The Babylon 5 Rewatch Thread

[Lord of Oop North]

There's a really good point JMS made about this episode versus Signs and Portents, but I'll hold off on that tomorrow as it's quite cool.

So, what was the cool point? Or am I to remain forever in anticipation?

edit: my sentence did not make sense.

[Jon AS]

Err sorry but I have to ask the EA ships with thier "simulated gravity" what makes you think they are not built with "decks" in proportion to the movement?

I mean it is a massively unneccessary adition so I would tend to think that during combat the crew is in the rest of the ship and its only quarters that are in the spinning section.

No, it is clear from scenes set aboard Omega class vessels that the bridge (and probably all decks that require a constant crew presence) are in the rotating section. Compare that to scenes aboard Hyperion class ships where the crew is clearly strapped in when sitting at their stations (and begin to float around when not, IIRC that is only seen in "In the Beginning"). It really is a mistake, and there are some similar ones later on, for example on a freighter during Franklin and Markus' trip to Mars.

1.13: Signs and Portents[...]Londo and G'Kar at odds

I love that scene in front of the elevator, with some innocent bystander caught in the middle:

"I already pushed it!"

"I pushed it again!"

[...]

"Now look at what you did!"

[Ran]

I'm guessing Wert is referring to this:

One lovely thing about "Signs and Portents," which you picked up on, is something I like to play with; implying one thing while saying the opposite. Look at all the shadow's main representative, Morden, does: he asks people what they want; he gets tossed out of Delenn's quarters; he is pleasant in his demeanor at all times, never yells, always smiles, and is courteous; he takes an action which saves one of our main characters, Londo, from disgrace and resignation, and helps in the process of scragging the bad guys in the episode.

And yet everyone walks away thinking that the shadows are bad. Which was of course the intent...by the way in which they did "good."

Kosh prevents humanity from achieving immortality, scares the hell out of Talia (cf. "Deathwalker",) never gives anyone a straight answer, doesn't seem to mind it if people fear him...and we walk away with the presumption that he is good, by virtue of the way in which he did things that were "bad."

[Werthead]

Whoops, that was it. Completely forgot about it.

Yeah, the idea that JMS had the Vorlons doing some blatantly 'bad' things (also add on having 200 Vorlon warships surround B5 in the pilot and threaten to incinerate it) but people emerged with the idea that they were basically 'good', whilst the Shadows did something 'good' and people came out with the idea they were 'bad'. One of JMS' better achievements of writing on the show.

[Gerold Hightower]

Well not quite. The Starfuries for example are a pretty nifty and possibly useable design, so instances where they did make mistakes or just chose to ignore that something is impossible stand out all the more. I still like the Omega design though, much more memorable than the somewhat generic looking Hyperion.

The Starfury design might be sensible but the way all those ships move isn't. Stopping dead and then accelerate to full speed again in no time, flying tight corners, etc. All that stuff is definitely set in a universe with very different physics.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Ed Wasser as Morden was one of the show's major assets; I think it's a shame his career hasn't amounted to much since then. He had a way of conveying menance without seeming to do much of anything.

[Lord of Oop North]

Werthead,

Ah. Yes, that was always one of Signs and Portents' greatest strengths. Like Fat Man said, a lot of that is because of the stellar job that Ed Wasser did with Mr. Morden.

[saint777]

Finished Season 1. Meh. Signs and Portents was the best episode. The last five episodes were good but I was mostly confused epecially with Babylon Squared and Crysalis. I'm going to watch The Gathering next and then it's on to Season 2.

I should clarify what confused me in Babylon Squared: The One being a much older Sinclair and being consoled by Delenn(I assume it was her because of her voice.)

For Crysalis: Delenn? WTF! Morden and his cloaked friends? WTF! Spider ships? WTFAT? I think Morden controls the spider ships or his cloaked friends are the spider ship pilots. They look like cloaked Starship Troopers movie bugs.

[Jon AS]

Finished Season 1. Meh. Signs and Portents was the best episode. The last five episodes were good but I was mostly confused epecially with Babylon Squared and Crysalis. I'm going to watch The Gathering next and then it's on to Season 2.

