![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Babylon 5 up to 1x07
Have now watched up to 1x07. Some random thoughts:
- I forgot completely about Bester. Actually, I still don't remember how he fits into the rest of the show, except that he does, but mainly what I can't get over is what total Burn Gorman energy evil Walter Koenig has. This is EXACTLY the type of character that Burn Gorman became the go-to guy for playing about 15 years later.
- Londo has now been a complete soft touch for a young person in trouble in two different episodes and I'm here for it. (I have trouble figuring out how these two episodes work in continuity, though - the conversations in the runaway young lovers episode about how Centauri think they don't love and "without love, like you?" are excellent except .... Londo, you literally just fell in love like two episodes ago!) Anyway, soft touch Londo is great, and I also love how he actually is a people person - he's frivolous and hedonistic, but he likes people, and they like him. He's charming when he wants to be, and also genuinely sweet at times, and people respond to that.
- The episode where G'Kar rescued Sinclair's explorer girlfriend was delightful! And the conversation about how everyone on Babylon 5 is not what they seem. Lovely.
- I'm still not that into Sinclair, but I thought the scene at the end of the episode with the living weapon artifact (sudden surprise David McCallum, hi!) was really interesting, where Garibaldi calls Sinclair out on almost getting himself killed in three different episodes. The thing about those action scenes was that they were pretty typical sci-fi action hero scenes, and it's a really nice early playing-against-trope for Garibaldi to point out that actually this is NOT normal, most people do NOT nearly get themselves killed in single combat on a weekly basis, have you considered seeing a space therapist, SINCLAIR.
A final random thought on political diplomacy in this series: I like how it's not the typical sci-fi/TV thing with characters who are supposed to be the World's Best Career Diplomats (and usually aren't shown to be anything like as good at their jobs as we're told they are). It's much more like the type of thing you get in real life, where the characters in that position are essentially ordinary people who got there because they were political appointees or knew a guy or have an agenda of their own. They're not not good at it, but they fail in ways that are believable for the people they are.
- I forgot completely about Bester. Actually, I still don't remember how he fits into the rest of the show, except that he does, but mainly what I can't get over is what total Burn Gorman energy evil Walter Koenig has. This is EXACTLY the type of character that Burn Gorman became the go-to guy for playing about 15 years later.
- Londo has now been a complete soft touch for a young person in trouble in two different episodes and I'm here for it. (I have trouble figuring out how these two episodes work in continuity, though - the conversations in the runaway young lovers episode about how Centauri think they don't love and "without love, like you?" are excellent except .... Londo, you literally just fell in love like two episodes ago!) Anyway, soft touch Londo is great, and I also love how he actually is a people person - he's frivolous and hedonistic, but he likes people, and they like him. He's charming when he wants to be, and also genuinely sweet at times, and people respond to that.
- The episode where G'Kar rescued Sinclair's explorer girlfriend was delightful! And the conversation about how everyone on Babylon 5 is not what they seem. Lovely.
- I'm still not that into Sinclair, but I thought the scene at the end of the episode with the living weapon artifact (sudden surprise David McCallum, hi!) was really interesting, where Garibaldi calls Sinclair out on almost getting himself killed in three different episodes. The thing about those action scenes was that they were pretty typical sci-fi action hero scenes, and it's a really nice early playing-against-trope for Garibaldi to point out that actually this is NOT normal, most people do NOT nearly get themselves killed in single combat on a weekly basis, have you considered seeing a space therapist, SINCLAIR.
A final random thought on political diplomacy in this series: I like how it's not the typical sci-fi/TV thing with characters who are supposed to be the World's Best Career Diplomats (and usually aren't shown to be anything like as good at their jobs as we're told they are). It's much more like the type of thing you get in real life, where the characters in that position are essentially ordinary people who got there because they were political appointees or knew a guy or have an agenda of their own. They're not not good at it, but they fail in ways that are believable for the people they are.
no subject
Bester is one of my guest-starring favorites and I had not made that connection and one hundred percent yes.
The thing about those action scenes was that they were pretty typical sci-fi action hero scenes, and it's a really nice early playing-against-trope for Garibaldi to point out that actually this is NOT normal, most people do NOT nearly get themselves killed in single combat on a weekly basis, have you considered seeing a space therapist, SINCLAIR.
I remember that element and did not understand at the time—I cannot stress the degree to which Babylon 5 was my first significant engagement with mainstream American TV which of course it was in many ways not a great example of—how directly it was subverting so much other action/sci-fi.
no subject
I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it! It was so startling that I kept getting distracted by it throughout the episode.
no subject
Sinclair: my impression was always that aside from survivor‘s guilt, these early episodes show JMS and the other writers not having adjusted character and actor yet, which happens early in the show. Because early Sinclair is far more of an action hero than later Sinclair, which is not playing to Michael O‘ Hare‘s strength, whereas later episodes lean more into the thoughtful gravitas aspect of the character, and the action hero thing goes to the other character with the JS initials.
Londo and young people in distress and the being been in love two episodes earlier - this to me is for a pretty obvious reason, to wit, this early in the show, we still have several different writers, not JMS writing all the eps as he will do later. The episode with the two young lovers is written by D.C. Fontana of Star Trek: TOS fame, and while I like her, you really can tell the one scene of the episode that wasn‘t written by her but by JMS, which was Londo‘s monologue about „my shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance“, which is the best character bit. Whereas the logic of the two young lovers‘ cause doesn‘t really hold up to general Centauri world building - as Andraste said in her own review of this episode, given the Centauri actually are polygamous, Londo at the very least should have rolled this eyes and suggested the guy should simply marry both the arranged wife and his true love early on before coming around to helping them. His ignoring his own case of true love shortly before actually is ic, because remember what he told Adira bout the mask he wears (but not with her)?
(BTW: not the last we‘ll see or hear of Adira. That‘s another thing I never expected when watching this in the 1990s - it seemed so obviously a girl of the week type of episode, but no. Oh no.)
no subject
I do look forward to seeing more of both of them!
But yeah, that's really interesting about the writing in that episode; thank you for the info! The "my shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance" scene is something I actually had seen in a clip show, or gifset, I'm not sure a while back, and I thought that it was from WAY later in the show than it actually is. Because you're right, it feels out of place with the rest, a much more nuanced and poignant scene than anything else in the episode, and I really appreciate it for being that.
no subject
It is completely on brand for Londo to be the emotional gravity of some otherwise inessential fluff, though. Just punch a viewer casually in the heart, sure!
no subject
no subject
The show really holds up to revisiting. Later information resonates. It's one of the things I am enjoying so much about these conversations, in addition to the fact that I have literally not spent this much time talking about Babylon 5 with anyone since about 1998–99.
no subject
I am having an absolutely WONDERFUL time; thank you so much for showing up to discuss it with me in such detail! (The fact that I am most interested in the Londo parts of it is tremendously helpful here, I'm sure.)
no subject
It's not hurting! I legitimately think the Narn–Centauri stuff is the best written in the show, though.
no subject
I also think so, although obviously I'm biased!
no subject
I was never a big Sinclair fan myself. I did like Garibaldi.
What I love about the show is how honest it seems to be with characters and motivations and flaws.
no subject
no subject
Yes! I really liked that, because of course the commander taking ridiculous personal risks felt completely natural in the context of a TV show, but Garibaldi having that conversation with Sinclair made me like both Garibaldi and the season more. (I actually watched season 1 pretty late in my B5 acquaintance, so I already loved and respected the show as a whole.)
no subject
no subject
The first season didn't really grab me, and I think Sinclair was a big part of that.
no subject