Rewatching Babylon 5- So is it really any good?

[brianbeercan]

Just finished a rewatch of The Wire a few days ago, so now seems like a good time to rewatch Babylon 5! This is going to be my fourth time watching all the way through since I discovered it about four years ago.

Midnight on the Firing Line

Plot:

Overall, I think it was a good second introduction to the series. The Londo / G'Kar story showcased two of the show's most interesting characters and was a nice example of the diplomatic type of story Babylon 5 does often.

The raider story, however, didn't seem to add anything to the plot except some more screen time for Garibaldi and a few action CGI scenes - but then at the end, stopping the raiders provided a deux ex machina to tie up the A story. That whole revelation came out of nowhere. It seems to me that leaving Ragesh III under Narn control would have been a more effective ending.

Characters:

Ivonova makes a stronger first appearance here than I remembered. She doesn't come across as likable at all, but that's okay.
Andrea Thompson's acting wasn't that bad. Definitely not great, though.
I love how G'Kar starts off as the bad guy.

Things I noticed:

Vir sitting with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds

Rating:

 

[Jan]

Soul Hunter
Filmed 2nd, aired 2nd

I'm already a little tired of the lens flare. I guess it was very state-of-the-art at the time but they really overused it. The effects for the soul globes worked really well, though. In the script books, JMS published a memo written after a meeting about what he wanted for them titled "YOU WANT US TO DO WHAT?" In the end, I think they gave him more than he asked for.

I liked that they took the time to show Sinclair matching his Starfurie's attitude to be able to catch the damaged Soul Hunter Ship.

It was cool to see n'grath again. I can see where he (?) might have been a technical nightmare to use but I liked seeing a truly non-humanoid character and missed him when he faded away.

It was nice seeing the happy-go-lucky Franklin as he arrived on the Station. Jarring to see the burial scene that's so prominent in the memorial reel for Rick Biggs.

This episode was light on regular characters with only Sinclair, Delenn and Garibaldi. It was heavy on stunts and CGI and had two guest characters. After reading JMS' posts and the script books, one notices these things, even when what I'm watching isn't B5. Not sure it's useful, but it has boosted my appreciation of what goes into making a show and how budgets are used.

Joe Cuts: In an early draft of the script, an Auditor comes to the station and wreaks red-tape havoc.

Jan

 

[Triple-F]

I liked that they took the time to show Sinclair matching his Starfurie's attitude to be able to catch the damaged Soul Hunter Ship.

Yeah, they never did really take the time to do another shot like that.

With the Soul Hunter example, I was really pleased with the whole grapple scene in the episode. Joe’s original idea was to give B5 tractor beams. I wanted to try something more interesting that hadn’t been seen before. It was also a good opportunity to help me solidify to Joe and John how we could make the real physics exciting and make the pilots of the Starfuries seem like Top Guns. But not like Star Wars, as we could have our own distinctive and very different look.

The effects for the soul globes worked really well, though. In the script books, JMS published a memo written after a meeting about what he wanted for them titled "YOU WANT US TO DO WHAT?" In the end, I think they gave him more than he asked for.

Back at the start there was apparently a lot of practical effects called for that ended up being done digitially to show the potential of the software. The cross fade effect (think B/W werewolf movie) being replaced by a digital morphing effect for the changling in the pilot was a big one.

Originally they were to be built as physical props and practical FX was going to rig them with integral lights and wire a bunch of them so they could be filmed floating in front of the Soul Hunter. Ron suggested to John Copeland that we could do the shot digitally. So we got the one and only (I think) sample sphere back to the shop in Valencia and created the model using Lightwave in less than half an hour (it was a sphere so not exactly difficult). When we got the plate (the filmed footage) we comped the whole thing together in Lightwave - we couldn’t afford a Harry and didn’t have a copy of After FX at the time. Ran the final shot onto Abekas Exabyte and sent it over to the post group for inclusion in the show.

This episode was light on regular characters with only Sinclair, Delenn and Garibaldi. It was heavy on stunts and CGI and had two guest characters.

I always liked Morgan Sheppard.

Some of the greatest English character actors appeared on the show and had tons of great stories. My favorite was William Morgan Sheppard as the Soul Hunter. While he was reading the script I asked him what he thought about it and he said “My boy it takes an English actor to make bad dialogue sound good." I never told J.M.S that, but it was pretty funny and very true about most American television.

I'm already a little tired of the lens flare. I guess it was very state-of-the-art at the time but they really overused it.

