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Babylon 5


Werthead
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2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

My assumption is 'do not kill the man who is dead" refers to Morden.  He's officially dead, the Shadow brainwashing has effectively killed the man he was, and the consequences of killing him are terrible for Londo.

Not according to The Shadow Within. As far as I can tell, the Shadows didn't do anything to him, he just gave himself over to them entirely in return for them ending the torment of his daughter and wife when their ship was caught in a collapsing jump point (literally just read this again today).

Of course, it might still track if we assume "already dead" means that he should have died on Z'ha'dum, if not for Galen (great choice there by the B5 universe's most annoying character). So perhaps. I don't think JMS has ever really explained the prophecy, and probably won't now.

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BABYLON 5 Rewatch: The Novels

There is a metric ton of canon background information on Z'ha'dum and Minbar in the two novels covered here, very interesting stuff that wraps up a lot of dangling plot threads, like the fate of Catherine Sakai and what really went down on the Icarus and Z'ha'dum.

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  • 3 weeks later...

BABYLON 5 Rewatch: Season 4, Episodes 3-4

In which Straczynski hits the accelerator so hard he just plain runs over some questionable plot elements and resorts to the "Sheridan makes a cheesy speech to reverse someone's deep-seated ideological convictions" plot device.

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BABYLON 5 Rewatch: Season 4, Episodes 5-6

In which Walter White shows up for no particular reason and the war ends with Sheridan scolding aliens millions of years older than him. For som reason, they agree rather than lasering him in the face.

The resolution of the war was I think compromised by the early departure of Kosh. If he'd stayed and we'd gotten more of the sense that both individual Vorlons and Shadows opposed what they'd been doing and wanted to break the cycle, this would have made more sense. This episode squanders the chance for a powerful and philosophically interesting ending to the war with instead a lot of Shouty Sheridan Speeches.

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BABYLON 5 Rewatch: Season 4, Episodes 11-12

In which we encounter the servants of the Shadows, who have really crap costumes, and we get a Garibaldi Old Flame plot which actually is quite cleverly plotted. Two episodes which are basically moving chess-pieces around, but effective anyway.

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BABYLON 5 Rewatch: Season 4, Episodes 15-16

The episode from which I'm half-convinced Galaxy Quest got its motto and another which feels like it was written yesterday and Straczynski time-travelled back to 1997 to deliver some kind of warning which we blithely ignored.

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  • 2 weeks later...

BABYLON 5 Rewatch: Season 4, Episodes 17-18

In which Sheridan is brutally betrayed by one of his friends, who then discovers he's been manipulated like a patsy for the last year. Sheridan is then subjected to the mildest torture and interrogation ever depicted in fiction, complete with corned beef sandwiches and incredibly mild aphorisms being exchanged and no-one even bothers to telepathically scan him. Oh well. Sometimes the setup is better than what follows.

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You're closing in on me, since I actually stopped watching this show after 2 or 3 episodes in season 5. I was deeply disappointed that Ivanova did not return, especially after how season 4 ends, and I don't really care for Sheridan as president.

Edited by Corvinus
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1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

You're closing in on me, since I actually stopped watching this show after 2 or 3 episodes in season 5. I was deeply disappointed that Ivanova did not return, especially after how season 4 ends, and I don't really care for Sheridan as president.

The first half of Season 5 is utter crap, apart from Neil Gaiman's episode. It then gets radically good again. The arc of Episodes 15-18 (or thereabouts) is almost as good as anything B5 did previously. Then the very last episode is outstanding.

But yeah, the first half of Season 5 is interminable bullshit.

Edited by Werthead
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It's really the telepath plot that made a hash of things, more than anything else. That said, "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari", "The Paragon of Animals", and the wrap up of the telepath story starting with "In the Kingdom of the Blind" were pretty good as I remember. The first episode was a bit slapdash, and "Learning Curve" was fairly poor, and "A View from the Gallery" was nice in concept but had too much of JMS's corniness on display.

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