Babylon 5 on the AV CLub

[Jarvisimo]

Dear all, thought some of you might enjoy the thoughts of the AV Club on Babylon 5. Their rewatch, by Rowan Kaiser, has just finished with season 1, and has been an excellent digest of successes and flaws from it.

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/tvshow/babylon-5,355/

 

[Jan]

I might try it again. I kind of enjoyed the reviews themselves for the first few but got annoyed by the commenters. I mean, c'mon...discussing Byron in the comments about "The Gathering"?

In addition, it seems that it's semi-customary for posters there to assume the identities of characters. When a poster impersonated JMS for several months, it was badly handled by the AV Club. In fact, I notice that they *still* haven't removed the posts by the imposter though the profile's been removed.

Jan

 

[Kegg]

I might try it again. I kind of enjoyed the reviews themselves for the first few but got annoyed by the commenters. I mean, c'mon...discussing Byron in the comments about "The Gathering"?

That was really only for the first episode, and is pretty common for AV Club series recaps - that is, people use the first episode's comments to talk about the show sui generis. The subsequent episodes drop off that a lot.

In addition, it seems that it's semi-customary for posters there to assume the identities of characters. When a poster impersonated JMS for several months, it was badly handled by the AV Club.

It was a shtick, that was fairly funny in the DS9 recaps and then obviously crossed a line when he started more or less lifting actual JMS comments verbatim for the Babylon 5 reviews, and so obviously at that point closed down.

 

[Jan]

That was really only for the first episode, and is pretty common for AV Club series recaps - that is, people use the first episode's comments to talk about the show sui generis. The subsequent episodes drop off that a lot.

I read through the first several episodes and it didn't seem to be dropping off so I just lost interest. I guess I could just read the reviews themselves.

It was a shtick, that was fairly funny in the DS9 recaps and then obviously crossed a line when he started more or less lifting actual JMS comments verbatim for the Babylon 5 reviews, and so obviously at that point closed down.

Closed down by force. When that persona commented on a completely different article and the author of the article approached JMS via Twitter to ask if it were really him. At that point JMS became aware of the extent of the impersonation.

Jan

 

[Kegg]

I read through the first several episodes and it didn't seem to be dropping off so I just lost interest. I guess I could just read the reviews themselves.

Could do. They're actually rather interesting in presenting Babylon 5 for a modern TV audience that's grown used to extensive serialization; Kaiser's classification of episodes based on whether or not they are 'essential' (in response, he acknowledges, to to the great amount of people who try to watch the first couple of episodes, hit "Infected" or so and give up) may be particularly useful for new viewers.

 

[sidious618]

The AV Club's reviews are great for pretty much every show, including B5.

 

[Gaith]

Yeah, I'm really enjoying their run on Carnivale.

 

[sidious618]

Todd Van der Werf's Sopranos reviews are my absolute favorite.