So I started watching "Babylon 5" for the first time.

I loved "Call to Arms", it was the most fun and entertaining of the movies. And the most important plot-wise. "In the Beginning" was great but it was all stuff we already knew.

 

Lochley stared down an Angel.

So much done with so little.

 

There are 3 novel trilogies worth reading if you're a reader. All 3 were written based on outlines/input from JMS of where he intended the story to go. I would say the Centauri Prime Trilogy is almost a must read, as it really finishes a lot of story that is simply left untold. The Bester/Psyicore trilogy is worth reading if you're a fan of the character and that particular organization's history. The last one, the Technomage trilogy is most worth reading if you've seen Crusade, but even if you decide to pass on Crusade, there's a lot of good things there.

 

Besides those, I also enjoyed two of the other novels that I think are worth a look at:-

To Dream in the City of Shadows (Mostly Sinclair related) by Kathryn M Drennan

and

The Shadow Within by Jeanne Cavelos.

For the others, some I'd say are ok, but others may be missable (but that's a mileage may vary sort of thing).

 

Is been years since I read a B5 book, they are up in the loft somewhere.

 

I'm not sure what to think of the "Flowy Blonde Hair" Telepath Guy, Everytime I see him, A Whitesnake song starts playing in my head....Also, A big bummer about Ivanona, I can understand her charicters motivations for wanting to leave, "I should've boffed him at least once!" but still it's sad she will no longer be a part of the cast. So, what order should I watch the movies? I am going to watch all of them after season 5, regardless if some suck or not.

 

This article goes in to the reasons for why Claudia left the show.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html

And I was at that convention in Blackpool, it had virtually ever single main cast member from the first seasons (only the actor who played Keffer wasn't there from memory) and several behind the scenes people. A long hectic 4 days

 

At least Two of the trilogies happen in Parallel with Crusade. So it's really not time to start talking about books yet.

Also, most of them are out of print.

Byron is a ####.

There was this girl I knew, and she would swoon every time he had screen time. I swear it was like she had the vapours. Not pretty. ####ing embarrassing.

I still want to break his arms and legs, stuff him into a 40 litre drum and pee in there until he finally drowns.

No one that pretty should be allowed to live.

 

Damn that seemed like a big mess and much bad blood between JMS, Christian and TNT and of course nobody is innocent and all parties tell different stories.

It's rare that such disputes get public knowledge because most actors fear burning bridges for the future if they appear to be difficult to work with (unless they're absolute A list in which case they have more freedom to be an ass - not that i'm saying Christian is/was an ass).

I loved her on the show.. she played the character well even if she sometimes went a little overboard on the hammy side though that may have also been the writing to blame for corny dialogue.

 

Perhaps the timing of the notice with the convention had somehing to do with it. And to go a bit Kosh, "The Truth is a triple edged sword"

 

Yeah, Byron. I can see what they were trying to do, but the character just came off as pretentious and annoying.

Well, at this point, you could watch "In the Beginning" (it aired before Season 5) and "Thirdspace" (which takes place during season 4).


"The River of Souls" takes place in 2263, two years after season 5. "The Legend of the Rangers" takes place three years after the end of season 5.

"A Call to Arms," if you're interested, is probably best watched right before delving into Crusade, with "A Call to Arms" taking place in 2267.

"Voices in the Wilderness" was the last produced and takes place in 2271.

 

There's a lot that fell short.

Spoiler: Just in case

The telepath situation was relatively lightly touched after the station separated from Earth which made sense in as much as Psicorp had no more authority to goosestep there anymore. Unfortunately, that left off any sense of drama for the telepaths' plight. On top of that, Lyta was part of the big fight so there's a lot of sympathy which feels odd for me anyway when she goes over to Byron's cause. I just didn't feel why she would go with him. Byron made sense as a kind of slinkier version of Bester, so I had to wonder why Lyta fell over to his side so completely.

I kind of wish JMS had put Bester in Byron's place with the fallout of Clark's government he goes on the lam to create his own telepath utopia. I would have had more a sense of drama with him than the one done with Byron. That, or not made Lyta fall so much for Byron. She could have joined the cause without seeming to have drunk the Jim Jones Koolade.

