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A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

G'Kar is many things. He's a warrior, a priest, a leader, a tactician, a ruthless politician, he reads Yeats poems and likes to sing while cooking. Add to that the fact that he's an unabashed xenophile and a happy drunk I think it's safe to say G'Kar has to easily be the most multifaceted character on the whole show
 
Btw, when Michael O'Hare left the show, and it came time to cast the role of Sheridan, JMS's top choice for the role was in fact Michael York. He wanted to offer him the role, but the choice was vetoed by PTEN.
 
Ship of Tears (***½)

After the last time the Psi-Corps showed up I put together a little rant about how I found them unsubtle, and in the very next episode that features them they are given the subtlety I was looking for. Why couldn't the writers of Voyager be like this?! But do you know what the best part is? Even after learning about Bester's lover and his unborn child, and after learning that he isn't involved with the Shadows, and even after declaring the Shadows as his enemy... I still don't trust that little worm. I'm with Ivanova 100%, once the Shadows are dealt with he will probably turn on Sheridan and the rest of Babylon 5's senior officials faster than I turn on women with my sexy eyes.

Okay, he'll probably turn on them much faster, and they'll be less likely to throw a drink in his face and run away. :(

My favourite moment in the episode was the scene between Delenn and G'Kar, he really has come a long way since season 1. My least favourite moment, oddly enough, was the way the episode ended. Firstly, Garibaldi figures things out faster than anyone else even though G'Kar knows the Book of G'Quan inside-out, and how come the Minbari aren't aware that the Shadows are afraid of telepaths if they fought against them in the last great war? And the reveal that the Shadows have begun attacking is so rushed that it didn't resonate correctly. Don't get me wrong, I'm very interested in finding what will happen in the next episode, it's just that the ending left me thinking "What the hell?!" rather than "Holy crap!"
 
I didn't like A Late Delivery from Avalon either.Whenever a writer uses King Arthur and Camelot legend as a plot for me it means he/she is having a bad day for creativity....In historical records Artorious was implied as a Celt/Roman warrior...Not a fantasy / fairy tale charater. Whenever I see Arthur is fighting evil knights , dragons or Merlin as a warlock I change the channel. ( and I never interested "Merlin" series ) Yes how Earth-Minbari War started and its effects on one individual was interesting but King Arthur role/madness was quite artifical.....

Michael York is a gifted actor but he often makes bad choices about characters he plays....

As Ship of Tears hell how can one not like this episode ? Whenever Bester shows up in B5 it mean will watch good or at least above avarage episode at worst....Bester as an additional ( albeit reluctant ) partner in alliance was a nice touch. Not everyone involved with Sheridan and good guys are saints after all ! When Bester faced off Ivanova after he arrived he showed that he knows which buttons to push to get the reactons from Sheridan's team...This is a partner they should be wary

And G'Kar Delenn confrontation...WOW...So powerful , so emotional and full of character acting. G'Kar's character growth and development is unmatched. ( only better character development I have seen in sci-fi genre was in Farscape , what Aeyrn becomes...) Andreas Katsulas was excellent here. Both Delenn and G'Kar put out their shady secrets...Now they are a part of a team...
 
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No no, D'Artagnan as John Sheridan! :techman:

Or Logan the Sandman! ;)

"Ship Of Tears" is an amazing episode and the next one is my absolute favourite of the entire series!

If it was up to me I would give it an Emmy, a Hugo and a Saturn Award at the same time!
 
how come the Minbari aren't aware that the Shadows are afraid of telepaths if they fought against them in the last great war?
I would answer the question, but it would involve spoilers of several episodes.

Whenever a writer uses King Arthur and Camelot legend as a plot for me it means he/she is having a bad day for creativity
There is a point to using this here, which I hinted at earlier, which also involves spoilers for episodes coming up. Sometimes Joe uses Greek mythology for linking certain story points together; sometimes it's something like Arthur. I don't follow what makes one less valid than the other. After all, the guy wasn't really Arthur, he was just having PTSD. If he thought he was the High Grand Ruler of the Moon the story would be more or less the same, except you'd lose the foreshadowing that's supposed to be there.

Michael York is a gifted actor but he often makes bad choices about characters he plays....
Interestingly, he was one of Joe's main choices to be the new Captain of Babylon 5 in season 2, but PTEN didn't want two British space Captains since Picard was already on TV.
 
Oops missed that one. Long day (well yesterday was a long day, and I'm feeling the after effects).
 
Interestingly, he was one of Joe's main choices to be the new Captain of Babylon 5 in season 2, but PTEN didn't want two British space Captains since Picard was already on TV.

Personally I cannot imagine anybody else but Bruce Boxleitner playing the role of Sheridan.

OK, maybe Michael Douglas would have done a good job as well, but he was never an option. ;)
 
I am sure a bug/pest cleaning service would do good in B5.....

Meanwhile since Sheridan declared B5 independent and with all authorty and resources he had as military governor he became somewhat military dictator of B5 after Severed Dreams right ? What about creating a seperate set of laws , constitution and govermernt for B5 ?

