A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

[Reverend]

A good point. So I'll be brief:

Spoiler: Really short version

The Minbari don't need to tell Clarke or anyone else the real reason for ending the war to capture the Trigati. On a need to know basis, all the Earth Alliance needs is a good reason to help them in not igniting a second war; the knowledge that they would probably lose - which they already have - is enough. It's taking an insanely unnecessary gamble which is even more insane if they were willing to kill Valen earlier. Things may have changed, but both scenes - Lennier telling Sheridan and the Minbari threatening the need to kill Sinclair - do not make sense when put together, simply put.

We'll just have to disagree on this one. I will however point out that Minbari don't think like you. They think like Minbari.

 

[Seven of Five]

I admired the fact that it was supposed to be a celebration of diversity, I'm pro-multiculturalism (except for the English), but having a line-up of all the various human religious/cultural groups wasn't a celebration, it was just a list of new words for the various alien races. What did Delenn learn about Catholics beyond their name? What did Londo learn about Muslims beyond the fact that he once met one that wore a turban? Maybe there was a party afterwards where the various human representatives explained their beliefs and traditions, but I didn't get to see it, and given the number of people in that queue I doubt that the aliens had enough time to learn about them all.

So it was a nice idea, but the execution left me wanting.

I do see where you're coming from. Personally though I really enjoyed the moment after Sinclair had spent the episode really stumped as to how he should portray Earth customs. It was a nice touch. And I'm sure they all had a madcap party after they were all introduced that was too hot for TV.

Mind War (***½)

At last, a solidly good outing and one which clearly seems to be setting the stage for the later seasons. What's more, this episode has a guest appearance by an actor I know from a popular science fiction series of my youth.

Yep. Mind War is a fab episode. It doesn't use the full potential of the Psi Corps, but the introduction of Bester, and Walter Koenig, was very well done.

That's right, Scott Bakula of Quantum Leap fame shows up as Bester the PsiCop, and he lets us know that he can be much more than a likeable everyman who secretly enjoys it when he gets to wear women's underwear, he can also be a shadowy figure with a slightly malevolent twist.

Disregarding a somewhat hammy performance by the actor playing Ironheart, I enjoyed this plot. At the beginning I feared he was going to be a hammy villain that brought danger and destruction to the station (Infection lowered my expectations) so I was pleased to see the episode go the other route and have him be the the good guy trying to escape an oppressive regime. When he explains the situation to Talia and Sinclair I was pleasantly impressed, creating a person with telekinetic abilities so that he can perform assassinations is very devious, and I am very interested in learning more about the PsiCore.

Rotten to the corps. Core. I'm confused.

The story's biggest weakness is in how it ends; Ironheart becomes some flashing lights, which is the traditional science fiction way of showing that somebody has moved onto a higher plane of existence. As George Harrison might say, "It's been done", but it had never been done in such a cheesy way, laughable early CG included. The ending is also a bit too clean as Bester agrees to bend the record of what happened so that there wont be any consequences.

Yeah, this drags the episode down I think. It was a nice ending for Talia, but that's about it.

By the way, Voyager totally ripped this episode off in The Gift. I can't believe the the writers of a Star Trek series would stoop so low!

Ha! I wish on VOY her gift had been something mysterious or questionable. Like melding Neelix's head to the bulkhead or something.

As for the b-plot, I'm not sure what to make of it. I much prefer G'Kar in this episode than in the last few, he could almost be mistaken for a realistic interpretation of a person. As for the giant spaceship Catherine saw, I'm stuck between thinking it could have relevance further down the line and thinking that it was a McGuffin. When I first saw it I thought it might be an early hint of the existence of the Shadows that I keep hearing about, and G'Kar's speech at the end doesn't rule that out, but it could just be me over-analysing something of no great significance. I guess I'll find out eventually.

On my very first run through of B5, the B-plot resonated in my head for the rest of the show. Just a little hint that things aren't what they appear to be.

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.

Nope. It's still makes me laugh though!

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.

Stop making me cry! Scottr Bakula is a very talented person, I agree. His presence makes B5 that little bit more sexy.

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.

This episode is a step down from Mind War. Ivanova's old flame being the enemy was far too obvious. Again the misery is pored on poor Susan.

Londo's part of the story was a lot better.

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.

I really enjoyed the mystery in this one. I think I'd really bought into Sinclair's missing 24 hours by this point, so was ready and willing to hoover up any hint of a clue. I was satisfied by this part of the show that answers would be forthcoming, which is the sort of unwavering loyalty I've had with Lost.

I also enjoyed seeing Judson Scott from Star Trek II, Message in a Bottle from VOY, and of course, that fab episode of TNG, Symbiosis. (Yuck.)

