A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

[stonester1]

But I kept being told by people that the finale to season 1 had a shocking twist and that it would really get me interested in the show. It might have had that effect on me had I not heard about the Shadows in advance.

I can buy into this line of thought, since I first saw Chrysalis after watching S2-4. I could certainly appreciate the episode for what it accomplishes, mind, but much of the 'shock' of the events didn't impact me nearly as much as it potentially could have had I watched it first-run.

First run, it's a discombobulation. For me, it was the moment that told me this universe would not be about status quos. Unlike Star Trek, which was what I was used to, no peaceful Earthgov always there, no matter what. Earthforce was more suspect at that point, too. In other words, you couldn't count on things staying the same, big picture.

That was the big moment for me. Had a similar one reading Harry Potter. Up to Prisoner of Azkhaban, the books, though fun, were pretty much the same. Harry and friends come to school, have some hijinks, put down some oogabooga, go home. Goblet of Fire showed that all the prior assumptions could not stand, and the status quo was subject to collapsing.

Shaking of the apple cart, which was what Chrysalis was for me.

 

[Kegg]

Chrysalis (****)

This episode was good, entertaining and had some epic moments that I'm sure will be important in season 2, but it didn't have the shocking twist that I was expecting.

There was a twist? I saw it more of stating the obvious from "Signs and Portents". I agree that the Santiago death has basically no impact on the viewers; but what makes this episode work for me, basically, is the Londo/Morden scenes. It's all very Faustian, and that's cool, and it's really enough to carry the episode for me.

And as for the Shadows, well, G'Kar seems to be reaching in his conclusions to me. Why is he so sure it simply can't be any of the other races? Who knows what the Vorlons would really do or why; and a more basic question: Who stands to gain from the annihilation of a listening post next to Centauri space? Anyone?

I'll probably revisit this point later, but that's all for now.

Think back to how you felt after 9/11. It's meant to be a similar sort of moment.

It's more of a Kennedy Assassination thing, but same difference, I guess?

I remember where I was in 1996 when I heard that the Provisional IRA abandoned their ceasefire and bombed Canary Wharf, and the day in 1998 when the splinter group Real IRA bombed Omagh, but I was too young to really care.

I vividly remember the Good Friday agreement (our teacher seemed to be rather effected by it and I had no idea why), but actually that's basically it.

I think part of the problem is JMS expects viewers to "live vicariously" through the characters. As you said, Santiago hasn't really been seen, so you have put yourself in the characters' shoes and try to think how you'd feel if your President had been killed and you're the only one who knows it was a murder conspiracy.

I'd wonder why anyone would go to the effort to kill someone with such minor powers. But if somebody killed my Taoiseach... I still wouldn't care that much.

Now now, that's not fair, he said 'President', so presumably he means Mary McAleese.

Hm. I still find it hard to elicit anything other than indifference also.

For those who want to know what the heck these words mean, well, the Taoiseach (pronounced Tee-shock, incidentally, impress your friends!) is basically the Irish Prime Minister; his power is analogous to that of the British Prime Minister. He heads the government from the Dail (Dawl) which is basically parliament.

The President in Ireland, however, serves the same function as the Queen of England: A Head of State and a figurehead. Difference is we can vote ours in and out of office. So we pretty much have the British system given a Republican sheen and some Irish words for good measure.

I'd wonder why anyone would go to the effort to kill someone with such minor powers. But if somebody killed my Taoiseach... I still wouldn't care that much. I'd be shocked and I'd want to know why it happened, but at the end of the day some new guy is going to be put in charge and things will continue as usual. I guess I'm just too cynical to think that the death of a politician will change things that much.

Givien that JMS was writing for an American audience,

Often problematic, to be sure. But that's a general point rather than one limited to B5: Humanity in space in a lot of space opera is just America Writ Really, Really Large; and aside from insanely wishful thinking of the manifest destiny variety I find it doubtful it'd be so (the human race is not as predominantly white-skinned as your average space opera may suggest, but I disgress.) Of course British Sci-Fi does the same thing and so on, so it's not even a uniquely American trait.

