*brainmelt*
Sep. 7th, 2009 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeYesterday was a quiet Sunday, and I had chores to avoid, so I wound up doing a mammoth B5 session: the Sheridan-half of "The Lost Tales" and half a dozen episodes of season one.
Now I have a minor case of brainmelt, which isn't helped by the visual dissonance between "The Lost Tales" (SHINY HI-DEF DIGITAL OMG THIS IS WHAT THE SERIES LOOKS LIKE IN MY HEAD) and the grainy darkness of season 1 ("Dude, your pixels are showing").
Here are some Very Important Thoughts, grouped by episode. And since I know some people are just starting to watch now, I'll throw in a spoiler cut.
"The Parliament of Dreams"
- My favourite scene in the whole season is the Centauri celebration. I just love scenes where people are forced to attend parties and socialise whether they like it or not (see also: Slughorn's Christmas party in HBP), and Londo crawling along the table, telling Delenn and Garibaldi that they're cute and thenpassing out becoming one with his inner self just cracks me up every time. I even find the Last Xon Joke funny, until I stop to think about it again. I belatedly noted, this time, that the blue liquid that most people (including Londo) are drinking is obviously not alcoholic, because Garibaldi and Delenn both drink some, and he's sober and she's sane at her baseline level of sanity.
- Funny thing: even though I was spoiled for the Valen Thing when I first saw this, I finally figured out why the Minbari ritual is so Catholic. We are, after all, told several times that Sinclair was taught by Jesuits.
- On the other hand, the bit where Delenn and Sinclair get Accidentally Married just makes me glad the planned Sinclair/Delenn ship never happened. And not just because the extremely vague things I've read about the intended arc scare me a little. Beginning a courtship ritual without telling Sheridan what it means is one thing, but marrying someone without telling them is probably crossing a line. I hope they got Secretly Divorced before she married Sheridan. (Also: ancestor squick.)
(The Sinclair thing leads me to believe that Delenn had a nicely calculated plan to marry a human, preferably Sinclair, what with his Valen!soul and all. Only she hadn't counted on her new biology making the prospect rather more interesting than a plain old political alliance. Which still leaves us with the usual question, Why Sheridan, but don't ask too loudly or Lennier will start crying again.)
I skipped "Mind War", because much as I love Bester, the thought of sitting through a Talia episode made me want to cry a little.
"And The Sky Full Of Stars" mostly leaves me wishing that Sinclair had remained a prominent character after season two. Just to give the Valen Thing that extra little kick. Also, so much of Sinclair's story is tied in with the Minbari -- I know it's a serious problem that Sheridan never finds out that Delenn began the war, but you could get equal mileage from Sinclair finding out. I don't know what's happening to me, that I'm wishing for more Sinclair rather than less. It's only because he's important to Delenn, I promise.
"Deathwalker" is my personal Na'Toth Is Awesome And I Wish She'd Never Been Re-cast episode. I hardly miss Delenn at all, that's how much I love Na'Toth. And I can forgive the b-plot for revolving around Talia, because there's so much Kosh. "The hour of scampering" is one of my favourite ... things ... ever. I LOVE YOU, KOSH, DON'T DIE. And it ends with a Vorlon Ex Machina. KOSH, MAN, HOW IS HE SO AWESOME?
I skipped "Believers" on my first time around, so it was like a whole new episode. Admittedly one that can be summarised as "HOW THE HELL DO YOU STILL HAVE A JOB, FRANKLIN?" (I don't really shout at my TV, but sometimes I want to, so I save that feeling for when I'm posting to LJ.)
Actually, Franklin's whole schtick this season seems totally inconsistent from his future Foundationist religious stance. I can't remember if that's a plot point, or merely off-screen character development, but I think that Franklin The Arch-Atheist is even more irritating than Franklin The Seeker. Oh, let's be honest, I just don't like Franklin.
"Signs and Portents" is another one of those episodes where I totally fail at doing it properly. Because there's LOTS AND LOTS OF ARC, and the first visible movements of the Shadow War, and all I can think is, "Awwww, Morden needs his cheeks pinched!"
Also, I'm a sucker for time travel and flash-forwards, and I love that Lady Ladira's vision of the destruction of the station turns out to be the final moment of the series itself. Temptation to skip around and do a "Babylon Squared"/"War Without End" mararthon: powerful.