I should clarify what confused me in Babylon Squared: The One being a much older Sinclair and being consoled by Delenn(I assume it was her because of her voice.)

For Crysalis: Delenn? WTF! Morden and his cloaked friends? WTF! Spider ships? WTFAT? I think Morden controls the spider ships or his cloaked friends are the spider ship pilots. They look like cloaked Starship Troopers movie bugs.

The identity of the "cloaked bugs" and "spider ships" will be revealed in season 2, to get the whole story of what went on in Babylon Squared you'll have to wait for season 3, though.

Congratulations by the way, you've made it through the worst season, the really bad episodes are few and far between now.

[Ran]

Note that the "spiders" were designed before the Starship Troopers movie came out (that film was released in 1997), so it's coincidence I think.

Babylon Squared will take a couple of seasons to be fully explained, but you'll get some interesting hints as time goes on. It's a key facet of the arc.

[mandy_k]

The last five episodes were good but I was mostly confused epecially with Babylon Squared and Crysalis. I'm going to watch The Gathering next and then it's on to Season 2.

I should clarify what confused me in Babylon Squared: The One being a much older Sinclair and being consoled by Delenn(I assume it was her because of her voice.)

For Crysalis: Delenn? WTF! Morden and his cloaked friends? WTF! Spider ships? WTFAT? I think Morden controls the spider ships or his cloaked friends are the spider ship pilots. They look like cloaked Starship Troopers movie bugs.

Oh, but what would B5 be without all the (temporarily) confusing stuff going on? I mean, that's half the fun of it!

I *love* Zathras in B^2. Two questions answered, at the expense of at least half a dozen new ones. Who are "they" who told Zathras that they need the station, what war is he talking about anhd why do they need the station, where and to which time is the station to be taken, where did Zathras and his equipment come from, and where the older Sinclair, and most of all: who is "the One"? And Delenn in the Grey Council - what prophecy is she talking about, what have the humans got to do with anything? Mega-weirdness and Confusion Without End - I thought it was brilliantly done

[PhelanArcetus]

You take, Zathras die. You leave, Zathras die. Either way, is bad for Zathras.

Love the guy.

[Werthead]

Next episodes up are TKO, Grail and Eyes

Need some encouragement here. These are three of the weakest episodes ever and I need to get past them (since we don't have another real clunker until, arguably, Grey 17 is Missing at the tail end of Season 3) to get to the good stuff. And no, I'm not skipping them. This is the complete rewatch experience, for good and bad

[mandy_k]

Next episodes up are TKO, Grail and Eyes

Need some encouragement here. These are three of the weakest episodes ever and I need to get past them (since we don't have another real clunker until, arguably, Grey 17 is Missing at the tail end of Season 3) to get to the good stuff. And no, I'm not skipping them. This is the complete rewatch experience, for good and bad

As always, focus on the positive ... TKO's saving grace is the Ivanova subplot, so it might help to focus on that. I thought the alien abduction trial in "Grail" was fun, as was the paranoia of the Centauri. Also, "Grail's" story wasn't that bad, the problem is just the execution. And in "Eyes", I enjoyed Lennier as a car mechanic, and Ivanova's nightmare was done quite well.

[Ran]

I think Eyes is perfectly all right actually (except for that punch from Sinclair towards the end, they should have rehearsed that about a million more times before committing it to film...), and really, Grail is helped a lot by David Warner and I thought the CGI creature work was pretty nifty for the day (not perfect, but nifty).

TKO's A-story is indeed quite trivial and lame. It's a shame, since the actor playing Walker Smith is charismatic enough.

Speaking of him (I believe his name was Greg McKinney), he is one of a number of actors seemingly cursed by B5. He died in 1998. The fellow who played Zathras died in a motorcycling accident, I believe. And of course, two regulars died untimely deaths, namely Richard Biggs and Andreas Katsulas. Very sad in all those cases. How Trek managed to keep its lead actors alive for so long, I do not know.

