I try to keep my responses short and vague, and only about an episode reviewed by a first time watcher, for the same reason.
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
I try to keep my responses short and vague, and only about an episode reviewed by a first time watcher, for the same reason.
"Knives"
Despite a couple of fun moments, this one felt largely trivial. Sheridan's body-invasion plot felt especially disposable; even though I watched this episode mere hours ago, I'm hard-pressed to recall much of note. About the only moments that felt somewhat important were the details about Sheridan's wife (see notes) and Franklin's apparent interest in energy beings.
A little more interesting was Londo's duel with his old pal. IMDb tells me that Urza's actor appeared in The Godfather II (one of my all-time favourites) as a buttonman - if so, I certainly can't remember him. I did enjoy that Londo had a chance to get his hands dirty for once - as well as the reminder that Lord Refa is bad, bad news.
Overall though... onto the next.
Rating: **
-And judging from the blurb of the next episode, I'm guessing the portrayal of Sheridan's wife's death is a big reason why "Knives" is supposed to be viewed before "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum".
-Another similarity with DS9; baseball seems to be one of the few major sports that has survived into the future.
Despite a couple of fun moments, this one felt largely trivial. Sheridan's body-invasion plot felt especially disposable; even though I watched this episode mere hours ago, I'm hard-pressed to recall much of note. About the only moments that felt somewhat important were the details about Sheridan's wife (see notes) and Franklin's apparent interest in energy beings.
A little more interesting was Londo's duel with his old pal. IMDb tells me that Urza's actor appeared in The Godfather II (one of my all-time favourites) as a buttonman - if so, I certainly can't remember him. I did enjoy that Londo had a chance to get his hands dirty for once - as well as the reminder that Lord Refa is bad, bad news.
Overall though... onto the next.
Rating: **
-And judging from the blurb of the next episode, I'm guessing the portrayal of Sheridan's wife's death is a big reason why "Knives" is supposed to be viewed before "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum".
-Another similarity with DS9; baseball seems to be one of the few major sports that has survived into the future.
He is better known to Science Fiction Fans as Samantha Carter's Father in SG1.
He was one of the body guards at the Communion in the beginning of the film.
I circled him in the screen capture
Bingo. The original intent was that "Knives" would remind the audience about Sheridan's Dead Wife from the beginning of the season so people weren't all, "Wait, did Sheridan have a dead wife before, or did they just pull that out of their butts this week? I don't remember that, it was fifteen weeks ago, I'm a busy person" when it became a major plot element, but then the order got shuffled around before airing, which wasn't a big deal, but shifted some of the emphasis.
In DS9 the thing is that baseball hasn't survived, except for a few nostalgics like Sisko. And its revival on Cestus 3.
Touché, though I guess I meant more simply that baseball features in both shows. Maybe the writers were fans.
He is better known to Science Fiction Fans as Samantha Carter's Father in SG1.
He was one of the body guards at the Communion in the beginning of the film.
I circled him in the screen capture
Thanks for that; I'll watch it later and look out for him.
Larry DiTillio wrote that both he and Bruce Boxleitner were baseball fans so DiTillio wrote that segment for Sheridan.
Fun footnote from the script books from the episode "Hunter, Prey":I just caught a vitally important milestone during my rewatch. Season 3 episode 3 (A Day in the Strife) is the first time "Tech #1" is called "Corwin." The naming is also reflected in the closing titles. Finally!
I believe DS9's co-creator Michael Piller was the baseball fan on staff, and the one resonsible for making Sisko a baseball fan.
Larry DiTillio was a Dodger Fan from when the team was originally in Brooklyn, and stayed a fan even after the team moved to Los Angeles. Bruce Boxleitner being originally from Illinois is a Chicago White Sox Fan. From my understanding, Bruce wanted to wear a White Sox ball cap, but the permission of Major League Baseball doesn't come cheap, so they made him a white EAS Agamemnon hat instead.
This is true.
Funny thing: his first episode he wrote or did a teleplay on, TNG's "Evolution", essentially killed baseball as a known sport, except for a tiny amount of people.
Having Sisko a fan, and it being a theme running throughout the entire series and his baseball almost being a character itself, was Piller's way of bringing it back.
