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Your opinion of the non-JMS-written Babylon 5 episodes

Candlelight

Candlelight

Admiral
Admiral
Which include:

Babylon 5

103 Born to the Purple by Larry DiTillio
107 The War Prayer by D. C. Fontana
109 Deathwalker by Larry DiTillio
110 Believers by David Gerrold
111 Survivors by Mark Scott Zicree
112 By Any Means Necessary by Kathryn Drennan
114 TKO by Larry DiTillio
115 Grail by Christy Marx
116 Eyes by Larry DiTillio
117 Legacies by D. C. Fontana

204 A Distant Star by D. C. Fontana
205 The Long Dark by Scott Frost
206 Spider in the Web by Larry DiTillio
207 Soul Mates by Peter David
210 GROPOS by Larry DiTillio
214 There All the Honor Lies by Peter David
217 Knives by Larry DiTillio

508 Day of the Dead by Neil Gaiman

Crusade

103 The Well of Forever by Fiona Avery
105 Patterns of the Soul by Fiona Avery
106 Ruling From the Tomb by Peter David

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Of the season one eps, only Deathwalker and Grail stood out for me, two eps which I know fans don't really think much of. It wasn't really for the stand alone story but for the arc links (Kosh's actions at the end of Deathwalker and Jinxo's backstory in Grail about the first four Babylon stations, and thus foreshadowing what was to come in Babylon Squared).

In season two, I only really found A Distant Star grabbed me, despite the hammy acting by the ship's captain.

And for Crusade, only Patterns of the Souls really did anything for me. Ruling from the Tomb and the Excalibur's only visit to Babylon 5 in the series was unfortunately forgettable; I had to google it to remember what the episode was about.
 
Most of the episodes not written by Straczynski on Babylon 5 are entirely forgettable. They don't contribute much to the arc, save for a few scenes, many of which (like Kosh in Deathwalker) were actually written by Straczynski himself. As far as I recall, anyway. I defer to Jan for the final word on such things.

Episodes like Knives and Eyes do nothing but reiterate plot and character development that has already happened. I hate to use the word, as it is often misused, but they're filler.

An episode like Survivors introduces a character we'll never see or hear from again (the President's security officer from Garibaldi's past) and a problem we already know about (Garibaldi's alcoholism) that will quickly resolve itself in 42 minutes. And it's a problem that will be fully addressed in season five by Straczynski, so making light of it here doesn't make sense.

An episode like A Spider in the Web introduces a plot element that seems important (Bureau 13) but actually isn't, since it wasn't JMS' idea. It'll never be brought up again.

Most of the others are filled with cliched television storylines, and big dumb heavies (Born into Purple, Grail) that the show has been rightly criticized for.

Interestingly enough, I'm more partial to the non-JMS episodes on Crusade, but they work better on that short-lived series, because it was more episodic.
 
Harvey said:
An episode like A Spider in the Web introduces a plot element that seems important (Bureau 13) but actually isn't, since it wasn't JMS' idea. It'll never be brought up again.
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But that was because of legal action, not because JMS wanted it dropped.
 
Harvey said:
Most of the episodes not written by Straczynski on Babylon 5 are entirely forgettable.
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All except four of them were written from his own story ideas. I can't remember which four were original stories from other writers.

I think Eyes was one of them.
 
No comment about specific episodes, but I liked it better when there were multiple writers doing the show, bringing different voices and sensibilities. With JMS writing every single script, it got to the point that the show sounded like an extended monologue, one guy talking to himself. When Neil Gaiman finally did "Day of the Dead," it was so immensely refreshing to hear a different voice, a different style of dialogue and storytelling. I think JMS really dug himself into a rut and it got tired after a while.
 
The non-JMS episodes were generally the worst of the series (War Prayer, Believers, TKO, Grail). I did like some of them though like Deathwalker and By Any Means. I also enjoyed the comedic dialogue of the Peter David episodes and wish he got to do more work on the show.
 
