Oh darn! Hopefully it'll be back up on Prime in the future.
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
Oh darn! Hopefully it'll be back up on Prime in the future.
I still know quite a few people who have VCR’s in their closets or still in their entertainment centres (the last DVD/VHS combo only rolled off the production line in August 2016). Plus there are still tons at pawn shops and thrift stores.Unfortunately, in 2020 the chances of having a VCR to play them on is almost nonexistent.
Yes, it's still showing on COMET. I just watched this evening. They're currently in early 3rd season. There's a 2-episode block starting at 6 PM Eastern time.
Since I'm watching during my lunch hour at work, I have to watch on my phone. I use a free app from the Google Play store called STIRR, which carries multiple channels. It's ad-supported (local & national), but the ads don't fill the breaks, so don't worry when there's a minute or two of just the STIRR logo. It's not terrific; sometimes the buffering gets pretty bad, but that just may be heavy bandwidth usage at that time of day in my area. But it's still an option to explore.
And there are other shows on COMET (Stargate SG-1 plays after B5), and other channels (SHOUT Factory is playing the DS9 documentary this month, plus MST3K, Leverage, and others). There's even currently a Space:1999 channel, for good or ill...
SHOUT Factory has their own channel?
Apparently. I was surprised to see it listed as a channel available through STIRR. During some of the ad breaks on COMET, they showed promos for the DS9 documentary on SHOUT Factory.
Checked out what must have been the special edition of "The Gathering" because it seemed different than what I remember, and when I watched the special features I saw that JMS said that he had made some changes.
So, for what I saw, I thought "The Gathering" worked well as the pilot episode. A lot of the characters were already well formed and I saw little changes from Season 1. Delenn's physical appearance, and her personality, were one of the biggest changes. She came across as softer, more spiritual, and contemplative in Season 1 than she did in the pilot. But G'Kar and Londo were largely unchanged. Same with Sinclair and Garibaldi. Jury is out for Lyta Alexander.
I got a sense of Ivanova in Takashima, though I think Ivanova came off as a more interesting character. Same with Franklin compared to Kyle. I do feel that the B5 main cast was more diverse than the Season 1 cast though.
I liked the more simplistic uniforms in the pilot, though they are not as distinctive as the Season 1 episodes. These would've been good to use for flashback scenes. Also liked the laser rifles, but didn't care for the laser pistols.
I thought the villain was very underdeveloped. I wish he had been better developed. They had John Fleck there and wasted him. He could've made for a great villain. That reminds me of how Jeffrey Combs was also wasted on the series. Combs would've made an awesome Centauri, Mr. Morden (which was basically the Weyoun of B5), Narn, or any other antagonist. As for Morden, I caught the actor in a different role in the pilot. It might have been nice to say he was the same character, to make it even easier for him to move about the station.
I think someone else in this thread mentioned the hammier acting on B5 and that's something I noticed as well. The worst was the colonel who had a vendetta against Sinclair and took over B5. He was mean mugging something fierce and was too over-the-top. And I thought about some of the other actors who had also done Trek or DS9 like the actor who played Captain Pierce and how much better he was on DS9 than he was in B5. Captain Pierce wasn't over the top IMO, but overly militaristic/antagonistic, compared to his sly Klingon prosecutor. So I take it as an issue of direction/writing/tone for the series rather than the actors' skills themselves.
So, for what I saw, I thought "The Gathering" worked well as the pilot episode. A lot of the characters were already well formed and I saw little changes from Season 1. Delenn's physical appearance, and her personality, were one of the biggest changes. She came across as softer, more spiritual, and contemplative in Season 1 than she did in the pilot. But G'Kar and Londo were largely unchanged. Same with Sinclair and Garibaldi. Jury is out for Lyta Alexander.
I got a sense of Ivanova in Takashima, though I think Ivanova came off as a more interesting character. Same with Franklin compared to Kyle. I do feel that the B5 main cast was more diverse than the Season 1 cast though.
I liked the more simplistic uniforms in the pilot, though they are not as distinctive as the Season 1 episodes. These would've been good to use for flashback scenes. Also liked the laser rifles, but didn't care for the laser pistols.
I thought the villain was very underdeveloped. I wish he had been better developed. They had John Fleck there and wasted him. He could've made for a great villain. That reminds me of how Jeffrey Combs was also wasted on the series. Combs would've made an awesome Centauri, Mr. Morden (which was basically the Weyoun of B5), Narn, or any other antagonist. As for Morden, I caught the actor in a different role in the pilot. It might have been nice to say he was the same character, to make it even easier for him to move about the station.
I think someone else in this thread mentioned the hammier acting on B5 and that's something I noticed as well. The worst was the colonel who had a vendetta against Sinclair and took over B5. He was mean mugging something fierce and was too over-the-top. And I thought about some of the other actors who had also done Trek or DS9 like the actor who played Captain Pierce and how much better he was on DS9 than he was in B5. Captain Pierce wasn't over the top IMO, but overly militaristic/antagonistic, compared to his sly Klingon prosecutor. So I take it as an issue of direction/writing/tone for the series rather than the actors' skills themselves.
I am currently in season 2 of Babylon 5. In episode 13 of season 1 I caught an Easter egg. In the background there is a monitor showing the daily events. 5th item down - Rolling Stones Farewell Concert
Good catch.... I never look at the background stuff that often so now I think it's time for a rewatch.
In fact any excuse will do for a rewatch.
I liked the pilot weapons. I can see why they were replaced (blacked curved shapes with a bit of silver tape is definitely a cheap solution to the ray-gun problem), but I liked the "thunk" noise the rifles made, and the way they turned the pistols on and off by folding them and unfolding them was a cool bit of action combined with the regular PPG on/off sound effect.
I am currently in season 2 of Babylon 5. In episode 13 of season 1 I caught an Easter egg. In the background there is a monitor showing the daily events. 5th item down - Rolling Stones Farewell Concert
I believe that's from one of the CG animator, Mojo Lebowitz, who was also drafted to do on-set monitor graphics because they didn't have a dedicated graphic designer. I think he got a talking-to about all the in-jokes he was putting in (the straw that broke the camel's back was Babylon 4's ID verification code being Elvis's date of birth and date of death).
I believe I read somewhere that the reason Delenn was different in the pilot was that she was originally supposed to be more androgynous, but then once they went to series, they decided to make her more feminine. I can't remember for sure, but I think they also made her voice a little bit deeper, and more masculine sounding in the pilot too.
The original intent with Delenn's character arc throughout Season 1 was for her transformation in Chrysalis to be less about her becoming more human in appearance and more about her becoming more feminine in appearance... which is why she appears much more masculine in The Gathering.
JMS talked about this on Usenet back in the day, and his comments have been preserved courtesy of The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5.
JMS talked about this on Usenet back in the day, and his comments have been preserved courtesy of The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5.
He also talks about it on the DVD commentary tracks.
The pitch adjustment was removed even before the original cut was broadcast, though you can hear it in a pre-release entertainment news clip promoting the show that's floating around on YouTube.
Weird, I'm about 60% I saw the pitched down version when I rented the VHS waaaay back when.
Similar threads