 

[Reverend]

And as for the Shadows, well, G'Kar seems to be reaching in his conclusions to me. Why is he so sure it simply can't be any of the other races? Who knows what the Vorlons would really do or why; and a more basic question: Who stands to gain from the annihilation of a listening post next to Centauri space? Anyone?

I think it's fair to say that G'Kar, simply by virtue of still being alive in his position has a very firm grasp of what the other governments are liable to do in a given circumstance. As he said, the Centauri (read, the Emperor, the Royal Court and the Centaurum) at the time didn't have the political will to pull off something like this and there's been plenty of solid examples to back up that assertion. Not least of which their reaction to the annexation of the Ragesh III colony. Of late they'd gone to great lengths to avoid direct confrontation with the Narn Regime so he's well justified in thinking they're unlikely to start a dust up over a single listening post.

Often problematic, to be sure. But that's a general point rather than one limited to B5: Humanity in space in a lot of space opera is just America Writ Really, Really Large; and aside from insanely wishful thinking of the manifest destiny variety I find it doubtful it'd be so (the human race is not as predominantly white-skinned as your average space opera may suggest, but I disgress.) Of course British Sci-Fi does the same thing and so on, so it's not even a uniquely American trait.

I think B5 was reasonably representative of the diversity of Earth cultures, at least compared to most other shows. Though I realise the main cast is mostly American save for Mira (it was shot in the states after all) if you look at the human characters you have Sinclair who is a Martian born colonist of British decent, Ivanova who's a Russian Jew, I'm pretty sure Franklin was supposed to be from the Central African Bloc, but I'm not 100% certain and I suppose if you count Takashima then you have a Japanese woman in there too. I've never been sure where Garibaldi is from as some sources have him as a Martian-American while others as an Earther-American, though either way he's obviously a west coast yank.
Of course they're all in the military so there's bound to be an element of homogenisation and it's not unreasonable to foresee that in 250 odd years, Earth culture, especially off world, is going to be a little less provincial based simply on who can afford to get into space.

 

[stonester1]

One of his parents was a Boston cop, but at some point, they moved to Mars, re. Garibaldi.

 

[Kegg]

As he said, the Centauri (read, the Emperor, the Royal Court and the Centaurum) at the time didn't have the political will to pull off something like this and there's been plenty of solid examples to back up that assertion.

There's still the key evidence: Who would gain from the destruction of a base designed to listen in on the Centauri? There's no other stated possible motive for this attack, but again, I want to deal with that later so enough for now.

I think B5 was reasonably representative of the diversity of Earth cultures, at least compared to most other shows.

That 'at least' is everything, hence my context. It's still a show that is overwhelmingly American. Apparently there are more white Americans than Chinese or Indians in the future, if one simply goes by a headcount of who's-who in space, which, as I indicated, does sort of belie modern birth trends and population. To be fair to JMS he did want Sinclair to be British, but even that's not a distinguished improvement or anything.

Of course they're all in the military so there's bound to be an element of homogenisation

Racial homogenisation? I'm not even talking culture here, incidentally. I can totally buy the emergence of a global culture that's strongly American influenced - honestly, aren't we halfway there already? But this will not translate into the whitening of the Earth's peoples.

 

[D Man]

Keep in mind that unlike some modern arc shows such as "Lost" or "Prison Break", B5's main purpose is not to shock and surprise its viewers, but to tell them a story. Shocking plot twists usually work only the first time you watch a certain show, while a good story can make you rewatch it numerous times and still find it interesting.

Well, I'd have to argue that Lost provides both a good story and great shocking plot twists. B5 did too, but in a much, much more subdued way. Those two things certainly aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[Reverend]

Racial homogenisation? I'm not even talking culture here, incidentally. I can totally buy the emergence of a global culture that's strongly American influenced - honestly, aren't we halfway there already? But this will not translate into the whitening of the Earth's peoples.

Maybe not halfway, but much closer than what it was a century ago. As for racial homogenisation; that wasn't what I meant to imply, though I suppose it's feasible with those from the colony worlds to have increasingly mixed genetic backgrounds. As for the skin colour...I'm by no means a biologist but I do wonder what two centuries in space, or under pressure domes will do to skin pigmentation. Of course even if that would have an impact, it'd only apply to the non-Earth born characters. Regardless, that's not what I meant.