The nicest thing you can say about "TKO" is that it's never referenced again. The high point is Susan's subplot, which is predictable and obvious, and the rabbi is straight from the Big Book of Russian-Jewish Stereotypes.
Anyway, to skip forward a whole lot of years (both in canon and production) -- I didn't mean to watch "The Lost Tales", but I put in the DVD to look at the extras, and then I found myself watching Sheridan's story. Which was ... um.
The Thing With The Journalist was less awful than I had been led to believe, which means I only cringed a lot instead of reaching through the screen to punch Sheridan. It's like, dude, I even like you as a character, why you gotta be a douche? I'm going to assume that the very worst job in the whole galaxy is the position of press secretary/media liaison for ISA headquarters.
Plotwise, you could summarise it as Weirdly Attractive Men Hit On Sheridan, I Don't Know, It Just Seems To Happen. Galen: stalks him in dreams, gives him jewelery. Vintari, aka the hottest Centauri since Cartagia kicked the bucket, just seemed to spend a lot of scenes trying to entice Sheridan into some kind of cross-species underage tentacle sex scandal. I much prefer this interpretation to what actually happened. Needed Moar Delenn.
Apparently JMS isn't going to do any more of these because his budget wasn't big enough? (Despite being comparable to what the BBC gives Doctor Who for an entire season.) CRI MOAR, I say, especially since Wikipedia told me he had planned to do a Minbari story about Delenn and Lennier. I shall pout, I really shall. Even though, judging by the quality of Over There, it wouldn't have been very good.
Aren't you all glad I'm in this fandom? No, no, no need to wave pitchforks, I'll show myself out.
Now I have a minor case of brainmelt, which isn't helped by the visual dissonance between "The Lost Tales" (SHINY HI-DEF DIGITAL OMG THIS IS WHAT THE SERIES LOOKS LIKE IN MY HEAD) and the grainy darkness of season 1 ("Dude, your pixels are showing").
Here are some Very Important Thoughts, grouped by episode. And since I know some people are just starting to watch now, I'll throw in a spoiler cut.
"The Parliament of Dreams"
- My favourite scene in the whole season is the Centauri celebration. I just love scenes where people are forced to attend parties and socialise whether they like it or not (see also: Slughorn's Christmas party in HBP), and Londo crawling along the table, telling Delenn and Garibaldi that they're cute and then
- Funny thing: even though I was spoiled for the Valen Thing when I first saw this, I finally figured out why the Minbari ritual is so Catholic. We are, after all, told several times that Sinclair was taught by Jesuits.
- On the other hand, the bit where Delenn and Sinclair get Accidentally Married just makes me glad the planned Sinclair/Delenn ship never happened. And not just because the extremely vague things I've read about the intended arc scare me a little. Beginning a courtship ritual without telling Sheridan what it means is one thing, but marrying someone without telling them is probably crossing a line. I hope they got Secretly Divorced before she married Sheridan. (Also: ancestor squick.)
(The Sinclair thing leads me to believe that Delenn had a nicely calculated plan to marry a human, preferably Sinclair, what with his Valen!soul and all. Only she hadn't counted on her new biology making the prospect rather more interesting than a plain old political alliance. Which still leaves us with the usual question, Why Sheridan, but don't ask too loudly or Lennier will start crying again.)
I skipped "Mind War", because much as I love Bester, the thought of sitting through a Talia episode made me want to cry a little.
"And The Sky Full Of Stars" mostly leaves me wishing that Sinclair had remained a prominent character after season two. Just to give the Valen Thing that extra little kick. Also, so much of Sinclair's story is tied in with the Minbari -- I know it's a serious problem that Sheridan never finds out that Delenn began the war, but you could get equal mileage from Sinclair finding out. I don't know what's happening to me, that I'm wishing for more Sinclair rather than less. It's only because he's important to Delenn, I promise.
"Deathwalker" is my personal Na'Toth Is Awesome And I Wish She'd Never Been Re-cast episode. I hardly miss Delenn at all, that's how much I love Na'Toth. And I can forgive the b-plot for revolving around Talia, because there's so much Kosh. "The hour of scampering" is one of my favourite ... things ... ever. I LOVE YOU, KOSH, DON'T DIE. And it ends with a Vorlon Ex Machina. KOSH, MAN, HOW IS HE SO AWESOME?