Oh, er, sorry. Of course I meant to say Bakula.

Actually, today marks the one year anniversary of my first Voyager review, posted at around 2am on February 9th 2009. I think this is deserving of a celebration, so I'll accept cash transferred into my PayPal account and I'll use it to buy myself a bottle of expensive champagne.

Bit late but happy anniversary! So that must mean I've been reading your threads for about the same time. At least you actually write interesting things!

But it is still odd that the aspect ratio changes (picture stretches), it should not. The 4:3 VFX shots should be 'letterboxed'.

Are you watching this on DVD? perhaps that disc had a mastering error.

It's the DVD, region 2 if that makes a difference. It doesn't affect all the episodes, I've only noticed it on this one, whereever a special effect is used in a shot they stretch the image rather than cutting the top and bottom off. For example, the scene where Sinclair is in the cybernet and imagines Garibaldi finding him and disappearing, every time Garibaldi is in the shot the image is stretched because they use a wavy effect when he disappears, but when it cuts back to Sinclair he looks normal. Even the external shots of the station appeared stretched in that one episode.

Yeah it's all a bit wonky, and a new DVD release with a 4:3 version would do some wonders. The CGI wasn't filmed in widescreen, and so was stretched to 16:9, making some of the scenes look a bit strange. At worst, the scene before a CGI shot looks terrible.

It gets better as the seasons go on.

Deathwalker (**½)

There's some alien woman who killed a whole bunch of people in some war for some reason and now she's back and all the aliens want her dead. Oh, and her species were all complete gits and were wiped out, but she survived because some Minbari liked the cut of her jib, so now she's back with some sort of magic that allows people to live forever and everyone wants her dead. Except all the major powers who want her alive because they didn't do anything during the wars where she killed a whole bunch of people, and Earth Alliance wants her alive for her magic immortality serum. Do I have all this right?

Yeah.

The backstory is hit and miss in this one, and as you note, it's the same reason Soul Hunter fails.

I enjoy Na'Toth here but that's because I love Na'Toth anyway.

There's a b-story where Kosh does some weird thing to Talia involving lots of disconnected phrases and a robot man. It sounds like it should be right up my street, but the robot man annoyed me and Talia is boring so I was only interested in it for Kosh. Kosh is an odd one, I bet he wont play a bigger role in the future.

It's an odd B-plot, which seems to be odd for the sake of being odd. But I like odd, so odd is good here for me.

As for Kosh, he hardly ever says anything.

Scott Bakula went back to his old ways by playing a woman this week, this time with an added fin-mohawk. I also forgot that Scott Bakula also plays series regular G'Kar. This man's range is amazing!

Hee! I used to love QL when he'd play a pregnant woman or whatever.

Hi everyone, I'm Scott Bakula. Today is Godfrey's (AKA TheGodBen) birthday so he asked me to log into his account and write this review for him so that he could "get locked", whatever that means. Since I'm a big fan of Babylon 5 for giving me work for many years I was happy to oblige.

I bow at the reverance of Scott Bakula! And if you could pass on a Happy Birthday to old Goddy that'd be good.

Believers (****)

Yup, 8 out of 10, Godfrey's favourite episode of the show thus far, he is indeed completely mad. Part of this is down to very low expectations, when he first saw the religious couple he felt he was in for a bumpy ride and was expecting a 3/10 episode, and when he realised that this episode was going to be a moral dilemma of crazy religious fanatics vs medical science he feared it was just going to tread old ground. And it did tread old ground, but every ten to fifteen minutes it shook things up by going in a new direction. In the first part of the episode it seems like it is going to be a battle of religious tolerance between Franklin and the other doctor, then things shake up by having Franklin get pissed off with the parents and letting them know what idiots they are, then the political element is introduced, then Franklin decided to perform the surjery without permission, then the parents kill their kid. The episode isn't complacent, it focuses on each of these elements just long enough and then moved on before he got bored.

Yep. I like this one a lot, it used Franklin nicely. It shook up the way thos story would have been told on Trek, for example.

Godfrey's biggest problem with this episode is the portrayal of the parents, he said that they weren't given any personality beyond their religious beliefs. Godfrey had no problem with the insane level of fanaticism displayed by the parents because he remembered a story he once heard about a Jehovah's Witness couple that abandoned their child after it received a blood transfusion, so this level of insane religious behaviour does exist in the world. Godfrey also found it silly that Franklin didn't look into this culture's beliefs about surgery until after he had performed it, making Sinclair's line "You had know way of knowing what would happen" particularly egregious.

Yeah, good point. Contrivance I know, but then we wouldn't have had the really good part of the episode either.

