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A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

though Tigh's quip about paper shortages is funnier than anything B5 does.

Yeah, but then B5 is lacking the comical talents of Jane Espenson.

Touche. By the same principle; Peter David penned some fairly amusing B5 episodes. I'm especially fond of "Soul Mates", whose A-plot is one of the show's better standalones.

but in B5 (hoping that character names don't count as spoilers) Refa doesn't come from the same place as Londo in his thinking; the Minbari would not all be described as stoic (Neroon).

I would. He's more of a prissy jerk, sure, but he adheres to the cultural norms of the Minbari.

Hm. Wait, does that count as a flame? Er...

But yeah, Lindley is correct. The amount of dishonourable or practical Klingons in the two epsiodes I mentioned is a mile wide. Duras, K'mpec, Gowron. Later on we find that the hard drinking hard living style of the Klingons in "Redemption" makes Worf look like a stuck up prig, so there's more difference - but in all cases that's difference of personality, not culture.
 
Aside: We were watching Medium last night, and I thought I recognized the actor playing the smarmy, deep-voiced lawyer with the oddly thick black hair. About 2/3 of the way thru the show I finally had the lightbulb pop over my head and I yelled "It's Nerooooon!!!!" My wife went "Oh yeah!!"

:lol:
 
The difference between Londo and Refa isn't much different than the difference between Worf and Gowron.

Well, the major difference between Londo and Refa is that one looks stunning in purple, and the major difference between Worf and Gowron is that one smells like lilac.
 
Aside: We were watching Medium last night, and I thought I recognized the actor playing the smarmy, deep-voiced lawyer with the oddly thick black hair. About 2/3 of the way thru the show I finally had the lightbulb pop over my head and I yelled "It's Nerooooon!!!!" My wife went "Oh yeah!!"

:lol:

I guess that lawyer with thick black hair also looked and sounded exactly like Mr. Welles (Season 2 finale, also appears in an episode of Crusade). ;)
 
Aside: We were watching Medium last night, and I thought I recognized the actor playing the smarmy, deep-voiced lawyer with the oddly thick black hair. About 2/3 of the way thru the show I finally had the lightbulb pop over my head and I yelled "It's Nerooooon!!!!" My wife went "Oh yeah!!"

:lol:

I guess that lawyer with thick black hair also looked and sounded exactly like Mr. Welles (Season 2 finale, also appears in an episode of Crusade). ;)

Hair?!? What hair?! I had HAIR?!?
 
I would. He's more of a prissy jerk, sure, but he adheres to the cultural norms of the Minbari.

Hm. Wait, does that count as a flame? Er...

But yeah, Lindley is correct. The amount of dishonourable or practical Klingons in the two epsiodes I mentioned is a mile wide. Duras, K'mpec, Gowron. Later on we find that the hard drinking hard living style of the Klingons in "Redemption" makes Worf look like a stuck up prig, so there's more difference - but in all cases that's difference of personality, not culture.

I think it's fair to say that while the aliens did have some cultural variety, it's rather subtle and very rarely featured in the forefront of any episode and would for the most part go unnoticed. Perhaps the best way to spot it, for those in the know is in the various costumes for the "major" cultures. Each of the Minbari casts have a different look (thought the worker cast are almost exclusively background extras), the Drazi have two or three different looks that correspond to their two or three major faiths. As for everyone else, yes they're a bit monolithic, but in each case there's a good reason behind it.

The Narn were occupied for a century, during which time the Centauri tried to erase as much of their cultural heritage as possible, so the end result after they've gone is a planet grabbing at whatever is left. Of course without ever seeing a pre-Centauri Narn culture there's no way to judge how much has changed, but I'd say it's fair that they had to unite as a single people to drive them off. So whatever culture is left must be an uneven gestalt. There's mention of several faiths, though only G'Quan is talked about in any detail.

The Centauri are difficult to judge since we're only ever really exposed to the upper echelons of nobility, who are all old bloodlines that have spent centuries living around the Capital and the Royal Court, which is a culture unto itself. We never really get to see much of the "common" Centauri.

I suppose if you absolutely must make a Klingon comparison, then consider that while every Klingon, without exception are followers of the ways of Kahless and indeed would consider anyone who didn't to be "not a real Klingon." The Narn are shown to have several religious figures ("G'Quan, G'Lan, Na'Killi, others...") and an open tolerance for atheists.
 
