Watching Babylon 5 for the first time... *Spoilers, duh*

[Quinton O'Connor]

JMS did plan to have a fighter pilot character but PTEN insisted on a 'Han Solo' type and thought that the character JMS had described was 'too cerebral'. From the intro that Larry DiTillio did for the Other Voices script books for his episode GROPOS, they had to revise a scene he'd written for Keffer because he couldn't handle the dialogue written.

Let me guess...

PTEN: "Hmm. We're behind you 100% of the way on this X-Wing thing, but an X-Wing isn't an X-Wing without Han Solo in the cockpit, right?"

JMS: "...Right..."

He does, however have one very important function to perform.

Don't leave me hangin'! Argh! *keeps watching*

 

[Jan]

Don't leave me hangin'! Argh! *keeps watching*

I must. Spoilers...



Jan

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Alright, alright, alright.

This show is really scratching for a spot in my top three right now, goodness.

 

[Angel4576]

He does, however have one very important function to perform.

Jan

Just

This show is really scratching for a spot in my top three right now, goodness.

By season 4, it'll be in your top one......

 

[Dave Scarpa]

He does, however have one very important function to perform.

Jan

Just

This show is really scratching for a spot in my top three right now, goodness.

By season 4, it'll be in your top one......

A few Years ago my then Brother In Law was staying with me and my Late Wife. Every Night we'd watch 3 to 4 eps of B5 I got him hooked good. Those Season 3 to 4 episodes you won't want to not watch the next one. He was leaving so I had to condense S5 to get to the end of the story, but the whole Arc plays just as good and maybe better without those teep episodes.

 

[Silvercrest]

He does, however have one very important function to perform.

Don't leave me hangin'!

Don't worry, it will be a real blast to watch.

Argh! *keeps watching*

Sorry, we don't want to cast a shadow over it when it happens.

 

[Reverend]

So this Warren Keffer guy sure does show up rather infrequently.

This was in the era when JMS was getting notes from PTEN and Warner Bros. The character was forced on him, and so he used the character as minimally as possible. Not exactly the three-dimensional character type we usually associate with this series, right?

JMS did plan to have a fighter pilot character but PTEN insisted on a 'Han Solo' type and thought that the character JMS had described was 'too cerebral'. From the intro that Larry DiTillio did for the Other Voices script books for his episode GROPOS, they had to revise a scene he'd written for Keffer because he couldn't handle the dialogue written.

He does, however have one very important function to perform.

Jan

Out of interest, did the book include the original dialogue before it was rewritten? I mean how difficult could it have been!? Was Keffer supposed to break into a rendition of "Three Little Maids from School Are We" in fluent pak'ma'ra or something? I mean I know the guy wasn't exactly Oscar material but he seemed...competent.

 

[Jan]

Out of interest, did the book include the original dialogue before it was rewritten? I mean how difficult could it have been!? Was Keffer supposed to break into a rendition of "Three Little Maids from School Are We" in fluent pak'ma'ra or something? I mean I know the guy wasn't exactly Oscar material but he seemed...competent.

I'll check to make sure but if I recall correctly, we had to scan my script copies for the DiTillio scripts because his archived copies were no longer accessible (the software was obsolete and unavailable).

Jan

 

[OmahaStar]

He does, however have one very important function to perform.

Jan

Just

This show is really scratching for a spot in my top three right now, goodness.

By season 4, it'll be in your top one......

SPOILERS.

Did you read the original post? He specifically asked people not to post spoilers for episodes beyond what he'd seen. So you think it's appropriate to start throwing out spoilers for three seasons after what he's watching now? What were you thinking? Everyone else has been playing nice, but you just couldn't do that, could you?

 

[Jan]

Out of interest, did the book include the original dialogue before it was rewritten? I mean how difficult could it have been!? Was Keffer supposed to break into a rendition of "Three Little Maids from School Are We" in fluent pak'ma'ra or something? I mean I know the guy wasn't exactly Oscar material but he seemed...competent.

Okay, I found it. This is part of the introduction to 'GROPOS' by Larry DiTillio:

There were only two minor problems I had to deal with. One was the lengthy dialogue in which Sheridan and General Franklin discuss strategy for the attack. Paul Winfield was a great actor but he was having trouble handling these speeches and Jim asked me to take another pass though the script to shorten and simplify them. The second was a long speech about Lt. Keffer’s first combat experience that he delivers to the anxious young solider Yang. Robert Rusler simply couldn’t make it work and we were forced to drop it.

I also checked my scripts. The version in the script book was the shooting draft but I also have the First Draft. Compared to some of JMS's speaches, I don't think that Keffer had that long of a speach but it was about Keffer's first time in combat so it would be a pretty dramatic scene.

One triva bit I'd almost forgotten: In the original script, Garibaldi and Dodger *were* supposed to have a one-night stand but the actress who played Dodger was a former girlfriend of Jerry Doyle's. Doyle and Andrea Thompson (Talia) were in a real-life relationship and Jerry campaigned to get the scene changed so that his character didn't have to sleep with Dodger.

Jan

 

[David cgc]

One triva bit I'd almost forgotten: In the original script, Garibaldi and Dodger *were* supposed to have a one-night stand but the actress who played Dodger was a former girlfriend of Jerry Doyle's. Doyle and Andrea Thompson (Talia) were in a real-life relationship and Jerry campaigned to get the scene changed so that his character didn't have to sleep with Dodger.

Ooooh. I'd only ever heard the "goodfact" version where it was Doyle's concern about the integrity of the character, saying more or less "When I asked for Garibaldi to get some, I meant he should get some from the woman he's been hitting on for the past year and a half, not some ship passing in the night."

