B5 season 4
- Thread starter Captain Worf
- Start date
I always thought the season would have worked much better by flipping the 6 ep Shadow War arc and the rest of it. After "Z'ha'dum" the Shadows go back into hiding, and then with them off the playing field the events of the Earth/Minbari Civil Wars can proceed as is. Then after "Endgame", the Shadow story resumes with their planet killers being unleashed. This would also have given more intensity and meaning to the civil wars because a) the Shadow threat is still lurking there despise everyone thinking them gone and b) they need to reunite their homelands in order to present a united front against the Shadows. This would mean that for the final "Into the Fire" battle it would be all of civilization (minus the Centauri) standing up against the Shadows, as opposed to the League, the Rangers, and a faction of renegade Minbari ships.
The one thing that annoyed me about using the machine was that Marcus seemed to insist that only he could give "the ultimate sacrifice". Why couldn't several of those closest to Ivanova give some of themselves to save her. Sure, it is very romantic that the virginal Marcus died for his love, but it seems like he might have wanted to hang around for some Ivanova loving after her life was saved.
Well, everyone else was busy at the time liberating Earth and Mars. Marcus probably didn't know the unnamed minor characters who were minding the store well enough to ask that of them.
Marcus was a martyr looking for a cause to die for. He blamed himself for not believing his brother's warning about the Shadows and the subsequent deaths on Arisia Colony in a Shadow attack (from the novel "To Dream in the City of Sorrows"). Delenn tried to talk to him about it when she tried to get him to attend the Rebirth Ceremony.
As for his allowing anybody else to donate life energy, remember that he was pretty sure that the Station crew would try to stop his using the machine at all.
As for his allowing anybody else to donate life energy, remember that he was pretty sure that the Station crew would try to stop his using the machine at all.
I agree that he seemed to be going helter skelter into the maw of martyrdom, but it seemed to me that his love for Ivanova and all of their time together changed that a bit.
This is reasonable, but it is also reasonable that he would have gone to C&C and said "Commander Ivanova is dying. Who here wants to help save her?" What is the chance that most if not all would have jumped at the chance to save her life?
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Your questions on this strike me as being rather odd. How much of the series, especially episodes with Marcus, have you actually watched?
I don't think it's reasonable at all for Marcus to ask anybody else to do it, for any number of reasons. For one, he was outside the command structure for the station and rather unknown to the personnel in places like C&C, so nobody would feel compelled to follow his request. For another, it's not exactly in keeping with the character of a martyr to have them ask anybody else to add lifeforce. I suppose that might be seen as rational or logical, to have several people contribute a little bit, thus reducing the danger for all. However, Marcus was not exactly in the most logical frame of mind here.
I don't think it's reasonable at all for Marcus to ask anybody else to do it, for any number of reasons. For one, he was outside the command structure for the station and rather unknown to the personnel in places like C&C, so nobody would feel compelled to follow his request. For another, it's not exactly in keeping with the character of a martyr to have them ask anybody else to add lifeforce. I suppose that might be seen as rational or logical, to have several people contribute a little bit, thus reducing the danger for all. However, Marcus was not exactly in the most logical frame of mind here.
I agree. I always felt that the Byron/Teeps storyline lacked something. It just didn't grab me like pretty much everything else in the show did.
JMS said in the script books that the loss of Ivanova as well as the hotel tossing his season notes led to him staying with the Telepath storyline longer than had been intended originally.
Part of what was missing might have been that it was originally Ivanova who was supposed to be romantically involved with Byron and Lyta only a follower. That would have been interesting if all else had stayed the same since then it would have been Ivanova who had to call in Bester.
Jan
And I was just thiiiiiiiis close to giving him an infraction for it.
All of them. I saw it first run and have watched the DVD sets several times since.
I don't think it would have worked for the story if Marcus asked anyone to help. The dramatic point was that he offered his life to save her. He would have known of people that would have helped to save her. Corwin, Zack or various other people that he would have come in contact with during his time on B5. However, I agree that Marcus was not in a logical frame of mind at that point and was more interested in her life than his.
The fighting wasn't the point of those episodes. The focus was on Delenn and the Starfire wheel and bringing the old pre-Valen tradition back to the Minbari, with Neroon making a great sacrifice by saying he was now religious caste.
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Quoting myself because I finally found the quotes I was thinking of, from between seasons 3 and 4:
jms said:
jms said:
I'd have to go back to check but I think some of what got cut in "Into the Fire" were a couple more scenes where the Army of Light ships protected Sheridan & Delenn's white star at the cost of their lives were cut. I always thought that those scenes would have helped mitigate against some fan's reaction that the war ended because of Sheridan's shouting at the Shadows and Vorlons.
Jan
Jan
My mistake. There were only scenes of the two ships, the Drazi and Minbari ships that were destroyed protecting Sheridan's white star. I think perhaps what was missing is that, though it was reported that the ships were gathering in protection of the white star, we didn't get a good enough, or long enough view of that. Still, I never for a moment thought that it was Sheridan's forceful rejection that was the clincher. Even if more could have been made of the other races willingness to sacrifice themselves on a ship-by-ship basis, it was plenty impressive that they had all come together the way they had.
Jan
Season 4 was my favorite for a lot of reasons ... too hard to spell them all out here.
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