Niners Unite...around Babylon 5! - The Continuing Arc

[Mal]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Jan said:

Mal said:
some of the stuff is just plain stupid. like when delenn takes sheridan into the gray-council-ish room, and he wants to know how the hell he'll be able to monitor the situation and give orders - she tells him to just wait and see WTF! on the eve of their biggest battle so far, don'cha think he might want to get used to the controls, and comfortable with the monitors.

Maybe. On the other hand he didn't hesitate to take control of the White Star without knowing many of the specs. He relied on Delenn or Lennier or Marcus to take care of the technical details and learned on the fly as he needed something.

exactly! when he got on the White Star, he said that he could spend a week taking the thing apart - but there wasn't time cause the rangers needed his help now. here, OTOH, he had all that time while waiting for ivanova to send the signal.

but i guess delenn had better things for them to do in the dark

Neroon said:
Me thinks you're trying a little too hard to show a contrary opinion here.

i am now watching this show for the 6th time through - more times than i've seen any other show ever - and there are episodes that i still find amazing beyond belief. indeed, a lot of it continues to get better and better with each view. but i've never liked this episode (especially the franklin part) and i guess i still don't.


just because we don't agree on this one episode; that's no excuse for such a (boneheaded) comment.

 

[Neroon]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

I know we don't agree on this, but I still think you're missing the point of that portion of the episode.

Here... I'll buy you a brevari! Decaffeinated water for me.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Neroon said:

PKTrekGirl said:
I'd like to meet more B5 actors...and I'm embarassed to say that I really have no excuse, because I live in Atlanta...and have never been to Dragon*Con.

I just don't have anyone to go with, and I hate going to stuff like that alone.

Well, I am tentatively planning to go back to Dragon Con in 2008, so put it on your calendar right now. No, not tomorrow... I said put it on the calendar now! You can hang with me and Sakrysta for the weekend.

As far as B5 guest for this year, Claudia Christian is at Dragon Con this year, btw. The guest list is evolving so more could be added in the coming weeks - Link

That is an interesting list. I'd like to meet Claudia Christian. I bet she'd be pretty funny. Good list from Stargate SG-1 (I'd LOVE to meet Michael Shanks since Daniel Jackson has always been my favorite character on that show) and BSG (Katee AND Jamie - two of my four favorite characters!)

Too bad you are not coming this year...but I would love to hang with you guys in 2008. And don't worry, I'll be here (unless IBM transfers me to Tokyo or Brussels or something )...and I'd love to go - ANY year you are able to come! I even have a big 'ole house and can put you and your wife up (and a kid or two also, for that matter) if you like. I know most folks like to stay down at the con site so there is absolutely no obligation...but just so you know, the door is always open.

I have always wanted to go to Dragon*Con...but I'm not the huge-crowd-all-by-myself type at all.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Mal said:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz boring!

franklin meets himself and doesn't like what he sees. that makes two of us.

some of the stuff is just plain stupid. like when delenn takes sheridan into the gray-council-ish room, and he wants to know how the hell he'll be able to monitor the situation and give orders - she tells him to just wait and see WTF! on the eve of their biggest battle so far, don'cha think he might want to get used to the controls, and comfortable with the monitors.

Well, I'm not sure there is all that much to learn in this particular instance. After all, he's not flying anything here so there are no controls - he's simply directing a battle strategy in 3-D - WITH Delenn's help even! All he's doing is directing strategy...which is actually LESS than what he would be doing if he was in the captain's chair on the White Star, because in that position, he would be directing the battle AND commanding the White Star itself.

As for the directing of the forces...he's done that many times while flying a Star Fury, right? Seems to me it would be pretty much the same because being in a Star Fury is pretty much the same as being 3-D in the middle of a battle with nothing around you.

And besides...Sheridan is a seasoned commander. He's directed battles from all sorts of Earth Force ships as well as from the White Star and Babylon 5 itself. It's not like he's never directed a battle before...or even directed it from only ONE kind of ship. He's directed from many different kinds - this is just one more. And in this case, as I said, he doesn't even have to worry about flying the ship he is actually ON! Bonus!

The man isn't the only one to come out of a battle with the Minbari *victorious* because he's slow on his feet.


Now...as for Franklin, I think this is the critical moment for him - this is the place he's been driving toward since he started popping stims. Yes, he didn't like what he saw - presumably none of us would, in his position. But it was in that moment that he really realized what he had become...and what his first steps back should be. Step One being "live to tell about it."

