A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

I never liked the Technomages for many of the same reason you cite, GodBen. They never came off to me as fonts of wisdom-- they came off as affected hackers with access to a cooler Sharper Image catalog than everyone else. "I made a Demon Hologram! Aren't you scared?!?!!?"

 

A Distant Star (**)

I like a nice bit of foreshadowing, but this is getting a bit much. This is the fourth episode in a row to contain either a reference to a coming darkness or which shows us strange goings on out on the rim (5 if you include Chrysalis). I feel like I'm being teased with cool stuff that will come later while not really learning much new about it. It's like Lost season 2 all over again. When DS9 started to hint at their big bad they only had three throwaway mentions over the course of a season, you probably wouldn't even notice them if you hadn't been paying attention. With B5 I'm beginning to feel like I'm being hit over the head by a hammer with the way this season has been foreshadowing the Shadows. It's not a heavy or hard hammer, it's more like an inflatable one that goes "Eeeeeee" as it hits you. It's a bit irritating, is what I'm saying, but it doesn't cause much discomfort.

As for the story, Dr Jacoby is given an explorer ship and he goes out on the hunt for Space Hawaii, but he gets lost in one of his lava-lamps and needs to be rescued. Sheridan comes up with a plan to rescue them that results in the black pilot dying, so all's well then. (If anybody is a member of TV Tropes, here's your chance to add an example.) Frankly, I'm suspicious of Keffer's escape. Here's some guy who has been added to the credits this season, he escaped off-screen by following a Shadow ship and all we get is some exposition to explain what happened. I wouldn't be surprised if something more happened to him out there that I'll learn about later on.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this.

The b-story about Sheridan disliking his new job is okay, it makes sense that a ship captain would feel a little antsy taking command of a space city, but the ending felt a little too easy. Delenn walks up to him and channels Carl Sagan for a bit and that gives Sheridan the push he needed to do his paperwork. As for the c-plot about the senior staff going on a food plan, that didn't work for me.

 

Doesn't have to be. Strange things that science can't wrap itself around happen in our reality. People experience things they can't explain, but often change them.

No reason why science fiction, a genre about wonder and mystery, shouldn't have the same.

And science fiction fans should be a little less anal. But I do get a chuckle when some of you are.

I say, bring it on.

Reality doesn't give you a convenient technobabble explanation for everything that goes on (though some try anyway). No reason why science fiction should be the same.

Some of you just need to lighten up.

Yes. Buffy is fantasy and totally beside the point.

 

I seem to remember feeling the same as you in the beginning of Season 2. I'm not an expert on episode titles, so I'm not sure when it finally started getting awesome, but it definitely does get awesome soon...and then it doesn't stop!

 

Considering how the techno-mage "powers" are all tech-generated, I don't see how a discussion of the supernatural in SF applies here.

 

Well, they are and they aren't. It's clear from Elric's speeches that they actually are in that ambiguous space in between. Like many things on B5, they open up possibilities that might not otherwise be.

 

That's just Elric posing.

 

JMS' quibbles about only some of The Shadow Within being canon? That's really all I can think of. Bad word choice on my part, but no need to get snippy about it.

 

Exactly. They have show-off tech, and are all, "I'm doing Maaaaa-gic." Technomages = (Doug Henning + Renn Faire Poser)/Best Buy Outlet

 

Eh, I thought they had found some way of channeling quantum thingies.. actually I thought it would be a midichlorians deal where The Force has a physics/biology component.

 

Yeah I agree with all of this though I still enjoyed the ep. I don't really see it as foreshadowing so much as *stuff out there is moving closer*.

Delenn.. what a messiah complex. I mean really. And there's Sheridan, a man a little lost.. I think he's ripe for the picking.

 

The answer to how they do it is a spoiler.

 

The "senior staff goes on a food plan" plot was pretty dumb, but it led to one funny bit...

Ivanova: I am the expanding Russian Frontier.
Franklin: But with very nice borders!

Makes me chuckle when I see it. Otherwise, "A Distant Star" is pretty tame. I did like the big theme Christopher Franke wrote for the ship, though. His scores get waaaay better over the course of season 2, but he never quite loses the season 1 zzzzzhhhhhhhhhhDUM thing for the first shot of the station in any given episode.

 

Or maybe... Sagan was actually a Minbari soul, born as a human...

 

What is with Ivanova and Chekov constantly talking about how they are Russian?

 

Well, ANY magician, real or stage, needs to incorporate a bit of drama and showmanship.

 

Wasn't getting snippy, just wondering if you knew something I didn't.

As for 'Shadows Within' (in non spoilery terms) all JMS has said is that the story thread that takes place on the planet is canon. I don't think he's ever confirmed or denied the status of the one on the Aggie, so it's a bit more ambiguous, meaning it's canon status a little dubious. No great loss though, that was never the really interesting part of the book anyway.

 

Hasn't there been at least one reminisce in Bab 5 about Montana or something rugged? I seem to recall this.

Kirk wasn't American, he was from Iowa. They always give their states that they are sentimental about but the non-Americans reference a whole country.

 

The Long Dark (*)

As my favourite bowl of petunias once said, "Oh no, not again."

Eeeeeeeeee!

Another day, another episode of Babylon 5 that hits me over the head with the fact that something interesting is going to happen in the future. This time I think the inflatable hammer was filled with water because it was heavier and hurt me a little, but somehow it still managed to make the annoying Eeeeeeeeee! sound. This episode felt like a throwback to the dark days of Infection; there's a mysterious alien presence aboard the station threatening people down on the lower decks, so the security officers put on the anti-laser-pellet-thing armour and head on down to take it out. While all this is happening we have a guest appearance by Scott Bakula playing a crazy hobo, which was a brave piece of casting because Scott is best known for playing a well-adjusted individual.

It's at times like this that the Scott Bakula joke gets confusing. What I'm trying to say is that I've never seen Dwight Schultz play a well adjusted person, I've only ever seen him play crazies. That's the joke I was trying to get at, but I had to call Dwight Scott out of convention and Scott often does play well-adjusted individuals. And now I'm trying to turn this paragraph into a sort of meta-joke where I'm criticising my own reviews, but it's not working out so good so I'm going to stop it.

There is a sort of b-story where Dr Franklin tries to tap the ass (I should really stop pretending that I'm down with the hip speak) of a recent widow. Oh sure, he plays the strategy of being the nice guy who doesn't want to pressure her, but that's only because he knows the poem:

Recent widow,
Move too fast,
You might not get to tap that ass.
Take it slow,
Keep it cool,
Then that ass will be yours to rule.

No, I don't know why I wrote that either. I guess I just don't want to remember the episode too much, it was a boring monster story dressed up as a Shadow mystery.

Scott Bakula: 21

The Commander Greyshirt counter was recalled at short notice to the Gaming forum, so a higher ranking counter has replaced it.

Captain Greyshirt: 9

 

Yeah, that episode doesn't do a whole lot for me either.