Candlelight said:
Harvey said:
An episode like A Spider in the Web introduces a plot element that seems important (Bureau 13) but actually isn't, since it wasn't JMS' idea. It'll never be brought up again.
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But that was because of legal action, not because JMS wanted it dropped.
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Not exactly. Bureau 13 was used before they knew of the role-playing game but there was no legal action:

JMS said:
Ron: yes and no. We hadn't heard of the Bureau 13 game when we did the
episode, it was just something we came up with 'cause it sounded neat. Later,
we found out there was a game by that name. At which point I decided that it
wouldn't be appropriate to use that name again, and had a good conversation
with some folks at the game company about it. There was no problem, I just
didn't want to walk on their turf intentionally or otherwise. Logically, any
secret group is going to change its name from time to time *anyway* (it's not
like they're in the yellow pages or anything), so the organization would
remain under varying names.
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Candlelight said:
Harvey said:
Most of the episodes not written by Straczynski on Babylon 5 are entirely forgettable.
Click to expand...

All except four of them were written from his own story ideas. I can't remember which four were original stories from other writers.

I think Eyes was one of them.
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One was definitely "By Any Means Necessary" and another was "GROPOS". "There All the Honor Lies" was oringinally pitched by Peter David with Garibaldi shooting someone but JMS changed it to Sheridan being the shooter.

Mr Light said:
The non-JMS episodes were generally the worst of the series (War Prayer, Believers, TKO, Grail). I did like some of them though like Deathwalker and By Any Means. I also enjoyed the comedic dialogue of the Peter David episodes and wish he got to do more work on the show.
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I liked them for the texture they added to the show. Later on there was no time to explore labor relations on the station or the arts and traditions of alien worlds but the story was much richer for them having been explored early on.

Jan
 
Some of those are among my favourites; Day of the Dead, GROPOS, The Well of Forever. As Jan says, they tended to add a little more texture to the series. As good a writer as JMS is, you do a little to used to his "voice". So much so in my case that I had a little trouble getting into some of his other works (Jeremiah, Changeling) because I kept hearing lines that sounded straight out of B5.

As far as the weaker episodes go, I think the faults tended to lie more in poor casting and directing than the writing.
I've actually managed to appreciate 'TKO' a lot more with repeated viewings. Not so much for the narrative as for how well conceived the Mutai is on paper. I suppose it's no coincidence that Larry DiTillio was the one that wrote most of the background info on most of the League races.
 
Jan said:
One was definitely "By Any Means Necessary"
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I remember reading somewhere that as Kathryn Drennan was JMS's significant other, she was under much more pressure than normal when writing 'By Any Means Necessary' so as to avoid any claims of nepotism...
 
"Well of Forever" was one of my fav CRU eps. Ruling From the Tomb had some good comedy and some not so good stuff. Patterns of the Soul is with the X-Files Alien Hunter right? Didn't really care for that one.
 
No, you're thinking of 'Visitors from Down the Street' (easily my least favourite episode.)
'Patterns of the Soul' was the one with a long lost colony of Dureena's people (did that race ever get a name?) and a bunch of AWOL gropos who had escaped from an [foreshadow] Earthforce Black Ops program [/foreshadow].
 
^ That's what I'm talking about. I meant the actor from the X-Files who played the alien bounty hunter, he played the cyborg rebel leader guy. I forget his name, Brian Markinson or something.
 
"GROPOS" was the episode that really made B5 click with me - the ep that convinced me it was far more than just another show (thanks to the way the show was jerked around in the scheduling here I'd missed a few eps that would probably have achieved that earlier) - so I have a soft spot for it. The last scene in particular floored me.

Of the others, "The War Prayer" and "By Any Means Necessary" are two eps I always enjoy, and parts of "Deathwalker" and "Day of the Dead" are pretty good. The rest are mostly meh - except for "TKO", which is mostly awful.
 
Mr Light said:
^ That's what I'm talking about. I meant the actor from the X-Files who played the alien bounty hunter, he played the cyborg rebel leader guy. I forget his name, Brian Markinson or something.
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See what happens when I skim read? I just saw the word "X-Files" and jumped to a conclusion. ;)
Yeah, 'Patterns of the Soul' had Alien bounty hunter bloke from X-Files. Not one of my favourite episodes personally, just average. Though as I alluded to, I wouldn't be surprised if it became more significant down the road once Crusade's REAL plot got under-way.
 
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