I suppose to each his own - certainly we don't have to agree on everything (thank goodness, or this would be a very boring conversation). But I guess I don't see the same problems as you do with this episode. I don't think Sheridan directing the battle is a problem...and liking/disliking the Franklin storyline is really a matter of personal preference more than specific, clearly defined issues with the acting or script.

 

[Harvey]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

^^
I'm curious, PKTrekGirl, as to how you felt about Franklin's story in the episode "Walkabout?" That, to me, is where his story doesn't work. He's just not affected by stims in a believable way, and has his typical woman of the episode affair. JMS even backpedals on this later in the episode where Ivanova goes searching for Franklin and we find out stims have a "delayed withdrawl time." I think Franklin's addiction and walkabout after works in season three, and is probably the character's finest moment outside of "GROPOS" and his season five departure. It's just that the episode "Walkabout" itself doesn't work for me. What do you think?

 

[Harvey]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

"Racing Mars"

As much as I disliked the handling of the Shadow War in season four, I love the way the Earth-Babylon 5-Mars conflict is handled. This episode has Captain Jack (a great one off) and the introduction of the Keeper (well, a scientific explanation of it, at least). Sheridan and Gariabldi's split finally reaches critical mass, and Garibaldi joins forces with Edgars (or who he will soon find out is Edgars). Delenn and John spend the night together, which brings me to my second favorite line from the episode. And, finally, number one is introduced, a great new character with (for once) a great performance from a guest actor. The guy playing number two is pretty over the top, but I don't care that much. Oh, and Marcus and Franklin as a married couple--brilliant.

"He's not the pope, he doesn't look anything like her!"

"Woo-hoo?"

Grade: A

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Hirogen Alpha said:
^^
I'm curious, PKTrekGirl, as to how you felt about Franklin's story in the episode "Walkabout?" That, to me, is where his story doesn't work. He's just not affected by stims in a believable way, and has his typical woman of the episode affair. JMS even backpedals on this later in the episode where Ivanova goes searching for Franklin and we find out stims have a "delayed withdrawl time." I think Franklin's addiction and walkabout after works in season three, and is probably the character's finest moment outside of "GROPOS" and his season five departure. It's just that the episode "Walkabout" itself doesn't work for me. What do you think?

In short, I agree with you. His behavior in Walkabout is not particularly believable given that even a short withdrawal time caused him to go ballistic in Medlab on other occasions.

Really, Shadow Dancing is the real 'walkabout' episode, as far as I'm concerned. This is where he does what he set out to do. In contrast, the actual episode Walkabout is just another one of those Frankin-meets-really-hot-girl-with-problems episodes. And to make matters worse, no followup is ever DONE on said really hot girl. If she was indeed dying and made the decision to stay on the station and sing, why didn't we see her later? It would have given us some real meat for Franklin to work with - sort of like Londo and Adira.

Instead, she's a one-off that never really goes anywhere. IMO possibly one of the bigger Franklin-related missed opportunities.

I really love the concept of the walkabout. And I like how it was executed in Shadow Dancing...but while the actual episode Walkabout was mildly entertaining (she WAS a good singer, after all!), IMO it ended up being sort of a throw-away that didn't need to be a throw-away.

Just my 2 cents.

EDIT:

And by the way, speaking of GROPOS - I find Shadow Dancing to be a very nice 'bookend' for the events of GROPOS. In GROPOS, you have Franklin accusing his father of becoming 'just the job'.

Come to find out in Shadow Dancing, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

Well done!

 

[Harvey]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

^^
Speaking of GROPOS, do we ever hear what happened to Franklin's dad, perhaps if not in the series, then in the books? It's a shame that character didn't return, especially during the end of the Earth Civil War (considering how pro-Earth he was in GROPOS). I guess, that since Richard Biggs and Paul Winfield have both passed on, we won't get to see either character in action again.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Jan said:

Mira Furlan - reserved but opens up in time. Nice lady.
Bruce Boxleitner - very nice man who cares about people.
Peter Jurasik - *lovely* man.
Pat Tallman - sweet and generous
Jerry Doyle - not my favorite at all
Walter Koenig - very reserved

Most of the rest I've seen at cons but never got much of an impression of what they're really like.

Thanks for the rundown here. Actually, it's pretty close to what I would expect about Mira. And I'm glad to know Bruce Boxleitner is a nice guy IRL. I'm curious though...what specific incidents leave you with a strong enough impression that he 'cares alot about people' to actually put that down? I'm very pleased that you wrote this...but I'm curious as to what specific incident(s) spurred you on to write it.

And of course...you have to know I'd be curious as to why you are not overly fond of Jerry Doyle. I've heard a couple of things about him that lead me to believe he'd probably not be my favorite either. But I'm really curious as to why you said this, if you would be so kind.