Still, if you look at the guest characters, I think there was a fair amount of "non-Caucasians". Not just the odd Asian/African American but a number of Indians, at least one Native American in a speaking role and several Hispanics such as Dr. Hernandez Eduardo Delvientos There are others but I don't want to risk mentioning characters that haven't appeared yet.
Of course for any show that's filmed in what is still (I think) a predominately Caucasian area, in terms of SAG membership, then you're bound to get a proportional number of "white people". Same rules apply no matter where you film, the majority of the talent are going to be local, hence all of the Aussie accents in Farscape, the British centric Doctor Who and Red Dwarf.
With B5 though, if you actually stop and look, there's a good variety of non-Caucasian extras wearing non-western clothing styles wandering around the Zocalo, the Casino, customs and the like.

One of his parents was a Boston cop, but at some point, they moved to Mars, re. Garibaldi.

Close. His grandmother was a Boston cop, his old man was an ex-marine security officer. But yes, the way to reconcile it is to say he was born in New York and moved to Mars in the 30's, probably around the time his old man was out fighting the Dilgar.

 

[Kegg]

Regardless, that's not what I meant.

What you meant didn't have much to do with the predominance of Amercian whites, though, which was my principal point (I do tend to ramble and jumble things, though, so an understandable confusion.)

Still, if you look at the guest characters, I think there was a fair amount of "non-Caucasians".

Nope, not a fair amount. A small amount.

Oh I'm not saying they're not there, or that B5 isn't inclusive, but it's also true there are simply way, way more whites (and again specifically American whites) then any of them. It's not that they're invisible, it's that the numbers work against it: There should be way more Indians than Englishmen, for example. And so on.

Now, B5's approach makes perfect sense in an American context, where these would be minority races. But it doesn't make sense in a global context. It is, as observed, a sin that is not original to B5 (and rather consistently practiced by most all space opera, American or otherwise) but that doesn't make it above criticism either.

 

[hyzmarca]

I wonder how many Chinese people are actually crazy enough to strap rocketa to their asswa and shoot themselves into a radiation-filled vacuum?

 

[TheGodBen]

Givien that JMS was writing for an American audience, I'd imagine that the EA President has a great deal more power than your Taoisearch has. A quick google search on the position of Taoisearch leads me to believe that this is the case.

If it's any consolation to you, I'm never certain how to spell Taoiseach myself, in fact I just spelled it incorrectly a moment ago and after checking it on wiki I had to correct it.

As for who has more power in government, I'm not a constitutional or legal expert so I'm not fit to judge, but the Taoiseach has more power than you seem to realise. For example, look at Obama over the last year and his struggle to get healthcare reform passed through the various votes in congress, that sort of thing doesn't normally happen here because the Dáil holds most of the power, with Taoiseach as head of the Dáil. The upper house of the Oireachtas (Parliament), the Seanad (Senate), only has the power to delay laws passed by the Dáil and that rarely happens because the Taoiseach appoints 11 members to the Seanad which almost always ensures that they acquiesce to the Dáil. As for the President, that's a largely ceremonial role and the limited powers it does have are usually constructed in such a way that it is unlikely they ever could act against the Dáil. Unlike in American politics it is unusual for a TD (MP) to vote against party policy, particularly in the case of the Fianna Fáil party who have been in government since 1997.

So he doesn't have complete control and he has to keep an eye on his back-benches, but once the Taoiseach and his cabinet decide that something should become law the odds are that it will happen.

However, you are right in saying that he probably doesn't have the political support to start a war with anyone. He might have the legal power to do so, but Ireland has a long-standing tradition of military neutrality, we haven't officially been in a war since the foundation of the state, so if any Taoiseach tried to force a war with another country there would probably be enough TDs that would break ranks and cause the collapse of the government. At least, I would hope so. Not to mention the fact that we don't even have a proper army, we have a Defence Force. A few years ago there was a big EU summit in Dublin and all the European heads of government were attending so one of the security measures meant that we had to have planes on standby to take down any rogue passenger jets flying near the summit. There was just one problem; we didn't have any planes capable of taking down a commercial airliner! We had to ask the British to have planes on standby outside Irish airspace so that they could rush in in case anything happened.