For example in Battlestar Galactica this plotline was followed more extensively : Roslin suddenly became President in emergency , elections announced , Adama tried a military coup etc...

I sort of got the impression that the law was whatever Sheridan said it was at any given time, although I could be incorrect. However, I still want an explanation for why Londo wasn't immediately recalled by the Earth-friendly Centauri Republic.
 
I suppose it really depends on how you define a military dictatorship. I mean we're only talking about 250,000 odd people a fair portion of which are aliens and/or in transit and most of the ones that live on the station work there either as Earthforce officers, Security officers, dock workers, maintenance techs, medlab personnel and various small business owners, their employees and of course the lurkers.
Also keep in mind that unlike say a planetary colony, B5 is a space station and it can only support so many people. Not just in terms of square footage but in the ability of the life support system to supply breathable air (of various mixtures) process waste and accommodate the water, power and food requirements of all those people. Once that limit is reached, that's it or people will start to suffer and die. So they're not a growing independent society, they're a bunch of people in a can.

Now even before the secession all of these people lived on what was essencially a small colony under a military governorship, which while it answered to senate authority, the station and it's populous had no direct representative to the senate for themselves (neither did any of the colonies for that matter) and no say in wider politics beyond the alliance wide presidential elections (as seen way back in the first episode.)
All that's really changed on a day to day basis is that Earth no longer has any say, nor dose it provide funding or collect taxes. The residents are still subject to the usual civil laws, rights, due process etc. What's to stop Sheridan going power mad and treating the station as his own little kingdom? Aside from Ivanova, not very much, but this isn't intended to be a permanent situation, as the Captain said in 'Severed Dreams', they intend to rejoin the Alliance on the condition that Clark is removed from power.
Drawing up a constitution would seem to be a bit pointless and counter-productive at this early stage, even if it is ever going to be an issue.
 
However, I still want an explanation for why Londo wasn't immediately recalled by the Earth-friendly Centauri Republic.

Maybe the Centaurum (and/or Cartagia) wanted to do so, but Mollari then pulled strings to stay on Babylon 5. (Whether Morden or Refa had something to do with it, I am not sure...)
 
Interestingly, he was one of Joe's main choices to be the new Captain of Babylon 5 in season 2, but PTEN didn't want two British space Captains since Picard was already on TV.
Personally I cannot imagine anybody else but Bruce Boxleitner playing the role of Sheridan.

OK, maybe Michael Douglas would have done a good job as well, but he was never an option. ;)

Ha! I thought I was the only one to make that comparison.

Any time I've ever called BB "Douglas with a Midwest accent" to a B5er, I get a :wtf:.
 
Here are some reasons why I think Sheridan's rule wasn't a dictatorship:

1.In "Severed Dreams" he allowed anyone who wishes to leave for Earth to do so, proving that he's not a power hungry dictator.

2.He didn't force the military personnel on the station to fight against their own government and allowed the Night Watch to leave for Earth.

3.It was a time of a civil war and the resistance on B5 needed a strong leader so they chose to follow Sheridan willingly. The Rebels from "Star Wars" had that fish-like Admiral and followed his orders, didn't they!

I have a few more reasons but they would require a spoiler code, so I'm going to keep them for the later seasons.
 
Oh yeah, Sheridan's sense of honor, his realization of the radical nature of what they were doing, and his need to be able to trust those who were embarking in this with him, made it a certainty he would make this voluntary, this course they set out on.
 
Here are some reasons why I think Sheridan's rule wasn't a dictatorship:

1.In "Severed Dreams" he allowed anyone who wishes to leave for Earth to do so, proving that he's not a power hungry dictator.

2.He didn't force the military personnel on the station to fight against their own government and allowed the Night Watch to leave for Earth.

3.It was a time of a civil war and the resistance on B5 needed a strong leader so they chose to follow Sheridan willingly. The Rebels from "Star Wars" had that fish-like Admiral and followed his orders, didn't they!

I have a few more reasons but they would require a spoiler code, so I'm going to keep them for the later seasons.

This makes B5 a benevolent (or well-intentioned) dictatorship, but it's a dictatorship nonetheless. Sheridan effectively appointed himself indefinite ruler of B5, answerable to nobody. Well, strictly speaking he was perhaps answerable to the "war council" which had been formed early in Season 3. But this was more of an ad hoc body and its members weren't democratically elected either.

Keep in mind that the term "dictatorship" merely describes how a government is structered. In theory, it says nothing about the motives, intentions, and methods of those at the top. I believe the term dictatorship didn't even have that much of a negative connotation until Hitler and Stalin came to power. Since then it has become synonymous with "evil".
 
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Is there any protocol about legal authority of Babylon 5 military governor once it was cut out of Earth due to communication problems or war or anything else ?
 
Is there any protocol about legal authority of Babylon 5 military governor once it was cut out of Earth due to communication problems or war or anything else

Not that I'm aware of.

Of course there was also the Babylon 5 Advisory Council, but this body had largely become defunct by Season 3 (and most of it's functions were taken over by the unofficial "war council", I guess).
 
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