Now you have me curious - about both your comment around Bruce...and the one about Jerry.

And I fully agree with you about Peter Jurasik. Of all the scifi actors I've ever met, he and Avery Brooks would be the two that I would be most interested in spending more time with. I was very fortunate because I was at a pretty small convention in Florida when I met Peter...and Leonard Nimoy was there also...so after the talks, everyone rushed over to Leonard Nimoy...leaving me practically by myself getting to talk to Peter.

And in short, it was great. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and he signed a very nice autograph for me.

 

[Jan]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

PKTrekGirl said:
In short, I agree with you. His behavior in Walkabout is not particularly believable given that even a short withdrawal time caused him to go ballistic in Medlab on other occasions.

I don't think it was withdrawal that caused him to go ballistic, it was simply the erratic behavior brought on by the addiction. That's a symptom of addiction to many (most?) drugs, especially stimulants.

Really, Shadow Dancing is the real 'walkabout' episode, as far as I'm concerned. This is where he does what he set out to do. In contrast, the actual episode Walkabout is just another one of those Frankin-meets-really-hot-girl-with-problems episodes. And to make matters worse, no followup is ever DONE on said really hot girl. If she was indeed dying and made the decision to stay on the station and sing, why didn't we see her later?

Well, we *did* see the report of her death when Marcus was going through Stephen's files looking for the alien healing machine. As for his never seeing her again, I never assumed that he didn't, just that we didn't see it because it wouldn't have helped move the story along at all.

One aspect of Franklin's personality that never seemed stressed was that he *was* the love-em-and-leave-em type (IMO, but I think I also read something from JMS that gave me that impression). Not out of cruelty, simply that, except when his work was concerned, he didn't have many attachments. See how casually he handed things over to Dr. Hobbs and then said goodbye to Sheridan when he was leaving for his new job on Earth, as an example. The first clue was his hitchiking for passage on starships.

Jan

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Jan said:

PKTrekGirl said:
In short, I agree with you. His behavior in Walkabout is not particularly believable given that even a short withdrawal time caused him to go ballistic in Medlab on other occasions.

I don't think it was withdrawal that caused him to go ballistic, it was simply the erratic behavior brought on by the addiction. That's a symptom of addiction to many (most?) drugs, especially stimulants.

Umm...I don't know. I was thinking of the incident right after Garibaldi confronted him the first time. He told Garibaldi that he could quit any time...but then he nearly went over the edge when he tried to stop.

I wasn't speaking of the huge blow-up that occurred right before he quit his post to go on walkabout. That incident had to do with the addiction itself - not withdrawal - because it had progressed to critical mass.

But earlier, when he tried to quit taking the stims because he 'could quit anytime'...he did have his moments, IIRC.

Well, we *did* see the report of her death when Marcus was going through Stephen's files looking for the alien healing machine. As for his never seeing her again, I never assumed that he didn't, just that we didn't see it because it wouldn't have helped move the story along at all.

Well, but my point was - why bring her into the story at all? My issue is not that they didn't do anything with her again. My issue, which is slightly different, is why they brought her into the story in the first place - particularly at that critical juncture in the Franklin character...if they had no intention of using that relationship to further the story.

(By the way...if we were talking about Trek writers here, I would have no issue about them bringing in throwaway characters at key junctures. Trek writers did all sorts of silly writing...and in the grand scheme of things, something like that is WAY low on the scale when stacked up against some of the more heinous offenses committed by Trek writers. But we are talking JMS here....and I hold him to a higher standard. )

That's why I don't think Walkabout worked that well. It was sort of a waste (albeit a mildly entertaining waste)....and Shadow Dancing, for me, is the REAL walkabout episode.

And further, we don't know that it wouldn't have helped the story along to bring her back.

The reason I specifically used Adira in my example was because the first time she wandered into the show, it looked like *her* destiny was gonna be that of a throwaway character very similar to the girl in Walkabout. And yet, the charcter of Adira was used to great advantage later...and was a very high source of motivation for the character of Londo on a couple of key occasions.

 

[Jan]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

PKTrekGirl said:
Well, but my point was - why bring her into the story at all? My issue is not that they didn't do anything with her again. My issue, which is slightly different, is why they brought her into the story in the first place - particularly at that critical juncture in the Franklin character...if they had no intention of using that relationship to further the story.

