I dunno if this has been posted yet, but JMS is doing episode rewatch commentaries for his Patron fans. He's posted one on his YouTube channel.
He's done a few of them already and after a period of exclusivity for his Patrons, he's going to release them to the public. It was rather cool that he put it up to a vote and the Patrons overwhelmingly voted to make them public after a bit. He's also done the first one for Sense8.
Ooooh, I'm always up for more JMS commentary on B5 episodes. I'll be curious to hear whether his perspectives on any aspects of the production have changed from what they were known to be in the past as well.
After what Epsilon III turned out to be, it's honestly not beyond the bounds of possibility. Incidentally the term "berserker" for this kind offensive von Neumann-ish probe was coined by Fred Saberhagen in a series of short stories and novels from the late 60's all the way up until the early 2000's, and was also partly the inspiration for the Reapers in Mass Effect (which shared a number of influences in common with B5.) It's an aspect of the B5 universe that doesn't come up so often since so much time and energy is spent on internal politics; it's a big, weird galaxy out there and sometimes something like this can just jump out of the void without any explanation. Indeed IIRC it wasn't using the jump gate, so it's probably from some long dead race that never found the gate network in their system, but still felt the need to protect themselves from advanced civilizations and so sent them out at relativistic speeds. The galaxy is probably littered with thousands of these things, like landmines drifting between the stars.
Agreed. That was one of the things that kind of got lost in late seasons and many viewers seemed to forget to the point that they claimed that there was no way the Hand could have been previously unknown when Legend of the Rangers came out. And that really struck me as odd given the nature of the exploration of the Excalibur even though they were exploring dead planets/races.
I don't recall getting much perspective of how much of the galaxy these races are even existing in. We got one holo image of Londo and Mr. Morden dividing the Galaxy's regions of influence between the Centauri and the Shadows, but that was all that I remember. And given how Hyperspace might be, there are probably plenty of gaps between explored stars and unexplored stars.
JMS gave Stephen Furst time off to allow him to work on a Fox Sitcom. It had the added benefit of isolating Londo when he needed Vir the most, which will play into the story of Londo's further moral decline.
It also feeds into Londo’s desire to keep Vir a pure ally protected enough from the corruption that he won’t get assassinated before he really needs him. He knows Vir. He does the math. Vir + power games = dead Vir.
The map in the B5 war council room showing the area in the galaxy of shadow activity circled in white. Spoiler: from the episode: "The Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place" Two dimension representation of shadow attacks Three dimension representation of shadow attacks area inside of box circled in white: Close up of the same area: Looks like everything takes place in part of the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. A two dimensional jump point map of the series for the various species and their areas of controlled space in Babylon 5. Most of the area occupied by the league of non-aligned worlds probably fits inside the area shown in the spoiler map. It would exclude the Vorlon, Earth Alliance, Minbari and Centauri occupied space.
Finished my rewatch on HBO Max. Beg to report that no, even after two decades, I can't watch Sleeping in Light without crying like a baby.
In other words, Vir is the only Centauri who cares about morality but not personal gain, so Londo calls on Vir when what he wants to do happens to be morally right.
After I finished B5 on HBOMax, I figured I'd rewatch Crusade on DVD. Wow, what a mess. I'd forgotten. I recall TNT wouldn't let them finish the CGI on the first 5 eps shot in order to get their more-favorite eps shot and aired first, so those are pretty painful. Edward Woodward's "fearsome" CG golden dragon is OMG bad, even for 1999. I'm watching in "JMS approved" order, which puts War Zone (the TNT-demanded replacement pilot) second from last, so we see everybody meet for the first time a second time. I still haven't figured out why Gideon and Lochly also met for the first time twice in different episodes. Oy vey.
Well one has to watch at least one episode of season 5, the last episode (though technially it was shot as part of season 4)
I just imagine War Zone didn't happen and there were only twelve episodes. It's cleaner that way. I also developed my own order that I thought worked best (even the JMS order screws up the thing where Gideon reminds Galen of saying how much he cared about the Excalibur crew several episodes before Galen says it, IIRC). I feel like the looped in "Good to see you again, Captain" line in Lochley and Gideon's original first meeting in "Each Night I Dream of Home" covers it well enough to fit with their retconned first meeting in "Ruling From the Tomb" (I also put those episodes pretty far apart in my order, so it makes more emotional sense that they have to get reacquainted a little and aren't quite as fired up as they were when they met on Mars, and then I close with the Babylon 5 crossover episode). In case anyone's curious... Spoiler: David cgc's Crusade Viewing Order Cx00 A Call To Arms Cx01 Racing the Night Cx02 The Long Road Cx03 Visitors From Down the Street Cx04 Ruling from the Tomb Cx05 Appearances and Other Deceits Cx06 The Memory of War Cx07 The Needs of Earth Cx08 The Path of Sorrows Cx09 Each Night I Dream of Home Cx10 Patterns of the Soul Cx11 The Well of Forever Cx12 The Rules of the Game It's been a long time, so I don't remember all of my reasons for everything I moved around specifically.