Entry tags:
Babylon 5 through 2x02
I am watching this show at an alarming rate. Help.
Once again: please no spoilers for future developments in comments! Spoilers (for me) include anything I couldn't very easily infer from episodes I've already seen, including: returning characters/guest stars that aren't obviously recurring already, your reactions to future seasons/character developments, or big picture arc/character development stuff. Yes, I know that makes it hard to talk about it. Please try, or at least put things you think might be spoilery for me under a details cut (see the first post in the b5 tag for the code) or rot13 or similar. (No worries, no need to feel bad, I don't want to scare people off from commenting, but I'd also like to not find out things I don't want to know.)
There is so much to talk about, I guess I'll break it down by category.
Sinclair vs Sheridan: I really like Sheridan! I didn't know if I was going to! I especially didn't know if I was going to because I remember being very put off by the change of protagonist when I watched this show the first time. But this time around, I really had trouble connecting to Sinclair - I was warming up to him by the end of the season, and I acknowledge that he has a mellow leaderly vibe, but mostly I liked him in terms of his relationships with other people (Garibaldi, Ivanova, Delenn). So I do miss that, but I don't miss him as a character all that much.
I can see now why I couldn't remember what happened to him, because it's extremely off-camera, blink and you miss it. That being said, I'm glad he's alive and living his best life elsewhere.
But I like Sheridan! He's very charming, and I feel like removing the Sinclair "messiah/chosen one" aspect is good for the show overall. Sheridan feels more like the rest of them, a guy who is a little out of his depth but doing his best anyway. And I like the different vibe that comes with Sheridan being a lot more ambivalent about the Minbari (and them about him) than Sinclair was. I gotta say, though, the point when he won me over completely was when he figured out that the Minbari fighters were actively trying to die and ordered the Earth squadron to stand down in the face of active attack. He's smart, he's tactical, and he's dedicated to looking for nonviolent solutions even in the face of being attacked by former enemies who actively have it in for him. We can keep him.
That being said, I don't think we needed a whole episode plot focused on his relationship with his sister and dead wife in his very second episode. I ended up skimming most of it. I'd much rather see him building new connections to other people on the station.
1x13/early season two/The Shadows: Okay so I was completely unprepared for how well I remembered 1x13, but only as it unfolded, and so it was a weirdly intense experience of remembering watching this completely unspoiled in the 90s, and a viscerally creepy sense of impending doom. I didn't remember any of this before it happened, but I specifically remember the scene in the corridor with Morden(?) and the Vorlon (and then later with Morden talking to the Shadows at the end of season one), and then the destruction of the raider ship by the Shadow ship! I gasped out loud when that happened this time around, because I had completely forgotten it, but also as it happened I remembered being completely shocked by that the first time, and having no idea what was up with that ship, but I love that the very design of the ship makes it clear that it is BAD.
And the fights with the Narn and the Shadow ships - once again fully unprepared for my visceral reaction to the Shadow ships, which is kind of a mix of "oh NO" and "oh, it's you!" I still remembered what they looked like, if only vaguely, but their design is just so fantastically creepy and they're such a wonderful, horrible enemy, I'm really looking forward to more of this.
1x18-1x19 2-parter: That was so good, I loved it! Eerie, fun, classic-style sci-fi TV (weird alien ruins! starship battles!). I really enjoyed Londo and Delenn clearly having an actual sort-of friendship - I figured that he was going down with them, but 100% expected it to be a slightly comedic case of Londo sneaking onto their ship last-minute in the hopes of finding wealth/glory for the Centauri/etc. So I didn't expect it to have a lot more gravitas, with open information-sharing and Londo going down with both eyes wide open about what he was getting into, knowing that one of the three of them wasn't coming back and it might be him. Also, he used to be a fighter pilot and he's still pretty good at it!
Londo in general: Of all the completely insane things to remember about this show, the fact that Londo has sex tentacles and uses them to cheat at cards is something that stuck with me. Although I thought it was more hinted at and didn't realize it was outright explained. (Maybe that seemed subtler to a 16-year-old.)
I like how he's such a contradiction, and also how physical he is with people (touching Delenn a few times on the alien planet, touching G'Kar when he's talking to him, even), and that he genuinely has friends here - he does have a weird little friendship going with Garibaldi, helps him out when Garibaldi's on the run (and Londo helping people with no strings attached doesn't seem to be a thing he does often - I was expecting him to give him the money as a high-interest loan, but I think he just gave it to him?) and then showing up in the medbay to sit with Ivanova and watch over Garibaldi after he's shot.
