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A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

And speaking of spoliers I have read only TheGodBen's posts in this thread because I am determined to remain spoiler free. It is very difficult to not run off to google and look for the Bab5 version of memoryalpha and answer my gazillion questions but I will be strong. Luckily I have all 5 seasons on dvd so there won't be any horrible gaps in my viewing.

There's enough knowledgeable people here that if you have any questions, I'm sure we'll do our best to supply an answer without spoiling anything.

The interiors of the Great Machine on the planet were direct homage to Forbidden Planet.

You'd think so, but actually, no they weren't. (See here and here)

The B5 equivalent site is the Lurker's Guide.

Well, this* is a literal equivalent, more or less, but youre right in that the Lurker's Guide would be very useful to new viewers generally.

*Almost goes without saying, but this is a link to lots and lots of spoilerly content. Approach at your peril.

I did consider making a spoiler template like some of the other wikis, but with B5 it's just impossible or impractical to implement unless segregate everything by episode, season, book, whatever. Even if you could, the end result would be a very unattractive and nigh unreadable collection of articles.

The Lurker's Guide is still the best resource for most episode by episode information, but we're working to catch up. ;)
 
Babylon Squared (****½)

I admit it, I'm very confused. :wtf:

The mystery of Babylon 4 is one of the things that my sister used to tell me about to try and get me interested in the show, but I thought it was just going to be some episodic thing, or that it would tie into the story in some way but would not be all that significant. I did not expect this. A Sinclair from the future, who is with someone that sounds like Delenn, is pulling Babylon 4 through time for use in some future war. Or something. I am presuming that there will be answers to whatever is going on here at some point in the future, but for now I am satisfied that some of the mystery surrounding B4 has been resolved while introducing an entirely unexpected new mystery.

Babylon 4 looks much cooler than Babylon 5, I wish the designs could have been swapped.

The b-story about Delenn visiting the Grey Council starts out a little shaky, I feared this would be a Trekian type story where a main character is offered a chance to leave the hero ship but decides to stay because of their friends. Instead she decides to stay for a more interesting and mysterious reason, and she confirms my suspicion that humans have a destiny in this universe. It wasn't a huge leap of faith on my part to believe that humanity has a destiny because humanity has a destiny in 90% of science fiction/fantasy stories. Any aliens out there studying our media must be laughing their asses off whenever they come across another story about the special place of humanity. If they have asses.

By the way, fasten then zip. Anyone who does it the other way is just plain odd. :shifty:

Commander Greyshirt: 8
 
Yep, this is one of the handful of really good season one episodes. I rather like Zathras in this one, particularly, he's one of the best guest appearances the show has had up to this point. It only gets better in retrospect,
and JMS's ass-pull about 'the One' being Sheridan, Sinclair and Delenn - since Sheridan has to be the one out of sync for the scene to make sense, but he was identified in the same manner Zathras had apparently identified Sinclair - is one of the best excuses he ever made.
 
Babylon Squared (****½)

I admit it, I'm very confused. :wtf:

The mystery of Babylon 4 is one of the things that my sister used to tell me about to try and get me interested in the show, but I thought it was just going to be some episodic thing, or that it would tie into the story in some way but would not be all that significant. I did not expect this. A Sinclair from the future, who is with someone that sounds like Delenn, is pulling Babylon 4 through time for use in some future war. Or something. I am presuming that there will be answers to whatever is going on here at some point in the future, but for now I am satisfied that some of the mystery surrounding B4 has been resolved while introducing an entirely unexpected new mystery.

Babylon 4 looks much cooler than Babylon 5, I wish the designs could have been swapped.

The b-story about Delenn visiting the Grey Council starts out a little shaky, I feared this would be a Trekian type story where a main character is offered a chance to leave the hero ship but decides to stay because of their friends. Instead she decides to stay for a more interesting and mysterious reason, and she confirms my suspicion that humans have a destiny in this universe. It wasn't a huge leap of faith on my part to believe that humanity has a destiny because humanity has a destiny in 90% of science fiction/fantasy stories. Any aliens out there studying our media must be laughing their asses off whenever they come across another story about the special place of humanity. If they have asses.

