A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)
- Thread starter TheGodBen
- Start date
Plus of course the whole thing was classified and they're not stupid enough to go blabbing about it. I do wonder though that if Sheridan later realised it was Delenn who turned him loose. I'm sure she'd know it was him later on.
As for what Londo could and couldn't have known, the novelization does actually explain where such information came from; some of it from his spy network which included one of Coplann's warrior caste aids and an ambitious Narn, junior to G'Kar, other stuff (Like Ivanova's brother) came from conversations he'd had with people over the years and some from interrogating Delenn just a few hours ago.
By this point Londo had been well into writing his memoirs, which Vir eventually edits and published posthumously, so he's been gathering this information for ages. In fact, 'The Gathering' starts with the opening passage; "I was there at the dawn of the Third Age..." and in fact whenever you hear that kind of past tense narration throughout the show from Londo, Ivanova or G'Kar it's supposed to be taken from similar documents, the various personal logs, recordings, recollections and neural imprints left by the people that lived through this period; 'The Chronicles of Londo Mollari', 'The Book of G'Kar', 'Ivanova's Voice', etc. ISN did their homework.
Of course the beauty of this from a continuity POV is that any inconsistencies in the show can easily be put down to conflicting historical accounts; B5's equivalent to "a wizard did it."
As for what Londo could and couldn't have known, the novelization does actually explain where such information came from; some of it from his spy network which included one of Coplann's warrior caste aids and an ambitious Narn, junior to G'Kar, other stuff (Like Ivanova's brother) came from conversations he'd had with people over the years and some from interrogating Delenn just a few hours ago.
By this point Londo had been well into writing his memoirs, which Vir eventually edits and published posthumously, so he's been gathering this information for ages. In fact, 'The Gathering' starts with the opening passage; "I was there at the dawn of the Third Age..." and in fact whenever you hear that kind of past tense narration throughout the show from Londo, Ivanova or G'Kar it's supposed to be taken from similar documents, the various personal logs, recordings, recollections and neural imprints left by the people that lived through this period; 'The Chronicles of Londo Mollari', 'The Book of G'Kar', 'Ivanova's Voice', etc. ISN did their homework.
Of course the beauty of this from a continuity POV is that any inconsistencies in the show can easily be put down to conflicting historical accounts; B5's equivalent to "a wizard did it."
Whichever one you go for, you're in for a lot of disc switching! When I did it I had to print the list off in order to keep it all straight.How can watching a TV show be this complicated?
Right now I'm leaning towards Ensign_Redshirt's list because a number of people voted for that one, is there any reason why I shouldn't watch it in that order other than the uniform changes?
Last edited:
Yeah, the bit with Sheridan, G'Kar and Franklin is the weakest part of In the Beginning - and we really didn't need to give Londo any more guilt then he already has. 'Yes, I continued the Earth-Minbari War... and hey, you you know the Dilgar War? That was also Londo. And the original Shadow War? We-ell... never drink time-travelling Bravari, my children.'
However, Londo gets some of his best speeches here. His speech about how Centauri Prime is ruined (which segues into his commemoration of human fearlessness in death) is one of Babylon 5's greatest moments. Babylon 5 is often at its best when it shuts up and lets Londo monologue, very often, and this is a good example here. Right up there with him watching the bombing of Narn and the death of Refa as one of my favourite Babylon 5 moments.
However, Londo gets some of his best speeches here. His speech about how Centauri Prime is ruined (which segues into his commemoration of human fearlessness in death) is one of Babylon 5's greatest moments. Babylon 5 is often at its best when it shuts up and lets Londo monologue, very often, and this is a good example here. Right up there with him watching the bombing of Narn and the death of Refa as one of my favourite Babylon 5 moments.
Last edited:
Dammit all! Just when I catch up viewing-wise, my computer crashes and has to spend a week in the shop getting repaired. 
Then I have to play catch-up again.