First run, it's a discombobulation. For me, it was the moment that told me this universe would not be about status quos. Unlike Star Trek, which was what I was used to, no peaceful Earthgov always there, no matter what. Earthforce was more suspect at that point, too. In other words, you couldn't count on things staying the same, big picture.

I can understand that. I guess the difference for me is that I never expected Babylon 5 to be a status quo kind of show, and if the show is going to change things up it is obviously going to happen at the season finale.

And as for the Shadows, well, G'Kar seems to be reaching in his conclusions to me. Why is he so sure it simply can't be any of the other races? Who knows what the Vorlons would really do or why; and a more basic question: Who stands to gain from the annihilation of a listening post next to Centauri space? Anyone?

I was assuming that he knew something about the Shadows and just wasn't letting the audience in on it, although his excuses for each of the races did become lazier as the list went on. When he finally came to the Minbari his reason why they wouldn't do it is because they wouldn't do it.

Now now, that's not fair, he said 'President', so presumably he means Mary McAleese.

Well, that's who I was referencing when I mentioned somebody of no importance, but I can see how my words got a little confusing there.

The President in Ireland, however, serves the same function as the Queen of England: A Head of State and a figurehead. Difference is we can vote ours in and out of office.

Sometimes. We didn't get a choice with McAleese's second term, nobody ran against her so she won by default. And I was really looking forward to it as well, that Presidential election was going to be my first vote after turning 18, instead my first vote was wasted on some crappy local and EU election that nobody cared about.

 

[chrisspringob]

We got a feel for the power of the Shadows and their willingness to use force, and we got a hint of what they look like, but there's nothing ground-breaking here for somebody like me, a person who knows there will be a war against these guys at some point in the future.
.
.
.
I have no doubt that things will be different next season, partly because there's a new face at the centre of the DVD cover, but I don't see why somebody in-universe would think that everything is different based off the events that happened in this episode.

This is a bit of a problem in all of the B5 newbie review threads we have here. Everyone who posts on this forum follows SF TV closely enough that, even if they've never seen B5 before, they always know some spoilers. They know that there's a race called the Shadows who will be important, they know about Boxleitner joining the show in Season 2, etc.

About 10 years ago, I actually managed to introduce the show to a friend of mine from Serbia who knew absolutely no spoilers about the show in advance. All he knew was that it was set on a space station, there was a story arc, and Mira Furlan was in it. (Since he was from Serbia, he knew who Mira Furlan was.) He had no clue where the story was going, and just assumed early on that the Narns would be the bad guys throughout the run of the show. He was accidentally tipped off about one spoiler in Season 3 a few episodes early, but other than that, he was totally spoiler free.

I just wish I'd had the self control to avoid all spoilers when I watched it in its first run back in the 90s. I mean, I wasn't a complete spoiler-holic, but I couldn't help myself from visiting spoiler websites at times.

 

[Reverend]

I can understand that. I guess the difference for me is that I never expected Babylon 5 to be a status quo kind of show, and if the show is going to change things up it is obviously going to happen at the season finale.

I suppose that's one disadvantage of watching the show now rather than when it first came out. Back then the idea of major plot arcs and constantly changing circumstances weren't the norm. Hell with most episodic shows at the time, even oblique call backs were a rarity, never mind ongoing sub-plots.

The real shock at the time was that usually when this kind of plot comes up in TV (back before twists came into vogue) the expected thing to do was for the bad guys to get caught and the plot foiled at the last minute. What we got was completely the opposite. The "bad guys" not only won, but got away with it, apparantly scot free, with most people unaware that they'd done anything at all.

Though you're right, we never got to know Santiago enough to care much when he died, but through the course of the show you do get a sense of his ideals and politics.

Right from the off in 'Midnight of the Firing Line' we hear how he's promised to cut the budget to keep Earth out of another war while creating a closer relationship with the Mars colony.
In 'Survivors' we hear how he was pushing a policy of increased alien immigration and trade agreements that were opposed by the senate and caused controversy when he invited alien governments to work more closely with Earth.
In 'Voice in the Wilderness' you hear a mention of him holding off on cracking down hard on the Mars rebellion, before eventually bowing to pressure.
Finally in 'Chrysalis' there's mention of him being due to make a major speech It will concerning human/alien relations over the remainder of his term. A speech he was due to make on New Years, but we all know what happened instead.