 

^Well as we now now, Ivanova was supposed have fallen for Byron because of his Marcus-like-ness, and she would have become sympathetic toward the teep plight because of her mother. JMS had to ditch that and make a substitution. Personally, tho I missed Claudia, I'm crazy about Pat Tallman, and was delighted to see her get more screen time.

(I'm facebook friends with both of them, and they're both wickedly funny and sexy and nice).

 

Yeah, I just wish JMS had dropped the half that Ivanova would have played onto Lyta. Ivanova had a back story that could have made falling for Byron credible, it just didn't seem so with Lyta. Instead, it made her character seem to go nutty.

 

Though I'm sorry we didn't get Ivanova in S5, I'm quite happy with where the story went for the most part

Spoiler: Most of Season 5

And I am quite happy that Byron was the final catalyst for Lyta's "Becoming". It made perfect sense to me, after the way Lyta had been used, abused and tossed away by practically everyone

The bigger issue, IMHO, was the need to basically "Start up the Arc again" with S5, because S4 closed everything up. Had S5, been assured, much of the starting of the S5 plot threads would've been woven into the end of S4, and the S4 plot threads would've spilled over into S5, so the transition would've been much smoother (Though, that would probably mean S4 wouldn't have been quite so awesome in those final 4 episodes)

 

There's also that Ivanova would have taken the decision to let Byron establish his colony on B5 while she was light years away, leading the charge against Earth in Sheridan's absence, doing it without time to think about 'minor' distractions and on the 'whim' of her sympathy for rogue telepaths.
So the storyline would have been set up in the background, as a minor decision with snowballing consequences, rather than being obviously important from the start, and taken by Sheridan when he was in position to give it more lengthy consideration...

 

I sort of thought that way at first but when I watched it again and really saw the way the 'mundanes' used and dropped Lyta (mainly due to unconscious prejudice, I think), I was much more understanding of why she'd fall for somebody of her own kind who actually treated her as if she had value. Really, I found it more believable than the idea of Ivanova falling for him on the rebound.


I agree with Sindatur that if we'd seen the telepaths gathering little by little in season four, it would have been a much smoother transition than it just suddenly being the first challenge of the new commander and president.



Jan

 

In hindsight, it would have possibly worked better if they'd actually started that as early as season 3, since that's when they started recruiting blips from the underground railroad to fight the Shadows. Maybe even introduce Byron as one of them so he doesn't just appear out of nowhere as their de facto leader.

I think it's implied--but not confirmed--that a lot of those in the colony were indeed former...uh...weapons supply jammers? Perhaps had season four not been truncated there would have been a little more room to introduce the growing blip population in downbelow. It'd certainly put the onerous on Sheridan to "allow" a colony of former veterans and war heroes who'd been left homeless due to neglect.

As it stands, it feels less like Lyta fell in love and more like she joined a cult. From Zack's reaction I'd say he had a similar thought.

 

If Ivanova commanded the station, sorry "captained" (last commander my ass.) Byron would have walked up to her, made his request, immediately noticed that she was a telepath, she would have punched him for probing and he would have pursued her as part of his half dressed harem.

Was Byron "married" to everyone (boys included) or were they just fuck###?

Spoiler: is everybody finished yet?

Because Lyta took her shirt off and joined an orgy of nobody strangers fine, but would she let her puppies breathe if she was expected to do some girl on girl with Susan before she could get to the main event with that hippy tosser poser fuck Byron?

Which means that Byron may never have found out that the Vorlons created telepahs if he thought Ivonova's political capital would get him where he needed to go rather than Lyta's raw power.

After crossing Susan, I don't think that he would have had the chance to commit suicide because Captain Ivanona would have keel hauled him off the back of 250 million tons of spinning metal all alone in the night.

 

Season five is my favorite.

Byron is OK.

Ivanova leaving works for the show.

The second half of the season is excellent and the whole five years is tied together very well.