Re-watching Babylon 5 (* SPOILERS *)

[Reverend]

Who is/are your favorite character(s)?
G'Kar. Londo, Zathras, G'Kar, Garibaldi, Londo, Bester, G'Kar, Galen, Londo, Lochley & G'Kar.

What is/are your favorite season(s) of the series?
Don't really have one. The whole series is a complete story in itself. 3 & 4 of course have most of the really exciting an memorable bits, but that's just down to the way things are structured.

What is/are your favorite episode(s) of the series?
Chrysalis
The Long, Twilight Struggle
Severed Dreams
Intersections in Real Time
Sleeping in Light

What are your favorite quotes from the series (one or two from each season)?
How about everything G'Kar & Zathras ever said? No? Seriously, There's way too many to narrow it down. Having said that the ones that stick in the mind include: Londo's "the humans knew they were doomed" speech from ItB, G'Kar's declaration of principles, "being nibbled to death by cats", G'Kar's post Narn bombardment speech, "a kind word and a 2X4...", Kosh as G'Kar's father, G'Kar's farewell to Ta'Lon & what Vir says he wants from Morden.

What is the one story arc or plot thread you would have liked to have had more information on?
Crusade

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Who is/are your favorite character(s)?

Jeffrey Sinclair because he seemed very atypical in comparison to the standard SF-TV hero, which Sheridan seemed to fall more in line with. And, of course, Londo and G'Kar because of all the characters on the show, they seemed to have the strongest motivations in terms of the overall arc of the show.

What is/are your favorite season(s) of the series?

A few years ago I would've said Season 3, aka "Point of No Return" or, as JMS originally wanted to call it, "I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds." Every trigger gets pulled and the show forever changed, which was very uncommon for an SF-TV series. In a lot of ways, it still is. (Yeah, I'm looking at you nuBSG for chickening out a lot.)

But as the years go on, I much prefer the first two seasons of the show because it had more depth into the lives of "the quarter of a million people trapped in two-million thousand tons of spinning metal, alone in the night." Granted the writing was very hit or miss in those seasons, but I liked that there were other writerly voices besides JMS in the stories even though my favorite episodes happen to be written by JMS.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: if BABYLON 5 was to return to television, I think it's the perfect backdrop for an ongoing anthology series with different writers fully exploring the lives of those who chose to make the station their home. That's what I had hopes THE LOST TALES would've been.

What is/are your favorite episode(s) of the series?

Season One:

"Midnight on the Firing Line"
"Believers"
"And the Sky Full of Stars"
"Babylon Squared" (I have fond memories of this episode, as I was in the San Diego Comic Con audience when JMS screened it before it had even aired. It's also the convention where JMS announced Michael O'Hare wouldn't be coming back for season two.)

Season Two:
"Soul Mates"
"The Coming of the Shadows"
"And Now For a Word"
"The Fall of Night"

Season Three:
"Passing Through Gesthsemane" (my all time favorite episode)
"War Without End, parts one and two"
"Z'ha'Dum"

Season Four:
"Atonement"
"Intersections in Real Time"
"The Deconstruction of Falling Stars"

Season Five:
"Day of the Dead"
"And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder"
"The Fall of Centauri Prime"

What are your favorite quotes from the series (one or two from each season)?

G'Kar: There are things in the Universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are vast, timeless, and if they are aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know. We've tried and we've learned that we can either stay out from underfoot or be stepped on. They are a mystery and I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the Universe, that we have not explained everything. Whatever they are, Miss Sakai, they walk near Sigma 957 and they must walk there alone.

G'Kar: G'Quon wrote: "There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of ctransition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always paved in pain."

General Susan Ivanova: Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have care for one another, because if we don't, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope — that there can always be new beginnings, even for people like us.


What is the one story arc or plot thread you would have liked to have had more information on?

CRUSADE.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Who is/are your favorite character(s)?
Delenn, Ivanova, G'Kar, and Londo, no particular order, though.

What is/are your favorite season(s) of the series?
I like them all fairly equally, but if I could watch only one I'd likely take the first season.

What is/are your favorite episode(s) of the series?
Really hard to say, I love them all. There are always some story lines or subplots that I could do with less of or without, of course. But, the way they pretty much all build toward the whole story, I find it hard to single any out.

What are your favorite quotes from the series (one or two from each season)?
G'Kar swearing in Sheridan
"You want to be president?"
"yes"
"Put your hand on the book and say, 'I do'."
'I do'
"Fine. Done. Let's eat."

What is the one story arc or plot thread you would have liked to have had more information on?
Sinclair building the Rangers, Londo and Timov, Prince Vintari and David.

 

[Candlelight]

People answering the last question with Crusade: I assumed the question was meant for any lose Babylon 5 threads, not the spinoff material.