Just a few thoughts I wanted to share since my last post...
1.) I didn't care for the direction they took Lyta in Season Five, especially the direction they went in in the final episodes. I liked this character, until they turned her into an uber-bitch. You know what I think, it was Byron - he did something to her didn't he? Something that totally screwed her up. Just another reason for me to loathe that bastard.
Which reminds me - It's now been seventeen days since I watched Byron blow himself up and I'm still glad to be rid of him.
2.) I did like the direction they took Garibaldi's character. This character never really appealed much to me. However, the realistic way his alcoholism was portrayed was very satisfying for me. I also liked how he did get something of a happy ending with Lise.
3.) I really sympathize with Lennier. Probably because I find myself in a remarkably similar situation with a woman, though thankfully I haven't tried to kill the guy.
4.) I'm going to go out on a limb here, possibly opening myself up to all kinds of bad-mouthing, and say .... I found Sleeping in Light boring. I don't need explosions and fights to find an episode interesting (hell, I think the best scenes B5 has to offer are the political scenes in B5's Council Chamber), but I simply couldn't get into this one. Maybe it's because I simply haven't connected with these characters in a deep, meaningful way (and this seems to be required). I like these characters, don't get me wrong. However, I don't have a connection with them like I do with say Picard, Sisko, O'Brien, or The Doctor.
Hell, I'll take Travis Mayweather over these characters any day.
OK, that's was uncalled for. I apologize. My emotions got the better of me. But you get my point.
5.) I liked the brutal and relentless G'Kar of the early seasons better than the quasi-religious, pussycat G'Kar he became.
Then I have to play catch-up again. Just a few thoughts I wanted to share since my last post...
1.) I didn't care for the direction they took Lyta in Season Five, especially the direction they went in in the final episodes. I liked this character, until they turned her into an uber-bitch. You know what I think, it was Byron - he did something to her didn't he? Something that totally screwed her up. Just another reason for me to loathe that bastard.
Which reminds me - It's now been seventeen days since I watched Byron blow himself up and I'm still glad to be rid of him.
2.) I did like the direction they took Garibaldi's character. This character never really appealed much to me. However, the realistic way his alcoholism was portrayed was very satisfying for me. I also liked how he did get something of a happy ending with Lise.
3.) I really sympathize with Lennier. Probably because I find myself in a remarkably similar situation with a woman, though thankfully I haven't tried to kill the guy.
4.) I'm going to go out on a limb here, possibly opening myself up to all kinds of bad-mouthing, and say .... I found Sleeping in Light boring. I don't need explosions and fights to find an episode interesting (hell, I think the best scenes B5 has to offer are the political scenes in B5's Council Chamber), but I simply couldn't get into this one. Maybe it's because I simply haven't connected with these characters in a deep, meaningful way (and this seems to be required). I like these characters, don't get me wrong. However, I don't have a connection with them like I do with say Picard, Sisko, O'Brien, or The Doctor.
Hell, I'll take Travis Mayweather over these characters any day.
OK, that's was uncalled for. I apologize. My emotions got the better of me. But you get my point.
5.) I liked the brutal and relentless G'Kar of the early seasons better than the quasi-religious, pussycat G'Kar he became.
I liked midway G'Kar the best - season three and early season four, really. He's had his revelation but he's still very dignified and isn't quite the smiling prophet of season five.
Last edited:
Nothing psyonic, if that's what you mean. It was just a bad relationship. Or a relationship that went badly, depending on how you look at it.
Consider how things would have gone, had Claudia Christian stayed with the series for Season 5.
As far as the three "official" viewing orders are concerned, I'd endorse the "chronological order" which was suggested by flavaflav earlier in this thread.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_%28TV_series%29#Episodes
Neither the original broadcast order nor the revised broadcast order make much sense continuity-wise IMO.