I don't agree with Godfrey's criticisms of this episode, because I wrote it, but I'm glad that he found it mostly enjoyable. I found working on it very difficult since I'm normally not a writer, and I admit that I stumbled in places, much like a young gazelle learning its footing. I was upset that he didn't like the portrayal of the religious couple since I played both of them and I think I did a great job. I had great chemistry with myself and I think I made a very believable couple, and you can just tell that underneath that religious exterior these two are absolute demons in the sack. Damn, I'm sexy.

Me: 7

By the way folks, I know that many of you think this picture is a 'shop:

But it's not, I posed this way for Godfrey several weeks ago while he was visiting me at my private ranch. That's right, I have no legs, but you don't need legs when your chest is that perfect, and I can assure you that my man parts are fully functional.

Oh, and the ending of Quantum Leap was easy to understand, Godfrey's just an idiot.

 

[D Man]

"Believers" sold me on B5 during my first watch of the series. It was rough getting to it with some of the the iffy acting and zzzzhhhhDUUUM music from a lot of the previous episodes, but the ending of "Believers" in particular just hit me the right way. No one is left off the hook, and everyone is responsible for what happens in a way. Sure it's got a slight "see, Trek would never do this!" feel to it, but that works greatly to its advantage in this case. Kudos to Richard Biggs (RIP) especially for his last scene with Sinclair.

Oh yeah...the subplot with Ivanova sucks. "LOL RAIDERS!" Booooring.

 

[Stevil2001]

LOL RAIDERS was always the subplot during Season 1, and it was always boring. Could JMS not come up with a better way to fill up ten minutes?

 

[DWF]

LOL RAIDERS was always the subplot during Season 1, and it was always boring. Could JMS not come up with a better way to fill up ten minutes?

The Raiders subplot kind of ended in Signs And Portents.

 

[Kegg]

Believers... I dunno. It always struck me as a blatant 'anti-Trek' episode.

Oh definitely. But like I said, the first good episode of the series, and it's the shocker, downer ending that sells it. Sometimes there are no-win scenarios. It's one of the few honest to god good standalone episodes, also.

LOL RAIDERS was always the subplot during Season 1, and it was always boring. Could JMS not come up with a better way to fill up ten minutes?

Quite. S1 may have benefited from not being densely arced because if the raiders are the best thing he could come up with for the first season it's best not to focus too much on them.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

LOL RAIDERS was always the subplot during Season 1, and it was always boring. Could JMS not come up with a better way to fill up ten minutes?

The Raiders subplot kind of ended in Signs And Portents.

But that's what they were for. They were set up to end in "Signs and Portents". They were only ever meaningful on the basis of what happens in "Signs and Portents".

 

[Reverend]

Let's watch the spoilers now. He hasn't gotten that far yet!

 

[TheGodBen]

Urgh, I let Scott Bakula use my computer for a few hours and he gets his chest hairs all over the keyboard. That man really needs to learn to wear a shirt.

If memory serves, they didn't have that information on file since this was such a minor and relatively secretive race, and they weren't given the information until after Franklin had performed the surgery - and since he had to perform it at a certain time, yeah, he literally had know way of knowing, barring the parents actually telling him.

Granted, that's a plot contrivance of the highest order, but it's an internally consistent plot contrivance. The best kind!

Oh, I must have missed that. Ah well, it doesn't change things too much, it's still awfully convenient, and he should have been able to tell that things were up the moment the father mentioned his son wearing a ceremonial robe for a "great journey". I could tell what was going to happen, and according to Scott Bakula I'm an idiot.

Believers... I dunno. It always struck me as a blatant 'anti-Trek' episode. Mind, the reason for this is due to higher-ups always demanding nice, safe endings for TV sci-fi so the audience can come away feeling good after the show ends, hence the stagnant state of most Trek. Apparently it was a minor miracle this was even green-lit, at least the way JMS describes it at Lurker's.

But many of the best episodes of Trek were anti-Trek episodes; City on the Edge of Forever, In the Pale Moonlight, Damage... maybe I just don't like Trek.

 

[Forbin]

Let's not forget to mentionn that the fanatical alien mother in Believers was Tricia O'Neil, the noble Captain Garrett of the Enterprise-C.

 

[Sykonee]

But many of the best episodes of Trek were anti-Trek episodes; City on the Edge of Forever, In the Pale Moonlight, Damage... maybe I just don't like Trek.

It's probably not that they're 'anti-Trek', but rather 'anti-status-quo'. When you buck the trend, you're going to make much more of an impression.

 

[Bones2]

Urgh, I let Scott Bakula use my computer for a few hours and he gets his chest hairs all over the keyboard. That man really needs to learn to wear a shirt.

