake in order to visit a planet that doesn't like him very much, and it displays this dislike by shooting at him and threatening to explode. I can buy into the fact that Earth Force really wants the technology down on the planet in order to strengthen their hand and prevent their empire from crumbling, particularly due to recent events on Mars, but ignoring all the evidence that the planet will explode because of his actions makes him appear too obtuse and unreasonable.
The second poorly motivated antagonist are the aliens that show up and demand control of the planet, their motivation is that they're a violent faction and they really want this technology for some reason. Once again Sinclair is the only rational party in this stand-off.
Another problem with this episode is that it is too obvious that Draal is going to take over running the planet because he is expendable and he served no purpose in part 1. I kept waiting for the episode to pull a surprise on me, but it didn't happen and by the end everything ended up as I had imagined it would.
The Garibaldi story in this episode helped it out, he's in a very sympathetic situation and said some things that that struck a chord with me, and I'm a shallow 20-something who hates everyone. Once again, it was obvious that Lisa would end up being married, but it was nice that the episode brought the epic events of a Mars uprising down to a believable human level.
Scott Bakula: 14
I enjoy Ivanova and I have a deep suspicion about her which I won't mention here lest it be right and a spoiler. And speaking of spoliers I have read only TheGodBen's posts in this thread because I am determined to remain spoiler free. It is very difficult to not run off to google and look for the Bab5 version of memoryalpha and answer my gazillion questions but I will be strong. Luckily I have all 5 seasons on dvd so there won't be any horrible gaps in my viewing.
), but my theory is that Paramount listened to jms' pitch, told him no, then handed somebody their notes and said "Make a version of this into a Trek show, but tweak it enough we don't get sued."