I skipped "Believers" on my first time around, so it was like a whole new episode. Admittedly one that can be summarised as "HOW THE HELL DO YOU STILL HAVE A JOB, FRANKLIN?" (I don't really shout at my TV, but sometimes I want to, so I save that feeling for when I'm posting to LJ.)
Actually, Franklin's whole schtick this season seems totally inconsistent from his future Foundationist religious stance. I can't remember if that's a plot point, or merely off-screen character development, but I think that Franklin The Arch-Atheist is even more irritating than Franklin The Seeker. Oh, let's be honest, I just don't like Franklin.
"Signs and Portents" is another one of those episodes where I totally fail at doing it properly. Because there's LOTS AND LOTS OF ARC, and the first visible movements of the Shadow War, and all I can think is, "Awwww, Morden needs his cheeks pinched!"
Also, I'm a sucker for time travel and flash-forwards, and I love that Lady Ladira's vision of the destruction of the station turns out to be the final moment of the series itself. Temptation to skip around and do a "Babylon Squared"/"War Without End" mararthon: powerful.
The nicest thing you can say about "TKO" is that it's never referenced again. The high point is Susan's subplot, which is predictable and obvious, and the rabbi is straight from the Big Book of Russian-Jewish Stereotypes.
Anyway, to skip forward a whole lot of years (both in canon and production) -- I didn't mean to watch "The Lost Tales", but I put in the DVD to look at the extras, and then I found myself watching Sheridan's story. Which was ... um.
The Thing With The Journalist was less awful than I had been led to believe, which means I only cringed a lot instead of reaching through the screen to punch Sheridan. It's like, dude, I even like you as a character, why you gotta be a douche? I'm going to assume that the very worst job in the whole galaxy is the position of press secretary/media liaison for ISA headquarters.
Plotwise, you could summarise it as Weirdly Attractive Men Hit On Sheridan, I Don't Know, It Just Seems To Happen. Galen: stalks him in dreams, gives him jewelery. Vintari, aka the hottest Centauri since Cartagia kicked the bucket, just seemed to spend a lot of scenes trying to entice Sheridan into some kind of cross-species underage tentacle sex scandal. I much prefer this interpretation to what actually happened. Needed Moar Delenn.
Apparently JMS isn't going to do any more of these because his budget wasn't big enough? (Despite being comparable to what the BBC gives Doctor Who for an entire season.) CRI MOAR, I say, especially since Wikipedia told me he had planned to do a Minbari story about Delenn and Lennier. I shall pout, I really shall. Even though, judging by the quality of Over There, it wouldn't have been very good.
Aren't you all glad I'm in this fandom? No, no, no need to wave pitchforks, I'll show myself out.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 03:52 am (UTC)Pretty much, yeah. I miss B5. It was less fun when it was screening because we had to hide all the fan fiction from JMS so you could go a long time without realising there was a fandom, particularly if you were a newbie fan.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 03:56 am (UTC)Hey look, suddenly my regret that I didn't get into it years ago has vanished!
Does that mean there's lots of older fic still hidden in mailing lists and stuff?
no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 04:24 am (UTC)I think a lot of it eventually came out of the closet and people started putting it on their own websites and on archives. But I'm sure a lot must have been lost due to fannish drift and gafiating. I'd moved on to other fandoms as my main interest by then.
You might have already seen these archives, though:
http://ubots.com/b5/
http://www.jumpnow.de/
no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 04:26 am (UTC)badfic, but not the first one. Thanks!no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 11:59 am (UTC)(looks some more)
Ah, but some of it is missing: the link to "Convergence" goes offsite to the old website that is no longer there. Mind you... Convergence was an insane round-robin crossover which was neverending. Rather fun to write bits for, but whenever it looked like it had a plot, someone else would drag it in a different direction, which I guess happens with round-robin stories.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 11:49 am (UTC)Yes. I was a member of a B5 fic mailing list which had a fair amount of fic; if I recall correctly, after the series ended there was a website, but I think the website died some years later.
Some of the fic was very good. I printed a handful in my fanzine, Refractions. One issue was special issue with a B5 novella in it; I think I still have copies in my cupboard - interested?
no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-09-08 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-09-08 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-08 09:44 am (UTC)Still, that wasn't what you were hoping for, I know. 8-(