With all that you get a general sense of who the man was and what his politics were towards the colonies, government spending and foreign politics and by extension a general impression of the kind of people that'd want that kind of President dead.

I was assuming that he knew something about the Shadows and just wasn't letting the audience in on it, although his excuses for each of the races did become lazier as the list went on. When he finally came to the Minbari his reason why they wouldn't do it is because they wouldn't do it.

They really wouldn't. The Minbari are at their core isolationists and there's never been any mention of them conquering worlds to expand the Federation or launching unprovoked attacks. Plus they'd have no interest in some listening post/colony on the Narn-Centauri border.
The Vorlons likewise have been in almost total isolation within their territory and have only recently shown even the slightest interest in the affairs of other races. Plus the two times we see them willing to use force, they haven't been shy or subtle about it. They sent a FLEET to B5 to retrieve Sinclair and Kosh in 'The Gathering' and a cruiser just to frag one little Dilgar, in full view of all the major powers.
As for Earth, the Alliance is by no means on anything approaching a war footing, nor would the strike gain them anything.
It also might be worth keeping in mind that G'Kar has been to Sigma 957, so he already knows there are things out there other than "big five" powers formidable enough to pull off this kind of attack.

 

[Lindley]

The Minbari certainly might attack, if they feel justified in doing so. But they wouldn't resort to a sneak attack, and they would make no secret of their intentions.

 

[Kegg]

The Minbari certainly might attack, if they feel justified in doing so. But they wouldn't resort to a sneak attack, and they would make no secret of their intentions.

Ah, but as TheGodBen observed, he simply said they wouldn't attack. Not that they wouldn't attack in that way. Personally I put basically nothing past the Minbari in terms of what they're willing to do given the right reasons, but that again is another lengthy discussion.

I suppose that's one disadvantage of watching the show now rather than when it first came out. Back then the idea of major plot arcs and constantly changing circumstances weren't the norm. Hell with most episodic shows at the time, even oblique call backs were a rarity, never mind ongoing sub-plots.

This is what I meant way back when that Babylon 5 seems provocative when compared to Star Trek: Other shows, even other contemporary shows, might shake stuff up in a season finale, but at the time The Next Generation would never end with any earth-shattering changes that it couldn't magically set right at the start of the next season (Picard's a Borg, he gets better, Worf resigns, he comes back, etc.).

But soaps, Twin Peaks, etc, also shook stuff up.

Plus the two times we see them willing to use force, they haven't been shy or subtle about it.

Doesn't mean they're above subtelty. In fact their 'we're-so-more-zen-than-thou' dialogue suggests they prize byzantine puzzling responses.

 

[Reverend]

Ah, but as TheGodBen observed, he simply said they wouldn't attack. Not that they wouldn't attack in that way. Personally I put basically nothing past the Minbari in terms of what they're willing to do given the right reasons, but that again is another lengthy discussion.

If you must split hairs, he actually says: -

"It wasn't the humans. The Centauri don't have the will. The Vorlons don't care. The Minbari wouldn't do it. The other worlds aren't powerful enough for such a strike. There's someone else out there, Na'Toth."

With all of this he's specifically referring to that attack on that base in that way, which as Na'toth says: -

"It's as if some great hand reached out of space and...just erased them."

For all the powers he's named, that means committing a massive coordinated strike that could only last a few minutes. While they could all physically do it, it's the same as saying the British Navy have nuked Hawai. It's within their capabilities but without getting further into hypothetical scenarios, it just wouldn't happen.

Doesn't mean they're above subtelty. In fact their 'we're-so-more-zen-than-thou' dialogue suggests they prize byzantine puzzling responses.

Possibly. But we're talking about what G'Kar thinks and he clearly doesn't buy it.

 

[stonester1]

Close. His grandmother was a Boston cop, his old man was an ex-marine security officer. But yes, the way to reconcile it is to say he was born in New York and moved to Mars in the 30's, probably around the time his old man was out fighting the Dilgar.

That's right, been awhile since I've seen that ep...Grey 13 is Missing, right? He was showing Zach his "slug thrower".

Some people like to harsh on that ep, even JMS. But I like it, for the Garibaldi stuff AND for Robert Englund.