I got to admit that never bothered me. But it seems it was pretty new, around the time of the demo/pilot.

Lens flares are a case in point. John Knowles had just added them as a plugin for Photoshop, he got the algorithm from the Siggraph notes. Why he thought lens flares in a paint package was a good idea god only knows. Every cameraman spends his life trying to avoid them but a well placed one really adds a sense of depth to a shot as the flare traverses across the screen. Anyway, Ronny told Alan H that we wanted them. Alan asked for examples and I rendered the flares out of Photoshop onto black backgrounds and BBS'ed them over to him. Two days later we had fully realistic multi element (there's a flare caused by every surface) variable aperture (flares are shaped differently depending on the ‘cameras’ aperture) lens flares in Lightwave. It's first use was in the Demo that Ronny took to WB.

One thing though. Does it mention anywhere in any of the script books, etc. what happened to the moon orbiting Epsilon 3. I think you still saw the thing in an establsihing shot from Soul Hunter (a left over from the pilot). Then one day it was gone. Just wondering if it was a potential story idea/plot thing or just a purely asthetic thing.

Sorry for the above quotes. I’m sitting here waiting for a phone call and got bored.

 

[David cgc]

One thing though. Does it mention anywhere in any of the script books, etc. what happened to the moon orbiting Epsilon 3. I think you still saw the thing in an establsihing shot from Soul Hunter (a left over from the pilot). Then one day it was gone. Just wondering if it was a potential story idea/plot thing or just a purely asthetic thing.

I think it was aesthetics. It was in the original cut of "The Gathering," (and the occasional CG shot from it reused in the series), but I think all the shots with it were edited out in the special edition. We're probably supposed to pretend it was never there, along with the different pilot-era make and uniforms, and the gorilla bartenders, and the cobra bays not actually having doors since they were just detailing at that point and hadn't been given a function.

The "Babylon 5 Security Manual" mentions at one point that Epsilon 3 used to have a moon, but the explanation of what happened to it was redacted. That book was full of the insidiest of inside-jokes.

 

[Triple-F]

Cheers. I suspect it probably was just a purely aesthetic thing. Though I wonder why it was dropped.

Did you know there’s a guy online that has the whole content of the security manual on display.

http://www.starbase79.com/images/Babylon/Page%204-5.htm


Still haven’t read it though. And he has the bare face balls to slap copyright notices on the stuff he sells as well.

 

[sidious618]

I'm going to watch Soul Hunter tonight and maybe Born to the Purple as well. I'll try to get a review up tonight as well. I'm going to try to take a slightly different tact with each review so it's not just "I liked this... I didn't like this..." again and again. Not sure how I'll do it but we'll see what happens.

Edit: This is weird. Hulu tells me Soul Hunter is not playable for me yet the next two episodes are. So I guess I'll be reviewing Born to the Purple first. Sorry about having to skip Soul Hunter. I was looking forward to it as I'd read a blurb of it and while I know it's far from a fan favorite it had some interesting ideas in it that would've led to discussion. Oh, well.

 

[sidious618]

Born to the Purple

This is a tough episode to grade. Let's start with something that has often bothered me about television that is made up of stand alone stories. In such television shows it is difficult to have actual characters because by necessity nothing that happens to them can change them all that much as there needs to be a reset button. That's why most romances in such shows never work as developing and then ending one within 42 minutes is rather ridiculous. Take Born to the Purple as an example. Londo is obsessed with Adira after one night and acts as if he is 100% in love with her. Now this could just be Londo's character; he's lonely and is grabbing on to the first woman he can who makes him feel anything at all. However, the episode never really makes that clear and we're left wondering why Londo is so gaga (oh la la) so fast.

A romance that plays out over a number of episodes has a better chance of working which is why I prefer some form of serialization in the shows I watch. Obviously B5 is going to be going down that route but this episode but we're not there yet.

This is a long way of saying that the Londo-Adira scenes are rather painful to watch for much of the episode but I thought it best to explain why that is. Certainly it doesn't help that Adira is a rather poorly developed character all around.

Now let's talk about Trakis, the slave owner. There's no reason his character shouldn't be human. He talks like a human, acts like one and his overall physicality is that of a human. His alien makeup is unconvincing to say the least and the show would've been wiser to make him human as opposed to a nameless alien who likes to ham it up. This is a common problem in sci-fi shows and I imagine we'll see it again in B5.

But let's talk about some things that worked well. Vir playing a video game while waiting for Londo was funny but what really topped it off was that in the next scene G'kar and his aide were playing it. Listen, it ain't sophisticated humor but I sure laughed.