Re baseball on B5: It's a rotating O'Neill colony - a 5-mile long rotating tube. As Ivanova said, the "ground" is rotating at 60 MPH. Did I mention rotating 
? So when Sheridan bats the ball down the axis of the tube, shouldn't the ball arc to the left or right as the ground, ya know, rotates sideways?
? So when Sheridan bats the ball down the axis of the tube, shouldn't the ball arc to the left or right as the ground, ya know, rotates sideways?
I don't think so. The ball launcher and Sheridan are rotating with it so the ball is traveling along with the station so to speak. From the maglev in the center the ball would be rotating with the station but the folks on the ground like Sheridan see it coming straight for him.Re baseball on B5: It's a rotating O'Neill colony - a 5-mile long rotating tube. As Ivanova said, the "ground" is rotating at 60 MPH. Did I mention rotating
I think that id because since the maglev is more at the center of the cylinder part, the gravity is much lower.
Plus, the rotation was still going on, so it would be like he us floating.
Plus, the rotation was still going on, so it would be like he us floating.
What you observe depends on your frame of reference - inertial or co-rotating, for example.
Coriolis force - Wikipedia
Coriolis force would be an issue. To a good approximation, a ball would follow a straight line as seen by an outside non-rotating observer and a curved path by an internal rotating observer. A ball thrown straight up would appear to deviate to the antispinward direction. This also assumes that the ball is not rotating and so is not affected by the Magnus force, which would deflect the ball at right angles to its motion. The ball would not feel an effective gravitational force except perhaps a minor one through interaction with varying air density. Given sufficient room, air resistance would eventually halt the ball, at which point it would be only subject to forces due to air currents.
If you ran fast enough antispinward, you would become weightless. Run spinward and you would effectively weigh more, although the effect diminishes toward your head, depending on your height in relation to the radius of rotation.
Fountains would be problematic although air resistance, water viscosity and surface tension should persuade most of it to return to the fountain with a path determined by the Coriolis force. Someone has worked out what it might look like on this page:
http://www.science20.com/robert_inv...o_g_problem_and_answer_low_g_questions-129424
Search on the page for fountain. The whole page should answer many questions for the curious.
See the following dissertation for more details:
http://www.artificial-gravity.com/Dissertation/FrontMatter.htm
Note that the ball will appear to fall to the floor again from the point of view of an observer standing on the cylinder's inner surface. Of course, there's a YouTube video:
As
is effectively weightless, he would actually decelerate somewhat due to air resistance so he ought to try to maximise his cross-sectional area. Even if he could slow his radial velocity to almost zero, he would still impact the cylinder floor sideways at about the velocity it is rotating if he does not also gain sufficient sideways momentum from the air. Once upon a time, I might have estimated his ground velocity but we all know
saves him from his fall from the temple pinnacle so I won't bother.
Coriolis force - Wikipedia
Coriolis force would be an issue. To a good approximation, a ball would follow a straight line as seen by an outside non-rotating observer and a curved path by an internal rotating observer. A ball thrown straight up would appear to deviate to the antispinward direction. This also assumes that the ball is not rotating and so is not affected by the Magnus force, which would deflect the ball at right angles to its motion. The ball would not feel an effective gravitational force except perhaps a minor one through interaction with varying air density. Given sufficient room, air resistance would eventually halt the ball, at which point it would be only subject to forces due to air currents.
If you ran fast enough antispinward, you would become weightless. Run spinward and you would effectively weigh more, although the effect diminishes toward your head, depending on your height in relation to the radius of rotation.
Fountains would be problematic although air resistance, water viscosity and surface tension should persuade most of it to return to the fountain with a path determined by the Coriolis force. Someone has worked out what it might look like on this page:
http://www.science20.com/robert_inv...o_g_problem_and_answer_low_g_questions-129424
Search on the page for fountain. The whole page should answer many questions for the curious.
See the following dissertation for more details:
http://www.artificial-gravity.com/Dissertation/FrontMatter.htm
Note that the ball will appear to fall to the floor again from the point of view of an observer standing on the cylinder's inner surface. Of course, there's a YouTube video:
As
Sheridan
an angel
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