The Parliament of Dreams (**½)
I'm beginning to regret my earlier love of Londo and G'Kar because the more I see of them the more I think they're cartoon characters that somehow ended up on a drama series. Take Londo: his main role in this episode was to get really drunk, shout nonsense about gods and pass out on the table. I don't have a problem with comedic elements in a drama series, I love
The Way of the Warrior partly because of how funny it is, and the episode which made me a fan of BSG was
Six Degrees of Separation, an episode with some hilarious Baltar moments. But Londo getting drunk and passing out feels forced, and drunk jokes are only a few steps up from fart jokes, in my opinion.
As for G'Kar, he also act rather comically for a man whose life in is danger, he stomps around the station in a huff and he freaks out when Garibaldi finds underwear (presumably female) in G'Kar's couch. G'Kar's suspicions of Na'Toth seem pointless for anybody who has been paying attention to the opening credits, she's hardly going to be an assassin sent to kill G'Kar and then stick around for the rest of the show after failing. This story isn't all that ground-breaking, although it did teach me what a man without an ear pinna (I learned that word so I could type it here) would look like when wearing glasses. Answer: silly.
By the way, I think I've figured out who the Big Bad of this show is. It's that insect mafia guy, right? The final episode will have an epic confrontation between Sheridan and big insect man, and it will probably end with the two of them falling into a pit of fire.
Then there's the b-plot where Sinclair meets an old flame... with sexy results! You can tell that Catherine is a love interest the moment Garibaldi sees her step onto the station and
Moments in Love starts to play in the background. As far as romance on television goes this is quite cheesy, but when it comes to romance in science-fiction this isn't that bad, it's way, way above
Meridian. The dialogue is at the standard level of awkwardness for science fiction romances, but I do appreciate the fact that Sinclair's back-story is being filled in and we get to see another side to him beyond reckless endangerment of his own life.
There's a c-plot about the different religious customs of the various alien species, but there's not much to that beyond Delenn and Sinclair getting married, or something. The episode ends with Sinclair introducing all the various faiths of Earth, a scene made laughable by the stereotyping done by the costuming department.
I'm seriously beginning to worry that this forum will continue to exist without me should death or a girlfriend drag me away from it. I had always assumed the whole place would disband due to grief.
I'm just a little fish surrounded by sharks, and one or two people here might be on the same intellectual level as me. Not actually smarter, I hasten to add, but they're so close to matching me that they present a threat to my superiority complex.
THis oen did get a little tense and heated a couple of times, but folks cooled it down, and that's a hallmark for a good group of fen.
Wowzas.