I also enjoyed seeing Sinclair work with Londo. Sinclair is a unique main character as he's rather passive and soft spoken in most situations and I liked seeing him developed a little in this episode while still keeping his core traits. So far Michael O'Hare has convinced me on the character and I have had no problems with his acting like others have.

While all the hanky panky with Adira and Londo is going down we have Ivanova breaking regulations to talk to her dad. Claudia Christian does a good job showing Ivanova's loss but it's not the most engaging plot until the end scene with Ivanova and Garibaldi. I liked how Garibaldi felt for her but was also a little annoyed that she didn't tell him what she was up to; if she had I doubt he would've cared.

Grade: A solid C.

 

[Starkers]

I got the feeling Londa had been seeing Adira for a while at least, rather than having just met her?

 

[Gov Kodos]

Also, I think she reminds him of his first wife, the dancer that the family forced him to divorce.

 

[Forbin]

Much as I was also unimpressed with Andrea Thompson (and am a huge Pat Tallman fan), her presence was almost worth it for Jerry Doyle's story about the day they arrived in the same car at a studio gate, and got in by claiming to be Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd.

 

[Starkers]

Ha that's brilliant!

 

[Reverend]

Now let's talk about Trakis, the slave owner. There's no reason his character shouldn't be human. He talks like a human, acts like one and his overall physicality is that of a human. His alien makeup is unconvincing to say the least and the show would've been wiser to make him human as opposed to a nameless alien who likes to ham it up. This is a common problem in sci-fi shows and I imagine we'll see it again in B5.

IIRC Trakis's race was at one stage intended to appear again at some point. The basic gist was that his people were one of those conquered by the Centauri and, unlike the Narns were successfully assimilated into the Republic. Hence his owning a Centauri as a slave (counter-intuitive though that may sound.)

Oh and Triple-F: a bit of random trivia for the whole Epsilon III/moon thing - I recall reading *very* early posts by JMS that indicate B5 was orbiting, or sitting smack in between two planets named 'Tigris' and 'Euphrates' (for reasons obvious to anyone who knows a little about ancient Mesopotamia.) I tend to agree the reason for ditching that idea was probably aesthetic but the concept does still exist through fleeting mentions of the nearby (or neighbouring) Tigris and Euphrates Sectors.

 

[Transk53]

Running through S2 again. Think I am on the third complete run through all five. I bought them all in May and the CGI still looked well cool. Although I imagined some extra post and remastering was done.

If only politics had not got in the way with the studio execs and it could have ended without JMS having to condense the story arc. Robin Atkin Downes just made want to shove a Nuke down his throat. And the Willow Tree... Other than that it is still great today. I hope Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs are still causing merry hell beyond the rim.

 

[OmahaStar]

I hope Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs are still causing merry hell beyond the rim.

Along with all the others who have passed beyond the Rim.

 

[swaaye]

If you guys like B5, don't miss Jeremiah. That's another JMS production and is really rather similar in a lot of ways.

I also wish Crusade had at least had a semblance of a chance because it had potential.

 

[Lindley]

Too similar at times. Some of the monologues could have been lifted wholesale from B5. But yes, Jeremiah is worth seeing.

"God says....duck."

 

[Transk53]

I hope Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs are still causing merry hell beyond the rim.

Along with all the others who have passed beyond the Rim.

Point taken. I forgot about Jeff.

 

[Reverend]

I hope Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs are still causing merry hell beyond the rim.

Along with all the others who have passed beyond the Rim.

Bloody hell, there's quite a lot of relatively young people on that list.

Too similar at times. Some of the monologues could have been lifted wholesale from B5. But yes, Jeremiah is worth seeing.

"God says....duck."

Agreed, but I wouldn't tell anyone to expect anywhere near the same level of quality as B5. When I first watched it I very nearly gave up on it...twice. JMS's involvement was the only thing that kept me watching and while by the end it was indeed worth the effort and patience...I don't think I'll ever bother re-watching it.

 

[sidious618]

If you guys like B5, don't miss Jeremiah. That's another JMS production and is really rather similar in a lot of ways.

I also wish Crusade had at least had a semblance of a chance because it had potential.

I plan to do Crusade during this coverage, too. Don't think I'll be doing Jeremiah though as I don't have any of those DVDs.

 

[Sindatur]

Wow, I had no idea Dhagair (Lois NEttleton) was already 67 when she played the part. She looked great her age.