I guess that the chronological order is also similar to my own. "Spiritually" anyway. My primary issue with the chronological order is that it puts "Racing the Night" somewhere in the middle of the season for some reason. I agree with JMS and the supporters of the revised broadcast order in this thread that "Racing the Night" as the originally intended pilot should be viewed as early as possible. However, since I acknowledge "War Zone" as Canon with everything that it entails, it can't possibly come before "War Zone" and "Appearances and Other Deceits".
Despite the fact that the chronological order puts "Racing the Night" in the middle it's still a pretty consistent and sound order... compared to the other two "official" orders anway. So I'd suggest you use either "my" order (well, other fans have suggested similar before) or the so-called chronological order.
I thought that Star Trek was screwed by network interference, but Crusade appears to have been brutally raped.
Some of the character I failed to make a deep connection with, others I did. Londo and G'Kar are the two main ones, then there's the likes of Garibaldi, Dr Franklin, Marcus, even Vir (
). I'm not as connected to the cast as I am the cast of DS9, TNG, or a bunch of my other favourite shows, but overall I'm more connected to them than the casts of Voyager and Enterprise.
Thirdspace (*)
Not my cup of tea, this episode, and I'm sad to say that I was yawning through a large part of it. The whole movie feels slow, it all builds up to something that I knew was coming ever since Sheridan's intro at the beginning, but I didn't care. It's not offensively bad, there's just not enough plot to fill 90 minutes and the first hour feels like it has a lot of padding. Take Zach and Lyta in the elevator, it's three minutes of him talking at Lyta while she mumbles silently. It's awkward enough to watch without having it drag on the way it did.
The IPX characters weren't interesting, they were just there to move the plot along, and they weren't in a hurry to even do that. They talk about an amazing discovery that will revolutionise the galaxy, but we all know that nothing will come of it.
There's some cool battle scenes towards the end that pick up the pace and stop the movie from being completely boring. It is visually interesting seeing a guy traverse a battle in a space suit, although that has earned the show another Captain Greyshirt.
The revelation that the device was built by the Vorlons because they were prideful is okay, but it would have fit in better in season 4, back when the Vorlons still sort of mattered. Frankly, I don't even fully understand it, they were prideful because they tried to open a gate to another dimension? Does that mean that humans were prideful to build airplanes, or want to explore other planets? Did they really think they were opening a portal into heaven? Because if they did then they miscalculated badly, all they found is a dimension with spaceships that are almost identical to the ones in this universe. The ending of the movie tries to act as a denouncement of the Vorlons, but I just wasn't feeling it.
Do you know what show did this story better? Voyager. Yes, it's hard for some to swallow that Voyager did something better than B5, but it did. In Scorpion, the Borg were the big powerful aliens filled with pride, they opened a portal to another realm and came across an alien species more powerful than them that threatened our galaxy. There was psychic visions and everything. Scorpion built up the tension better, Scorpion had interesting tension between Janeway and Chakotay, Scorpion had ethical considerations about dealing with "the devil".
Why am I talking about Scorpion? Because I rarely get a change to compliment Voyager so this time I'm giving credit where it's due.
Voyager wasn't the first to do this kind of plot, but when they did it they found a way that was exciting and which played to the series' strengths. I've always felt that B5's strength was its mythology and serialised plot, but when the show tried to do a sci-fi story like this it struggled. Sadly, Thirdspace has reinforced that view.
Captain Greyshirt: 17
Scott Bakula: 75
I think most of us can sympathise with him, I know that I went through a period of fantasising about stabbing another man through the throat out of a form of jealousy. And if anybody asks, I don't fantasise about that any more.
Yes, it was.
