A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

[Can]

There All the Honour Lies (***)

This is another difficult episode to judge. Ever since the first episode of this season I was hoping that more would be done with the Sheridan/Minbari situation, but most of the time it didn't even register. Now it's back, but once again the story feels a little too routine; Sheridan killed a Minbari in self defence and he must prove that it wasn't murder or be kicked off the station. We learn more about Minbari culture and their clan system, and Lennier was more interesting in this one episode than he has been at any time before, but the episode still isn't that great.

Then there's the b-story about turning B5 into a deep space franchise. I can see what they were going for, some of the merchandising that goes with sci-fi franchises such as Star Trek is insane, but it broke the fourth wall in a way that undermined the more serious stories. I mean, why would someone make a doll of Londo? Who would buy one? (Other than G'Kar, of course. I imagine he could have some fun with it.) There was a few moments I liked, such as the Drazi wearing a human mask, but otherwise I found it distracting.

There's a c-story about Vir being replaced, which could only end one way considering how it was set up. Of course Londo was going to back Vir up, this is a television show and that's how these things work. Much like Lennier, this was Vir's best episode so far, but that's not saying much.

I guess there was a d-story (or was it a subset of the a-story?) where Kosh takes Sheridan as a student. What did we learn about the Vorlons from this story? We learned that they set up a monastic Jawa choir in a crawl-space they couldn't possibly fit into in their encounter suits. Yes, this is what I wanted to learn about the Vorlons.

The actress that played Na'Toth Prime (as opposed to nuNa'Toth) showed up again and that actress is... Scott Bakula. He always did look good in a skirt. I must not have noticed him when he played Na'Toth due to the make-up.

Scott Bakula: 31

This episode was basicly about unresolved situation and cold even hostile relations between Sheridan and certain sections of Mimbari society. It is refreshring to see that Mimbari are not uber advanced and developed in everything. They might be ahead of humanity in technology and Social / Philoshopy issues but even they or at least some Mimbari individuals still have the capacity of holding grudge , enmity and hostile feelings..They are not Vulcans of B5 after all. But of course this storyline basicly came back to a simple detective story and "who had done it ?" question...A very lame way of adressing this plot line...

The idea of "Deep Space Franchise" was fun...When JMS wishes and tries hard he can joke about issues he wishes to mention in a smart way...

Vir is getting more like a character in this episode and less like a bumbling overweight bad comic relief....

And finally "beauty in dark" well I liked monestery rhymes if nothing else...

 

[Jan]

Then there's the b-story about turning B5 into a deep space franchise. I can see what they were going for, some of the merchandising that goes with sci-fi franchises such as Star Trek is insane, but it broke the fourth wall in a way that undermined the more serious stories. I mean, why would someone make a doll of Londo? Who would buy one? (Other than G'Kar, of course. I imagine he could have some fun with it.) There was a few moments I liked, such as the Drazi wearing a human mask, but otherwise I found it distracting.

IRL when JMS held his 'garage sale', those dolls went for mega-bucks.

I guess there was a d-story (or was it a subset of the a-story?) where Kosh takes Sheridan as a student. What did we learn about the Vorlons from this story? We learned that they set up a monastic Jawa choir in a crawl-space they couldn't possibly fit into in their encounter suits. Yes, this is what I wanted to learn about the Vorlons.

They weren't Vorlons (just in case you were serious).

The idea of "Deep Space Franchise" was fun...When JMS wishes and tries hard he can joke about issues he wishes to mention in a smart way...

JMS didn't write that part. Peter David, who wrote the episode did.

So after I'd read Peter's script, and decided to go with it, he asked about Ivanova's line, "This isn't some kind of Deep Space franchise, this place is ABOUT something."

"Are you really going to use that?" he asked.
"Absolutely," I said. "It's fall-down funny."
Long pause. "You people really ARE dangerous over there, aren't you?"

