Babylon 5

[Mister Spock]

I've never had a problem with Warren Keffer. The bully from Weird Science who's not Robert Downey Jr. does a good enough job with what he's given. And besides which, he's only in six episodes of the second season anyway.

It kinda makes sense to have the Starfury pilots represented amongst the main cast. Having a pilot in the main cast also helps the show steer away from the Star Trek trope of the senior officers always being the ones who beamed down and put their lives on the line. Like in the first season, where it seemed like everytime the Starfuries deployed, they had to have Sinclair, Ivanova or Garibaldi go out with them. With Keffer, they no longer have that issue.

 

[The Lensman]

I've never had a problem with Warren Keffer. The bully from Weird Science who's not Robert Downey Jr. does a good enough job with what he's given. And besides which, he's only in six episodes of the second season anyway.

It kinda makes sense to have the Starfury pilots represented amongst the main cast. Having a pilot in the main cast also helps the show steer away from the Star Trek trope of the senior officers always being the ones who beamed down and put their lives on the line. Like in the first season, where it seemed like everytime the Starfuries deployed, they had to have Sinclair, Ivanova or Garibaldi go out with them. With Keffer, they no longer have that issue.

Keffer is the Alan Carter of B5

 

[JD]

"Revelations"

G'Kar - An ancient enemy has stirred. This is a story we've all seen before - but when the enemy is as scary as B5 has successfully established, it works. They continue to be a chilling presence - when the Narn cruiser was destroyed instantly upon arriving at the Rim, I got a similar feeling to when I was a kid playing video games, accidentally stumbling upon a forbidden area and getting killed immediately. Like in Doom. There's something so unnerving about that. A place so dark and dreadful that venturing there means instant death - even if they were alerted to the Narn's arrival beforehand.

Oh yeah, the bad guys in Babylon 5 were great.

Sheridan - Dead ex-wife. Again, this isn't exactly the most creative of backstories, but it does give some added dimensions to Sheridan. It actually makes his seemingly upbeat demeanour more interesting, apparently hiding tragedy.

I hope it's not to spoilery to say that while this seems like a nice bit of backstory right now, it becomes very important later.

Londo - Getting in deeper and deeper with the creepy Morden. He had a great line this episode: "There, you see! One deserts his post without any explanation, the other one picks the most breathtakingly inconvenient moment possible to explore new career options, like becoming a butterfly!"

Londo gets some great lines throughout the whole show.

Delenn - I assume they're going for half-human, half-Minbari. On the face of it, she's simply grown some hair. Regardless, her explanation of "I did it so I can be a bridge between our worlds" sounds insufficient to me - I doubt that everyone involved is fully onboard with it. But it is an interesting angle.

I haven't watched it in a while, but I do believe there is a fair amount of stuff dealing with the aftermath of her transformation.

-I was so hoping that Kosh would say something, anything, about G'Kar's warnings. As ever, he mostly just stood by, watching, listening. Is it that the Vorlons are pretty unbothered by the emergence of this ancient enemy? Is it that they're simply unsurprised by the news, having already known for a while? Or something else?

I'm pretty sure those are exactly the kinds of questions you should be asking, and to answer them at this point would be giving away a bunch of huge spoilers.

 

[Forbin]

Isn't Keffer the actor who Doyle said was always unprepared and lazy and Doyle blew up at him one day, for making their normally-easy job a pain in the ass?

 

[Jan]

Isn't Keffer the actor who Doyle said was always unprepared and lazy and Doyle blew up at him one day, for making their normally-easy job a pain in the ass?

No, that was a guest star - Paul Winfield in GROPOS. That said, Larry DiTillio did mention in his introduction to that episode in the B5 script books that he'd tried to give Rusler a meaty part but the actor wasn't strong enough to handle it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

No, that was a guest star - Paul Winfield in GROPOS.

I'm not sure which is more WTF about that:

- Jerry Doyle blowing up at PAUL FREAKING WINFIELD
- Winfield himself being lazy, or unprepared for any role

(needless to say, if I've misinterpreted any of this, please correct me posthaste)

 

[Kraig]

Darmok at Babylon 5, unprepared. Garibaldi his sails unfurled.

 

[Farscape One]

Darmok at Babylon 5, unprepared. Garibaldi his sails unfurled.

LMAO!!! Love that.

Although, wasn't he Jalad to Picard's Darmok?

 

[diankra]

Jerry wasn't exactly a quiet restrained guy.

 

[publiusr]

JMS writes that Zathras speech pattern is based on the way Straczynski's paternal grandmother spoke. She emigrated to the US from Byelorussia in 1910 and never really had a good grasp of the English language.

Some things just sound...familiar.
I had the sense I heard this character before it was ever on screen. When a new stuffed bear called Teddy Ruxpin was marketed, I swore I heard that name before

 

[BlueStuff]

"The Geometry of Shadows"

An episode neatly split between good and not so good.

