"Objects in Motion" and "Objects at Rest" aren't fillers, they conclude the arcs for several characters and set up new ones (if the series had continued), like for Talon or Halloran. "Grey 17 Is Missing" has a filler A-plot, but the B-plot is very important with Delenn becoming Ranger One and Neroon gaining respect for Delenn, the Rangers and Humans, which later on becomes very important for ending the Minbari civil war.
Sleeping in Light makes Objects in Motion and Objects at rest redundant, they add nothing to the story that is needed for the finale filmed a year earlier. Neroon should have killed Marcus and Delenn easily. The story is inauthentic. What they achieved is irrelevant because the only reason that they are alive to be those people, is because Marcus had a very unfunny punchline to say.
"Believers" is one of my favorite stand-alone episodes, because I hatehatehate religious dogma. It also has one of Kosh's best, most quatable lines. Hey, maybe "Stand-alone episode" is a better, less dismissive phrase than "filler."
I've always said standalone epsiode. Not just because it doesn't carry such negative connotation, but also because it's simply a better descriptor.
It was a good enough story that someone basically re-wrote it with Bashir as a B-plot for one of the DS9 novels.
The novel was released in May 1993. The episode aired in April 1994. If you're going to insinuate that someone 'borrowed' an idea, you might want to be sure to get the apparent order right.
Apologies, I didn't read the novel until well after the episode, when I found it in the remaindered bin going cheap.
I think those are cases of a pretty basic concept used by two different writers independent from one another. It's almost certainly based on Christian Science, which had a few cases of children being kept from getting medical treatment in the early 90s (I think The X-Files also did an episode, but with proper Christian Scientists instead of alien stand-ins). Basically like two modern TV shows having anti-vaccination aliens, it wouldn't be them copying each other but both being inspired by the same reality. But this reminds me, has anybody else ever noticed the similar plot points in Joss Whedon's Serenity and the 1980 Star Trek novel Perry's Planet?
I usually use 'off format' as the ones often referred to as 'filler' are things like 'A Late Delivery from Avalon' or 'A View from the Gallery' and the like.
Christian Scientists. It's a real thing. All the hospital and Lawyer shows have tackled the subject. The autistic kid on the Good Doctor went apeshit.
"Messages from Earth" Given the music throughout, it's impossible not to realise that this is a Very Important Episode - and it knows it. This was a rare "away mission" of sorts for some of the station's major players as the Shadows crash back into my memories with their hellish ships (indeed, they look like they come straight from Hell, says guest star Kirkish) and the wanton destruction that follows them. What a moment when the Shadow vessel lays waste to Ganymede, offering more than a glimpse of firey devastation that (surprisingly) holds up pretty well in terms of the visuals. Now martial law is in effect on Earth and there's an overwhelming sense that things won't be the same from here on in. To that point, what do you know? The next one is the Point of No Return that I notice gives this season its name. Have I just witnessed the milestone where Babylon 5 the show as we (or at least, I) knew it becomes something else entirely? Let's see. Rating: **** -Head (?) Nightwatch man who looks a little like Noah Emmerich - are we supposed to have met him before? -When the Ambassadors appear (Delenn and G'Kar are welcomed back to my screen) I'm made uncomfortably aware of the ocean of backstory I'm probably forgetting after a year-long break. Can someone remind me where Kosh is?
There is a single visual frame that got into the episode by mistake. When the White Star makes the jump from Jupiter's atmosphere, and enters hyperspace, there is a frame from Hypernauts that somehow crossed into the EFX shot in double-exposure via a computer glitch while rendering. Played by Vaughn Armstrong - he introduces himself in this episode with one line. "As liaison to the Nightwatch office back home...." as he hands out Nightwatch arm bands. He replaces the Voices of Authority Ministry of Peace, Nightwatch division, political officer Musante.
The top Nightwatch security guard was new in this episode, though you may recognize him from one of his 11 characters on Star Trek, most conspicuously Admiral Forest from Enterprise. Funny you should mention the score, I was just remembering that JMS tried to get some money together to record new music that would allow him to create a single movie-length cut of “Messages” and the following two episodes on the original DVD release. That didn’t end up happening, but I assume that it was what led to a new original track of Babylon 5 score being produced for a bonus feature on the Season 4 DVD (which is what reminded me, when it came up on shuffle). Also, the Babylon 5 drinking game needs just one rule; take a sip when anything is described as coming straight from, or going straight to, hell. JMS defended the tick with the rationale that there are only so many real-world swears you could use in ‘90s syndicated TV, and given Babylon 5’s ill-conceived flirtations with “frag” and “stroke” as 23rd curse-words, he has a point.
As many roles as he played in Trek (at least 13, to my knowledge), it would have been rather meta if Wayne Alexander - who's done almost that many B5 parts - turned up in a bit role in a Trek show. As for Musante, I laugh hysterically whenever I hear Ivanova's line about "you're about to go where...everyone has gone before." I mean, if B5 has to take potshots at Trek, THAT is the way to do it...with some degree of wink-wink humor. Not that "deep space franchise" thing. That was way too on the nose.
I like how Peter David, as a man of integrity, was so offended about DS9 on JMS's behalf that he stopped writing Star Trek novels. Well, except for the 30 or so that he wrote after that B5 episode. The real problem with that line is that it doesn't sound like something any real person would actually say. Granted, neither does a lot of B5 dialogue, or PAD dialogue in his Star Trek novels.
Awkwardly phrased playful jabs that break the fourth wall were not a standard part of Babylon 5. Personally, I think it was one of those ideas that a writer should laugh about, then delete. PAD wasn't always the best judge of that sort of thing.