A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

Just for fun, I checked and found that

- JMS was wrong: there were 28 (not 25) interior and 52 exterior shots.

- By comparison, episode 116 "The End of the Line", slated to be the season finale had 23 interior, 28 exterior shots and 98 total scenes. "Severed Dreams" had 26 interior, 24 exterior and 132 total scenes.

Jan

 

He's a technomage and I inherently dislike the concept of the technomages, so he starts out with a disadvantage to me. They're show-offs that pretend they have magic when all they are is nerds with delusions of majesty. It's like the first Futurama finale when the Robot Devil throws down a smoke bomb and disappears and in next shot we see him sneaking away with Richard Nixon's head... that's what technomages are like.

Also, I've never seen a female technomage, which leads me to this hypothesis: All the flash and showiness is to cover the fact that they have small penises. It's the only logical conclusion.


Ruling from the Tomb (*½)

There's a religious nutter who hears the voice of Joan of Arc and he decides to blow up a conference of people trying to save the human race. I can't go into any further depth on the plot because that's all I can understand. The rest of it doesn't make much sense to me, largely because I wasn't paying attention, but it revolves around a shuttle pilot who made an astonishing revelation about wanting to be a priest. I'm not sure why that should be astonishing because I have no idea who he is, and IMDb tells me he's not going to show up any more, but everyone else finds it shocking.

I'm struggling to see Captain Bingo Bob as anything but uncharismatic and mildly incompetent. I like Gary Cole and I liked VP Bob Russell largely because of Gary Cole, he was good at playing a guy that was supposed to be uninspiring and a little bit dim. Now I see him in a leadership role where he's humanity's last hope for survival and I'm left with the feeling that humanity is doomed. It's not helped by Captain Bingo Bob's characterisation in this episode as he is obstinate in the middle of a murder investigation because he secretly wants to play with Lochley's boobies. And his "ingenious" solution to problem is to tell a conference full of people that humanity is doomed. Let's hope that the 24-hour news stations weren't covering the conference live because his statement would have caused mass hysteria that could have led to thousands, if not millions, of deaths. So far, I have little reason to stop calling him Bingo Bob, so I'm going to keep doing it.

There's a b-story of sorts where Trace and Max try to get into Durenna's pants. It's fairly standard stuff for a supposedly comedic plot-line; there's the guy that's acting all cool but ends up getting mugged and the woman has to rescue him, there's the guys competing with one another, there's dancing... it doesn't elevate itself above the standard formula.

There's no Galen in this episode, so that's a plus.

 

Well, not exactly. The Passing of the Techno-Mages trilogy goes into a lot of detail, but in summary, the technology they use is not something they fully understand or even fully control. It's implanted at a young age, and controlled by a mental component which is unique to each user. In Galen's case, he casts his "spells" by visualizing equations on a blackboard.

They know perfectly well it's technology, but in many ways it is indistinguishable from magic....even to the Mages themselves.

They're basically the Jedi of the B5 universe.

 

Not one of my favourites either, though I did somewhat enjoy the banter between Lochley and Gideon. I promise though, this and War Zone aren't typical of what the show is about. When you see the black uniforms, you're seeing TNT's handywork.

Remember those cringe-worthy moments I mentioned? There's my #1 right there.

There's more to them than that, it's just another of those unfortunate things about the show being cancelled is that you once get the barest glimpse of what they're really about. They're actually much more powerful than they let on and I think allot of that pseudo-mysticism, melodrama and theatrics is meant to bely what they're really capable of. (All together now!) "No one here, is exactly what they appear."

 

I know JMS likes talking about religion a lot in a sci-fi context, but this story about Joan of Arc doesn't really add to anything he's already said, I felt. I generally felt that way about Crusade's handling of religion; it's what Babylon 5 did, only less so. There's a lot of respect and interest in the notion of reverence and ritual; add to this some criticism of institutions and people and you sort of have the whole thing in a nutshell; if you combine it with the assumption he's particularly sympathetic to the outlooks espoused by Delenn and late series G'Kar.

It sounded like a tall tale. You don't make or break records for an entire genre of show on whims, most times. Was that number of shots 'something of a record' for a space opera TV show? Or what did he mean by shows of this kind? Hm. But anyway.

That's a good point, really. Had never considered that.

 

I think they are more appealing when seen as a group that are direct and opposite to the telepaths.

 

I tried to rewatch Crusade (and catch any missed episodes) but War Zone was as far as I got. I can't stand the TechnoMages. I'm a science fiction heretic who doesn't believe in Clarke's Law. The one that says any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? I think that's only true if you wanted to believe in magic in the first place. I can't suspend disbelief for TechnoMages.

 

JMS didn't say anything. This was Peter David's episode.

No, the number of shots alone isn't a record. As I posted earlier, "Severed Dreams" has 132 scenes. But it doesn't come close to "War Zone" in the complexity of the number of interior and exterior shots.

In the script books, JMS explained several times how it was that he managed to stay under budget and it was by balancing complex and simple, whether by having a heavy effects episode followed by a lighter effects episode or sometimes by limiting sets or stunts. I'm certain that that balancing was one of the reasons why he ended up writing so many episodes himself - because he writes to the budget. So if anybody knows whether WZ was among the most complex ever done in the B5 universe, I'd say it's JMS.

Tell you what--you folks pick any 5 of the busiest, most complex B5 or Crusade episodes and I'll check the scenes/shots and list them here for comparison (With one exception: "War Without End" parts I and II because those two scripts traded scenes between each other endlessly and I could only give you counts as the scripts were written, not as the episodes ended up).

There might have been a touch of hyperbole in the (paraphrasing) 'or any other show' bit but probably not a whole lot.