Aside: We were watching Medium last night, and I thought I recognized the actor playing the smarmy, deep-voiced lawyer with the oddly thick black hair. About 2/3 of the way thru the show I finally had the lightbulb pop over my head and I yelled "It's Nerooooon!!!!" My wife went "Oh yeah!!"

:lol:

I guess that lawyer with thick black hair also looked and sounded exactly like Mr. Welles (Season 2 finale, also appears in an episode of Crusade). ;)

He looked EXACTLY like him! Amazing! :lol:
 
I think it's fair to say that while the aliens did have some cultural variety, it's rather subtle and very rarely featured in the forefront of any episode and would for the most part go unnoticed. Perhaps the best way to spot it, for those in the know is in the various costumes for the "major" cultures. Each of the Minbari casts have a different look
That's not quite the same thing, it's class or rank rather than culture. To give a real world example, how a cleric in medieval France and how a knight and then again how a peasant view the world may be markedly different, but they're from the same culture. A different culture would be the distinction between these people from medieval France and their counterparts in Islamic Spain, say.
 
But no, the show isn't exactly a laugh riot when compared to Firefly or Farscape, say. I guess there's more humour than Battlestar Galactica... though Tigh's quip about paper shortages is funnier than anything B5 does.
I liked that line, but I didn't like how he and Adama laughed about it for 30 seconds. I understand what the scene was trying to do, but I felt it went on too long. I think the funniest moment in BSG is when Baltar follows Gaeta into the toilets and tries to talk to him about Shelly Godfrey's evidence, that and the scene where Baltar tries to destroy the evidence but God wont allow him. I suppose Baltar came close to being a cartoon character at times, so I guess Londo and G'Kar could yet work out.

btw, it's Psi Corps.
Oops. :alienblush: That certainly makes more sense.

Er...definitely *not* Scot Bakula or Quantum Leap. Try Walter Koenig from Trek TOS.

Looks like TheGodBen's sense of humor may leave you vaguely uncomfortable. :p
:lol: I *thought* he must be joking until the comment about women's clothes. Then I began to doubt.
Don't worry, the joke was a very random throwback to the episode of Enterprise where Dean Stockwell showed up and I joked that a character from a Donald P. Bellisario show had showed up; John Hillerman from Magnum PI. So nobody was supposed to get it. :lol: But for some reason I have decided that whenever I see somebody from Trek on B5 I'm going to call them Scott Bakula, for no reason other than the fact that I find it amusing to think of Scott Bakula playing multiple roles on B5.

No, it doesn't make sense.


The War Prayer (***)

This episode is something of a rarity as it's not written by JMS. In fact, it was written by somebody that used to write for a science fiction series I was a fan of when I was younger; Scott Bakula of Quantum Leap fame. I know what you're thinking; "Scott Bakula is an amazing actor and a very sexy man, but Ben is being weird by thinking that he wrote for Quantum Leap." And you'd be wrong on all counts (except the bit about me being weird) because Scott Bakula wrote the song Somewhere in the Night for the episode Piano Man. JMS was apparently so impressed by the emotion in the lyrics that he hired him to write an episode of B5.

Scott Bakula: actor, singer, writer, gazelle. He makes my female bits go all funny just thinking about him, and that's weird because I haven't had the surgery yet.

For those not scared away by that imagery, I moderately enjoyed this episode, it has an interesting three-plot format where all the plots tie together at some point. The main plot is about some human group attacking aliens, which is interesting but sadly under developed in this episode, we're not given much to go on beyond the fact that Bruce (I can't remember the Australian guy's name so I'm calling him Bruce, not because I'm a racist, but because I'm a Pythonite) doesn't like aliens. Maybe this will be expanded upon later, and this episode does hint at some sort of connection to the assassination attempt on Kosh from the pilot, but even that is dropped after one scene. As it is this plot doesn't seem to do anything other than say that racism is bad, which is a fine message but one which I'm already aware of (except in the case of the English and Australians).

