Revisiting Babylon 5...

[RandyS]

I just finished watching Season 4. I love the humour in this series, the way it grounds the characters and makes more three dimensional.

Well, it's about damn time somebody agreed with me on this. The two of us seem to be in the minority on this point.

 

[stonester1]

I just finished watching Season 4. I love the humour in this series, the way it grounds the characters and makes more three dimensional.

Well, it's about damn time somebody agreed with me on this. The two of us seem to be in the minority on this point.

I'm completely with you. I LOVE the humor on Babylon 5. Even the "corny" moments. But much of it's humor is genuinely witty and clever.

 

[Warped9]

I liked how many of the characters had a humorous side. It just made them seem more real. It showed they could appreciate irony and display even a gallows humour in the most dire circumstances.

From the beginning Garibaldi was an out of the ordinary Security Chief. Instead of being all so serious he was more like a beat cop yet one who seemed to understand more than he let on.

But the real distinction with B5's humour is that it got you laughing mostly with the characters rather than at them.

 

[Forbin]

Oh, I'm with ya. I love Ivanova's playful side. My fave is when Marucs admits to being a virgin, then says they're picking something up on scanners. Susan says "A unicorn?"

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

...but I often felt like the characters suffered, taking a back seat to the plot.

That's an understatement. The characters were chess pieces in a clumsy game.

 

[RandyS]

I liked how many of the characters had a humorous side. It just made them seem more real. It showed they could appreciate irony and display even a gallows humour in the most dire circumstances.

From the beginning Garibaldi was an out of the ordinary Security Chief. Instead of being all so serious he was more like a beat cop yet one who seemed to understand more than he let on.

But the real distinction with B5's humour is that it got you laughing mostly with the characters rather than at them.

Yep. An example is one of my favorite lines from Sheridan:

Alien: We thought you were dead.

Sheridan: I was. I'm better now.

Great stuff.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It wasn't a full reprogram, but the implanted suggestions did increase and crystallise over time, as Bester described. It was cumulative and subtle to the point where you couldn't tell when the "true" Garibaldi was fully submerged. Remember Bester said he could still feel the real Michael, buried and beating at the inside of his skull.

But all that does is cement my original point: the only people who opposed Sheridan were either brainwashed or mass-murderers. If Garibaldi didn't have any genuine misgivings about Sheridan's activities, then there was really no one with any legitimacy standing up against Sheridan.

The show never really dared to ask if what Sheridan was doing was right. Clark was a tyrant and his Earthgov had gone off the rails. Did that really justify a military-led coup, especially one led by a contingent from a de facto independent space station, and backed up by Minbari of all people?

I would think any reasonable person sitting on the other side of that would be fucking terrified. Everything Clark warned them about was coming to pass--the big boogeyman from B5 was rolling in with his Minbari fleet to conquer Earth.

 

[Jan]

Don't forget that Clark's forces were also slaughtering civilian refugees by the thousands. That's a little worse than just 'off the rails'.

Jan

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Indeed so, however most people weren't aware this was happening, and they'd been told Sheridan was the one slaughtering innocents.

 

[hyzmarca]

Don't forget that Clark's forces were also slaughtering civilian refugees by the thousands. That's a little worse than just 'off the rails'.

Jan

Alien propaganda.


The funny thing is that Clark probably saved billions of lives. Santiago's policies were have dragged the EA into the Shadow War on the Vorlons' side and Earth would have been a high priority target once they started blowing up planets.

 

[JoeD80]

The show never really dared to ask if what Sheridan was doing was right.

Garibaldi being under the influence of Bester when he questioned it does not equate to the show not asking the question.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The show never really dared to ask if what Sheridan was doing was right.

Garibaldi being under the influence of Bester when he questioned it does not equate to the show not asking the question.

But it does, because when you boil it down, no one credible ever went against Sheridan. The show dodged the question by having anyone who opposed Sheridan being either brainwashed or a murdering douchebag. Talk about your one-sided arguments.

 

[JoeD80]

This seems to be personal taste of the way you want the question to be dealt with. It is not the same thing as not asking the question.

 

[Forbin]

Okay, the next person who posts with a double-negative gets a plate of spoo in the face.

 

[JoeD80]

I have knots in my head.

 

[Lindley]

I wonder if the Shadows would have attacked B5 in "Z'Ha'Dum". I think they must have been bluffing....they knew there was a Vorlon on board, and they weren't ready for that confrontation.

 

[RandyS]

It wasn't a full reprogram, but the implanted suggestions did increase and crystallise over time, as Bester described. It was cumulative and subtle to the point where you couldn't tell when the "true" Garibaldi was fully submerged. Remember Bester said he could still feel the real Michael, buried and beating at the inside of his skull.

But all that does is cement my original point: the only people who opposed Sheridan were either brainwashed or mass-murderers. If Garibaldi didn't have any genuine misgivings about Sheridan's activities, then there was really no one with any legitimacy standing up against Sheridan.

The show never really dared to ask if what Sheridan was doing was right. Clark was a tyrant and his Earthgov had gone off the rails. Did that really justify a military-led coup, especially one led by a contingent from a de facto independent space station, and backed up by Minbari of all people?

I would think any reasonable person sitting on the other side of that would be fucking terrified. Everything Clark warned them about was coming to pass--the big boogeyman from B5 was rolling in with his Minbari fleet to conquer Earth.

Sheridan wasn't trying to conquer Earth. He was trying to save it from the very lunatic you yourself called a dictator. Clark was a power hungry, alien hating meglomainac who played on people's fears in order to justify his totaliarinism. This is the one area of the show that was black and white. Clark was in the wrong. Sheridan was in the right. I can't speak for anybody else, but in Sheridan's place, I would have done exactly what he did.

 

[stonester1]

But President Rochenko said that Sheridan may have been right, but his approach was wrong, or at least highly questionable. He was doing what was in effect a coup.

Lots of soldiers WOULD have problems with that, and it would not make them Clark loyalists.

Most of them would have heard rumors, but would not have the full range of knowledge of just how bad he was.

But most of them would not have participated in atrocities, either. Clarke would save such dirty work for selected officers and units.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I can imagine when WW2 was won a lot of politicians and armchair generals were arguing on how it was won. Politicians being what they are some of them could have resented Sheridan's heroism and popularity and pissed that they weren't in the limelight.

 

[stonester1]

There is also that.

Needless to say, the reaction, even post-war, to Sheridan's actions would be...complicated.

Which is why he was exonerated, along with his officers and men, but forced to resign his commission.