Ah, gotcha. For that, let's turn to the Script Books, Volume 7 to be precise:

Like many episodes this season, I wanted the story to turn on incidents
of the heart more than incidents of plot. In retrospect, I think that what I was
doing was trying to balance out the complexity of the overall story arc by going
in the other direction with our B-stories. If the main arc was complex, then
the smaller stories had to be very simple, and very character-oriented,
otherwise you’re looking at small plots orbiting inside big plots and over the
long haul, I think it would have been confusing. Besides, the B5 story was
always supposed to be about how these major stories, war and peace and all
the bits in-between, affect our characters on a personal, fundamental level. So
“Walkabout” provided the opportunity to drop anchor deep inside Dr.
Franklin’s personality as he tries to rediscover his own identity.

(By the way...if we were talking about Trek writers here, I would have no issue about them bringing in throwaway characters at key junctures. Trek writers did all sorts of silly writing...and in the grand scheme of things, something like that is WAY low on the scale when stacked up against some of the more heinous offenses committed by Trek writers. But we are talking JMS here....and I hold him to a higher standard. )

Nat'cher'ly. And that's why I quoted the script book. And having looked that up, next time I'm watching Season 3, I'll be on the lookout for those "incidents of the heart".

The reason I specifically used Adira in my example was because the first time she wandered into the show, it looked like *her* destiny was gonna be that of a throwaway character very similar to the girl in Walkabout. And yet, the charcter of Adira was used to great advantage later...and was a very high source of motivation for the character of Londo on a couple of key occasions.

She was indeed. But Londo actually had a relationship going with Adira and was in love. All we saw of Caitlyn was basically a one night stand which promptly turned into a Doctor/Patient relationship (as far as we know). He had more of a relationship with Mariah (from "The Long Dark") than with Caitlyn and that didn't go anywhere either. I just don't think that every date has to be meaningful to the future of the character even if it's meaningful to their present. Sorta like with real people.

Jan

 

[Harvey]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

"Lines of Communication"

Another very good episode in the continuing story of the Earth Civil War of 2260-2261. Franklin, Marcus, and Number One are great on Mars--every scene there is a joy to watch as relationships (Marcus and Franklin, Franklin and Number One) develop and the plot (Sheridan will free Mars) develops.

Back on the station, Sheridan has a late-night revelation as to how to defeat ISN's propaganda machine (much to the behest of a tired and cranky Ivanova).

And, Delenn leads the White Star fleet against a group of mysterious raiders. These, of course, turn out to be the Drakh. This is the only part of the episode that doesn't completely work for me (Forell is a needless character for the most part, and since he's never appeared before AFAIK, I don't really care when he dies). And there's just a little cheese when the Drakh mothership is destroyed. Just a little--it's still a satisfying moment.

Grade: A-

 

[MyCylon]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

^Actually, I found the scenes with Forell and the Drakh had some involuntary humor to them. Here you've got Forell telling Delenn he's found this amazing and really, REALLY trustworthy ally. Right next to him is this billowing alien who looks ANYTHING BUT trustworthy

 

[Jan]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

^^ I love the way Delenn tells Lennier to "End this." That lady could be positively lethal when she wanted to be.

Jan

 

[Neroon]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

I don't know. To me the "End this" line seemed more like an attempt to recreate the magic from "Severed Dreams" with "If you value your lives... be somewhere else".

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Neroon said:
I don't know. To me the "End this" line seemed more like an attempt to recreate the magic from "Severed Dreams" with "If you value your lives... be somewhere else".

My favorite moment in all of Babylon 5 is from the moment Delenn comes barreling out of that jump point until the end of this line when the Earthforce ships start backing away.

What a moment. I don't think I've ever made it through Severed Dreams without rewinding that scene at least twice.

I know it's completely unrelated to the current discussion...but I ALSO can't roll past even the slightest reference to that sequence of events without gushing over them.

I feel much better now.

Carry on.

 

[Harvey]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

^^
I definitely got the vibe of "Severed Dreams" 2.0 from the line. In a good way, kind of sort of.

And, my, those Drakh DID look anything but friendly. There is a bit of unintentional humor there. I think they actually looked more friendly when they revised the make-up later (and got rid of the bizarre shimmer effect they used to hide the dodgy make-up in the first place).

 

[Jan]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Neroon said:
I don't know. To me the "End this" line seemed more like an attempt to recreate the magic from "Severed Dreams" with "If you value your lives... be somewhere else".

I agree there's an echo of the Severed Dreams scene but I also harken back to her reminding Sheridan that he should remember (paraphrasing) 'who she is, what she was and what she can do' when he got overprotective. Yes, Delenn was peaceful by nature but *don't* get her angry. You wouldn't like her when she gets angry.

Jan

 

[Neroon]

Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin

Oh I understand that and think it works... but only up to a point. To me there is a little too much of an echo.