Jan

 

[Forbin]

This episode was basicly about unresolved situation and cold even hostile relations between Sheridan and certain sections of Mimbari society. It is refreshring to see that Mimbari are not uber advanced and developed in everything. They might be ahead of humanity in technology and Social / Philoshopy issues but even they or at least some Mimbari individuals still have the capacity of holding grudge ...

Dude, turn in your membership card!

 

[Kegg]

It is refreshring to see that Mimbari are not uber advanced and developed in everything. They might be ahead of humanity in technology and Social / Philoshopy issues

I've never felt they were better than us socially or philosophically. Their highly regimented life sounds downright distressing, and most of their philosophy of life I'm rather leery of, really.

As for the episode, well. Every season needs a jokey reference to Londo's genitalia, doesn't it?

Spoiler: Londo's manhood

You actually clicked on this? Not afraid of anything, are you?

 

[Brian]

This episode was basicly about unresolved situation and cold even hostile relations between Sheridan and certain sections of Mimbari society. It is refreshring to see that Mimbari are not uber advanced and developed in everything. They might be ahead of humanity in technology and Social / Philoshopy issues but even they or at least some Mimbari individuals still have the capacity of holding grudge ...

Dude, turn in your membership card!

You mean their mimbarship card?

 

[hyzmarca]

JMS's dislike of merchandising dates back to his days working on Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.

Mattel, the toy company that sponsored the show, just wanted a half-hour advertisement from their new Captain Power toys and "interactive" video games.
JMS wanted a mature series that took a realistic look at the toyline's post-apocalyptic premise, an epic multi-season story about life, love, war, and death in a wasteland ruled by machines.

The result is one of the few Saturday morning children's series that can boast having a one of the main characters commit suicide, but one rife with pointless time-wasting scenes designed to interact with the toys. And to add incult to injury the series was canceled after the first season because the toys were an unmitigated failure.

 

[Hound of UIster]

He also did stuff with He-Man & She-Ra earlier alongside Ditillio.

 

[Forbin]

This episode was basicly about unresolved situation and cold even hostile relations between Sheridan and certain sections of Mimbari society. It is refreshring to see that Mimbari are not uber advanced and developed in everything. They might be ahead of humanity in technology and Social / Philoshopy issues but even they or at least some Mimbari individuals still have the capacity of holding grudge ...

Dude, turn in your membership card!

You mean their mimbarship card?

I almost said that, but I didn't wanna be mean.

 

[TheGodBen]

And Now For a Word (**)

This was actually the first episode of B5 I watched, my sister thought it would be a good way to get me interested in the show, so she allowed me to watch it and told me that when I was older I could watch the rest. I couldn't remember anything that happened in it, but as I watched the episode I remembered certain scenes, such as the bit with Kosh, or the Psi Corps ad. I remembered liking the fact that the episode was in the style of a documentary program but not caring about much else. Well, this time it was the other way around.

I used to think that the show-within-a-documentary-show format was neat, but then I actually began to watch shows that tried it and realised that it wasn't so neat after all. The West Wing had an episode like this in its fifth season called Access, and the only reason why Wing-nuts don't consider that one of the worst episodes of the show is because it is largely considered to be an alternate universe so it is unfair to judge it. BSG had an episode sort of like this too, and the interview sections of that episode just felt awkward. The truth is that I have yet to see this style of episode done well, and that's because these types of shows are annoying enough in real life with their sound-bites and faux-smiling presenters, so why would I want to watch them in my fiction?

Another part of the problem with this episode is that it feels like an excuse to get across a lot of exposition to the audience, we get scenes of the presenter filling us in on background information about Babylon 5, and the interviews with the various ambassadors are used as exposition to fill us in on their home worlds. Frankly, it's a little boring. The best parts of the episode are the bits where scenes play out as if the cameraman wasn't there, such as the council scene. The worst part is that the story between the Narn and Centauri is very interesting and if this had played out as a normal episode it could have achieved a score of 7 or 8 depending on the b-plot, but because it is framed as a news program it feels frustratingly constricted.