Some of the character I failed to make a deep connection with, others I did. Londo and G'Kar are the two main ones, then there's the likes of Garibaldi, Dr Franklin, Marcus, even Vir (
). I'm not as connected to the cast as I am the cast of DS9, TNG, or a bunch of my other favourite shows, but overall I'm more connected to them than the casts of Voyager and Enterprise.Thirdspace (*)
Not my cup of tea, this episode, and I'm sad to say that I was yawning through a large part of it. The whole movie feels slow, it all builds up to something that I knew was coming ever since Sheridan's intro at the beginning, but I didn't care. It's not offensively bad, there's just not enough plot to fill 90 minutes and the first hour feels like it has a lot of padding. Take Zach and Lyta in the elevator, it's three minutes of him talking at Lyta while she mumbles silently. It's awkward enough to watch without having it drag on the way it did.
The IPX characters weren't interesting, they were just there to move the plot along, and they weren't in a hurry to even do that. They talk about an amazing discovery that will revolutionise the galaxy, but we all know that nothing will come of it.
There's some cool battle scenes towards the end that pick up the pace and stop the movie from being completely boring. It is visually interesting seeing a guy traverse a battle in a space suit, although that has earned the show another Captain Greyshirt.
The revelation that the device was built by the Vorlons because they were prideful is okay, but it would have fit in better in season 4, back when the Vorlons still sort of mattered. Frankly, I don't even fully understand it, they were prideful because they tried to open a gate to another dimension? Does that mean that humans were prideful to build airplanes, or want to explore other planets? Did they really think they were opening a portal into heaven? Because if they did then they miscalculated badly, all they found is a dimension with spaceships that are almost identical to the ones in this universe. The ending of the movie tries to act as a denouncement of the Vorlons, but I just wasn't feeling it.
Do you know what show did this story better? Voyager. Yes, it's hard for some to swallow that Voyager did something better than B5, but it did. In Scorpion, the Borg were the big powerful aliens filled with pride, they opened a portal to another realm and came across an alien species more powerful than them that threatened our galaxy. There was psychic visions and everything. Scorpion built up the tension better, Scorpion had interesting tension between Janeway and Chakotay, Scorpion had ethical considerations about dealing with "the devil".
Why am I talking about Scorpion? Because I rarely get a change to compliment Voyager so this time I'm giving credit where it's due.
Voyager wasn't the first to do this kind of plot, but when they did it they found a way that was exciting and which played to the series' strengths. I've always felt that B5's strength was its mythology and serialised plot, but when the show tried to do a sci-fi story like this it struggled. Sadly, Thirdspace has reinforced that view.Captain Greyshirt: 17
Scott Bakula: 75
Another thing: Despite an effort to base the Thirdspace aliens more strongly on Lovecraft, I just get the impression they're warmed over Shadows - another ancient, dark, mythic-type antagonist of the Vorlons who could really do some horrible stuff if it wasn't for that meddling deathless Sheridan. JMS has a fondness for this sort of villain, but I think one occurrence of Shadows was really all the franchise needed.
I believe the Shadows & Vorlons are supposed to be fairly evenly matched technogically and that the Thirdspace aliens are well advanced beyond both of them. The Shadows at least had a certain logical motivation for what they were doing, trying to get other races to evolve through chaos because they believed it was good for the younger races. The Thirdspace aliens are bent entirely on destruction of all known life without prejudice. I don't think the Thirdspacers were going to discriminate between Shadows or Vorlons when killing; it's just that the Vorlons are the ones who opened the gate first.
People normally like that scene, in my experience. Probably because it just kicks Zach in his sad little puppydog face. The funny part is, it wasn't supposed to be in there at all. JMS wrote a 90-minute script. The Director said, "This is going to go over by three or four minutes, so I'm going to cut this, that, and the other out of the script." Lo and behold, they edited it together, and were three or four minutes short. They could've added more effects shots to the space battle, but that seemed kind of excessive. So JMS asked what they had to work with if they wanted to shoot a pick-up scene. Unfortunately, they'd already started storing or redressing the sets to film "In the Beginning," so there wasn't much. He had Zach, Lyta, a hallway, an elevator, and a couple of extras. So he wrote that scene.
