A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

[Reverend]

A few bits of trivia from that episode: Durhan was previously mentioned in 'Grey 17 is Missing' as the one that taught both Marcus and Neroon the pike. Turval was played by Turhan Bey who had previously appeared back in season 2 as the Centauri Emperor Turhan (there's a pattern there with the names...if only I could put my finger on it" )
Both of those characters figured quite strongly on the canon novel 'To Dream in a City of Sorrows' which was actually their first appearance in the franchise. Turhan had actually been the Anla'Shok Na (Ranger One) before Sinclair took over.
And yes, there's also a mention of N'Grath, the giant preying mantis thing from season one. Apparently either security finally got him or a rival took him down.

 

[Vestboy]

I found the first five episodes of season five largely unsatisfying, and I think a big reason for that was, besides "Long Night of Londo Mollari", these episodes were mostly about guest characters: Byron, Bo and Mack, the two new Ranger trainees. The opening credits characters don't really do too much.

 

[Lindley]

As for the alien fleet...well the fact that it was an arbitrary theat was entierly the point.

Agreed, but for thematic reasons rather than in-story reasons. The point of the episode was that these two maintenance guys don't know or have much control over the big picture. Like that bit in the lift when Garibaldi is freaking out, and then when he leaves they go back to their conversation like nothing's wrong.

The threat is something we don't know much about because *they* wouldn't know much about it anyway in their position. It increases the sense of being on the sidelines.

 

[TheGodBen]

Yeah, probably my least-liked episode. I'd even give it a "pathetic". The two leads never once made me believe they weren't reading lines (badly) from a script. And that idiotic line about not knowing what their tool was and why they were sweeping it back and forth made me want to set them on fire and toss them to the Pak'Mara.

Yeah, that floor sweeper bit turned me off them right away. It might have been funny if someone had handed it to Sheridan or Garibaldi and they suddenly realised that they had absolutely no idea what it was for, but having the guys whose job it is to use the thing not know what it is for made them seem incompetent.

The episode would have worked a lot better if Clark's forces would have done the attacking and not some random, half-assed alien race.

I disagree, I think if you're going to have an experimental episode like this then it is best not to have a proper villain attacking the station because all the viewer will want is to focus on the action and not the characters. The fact that I didn't care about the aliens would have made it easier for me to connect to Bo and Mack if I hadn't found them irritating.


Strange Relations (***)

Bester and Byron in the same room? But having that much awesomeness come into close proximity with such a great deal of suckitude would cause a rupture in the fabric of space-time that would destroy half the galaxy. Actually... Byron's not that bad. He's full of BS, sure, but Lyta called him out on that, and he doesn't seem like that much of a crazy cult leader. I can understand why people don't like him, but I don't understand why people hate him, at least not yet. Is it really all down to the hair? As for this episode, it's okay for the most part, and it's helped by the presence of Bester. The singing at the end lasted too long for my liking, and that did feel a bit cultish.

The biggest problem I have is that somebody blew up a transport ship right outside the station but that plot is glossed over to focus more on Byron. We don't even get a proper reaction from Londo about the fact that somebody tried to blow him up real good. Having G'Kar becoming Londo's bodyguard is probably going to be a good thing for the show in the future, but I do fear that their relationship might become uninteresting if they spend too much time together.

The real focus of this episode is Lochley. It turns out that she's Sheridan's first wife. I'm no expert about women (shocking, I know) but I'm fairly certain that it's a good idea to tell your new wife about your previous marriages before you drag your first wife half-way across the galaxy to work with you. This move seriously damages Sheridan's reputation as a great tactician. Overall, Lochley is handled well here and I finally have answers to all the questions I had. Which would normally be a good thing, but in this case it's a bad thing as it ruins my recurring joke. Damn you JMS!

(Does Sheridan hiring his ex-wife and not telling his current wife about it deserve a Captain Greyshirt? Because he did needlessly put his life in danger.)

 

[Reverend]

I'm no expert about women (shocking, I know) but I'm fairly certain that it's a good idea to tell your new wife about your previous marriages before you drag your first wife half-way across the galaxy to work with you.

I think Delenn would agree with you.

From a storytelling point of view I think this was just a way to establish that there's a trust between Sheridan and Lochly of a magnitude comparable to the trust he has for Ivanova, who would have been the station commander this year had Claudia chosen to return. Not letting the cat out of the bag right away serves to allow the character some time to grow without being coloured as Sheridan's ex-wife.

 

[Forbin]

It's the hair AND the singing. Separately they're bad enough, but together they can cause aneurisms.

Now that you know Lochley's secret identity we can reveal this interesting bit of trivia: Sheridan's three wives inadvertantly follow Minbari class structure; one religious, one worker, one warrior.