The good portion involved the Technomages and Londo, with the character of Elric demonstrating some real gravitas. It could've been very silly, but the actors really made it work. Hilarious to see Londo claim that recording Vir's speech was a dirty tactic while trying to bug Sheridan's office himself. The Technomages themselves were intriguing and creepily made things like holograms and computer viruses appear as products of faux magic.

The bad portion was the "Ivanova and the Drazi" subplot - I didn't care for the tone of this one. They seemed to be going for a "get a load of how stupid this alien culture is!" angle and remained set on a comedic tone even when deaths started occurring. Maybe it was supposed to be a comment on the inherently arbitrary nature of all tribal conflicts (indeed, one of the Drazi remarks that humans fight for the same silly reasons, like flags - to which Ivanova ludicrously replies "that's different! Our flags mean something!") but it was just too cheesy for me, though Christian did what she could.

Rating: ***

-Londo's apparent political machinations in this episode showed a darker side to him. It was also chilling to hear Elric talk about him in the way that he did. "My followers?" "Your victims." Assuming this is even close to right - and it would be very strange if turned out to mean nothing at all - it would be a sinister turn for a character (Londo) that mostly seemed mischievous, but highly charismatic.

 

[Kraig]

"The Geometry of Shadows"



-Londo's apparent political machinations in this episode showed a darker side to him. It was also chilling to hear Elric talk about him in the way that he did. "My followers?" "Your victims." Assuming this is even close to right - and it would be very strange if turned out to mean nothing at all - it would be a sinister turn for a character (Londo) that mostly seemed mischievous, but highly charismatic.

The introduction of Lord Refa is another important character. He will help push Londo further down the path that Mr. Morden started Londo on.

 

[DonIago]

If you ever finish the series and decide to find and read the novels, there's a Technomage trilogy in which book 2 recounts the events of the episode from Elric's perspective. It adds a layer that may or may not be to your liking.

 

[Forbin]

It's not so far fetched - watching the political news these days makes me yell PURPLE! NO, GREEN! at the TV.

Didn't Claudia actually break her foot during that melee with the Drazi? Or did she break it on her own time and they worked it in? It's been 20 years since I heard these behind the scenes stories, so I'm a bit fuzzy. And so is my memory.

 

[DonIago]

It's not so far fetched - watching the political news these days makes me yell PURPLE! NO, GREEN! at the TV.

Didn't Claudia actually break her foot during that melee with the Drazi? Or did she break it on her own time and they worked it in? It's been 20 years since I heard these behind the scenes stories, so I'm a bit fuzzy. And so is my memory.

My recollection is that she broke it during filming. I believe her reaction in the episode is real.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

My recollection is that she broke it during filming. I believe her reaction in the episode is real.

The break was scripted before Claudia Christian broke her foot. During the filming of the episode, she actually broke her foot at home while chasing a bird in her backyard. This was born the Straczynski curse, where if JMS wrote an accident then it happened IRL to the actors. Same with Jerry Doyle’s broken arm in “Severed Dreams,” which iirc was an actual on set accident.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Funny coincidence... the character of Trace in CRUSADE was created because TNT wanted a hotshot pilot, too.

What is it with networks wanting pilots? (Pun intended.)

I thought that the studio hated him and didn't want a lot of recurring characters, which was why he only had two appearances despite being intended to be a regular.

 

[David cgc]

The break was scripted before Claudia Christian broke her foot. During the filming of the episode, she actually broke her foot at home while chasing a bird in her backyard. This was born the Straczynski curse, where if JMS wrote an accident then it happened IRL to the actors. Same with Jerry Doyle’s broken arm in “Severed Dreams,” which iirc was an actual on set accident.

Ivanova wasn't injured in the script until Christian broke her foot. The jinx was that Ivanova had had a line like, "Talking to Drazi is about as productive as talking to my left foot," so it was JMS mentioning a body part in dialog that was bad luck. Originally, Garibaldi didn't have as big a role in the climax and Ivanova was going to take on the Drazi more single-handedly until her accident led to him getting some more of the narrative weight (which ended up dovetailing nicely with the "How Michael Got His Groove Back" subplot of him not feeling competent after being shot in the back by his top deputy).

In "Severed Dreams," Garibaldi was walking with a cane at the end of the episode, before he actually broke his arm in the fight scene (which was filmed later though it took place earlier in the episode), so he went from having hurt his leg to having hurt his arm at the beginning of the next episode with a line about Franklin insisting on a sling even though Garibaldi though his injury was minor enough not to need it to explain why he hadn't been wearing one before.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Thanks for the actual detail that my memory isn’t as sharp to remember off hand!

 

[Gov Kodos]

Rewatching Quatermas and the Pitt, the Martians follow a Drazi Purple/Green plan for society. The ritual cleansing of the hive which the Martian ship triggers is the same thing. Ethnic cleansing can be funny. What did the last Xon say before he died? 'Arrgh!'