That's not a meaningful dramatic distinction, though. The Shadows were already typified by having extremely old and extremely advanced technology. Thirdspace aliens just take this to a bigger factor. Likewise with the change from being angels of chaos to agents of sheer destruction. 'The Shadows, only better and total exterminators' isn't much of a twist. It's Shadows sans subtelty and plus firepower.
The issue is they're basically the same type of villain; and we didn't need yet another one of these. One ancient dark encompassing evil really was enough for the Babylon 5 universe, I think it can get by well enough with more grounded problems just the same. We don't need it handed to us on a plate, hm?
Wait, they're not?
Wow, now the Hand seems even more redundant. And I didn't even think that was possible.
What about those guys in Crusade then, the black ship that Matthew Gideon saw? Was that the Shadows or do we have a fourth evil ancient villain? Because candidly I've forgotten.
Wow, now the Hand seems even more redundant. And I didn't even think that was possible.
What about those guys in Crusade then, the black ship that Matthew Gideon saw? Was that the Shadows or do we have a fourth evil ancient villain? Because candidly I've forgotten.
It's the EA. They're secretly making their own battlecrabs and have been for quite some time. The Omega-X warships were rolled out first because the nearly unstoppable EA battlecrabs vessels have issues with the DNI pilot interface. Specifically, they haven't yet figured out how to prevent the ship/pilot mental gestalt from going utterly and completely insane.
I actually really liked this scene and it sort of informs the way Zack interacts with her from the next year and a half. You got to give them credit, I mean it was all one take, no cutting and Jeff held the scene all on his own while Pat has to stand there and keep a straight face.
Prepare to see more of these guys on Crusade, though on the plus side they're treated a little like red shirts on Trek and the main one is actually one of my favourite characters on the show.
Bit-o-trivia: Tracy Scoggins (Lochley) originally auditioned for the part of Dr. Trent on this movie. Though obviously she didn't get it, the made enough of an impression that they called her in for Lochley after Claudia left the show.
I took it more as a warning that the "magic" hasn't quite gone out of the galaxy and though the First Ones are gone, there's still plenty of these proverbial unexploded mines scattered around the joint. The error of pride on there part was that in this period of their history, they'd started to buy into their own press. With Lorien off wandering the catacombs of Z'ha'dum, the Vorlons thought they were the badest cats (or squid) around and assumed they could handle anything...right up until they open the doorway to hell and every thing goes 'Event Horizon' on them (sans Sam Neil's fake scream.)
As for the ships, I think it was a case of the concept outstripping the technology at the time. IIRC the script describes them in very Lovecrafitan terms, with them being made up of a baffling, unnaturally shifting constructs of smoke and shadows. What we got was solid objects that looked vaguely plant like.
The Shadows for all their spidery sinisterness were still flesh and blood creatures (so were the Vorlons for that matter) and could be taken down with sufficient quantity of superheated helium. Indeed, one wonders how these things survived long enough to take down Kosh.
The Thirdspace aliens on the other hand aren't just big tentacled aliens, they're extremely ancient extra-dimensional, near god-like beings. They're probably not even made of matter as we understand it and we probably can't even begin to imagine how they perceive time.
Not only could that thing sit around twiddling it's thum- er...appendages for a thousand millennia, but it could propel itself in a null-G, zero pressure environment, manifest solid objects out of hard vacuum and seemingly move from one place to the other without appearing to cross the intervening space.
Of course there are defiantly already built-in similarities between the First Ones and the Lovecraftian mythos; the Vorlons especially are, to me at least, dead ringers for the Elder Things (there's even a nod to this in the first Psi Corps book.) Still, on the scale of relative power and
Yeah, that think that totalled the Cerberus was a Hybrid Shadow Vessel that has a habit of going batshit crazy, built by that shadowy (pardon the pun) corner of EF we keep getting hints at. It would have cropped up again in Crusade with the Excalibur eventually tracking it back to it's secret base and all sorts of things about the EF/Shadow/Techno-mage connection gets let out of the bag. You think it was a coincidence Galen and the other Techno-mages just happened to be in the same neighbourhood as that thing?