 

[Sykonee]

The whole 'Lochley Backstory' mystery felt like JMS having a bit of a piss-take with his himself. For a show that prided itself on creating intriguing mysteries with interesting revelations (Sinclair's "hole in his mind", B4's disappearance, the Shadow Manifesto), to have one that builds up over a half-dozen episodes and ends with something so... ordinary ("I'm Sheridan's ex-wife.") is a bit of a shock with is unshockingness.

And quite a let down too.

 

[Silvercrest]

Does anyone know if Lochley was always going to be JMS' "trapdoor" for Ivanova? What if Claudia Christian had left earlier in the series? It would have been really soapish and awkward to have yet another ex-wife show up while Sheridan was still coming to grips with Anna, or while he was courting Delenn.

 

[Jan]

^^ Not that JMS has indicated anywhere. In fact, he's been pretty open that the combination of losing Ivanova *&* his Season 5 notes knocked him off his game pretty badly.

Jan

 

[JoeD80]

Does anyone know if Lochley was always going to be JMS' "trapdoor" for Ivanova? What if Claudia Christian had left earlier in the series? It would have been really soapish and awkward to have yet another ex-wife show up while Sheridan was still coming to grips with Anna, or while he was courting Delenn.

The trapdoor was Ivanova getting command of her own ship. If it happened in an earlier season we might have had Corwin as Sheridan's second, or maybe finally meet Major Atumbe, the mysterious third in command who somehow manages to escape all the week-to-week trials that afflict the other characters.

 

[Reverend]

Exactly how many times was Atumbe mentioned anyway? I've seen it written here and there that Atumbe cropped up in dialogue a few times but the only mention I've ever noticed that one in 'Eyes' where Ivanova is about to leave her post.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Exactly how many times was Atumbe mentioned anyway? I've seen it written here and there that Atumbe cropped up in dialogue a few times but the only mention I've ever noticed that one in 'Eyes' where Ivanova is about to leave her post.

Yes, that's the only Atumbe reference I'm aware of too. And since "Eyes" was written by DiTillio, Atumbe's canonical status is dubious at best. (also see "Bureau 13")

 

[Reverend]

No, JMS has defiantly referenced Atumbeas the third in command, at least in season one. Don't ask me why, but I keep wanting to refer to Atumbe as a 'her' rather than a 'him', even though no gender pronouns were used in dialogue. Weird.

As for Bureau 13, from what I can discern from the Psi Corps books I think the "canon" explanation is that it was an operation under Psi Corps' Department Sigma, which itself had by that point been co-opted by the same EA elements behind the EF Bio Weapons Division, IPX and Clark's play for power.
It's not too much of a stretch to presume that after both Control and their attempt to restart Project Lazarus were exposed that Sigma closed down Thirteen's operation and folded it back into Sigma proper.

 

[TheGodBen]

Secrets of the Soul (***)

Dr Franklin begins his work on whatever it was that he's doing now, and to do that he must get access to Hyach medical records. But he finds a dangerous secret and now the Hyach are going to kill him! Or something. I like the idea of this plot, that there's a race that's covering up the fact that they committed genocide, but the execution here is clumsy and uninteresting, it consists of a Hyach threatening to kill Franklin if he finds out about a secret and then several scenes of Franklin sitting at his computer. The story only picks up at the revelatory scene and at that point it's too late for me to give much of a damn. What the Hyach did was wrong, sure enough, but the episode needs more than that to keep it interesting.

Meanwhile, there's a plot about Byron and his telepaths. No, don't run away! He's really not that annoying, except for his hair. Once again, the story here suffers a bit from not being interesting enough, but it's not so bad as to make me despise Byron. It essentially comes down to supernatural goths getting into a fight with English football hooligans. I'm not sure why new telepaths are coming to the station to join Byron when the Psi Corps are going to show up in 50 days to arrest all of them, but this episode neglects that fact.

The end of the episode has a bit of a punch to help the score out: topless Lyta and the promise of some shit going down. Will Byron and his cult take action now that they know about the Vorlon interference? Will they be the ones that held Garibaldi hostage back in The Deconstruction of Falling Stars? Or will they decide to open a café on the station and settle down? There's so many possibilities!

 

[apenpaap]

Well, it seems GodBen has been banned. I'll miss him and Jimmy.

 

[Brian]

Aw crap.

The two review threads that I read.

 

[Fist McStrongpunch]

Well, that's retarded. GodBen didn't even say anything bad. Oh well, his and JB's threads were pretty much all I was here for. Maybe I'll be back again sometime. Later.

 

[Ayelbourne]

It's not like he won't be back.

 

[Skywalker]

I hope not. A permaban for that would have been a little extreme. BUT! It's not our place to discuss such things, so...um....

Yay, Babylon 5!

 

[neozeks]

It's not like he won't be back.

And when he returns, he'll be smugger than ever.