No he doesn't

How many seasons did B5 run for anyway? 7?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^Five.

 

[Canadave]

Let's not forget to mentionn that the fanatical alien mother in Believers was Tricia O'Neil, the noble Captain Garrett of the Enterprise-C.

Who?

OHHH, you mean Scott Bakula!

Anyway, I rewatched "Believers" last night. Definitely a much better episode than I remembered—I don't know why I'd relegated it to the trash heap of season one. It's worth it just for the scene of watching how the big four ambassadors deal with the parents request for representation. Especially Kosh.

 

[TheGodBen]

That was the scene that sold the episode for me as well, it was very enjoyable watching the various ambassadors trying to find excuses so that they didn't get caught in the middle of the dilemma. I reluctantly had to admit that my early impressions were wrong and that there might just be something to the episode after all.

 

[Forbin]

Anyway, I rewatched "Believers" last night. Definitely a much better episode than I remembered—I don't know why I'd relegated it to the trash heap of season one. It's worth it just for the scene of watching how the big four ambassadors deal with the parents request for representation. Especially Kosh.

"The avalanche has begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."



Possibley my favorite B5 quote.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Anyway, I rewatched "Believers" last night. Definitely a much better episode than I remembered—I don't know why I'd relegated it to the trash heap of season one. It's worth it just for the scene of watching how the big four ambassadors deal with the parents request for representation. Especially Kosh.

"The avalanche has begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."



Possibley my favorite B5 quote.

It is indeed the finest Koshism in the show, and of course it has some great competition!

 

[hyzmarca]

So what may seem to the untrained eye to be a completely random joke about Scott Bakula is actually a carefully planned trap to get Scott Bakula to post here so that he can explain to me exactly what happened in the final episode of Quantum Leap. That has confused the hell out of me since I was 7.

The bartender, who was almost certainly some semi-omnipotent anthropomorphic personification (God, Time, whatever) explains to Sam that Sam was always in control of his leaps subconsciously. That everything, it was all Sam's doing. God didn't have any part of it. Sam refuses to believe at first, he might continue to refuse to believe (that's left unclear), but deep down inside he doesn't want to leap home. He's doing too much good in the past, putting right what once went wrong.

In the end, he uses his newfound ability to leap into the home of Al's first wife before Al is declared dead and she remarries. He then tells her that Al is comming home, an act which improves Al's life dramatically. She never remarries so she and Al live happily ever after and have a couple of daughters together.

Then he just continues leaping, presumably still assisted by Al, putting right what once went wrong until he dies of old age.

Believers... I dunno. It always struck me as a blatant 'anti-Trek' episode. Mind, the reason for this is due to higher-ups always demanding nice, safe endings for TV sci-fi so the audience can come away feeling good after the show ends, hence the stagnant state of most Trek. Apparently it was a minor miracle this was even green-lit, at least the way JMS describes it at Lurker's.

JMS hates cute things, including kids. It's as simple as that.

 

[Lindley]

Well now, there's still some worthwhile stuff to come in season 1.

 

[TheGodBen]

I'm not giving up, I just didn't watch an episode on Wednesday because it was my birthday and I took that evening off to spend some quality time with my good friend Scott Bakula and his ponies. I know the show supposedly only gets really good in season 2, but the same is true for DS9 and I still think it is best to watch that show's first season to make a connection with the characters.

Yes, even If Wishes Were Horses. If you don't watch that episode you wont know where Sisko's baseball comes from.


Survivors (**½)

I had high hopes for this episode at the beginning as Garibaldi and Ivanova talked about the President visiting, I was hoping for some interstellar politics and some sort of exploration of the Earth political system. Even after the bomb went off and it was clear the episode was going to be about an investigation, possibly leading up to an assassination attempt on the Earth president, I was still interested in where the show might be heading. But then Lianna shows up and the episode becomes a film noir detective story taking place on a space station.

Michael Garibaldi is a lawman on the frontier with a dark past and a drink problem? Check. He's framed for a crime he didn't commit? Check. He goes on the run and has to seek assistance from some shady characters? Check. The new lawman in town has it in for him due to a past situation he's partly to blame for? Check. He gets attacked by the criminals he used to police? Check. He screws up by getting drunk? Check. He pieces the crime together and has to convince the new lawman to believe him? Check. He wears a hat? Check.

I liked some things in this episode while the rest of it felt like standard guff. I liked the fact that Garibaldi is a recovering alcoholic, it's a bit clichéd because the detective/policeman is a drunk in 96.8257% of detective stories, probably because they have Irish blood and feel they have an excuse. I liked Garibaldi going to Londo for help, that was a good scene. The rest of the episode was okay, not terrible, but not terribly interesting.