ETA: As to Grey 17 is Missing, the Marcus-Neroon story is awesome. It's the A-story with Garibaldi that's a disaster, and even that you can kind of enjoy if you take something mind-altering and just led Robert Englund do his thing. A long way from Freddy Krueger, that's for sure.

And speaking of Neroon, I believe he's introduced in the episode right after Wert's next three, Legacies. He really developed into a terrific character, thanks to John Vickery's well-tuned performance.

[Werthead]

John Vickey is an excellent actor. He was in DS9 for three episodes as a member of the Cardassian Resistance to the Dominion and really sold a small part well.

Eyes also has the excellent Jeff Coombs in it, but the guy playing the antagonist is really bad. Apparently the director kept trying to rein him in and he kept going off on one. It turned out his wife had just left him and he was seriously messed up whilst shooting the ep

[Lord of Oop North]

I always enjoyed Eyes and the role of Gregory Paul Martin (son of the Beatles producer) as Ben Zayn. His accent made him seem really evil to me. He does go a little psychotic a few times, but I think that just makes it better. I think they should have gone a little farther with the story, considering what EarthForce knew about Sinclair's missing time.

[Jon AS]

Need some encouragement here. These are three of the weakest episodes ever and I need to get past them (since we don't have another real clunker until, arguably, Grey 17 is Missing at the tail end of Season 3) to get to the good stuff. And no, I'm not skipping them. This is the complete rewatch experience, for good and bad

As others have said, Eyes is fine and the other two both have redeeming features, a decent subplot and some humor respectively.

Btw, my DVD drive seems to share your dislike for these episodes. Try as I might, the only one on disk four I can get to run is Signs and Portents, even VLC, which usually plays absolutely everything, does nothing more than directly access the episode file and that's it. No scratches or anything on the disk that I can see, very weird.

[Lord of Oop North]

Btw, my DVD drive seems to share your dislike for these episodes. Try as I might, the only one on disk four I can get to run is Signs and Portents, even VLC, which usually plays absolutely everything, does nothing more than directly access the episode file and that's it. No scratches or anything on the disk that I can see, very weird.

I had heard there was a way to get the discs replaced. Anyone know if it is true? My last season 1 disc won't play huge sections of Chrysalis.

[Werthead]

1.14: TKO

One of Garibaldi's mates turns up to take part in the Mutai, an alien boxing match. The aliens don't like humans taking part in the match for unspecified reasons. Garibaldi's mate nevertheless gets into the match and he and his opponent fight to a draw. The aliens now like humans. Everyone is happy. The end.

B-plot: Ivanova hasn't attended her father's funeral so her rabbi turns up to investigate why (which seems an extravagant thing to do - space travel is pretty expensive - but what the hell?). Cue lots of soul-searching. Ivanova sits shiva for her father and gets over it.

Okay, not as bad as I remembered, but still pretty silly. These aliens come from different worlds with different atmospheres, endurances, gravity and so forth. Pitting them against one another is totally ridiculous. A shame, as the guy playing Walker Smith is pretty good and Caliban is an interesting character (although we learn next to nothing about him). Very, "Meh".

1.15: Grail

David Warner turns up looking for the Holy Grail. This is silly, but Warner is so good (and not playing the villain for once!) that it doesn't really matter. The Na'ka'leen Feeder is a great alien design, but the fact it can speak is pretty daft, and the choreography of the final shoot-out is utterly appalling. I've seen school plays with better shoot-outs in them.

The good stuff: the comedic Londo/Vir plot (with the very last appearance of Chris Franke's 'silly music', which enraged JMS) and the info we get on B1-B4 is intriguing.

1.16: Eyes

Perhaps in another universe this would have been a clip show, so it's good that it avoids that pitfall. It's also good to see Sinclair's decisions come back to haunt him. Harriman Gray is a very sympathetic character and it's a shame he doesn't come back in the series (he does play a role in the B5 novels though). The, erm, over-enthusiasm of Colonel Zayn aside, this is actually a decent episode with the Lennier/Garibaldi/bike subplot supplying a few smiles.

Trivia moment: the mantra Lennier is chanting over the bike is the name of one of Bill Mumy's band's albums ('Za ba dee'). JMS was not amused by this.