As for 'The Hand', they're just another bunch of First Ones that all the others ganged up on and chucked out of this dimension because they were just severe jerks. It's best to keep in mind that we never actually see either the Hand or their ships. Those snowflakey wotsits were just "toys" compared to what they can really do if they ever got out. I think JMS went on record to say that they weren't even on a level with the Shadow Vessels, hence the relative ease with which they are dispatched. Possibly more on par with a Sharlin? Who knows.
As for the Thirdspace Aliens, they're totally separate, only cropped up once before and according to JMS, never will again...probably. Unlike 'The Hand' they're native to the dimension they currently inhabit and that gate was their only way in here. 'The Hand' however, appear to have found a way out, or at least a way to communicate.
As for 'The Hand', they're just another bunch of First Ones that all the others ganged up on and chucked out of this dimension because they were just severe jerks. It's best to keep in mind that we never actually see either the Hand or their ships. Those snowflakey wotsits were just "toys" compared to what they can really do if they ever got out. I think JMS went on record to say that they weren't even on a level with the Shadow Vessels, hence the relative ease with which they are dispatched. Possibly more on par with a Sharlin? Who knows.
As for the Thirdspace Aliens, they're totally separate, only cropped up once before and according to JMS, never will again...probably. Unlike 'The Hand' they're native to the dimension they currently inhabit and that gate was their only way in here. 'The Hand' however, appear to have found a way out, or at least a way to communicate.
The thing about the Shadows, though, is that they weren't evil. They were good guys, just with a different perspective. In the end, they turned out to be a little more honorable and reasonable than the Vorlons in general. It's just hard to see that because we didn't have any major Shadow characters to flesh them out. The Vorlons at least had Kosh and Ulkesh to provide a picture of their society.
The Shadows thought that they were doing the right thing and really didn't care about their own political position. They were perfectly willing to be vilified if it meant helping the younger races improve themselves. The Vorlons were self-agrandizing assholes with a pathological need for control to the point that they seriously tried to storm the gates of heaven and install themselves as the absolute gods of the universe.
The Thirdspace Aliens are self-aggrandizing asshole who got there first and are paranoid about any competition. In that way, they're more like the Vorlons than they are like the Shadows, just ramped up to 11. They give us a good picture of what the Vorlons might have become if not for the Shadows being there to keep them in check.
But maybe that's just my pro-Shadow bias slipping through. They are much cooler than the Vorlons, after all.
The Shadows thought that they were doing the right thing and really didn't care about their own political position. They were perfectly willing to be vilified if it meant helping the younger races improve themselves. The Vorlons were self-agrandizing assholes with a pathological need for control to the point that they seriously tried to storm the gates of heaven and install themselves as the absolute gods of the universe.
The Thirdspace Aliens are self-aggrandizing asshole who got there first and are paranoid about any competition. In that way, they're more like the Vorlons than they are like the Shadows, just ramped up to 11. They give us a good picture of what the Vorlons might have become if not for the Shadows being there to keep them in check.
But maybe that's just my pro-Shadow bias slipping through. They are much cooler than the Vorlons, after all.
From Joe's comments, my impression was that the Hand were just manipulating legends for their own purposes. Trying to make themselves seem powerful to gain power, not that they really were a First One race. They were involved in a conspiracy involving the upper ranks of Minbari society that would have been revealed if there had been the Rangers series.
Last edited:
That was my impression too.
That the Hand weren't really First Ones at all, but just some minor race playing up its reputation . Which fits in rather well with the minor emphasis of the lotr pilot on sleight of hand and trickery.
That the Hand weren't really First Ones at all, but just some minor race playing up its reputation . Which fits in rather well with the minor emphasis of the lotr pilot on sleight of hand and trickery.
Similar threads
- Poll