That's a good point, really. Had never considered that.[/QUOTE]

Well, TheGodBen hasn't.

Jan

 

Really. I dunno; the religuous stuff sounded a lot like JMS. I know he credits himself wth some rewrites of David's Babylon 5 episodes (a Londo line, the teddy bear scene, I think) so I wonder if his hand is in there anywhere.

That's shifting the goalposts a little. He said 'for a script on this or just about any other show.', which suggests he'd consider this notable in some way even outside a Bab 5 context.

 

Did JMS wrong you in another life or something? You seem determined to take every single opportunity to make little jabs and cheep shots. It's getting tedious and increasingly transparent.

The "magic" part of techno-mage abilities are clearly an affectation. Clark's Law was just the germ of the idea and not meant to be applied directly.

Actually he may have already. I think there was a female techno-mage among Elric's group back in season two, if memory serves.
I suppose I should point out that, while all the ones we see look human, techno-mages aren't any specific race; they're adopted or recruited at a young age and trained as apprentices. Gender or indeed species makes no difference.

 

Yep. A line. A scene. In case you hadn't noticed, the Joan of Arc bit runs through the entire episode. I guess you'll find out for sure when the Crusade: Other Voices script book comes out, won't you?

I've been wondering the same thing. You're dissecting a freaking memo, not judging his entry for the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Complex Episode of Science Fiction.

I don't have scripts for other series but the offer's still open if you want me to 'prove' what he's said using B5 and Crusade. You choose the episodes.

Jan

 

I believe what Joe is referring to is "3 scenes per page." I'll throw in a count from a non-B5 script in here: "Yesterday's Enterprise", from TNG had 93 scenes with ~39 interior shots and ~18 exterior shots. Also this was in 59 pages, as opposed to Crusade's 43.

 

I wouldn't mind playing with Lochley's boobies.

 

Though, I always got a sense that "War Zone" was something of a shot across the bow from JMS to the TNT Execs. Like he was going, "OK, you have these notes? Fine, I'll write an episode that uses your notes, and I'll SHOW YOU how much it sucks." Like he wrote the episode poorly to prove a point to them or something.

I admit, that's just my read, but... War Zone is really substandard work for him.

 

Appearances and Other Deceits (*½)

Neroon shows up on the ship with one of the Crab People in order to bitch about minor, unimportant things. Captain Bingo Bob puts up with them because it's his job and he doesn't have a choice. I wonder was JMS drawing inspiration from real life?

This episode is based on an original sci-fi concept: aliens invade the ship by snatching people's bodies. JMS really is the king of original science fiction, I don't know where he gets some of these ideas from! The aliens are malevolent and threaten to kill the bodies they have taken control of unless Bingo Bob brings them to a planet so that the evil aliens can take over. I love the nuance here; are these aliens really up to no good, or do we just misunderstand them? Should Bingo Bob accede to their demands? No! Because the aliens are evil and just want to take control. Like I said, I love the nuance here, I'm not sure which side I'd be on.

On a serious note, this episode reminds me a lot of Enterprise's The Crossing, an episode where Enterprise comes across a giant ship and the aliens from that ship start taking control the crew. Enterprise was a show with a lot of potential, it could have been the most epic Star Trek series of them all, the one that showed the foundation of the Federation. Even the Temporal Cold War could have been interesting if done right. But Enterprise squandered its chance, particularly in season 2, in order to do standalone stories that had already been done better on other shows. I know that Crusade could become something great just as B5 did, but episodes like this aren't living up to that potential. Perhaps there was a TNT order to do a lot of standalone episodes, but even still, surely someone had a better idea for an episode than this.

On the plus side, no Galen again. If he stays off screen like this then he could become my favourite character. Max is becoming likeable, I enjoyed his egotism, it reminds me of someone I know. There's also some stuff about a greyshirt (who wore green) being sacrificed for the sake of the crew, that was fun.

Captain Greyshirt: 19

 

The main purpose of this episode was to explain the uniform change so there wasn't much room for a mor complex alien story. If they hadn't pulled the plug, more time would have had to be wasted on there being a 'horrible accident' in the ship's laundry destroying the grey uniforms. The one and only thing I liked was the new uniforms, though.

JMS put some zingers aimed at TNT into this episode. The most blatant was Welles' comment about having to make some compromises. This was the last episode filmed. Stephen Furst (aka Vir) was the director.

Crusade was always going to be less arc-heavy than B5 was but the last two episodes JMS wrote were going to kick the *real* arc of the story into high gear.

Jan

 

If memory serves the line about the grey uniforms going bye-bye was going to be in 'To The Ends of the Earth', which as Jan said, would have kicked the real story into touch and was slated to be filmed after the next one (the next one being 'Value Judgements' the equally unfilmed "Bester on the lam" episode.)
IIRC it would have been a brief exchange between Gideon and Matherson to the effect of: -
"I hate these things. You think anyone on Earth fells any better about the mission because of how we dress?"
"Nope."
"Didn't think so. Tell the crew to switch back and I'll inform EarthGov of the accident in the laundry"
"Yes sir...what accident?"

Trivia time: The alien in the cryotube at the top of the episode was none other than Doug Jones, extra-skinny creature performer extraordinaire in an uncredited role.

 

Wait, which uniforms are the "good" ones, and which the "bad"?

 

The Star Trek looking ones are the bad ones.

 

The grey uniforms were used first. The black ones were more expensive, and were used after the show had a small budget boost halfway through. TNT had a stronger hand in the second half, though, so the more expensive black uniforms ended up being switched away from to the cheaper grey uniforms (in the earlier-produced episodes). So they'd need to make a second uniform switch to get back to the high-budget stuff. If they had done things more sensibly, the grey-uniform episodes would've come first, and they would've switched once, to the black uniforms.