By the way, fasten then zip. Anyone who does it the other way is just plain odd. :shifty:

Commander Greyshirt: 8

I remember when JMS previewed this episode at San Diego Comic Con. The entire audience gasped almost in unity when the older Sinclair popped off his helmet and the "heavily-accented woman" touched his shoulder.
 
Yep, this is one of the handful of really good season one episodes. I rather like Zathras in this one, particularly, he's one of the best guest appearances the show has had up to this point. It only gets better in retrospect,
and JMS's ass-pull about 'the One' being Sheridan, Sinclair and Delenn - since Sheridan has to be the one out of sync for the scene to make sense, but he was identified in the same manner Zathras had apparently identified Sinclair - is one of the best excuses he ever made.

Yeah. Though, in a way, I think it actually works better that way.
 
Babylon 4 looks much cooler than Babylon 5, I wish the designs could have been swapped.
Story goes they specifically designed B4 to look more impressive than B5, as B5 would have been built with 'left overs'. "Oh crap, we used up most of the budget on the kick-ass version. Welp, gotta economize this time."

One thing I've never understood about B4's design, however, is how one was supposed to go from the docking section to the habitat section when they are rotating in opposite directions. Wouldn't that make it annoyingly difficult to have to jump from one gravity well to another?
 
One thing I've never understood about B4's design, however, is how one was supposed to go from the docking section to the habitat section when they are rotating in opposite directions. Wouldn't that make it annoyingly difficult to have to jump from one gravity well to another?

The core of B5 is a low-gravity (or near zero-g) area. If B4 has a core shuttle like B5 than it would make it easier to traverse between two separate rotating sections.
 
"Babylon Squared" is easily my favourite of the first season. I think the fact that JMS made very sparring use of time travel as a story device also helps elevate it a bit in retrospect, too.
 
I was waiting for TGB to get to Babylon Squared. That is the episode that hooked me and made sure that I would be along for the rest of the ride.

It was time travel, but not just for the sake of time travel. I was intrigued and began to regard Delenn as something other than the requisite alien skirt.
 
Yeah, Babylon Squared. One of the best of the first season, though I like the finale more. But you'll get there soon enough.
 
TheGodBen's thoughts are closely mirroring mine when I first watched the series 5 or 6 years ago. Thank the Great Maker "Babylon Squared" happened. It's the perfect sort of puzzle that JMS must have known would hook us gullible sci-fi fans. Bring on "Chrysalis!" :D
 
Yeah, Babylon Squared. One of the best of the first season, though I like the finale more. But you'll get there soon enough.
And for clarification: I'd put "Babylon Squared" with "Signs and Portents", the finale, and "Believers" as the top tier of episodes from this season. That's not in any meaningful order, I might add, as I don't tend to organize orders of episodes on the entirely sound basis that it'd make my head hurt. But those are the ones I really connected with.
 
Babylon Squared (****½)

I admit it, I'm very confused. :wtf:

The mystery of Babylon 4 is one of the things that my sister used to tell me about to try and get me interested in the show, but I thought it was just going to be some episodic thing, or that it would tie into the story in some way but would not be all that significant. I did not expect this. A Sinclair from the future, who is with someone that sounds like Delenn, is pulling Babylon 4 through time for use in some future war. Or something. I am presuming that there will be answers to whatever is going on here at some point in the future, but for now I am satisfied that some of the mystery surrounding B4 has been resolved while introducing an entirely unexpected new mystery.

Babylon 4 looks much cooler than Babylon 5, I wish the designs could have been swapped.

[/B]

See? Your sister was right.

:D

Now, as to the look of Babylon 5, there's a reason it looks like it does. It's a cut rate Babylon station, built on the cheap using an Explorer class ship hull. After the loss of the first four stations, one of the things that got the fifth approved was doing it that way to cut down on time as well as expenses.
 
Babylon 4 was also mobile as it had engines. I seem to recall that the Minbari were supposedly involved in financing Babylon 5, which is why they got a say in who was the commander. Maybe talking bollocks there.
 
Babylon 4 was also mobile as it had engines. I seem to recall that the Minbari were supposedly involved in financing Babylon 5, which is why they got a say in who was the commander. Maybe talking bollocks there.


No, you are correct. Minbar cofinancing B5 was also key in it's approval.
 
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