The b-plot is about Ivanova meeting her old flame Bruce, which was a little too obviously tied into the a-plot because this was almost the exact same plot as Sinclair had a few episodes back, and I doubt the show was going to have the exact same plot repeat so close to one another.

The c-plot about Londo is okay, but it's yet another story about an old traditionalist learning that love is nice. It's not awful, but it has been done many times and the humour is tired if you've watched more than five episodes of Married with Children. Still, it has slightly redeemed Londo after he passed out on that table.
 
There's a very clever bit of foreshadowing in that episode, which at first glance appears to be nothing more than a bit of humor. I won't elaborate for now; remind me to point it out when you get a bit further on.
 
But for some reason I have decided that whenever I see somebody from Trek on B5 I'm going to call them Scott Bakula, for no reason other than the fact that I find it amusing to think of Scott Bakula playing multiple roles on B5.

No, it doesn't make sense.
Say, there's a counter that could work for you on a first run: "Weren't You On That Other Sci-Fi Show?"
 
The difference between Londo and Refa isn't much different than the difference between Worf and Gowron.

BUT...a key difference with Worf and Gowron is that Worf didn't grow up in the Empire. He grew up among humans and his knowledge of Klingon ways was limited to what he could find in the Federation. He strove for the ideals because they appealed to his personality, true.

But also because he basically had the Cliff Notes version of Klingon culture, not all the nuances. So he strove for those ideals and images.

It was a bit of a culture shock when he spent time around REAL Klingons.
 
Meaning he's not a political animal and somewhat shady?

Ok...but Kurn probably is more likely to indulge in a belly laugh and "fun", too.

Worf does overcompensate and everyone knows it, especially fellow Klingons.
 
Say, there's a counter that could work for you on a first run: "Weren't You On That Other Sci-Fi Show?"
Too long, I'll just call it the Scott Bakula counter, and if somebody starts reading this thread mid season 3 and asks why I'm counting Scott Bakulas I'll be able to say "I honestly don't know" and they'll be scared off. :)


And the Sky Full of Stars (***½)

Hmm.

It's hard to judge an episode like this as it's not really a story in its own right, it's an investigation of the show's myth arc. What did we learn in this episode? Not much that we didn't already know or couldn't have guessed on our own. Ever since Sinclair brought up the incident of the missing 24 hours it has been fairly obvious that the Minbari did something to him during that time, so the confirmation of that isn't shocking in the slightest. Then there's the revelation that Delenn was involved in whatever happened to him, which was fairly obvious due to her position on the Grey Council being flaunted in front my my face twice, and even if I never saw an episode before this episode hints it near the beginning as she fails to answer Franklin's question about what she did during the war.

So the episode gives two answers to questions we could easily have guessed, and in turn it ends up asking even bigger questions. Who were these Knight fellows and why were the so interested in finding out the truth? Who was the Minbari in Delenn's quarters and why does he want Sinclair killed if he finds out the truth? It's like an episode from the early seasons of Lost, it tries to hide the fact that it hasn't really answered your questions by providing you with more questions.

But even then Lost had the advantage of being a character drama almost every week (until season 5), so even when you weren't satisfied with the myth arc you were still getting some sort of story through the flashbacks. Even big event episodes like Deus Ex Machina and The Man Behind The Curtain had a core firmly rooted in one of the character's stories. This episode doesn't really have that, if you remove the mystery then it's an episode about Sinclair being captured and his attempt to escape a weird virtual reality setting. So, the episode is interesting and I want to know more about this mystery, but I wasn't wowed by it.

Scott Bakula was the standout of this episode, playing both Knight One and Knight Two. The pressure got to him at times, he certainly displayed that he can out-ham Shatner when given "good" direction, but it was still a very daring move for him to take on two roles in the same episode.

Scott Bakula: 3

I noticed an odd thing with this episode; most of the time it displays in widescreen, but whenever there's special effects in the shot it seems to be a 4:3 image stretched into the 16:9 ratio. It's weird because one second Sinclair is short and fat, the next second he's back to normal. Does this happen all the time and I haven't noticed it until now, or is this some weird problem only concerning this episode?
 
IIRC, the visual effects were only rendered in 4:3, while the live-action stuff was 16:9 protected. The VFX company lost all the digital files, so when the show was transferred to HD, they had to up convert the effects rather than rerender.
 
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