 

[Jan]

Given that B5 touched on Earth's desire for organic technology and also made a point of the consequences of leftover Shadow tech, I think it's a valid thread to want more of. Saying Crusade is just shorter.

But I'd really have loved to see the adventures of Lyta and G'Kar that's been mentioned, too.

Jan

 

[Sindatur]

Given that B5 touched on Earth's desire for organic technology and also made a point of the consequences of leftover Shadow tech, I think it's a valid thread to want more of. Saying Crusade is just shorter.

But I'd really have loved to see the adventures of Lyta and G'Kar that's been mentioned, too.

Jan

Yea, Lyta and G'Kar's Aventures, I think would've made a Fantastic Animated Series (Animated to make it easier to show some really strange new stuff)

 

[DigificWriter]

Candlelight, I consider Crusade to be a valid answer because many - if not all - of the story threads and thematic ideas that JMS used in that series were actually set up by and during the events of Season 5.

I want to thank everybody for their answers to the questions thus far, although I do have to confess that I was hoping people'd give specific answers to the quotes question because I'm in the process of trying to map out the outline for the opening credits for the B5 reboot I'm retooling, and wanted to use the Babylon 5 S5 opening as my template, and was hoping I could get a sense of which quotes people think are important enough to 'recycle'/carry over to the reboot either in whole or in part and that would make for a good opening.

 

[Reverend]

^You want specific quotes? Here are a few memorable ones.

Given that B5 touched on Earth's desire for organic technology and also made a point of the consequences of leftover Shadow tech, I think it's a valid thread to want more of. Saying Crusade is just shorter.

But I'd really have loved to see the adventures of Lyta and G'Kar that's been mentioned, too.

Jan

Yea, Lyta and G'Kar's Aventures, I think would've made a Fantastic Animated Series (Animated to make it easier to show some really strange new stuff)

Well at least we got one short story out of it, which is better than nothing. I remember a few years back there was mention of a possible B5 graphic novel in the works and at the time I thought it would be a neat idea if with each issue, they included a little one or two page strip featuring a G'Kar and Lyta adventure. Alas that rumour came to nothing.

As for the dangling plot threads, I agree with Jan. When I say 'Crusade', it's just short-hand for that whole IPX/EF New Technologies/Bio-weapons Div/Department Sigma subplot. It was one of those things that wasn't exactly central to B5's overarching plot, but it still permeated some very important events. I just found it very compelling. A few years ago when I was editing the B5 wiki, I tried adding the events at Syria Planum to the timeline and quickly realised that there was significantly more material than I thought and ended up writing a dedicated article just for that one incident!

It's a bit of a plot nexus since so many important characters were involved both directly and indirectly and the consequences would be felt right though the show's five seasons and on into Crusade. It's like that gunner in the first Star Wars movie. If it weren't for Syria Planum, a *lot* of events would have played out very differently.

For starters it forged the lasting friendship between Garibaldi & Sinclair. Had their shuttle not gone down, Garibaldi would probably never have climbed back out of the bottle and all his contributions to history (upto and including the great burn) would not have happened.

Since the Icarus mission was a follow up to the dig, Anna Sheidan & Dr. Morden would never have gone to Z'ha'Dum, which means Sheridan would probably never have gone, "died", met Lorien etc. Londo might never have been tapped by the Shadows (remember Morden told *them* he was perfect for their needs. A different thrawl in his place might not have held the same opinion.) So, while Narn might still have fallen, Reefa would probably have ended up on the throne.

Indeed without Morden, the Shadows may not have gotten their hooks into EarthGov so soon, if at all. That would mean no Santiago assassination, no Clark, no martial law (no Ganymede incident!) no Nightwatch, no independent B5 and so no Interstellar Alliance. The Shadows certainly wouldn't have been awakened so early which means the entire Shadow War wouldn't have played out the same. If so there's a good chance that Sinclair might not become Valen and we're into paradox territory.

Also, at the time of the incident, Bester was sent away to Beta colony specifically to keep him away from what was going on on Mars. What did he do on Beta colony? He was tracking a killer of telepaths with the aid of a young MetaPol intern by the name of Lyta Alexander.

Had he not have been there, Lyta may not have been frightened away from the Psicops, may never have transferred over to commercial work and thus would not have been assigned to B5. So she wouldn't have scanned Kosh, would not have gone rogue & exposed Control (which may or may not have been Talia since she was at Syria Planum too.) She would not have been supercharged by the Vorlons, probably wouldn't have met Byron or been the driving force behind the revolution, nor would she have been able to get secret financial backing from Edgars Industries because Garibaldi is still back on Mars, drunk off his arse or lying dead in a gutter. So the telepath war would have played out *very* differently, or not at all since Bester wouldn't have had Garibaldi to uncover Edgars's telepath virus plot.

And that was just off the top of my head. I'm sure we can think of more consequences if we put our minds to it.