Absolutely.
Actually, ignore Frankin's father, who at least got name-dropped. What about the conflict in this episode? It's about a planet we've never heard of before and will never hear of again; and aside from some half-hearted attempts to tie it into the Centauri-Narn arc by name-dropping that event it's completely superfluous. In a series where little details dropped by JMS in one episode become whole plots later on, that DiTillio's stuff emerges from nowhere and just as quickly vanishes is painfully obvious.
When in the series are they supposed to have returned, exactly? And I'd contrast to JMS's own invention, Night Watch, which is subtly set up in season two, has a big arc in season three, and is still name dropped throughout season four. Behind the scenes maybe the guy in the corner is Bureau 13, but for all intents and purposes narratively it was a thread set up that went nowhere.
Or just check the amount of grist we get from the Minbari War compared to... the Dilgar War. You can almost count the Dilgar references on one hand, despite it being a major and recent conflict. I do pick on DiTillio because truthfully some of his scripts were pretty terrible, but Harvey is absolutely right that the threads he set up were mostly put to one side. It's also true that the lack of sympathetic loyalists to Psi Corp is unfortunate; though - unintentionally, no doubt - JMS was left with a situation where his Psi Cop villain was more charismatic, entertaining, and frankly likeable than Lyta, Ivanova, Talia or Byron. Right, I'm probably in the minority there at least as far as Ivanova is concerned, but that Bester is fun.
Jeffrey Coombs' character is easily one of B5's one-shots that I would have loved to see again, and not just because Coombs is great, which of course he is. He's altogether charming and the most redeeming feature of that episode.
Or just check the amount of grist we get from the Minbari War compared to... the Dilgar War. You can almost count the Dilgar references on one hand, despite it being a major and recent conflict. I do pick on DiTillio because truthfully some of his scripts were pretty terrible, but Harvey is absolutely right that the threads he set up were mostly put to one side. It's also true that the lack of sympathetic loyalists to Psi Corp is unfortunate; though - unintentionally, no doubt - JMS was left with a situation where his Psi Cop villain was more charismatic, entertaining, and frankly likeable than Lyta, Ivanova, Talia or Byron. Right, I'm probably in the minority there at least as far as Ivanova is concerned, but that Bester is fun.
Jeffrey Coombs' character is easily one of B5's one-shots that I would have loved to see again, and not just because Coombs is great, which of course he is. He's altogether charming and the most redeeming feature of that episode.
Spending a huge military budget on building a station again... then again... then again... then again... then again... and even more remarkably, doing so in apparently a very short amount of time - in less than eleven years they build five stations. Even with the aliens footing some of the bill, that requires suspension of disbelief. It's that simple.
That it's never clear who was blowing up the station is also bothersome. Right, so maybe it was the Shadows, I don't care, but honestly I still believe he only blew up 1-3 so he could have the name 'Babylon 5'.
You're probably absolutely right, but I really know absolutely nothing about boxing, wrestling, and most sports, so that would fly over my head.
(He said it too, from time to time. I remember him and Scott Bakula saying it in unison in The Leap Back.)
When there are entire conversations taking place that contain mostly or only spoiler tags, then perhaps that is an indication that those posts should be posted in a more appropriate thread, don't you think? (yes, I'm looking at you, Kegg & Reverend)
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