Oh, this episode has terrible image cropping issues due to the news captions. On a purely superficial level, this is probably the worst-looking episode I've seen so far.

 

[Harvey]

Alas, the series uses the documentary conceit another couple of times, though never as much as this episode uses it. I like certain things in the episode (like Franklin's monologue), but would have preferred they be incorporated into an episode that didn't use the fake documentary conceit.

And, oh yeah, Access was terrible.

 

[Reverend]

The earliest example of this kind of episode that I'm aware of was some episode of M*A*S*H and I think that one wasn't so bad. However, this episode of B5 was the first time I had seen it done and at the time I really liked it (still do, to a point.)

As for the BSG's 'Final Cut', I actually quite liked that one too. Partly because it was nice to see Lucy Lawless in a serious role, not yelping like a loon, hopping around in a leather mini-skirt, chucking frisbees at people. Plus my inner geek jumped for joy when the old BSG theme kicked in...which is in itself a little odd since I'm not much of an old BSG fan. Go figure.

Oh and yeah, I noticed the screen was cropped very strangely in some scenes too. Another unfortunate artefact of the poor DVD transfer I'm afraid.

 

[JoeD80]

The earliest example of this kind of episode that I'm aware of was some episode of M*A*S*H and I think that one wasn't so bad. However, this episode of B5 was the first time I had seen it done and at the time I really liked it (still do, to a point.)

The episode was "The Interview" shot in black & white and using improvised interview segments filmed with the actors. Larry Gelbart, the one who developed M*A*S*H for television, wrote it as his last episode before he left the show at the end of the fourth season. The concept was also brought back in season 7's "Our Finest Hour" but it was used for a simple clip show framework there.

I thought the Babylon 5 episode was fun, but I'm a sucker for episodes that jump outside the usual format. The little bits and pieces that are important here are not necessarily the conflict itself, but the idea that Psi Corps advertises itself as a place for your special kid to go and that the Earth has formed special ministries, and that the sponsor of the news is Interplanetary Expeditions. Some of this does come up again in some ways, but we're holding off on spoilers.

 

[Hyperspace05]

I really dig "And Now For a Word"... Still one of my favorite S2 episodes.

I think it does quite a good job of dealing out large amounts of exposition through its chosen format style.
It avoids a great deal many moments of "Captain exposition", which B5 frequently has.

 

[Kegg]

I like certain things in the episode (like Franklin's monologue),

That's a great moment, and as usual, Biggs sells it well (I may have said this already, but in my mind Franklin is by far the best of the show's human leads.)

I also liked the bit with the posturing Senator, rather tritely observing that if the war was waged today, things would have gone different - only, er, we won. Watch some Fox News if anyone thinks his haughty cocksure attitude is unrealistic.

I also like how Londo frames the Centauri position, but that may just be me liking Londo.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Yes it is a pretty good parody/satire of current TV news. Be it CNN, FOX, or whatever. It's almost as if the more TV news you watch, the more enjoyable "And Now For a Word" is. I think it is a quite cleverly constructed episode.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

That's a great moment, and as usual, Biggs sells it well (I may have said this already, but in my mind Franklin is by far the best of the show's human leads.)

For me, after Sinclair, Franklin is probably the strongest of the human characters. A lot of that has to do with Richard Biggs's performance. Moreover, I liked that we got to see

Spoiler: Franklin's development

his gradual slip into drug addiction and his struggles to recover.

 

[chrisspringob]

middy, please don't post spoilers. TGB is only on Season 2.

 

[TheGodBen]

Fan-bleedin'-tastic.

 

[CorporalClegg]

That's a great moment, and as usual, Biggs sells it

In a side note: My checkout guy at the supermarket yesterday was named Rick Biggs. He sold me carrots.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

middy, please don't post spoilers. TGB is only on Season 2.

Fan-bleedin'-tastic.

My deepest apologies. It slipped my mind when I was posting last night. Trust me it was not intentional.