 

[Mr Light]

Welcome to B5! It's the greatest TV series ever made! Are you up to "Long Twilight Struggle" yet? That's my all time favorite episode. Yeah when I played Mass Effect 2 and finally saw the Collectors, I immediately thought Shadow rip-off. Of course a great deal of Mass Effect is extremely "similar" to B5.

St. Pete, hunh? I was born and raised there! But I moved away eight years ago.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Welcome to B5! It's the greatest TV series ever made! Are you up to "Long Twilight Struggle" yet? That's my all time favorite episode. Yeah when I played Mass Effect 2 and finally saw the Collectors, I immediately thought Shadow rip-off. Of course a great deal of Mass Effect is extremely "similar" to B5.

St. Pete, hunh? I was born and raised there! But I moved away eight years ago.

Thanks for the welcome. I'm actually at the episode right before that right now. I just saw Talia, er... 'die'. I'll post some more thoughts on that one in a while; right now I'm watching Farscape with a couple of friends in beautiful HD.

Good to see another St. Pete face around here, although I was actually born in NYC.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I have a stupid, goofy smile on my face right now.

Just finished watching "The Long, Twilight Struggle"; what an emotional rollercoaster that last 43 minutes was. It's a bit early to tell but I think I may have just found my new favorite episode. There was such a wonderful diversity about this one.

Londo's and G'Kar's legendary status among sci-fi fans is at last becoming incredibly self-explanatory for me. The former's stare into space as the mass drivers bombarded the Narn homeworld and the latter's tear-inducing speech upon his removal from the Council... just, wow.

And what a finish. Things are getting heavy. That could have been the season finale and I would have graciously accepted it, geez.

 

[Jan]

^^ Yep. Welcome to our world! A friend who recently watched the show for the first time was amazed at how emotionally invested with the characters she'd become with this episode.

And speaking of worlds, howdy neighbor. I'm in Orlando.

Jan

 

[Mr Light]

The Council scene at the end of "Struggle" is my all time favorite scene. Not only for G'Kar's speech, but Londo becoming this evil shouting monster in a parallel of "Coming of Shadows". Where there Sheridan blackmailed Londo into sending observers, here he flatly says "that request is denied". And then he demands G'Kar be removed "NOT SOON!!! NOW!!!!!!!".

 

[Reverend]

Out of interest, did the book include the original dialogue before it was rewritten? I mean how difficult could it have been!? Was Keffer supposed to break into a rendition of "Three Little Maids from School Are We" in fluent pak'ma'ra or something? I mean I know the guy wasn't exactly Oscar material but he seemed...competent.

Okay, I found it. This is part of the introduction to 'GROPOS' by Larry DiTillio:

There were only two minor problems I had to deal with. One was the lengthy dialogue in which Sheridan and General Franklin discuss strategy for the attack. Paul Winfield was a great actor but he was having trouble handling these speeches and Jim asked me to take another pass though the script to shorten and simplify them. The second was a long speech about Lt. Keffer’s first combat experience that he delivers to the anxious young solider Yang. Robert Rusler simply couldn’t make it work and we were forced to drop it.

I also checked my scripts. The version in the script book was the shooting draft but I also have the First Draft. Compared to some of JMS's speaches, I don't think that Keffer had that long of a speach but it was about Keffer's first time in combat so it would be a pretty dramatic scene.

Right, so it wasn't so much a matter of the dialogue being too tricky so much as the actor not being able to carry off the drama. That I can believe. Again, nothing personal against the actor but I think it's fair to say he didn't have much in the way of gravitas or even experience. He always felt too light and bubbly to be a real combat veteran, or even a pilot for that matter.

Not to go on too much of a tangent but it's always bothered me how pilots in general and fighter pilots are so often portrayed in TV and films as being swaggering and excitable cowboys. Maybe it's a misconception born of watching Top Gun too many times but that's not much of an excuse.

I know from experience that these blokes are some of the calmest and level headed people on the planet. In fact the only show I've seen that manages to get it right is SG-1. Anyone who's attended an airshow with a radio scanner can attest that even while pulling off what must be tremendously exciting and utterly terrifying manoeuvres, the pilots have a calm, matter of fact tone and demeanour one might normally associate with a lecture entitle "the history of crochet patterns."

I have a stupid, goofy smile on my face right now.

Just finished watching "The Long, Twilight Struggle"; what an emotional rollercoaster that last 43 minutes was. It's a bit early to tell but I think I may have just found my new favorite episode. There was such a wonderful diversity about this one.

Londo's and G'Kar's legendary status among sci-fi fans is at last becoming incredibly self-explanatory for me. The former's stare into space as the mass drivers bombarded the Narn homeworld and the latter's tear-inducing speech upon his removal from the Council... just, wow.

And what a finish. Things are getting heavy. That could have been the season finale and I would have graciously accepted it, geez.

Yes, this is the tipping point of the series where most people who've made it this far are irrevocably hooked. While it is certainly a high point, rest assured there's more where this came from!

 

[Brian]

Neighbors everywhere! I'm in Orlando too!

 

[Jan]

Neighbors everywhere! I'm in Orlando too!

::waves:: Cool. If anybody's going to be at Megacon, we should see about possibly meeting up.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Jan

 

[Neroon]

Yes, this is the tipping point of the series where most people who've made it this far are irrevocably hooked. While it is certainly a high point, rest assured there's more where this came from!

My "tipping" had begun with "Babylon Squared" but wasn't completely solidified as my magnificent obsession until "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum". To see such addiction building in yet another recruit is ..... sweet.