 

[David cgc]

One, spoilers, two, I remember him mentioning it in "By Any Means Necessary," talking about the "Blue Flu."

 

[stonester1]

My bad.

 

[TheGodBen]

Season 1 Review

It was the dawn of the third review thread of Ben's kind – one year after the Voyager review thread. The Babylon Review Project was a dream, given form. Its goal: to prevent another war, by creating a place where Niners and Fivers can work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call – home away from home – for nerds, geeks, dorks, and trolls. Niners and Fivers, wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand annoying flash ads… all alone with no social lives. It can be a boring place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the first season of the Babylon Review Project. The month is February. The URL of the place is http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=113232

Cue dramatic music.

It's dark blue! See, the border sort of matches the exterior colour of the station. I put a lot of thought into this.

(The Gathering is not included in the graph.)

For those unfamiliar with the system, this graph should be easy to understand. The blue line represents the scores I awarded to individual episodes between 0 and 10, the green line is the average score for the season, and the red line is a trend-line. In this case the trend-line indicates quite strongly that I felt the season improved as it went along, and just by looking at the blue line you can see that I felt the series started out very poorly but the end of the season was very strong. The average score for this season was 5.045, which is ever so slightly above average, that means that I liked more things than I disliked but only barely. Remove the season finale and it goes the other way.

This graph is also simple, each of the bars represents the number of each score awarded, with 7 being the most awarded score, four episodes achieved it, while no episode managed a score of 10. I thought that this graph looked eerily familiar so I took a glance at my review folders and found this: Enterprise season 3. Between 8 and 3 the scores match up perfectly, the reason why Ent season 3 scored so much better was because of the two 9s and two 10s and the season only had one 0 dragging it down. B5 season 1 is the other way around, only one 9 score, one 0 and two 1s. Isn't that amazing?

Well I thought it was.

8 episodes this season scored below average, 3 were average and 11 were above average.
Best episode: Babylon Squared
Worst episode: Infection


The Writers

It's really not worth the effort doing this, it's JMS's show and there's not enough diversity of writers for me to bother. This feature will return when I review DS9.

Aww, stop crying.


What Would TheGodBen Do?

I'm not doing this either. I have only a small idea of what JMS's long-term plan is and I'd rather watch it unfold than try to rewrite it. Besides, I'm not as attached to this universe as I am to the Trek one, so I have no opinions of what I think it should be in relation to what it is.

Yes, this is all an excuse so that I don't have to write as much.


Statistics

Commander Greyshirt: 8
Scott Bakula: 15
Scott Bakula?!: 3

Season 1 Average: 5.045
Overall Average (Including The Gathering): 5.043

Voyager Average After 1 Season: 5.867
Enterprise Average After 1 Season: 5.16


In Summation

The first season isn't the epic and magnificent space opera you imagine when people talk about Babylon 5, but I knew that it wouldn't be. The season has its moments, and it is clearly laying the groundwork for something bigger in the seasons to come, but it is struggling in places, particularly when it comes to the weekly antagonists. It's not the standalone nature of the episodes that's bringing them down, Believers is a standalone episode that I found very engaging, but the series is at its best when it dives into its overarching storylines, so hopefully this will continue as the show focuses more on these in the seasons to come.

I like some of the characters, Garibaldi and Londo are the two that come to mind at the moment, while other characters irritate me, Lennier and Vir being the main two. Sinclair has the potential to be a good character but he hasn't really stood out for me yet. I'm interested in seeing what Sheridan will be like and if his presence will significantly alter the feeling of the show. The humour is hit and miss, there are times when characters, particularly alien characters, act a little too cartoony for my taste, and there are other times when I enjoy it, such as the Hokey Pokey scene or the discussion about zippers.

The season hasn't scared me off, although if I didn't know that the series will change a lot after this first season then I might have decided to give up on it. I already have a loan of the season 2 set so I'll start watching that eventually, although I'll probably take a few days off to focus on college work.

 

[stonester1]

Well done, GB. I especially like the thematic intro.

Kudos.

For the record, though, I've never gotten the Niner/Fiver friction. Same with Star Wars/Star Trek rivalry. I'm a fan of them all and see that stuff as tribal nonsense.

But that's me.