(And Garibaldi I think did actually chase Londo and Delenn down to the planet through a gauntlet of gunfire in 1x19 simply because he was worried about them on a personal level. Actually, along those lines, moving on to Garibaldi ...)
Garibaldi: Okay, yeah, I like him a lot. <3 At least some of this is possibly blorbo-in-law feelings (he's![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sheron's favorite) but also, he's just a person who really cares a lot, and you can tell. He seems to make friends with the aliens easily - he's friendly with Londo, Delenn, and Lennier individually, in spite of his prickly exterior he's basically a complete pushover for anyone who asks him for anything (e.g. having absolutely no ability to say "no" to Lennier with the motorcycle), and he also really worries about people. I feel like he's much less effective than Ivanova or Sinclair at separating the personal side from the work side of himself, and you see this pretty clearly when one of them is in the field compared to when he's the one in the field - it's not that they don't care, but they (Ivanova especially) are good at shutting down the emotional functions and just focusing on the mission, whereas Garibaldi might try but he simply worries a lot: openly worrying about them in the field, or being so distracted by worrying about his ex-girlfriend on Mars that he can barely work, or chasing Londo and Delenn's ship down to the planet's surface. He just cares a lot, and he cares openly, and it's neat to see.
Of course then he's in a coma for 3 episodes, and when he wakes up, Sinclair is gone and everything has changed; poor guy. (I spent at least an episode or so being like "You guys remember you have a magic healing device, right?" and then they DID remember and that was great. Also really enjoyed Sheridan contributing healing energy to help. I'm interested to see how his working/personal relationship with Garibaldi develops independently of what Garibaldi and Sinclair had.)
[Delenn section redacted because I don't have any urge to argue about it]
Ohhhhh let's see, what else. I really like Ivanova but I don't have much to say about her specifically. I enjoyed the Sinclair-Ivanova-Garibaldi command triad, I'm a little sad that it's gone, but curious how the Sheridan-Ivanova-Garibaldi(-Franklin?) grouping is going to work out. I have watched season one in like a WEEK and I can feel that the pace of ongoing plot is picking up, oh no.
Once again: please no spoilers for future developments in comments! Spoilers (for me) include anything I couldn't very easily infer from episodes I've already seen, including: returning characters/guest stars that aren't obviously recurring already, your reactions to future seasons/character developments, or big picture arc/character development stuff. Yes, I know that makes it hard to talk about it. Please try, or at least put things you think might be spoilery for me under a details cut (see the first post in the b5 tag for the code) or rot13 or similar. (No worries, no need to feel bad, I don't want to scare people off from commenting, but I'd also like to not find out things I don't want to know.)
There is so much to talk about, I guess I'll break it down by category.
Sinclair vs Sheridan: I really like Sheridan! I didn't know if I was going to! I especially didn't know if I was going to because I remember being very put off by the change of protagonist when I watched this show the first time. But this time around, I really had trouble connecting to Sinclair - I was warming up to him by the end of the season, and I acknowledge that he has a mellow leaderly vibe, but mostly I liked him in terms of his relationships with other people (Garibaldi, Ivanova, Delenn). So I do miss that, but I don't miss him as a character all that much.
I can see now why I couldn't remember what happened to him, because it's extremely off-camera, blink and you miss it. That being said, I'm glad he's alive and living his best life elsewhere.
But I like Sheridan! He's very charming, and I feel like removing the Sinclair "messiah/chosen one" aspect is good for the show overall. Sheridan feels more like the rest of them, a guy who is a little out of his depth but doing his best anyway. And I like the different vibe that comes with Sheridan being a lot more ambivalent about the Minbari (and them about him) than Sinclair was. I gotta say, though, the point when he won me over completely was when he figured out that the Minbari fighters were actively trying to die and ordered the Earth squadron to stand down in the face of active attack. He's smart, he's tactical, and he's dedicated to looking for nonviolent solutions even in the face of being attacked by former enemies who actively have it in for him. We can keep him.
That being said, I don't think we needed a whole episode plot focused on his relationship with his sister and dead wife in his very second episode. I ended up skimming most of it. I'd much rather see him building new connections to other people on the station.
1x13/early season two/The Shadows: Okay so I was completely unprepared for how well I remembered 1x13, but only as it unfolded, and so it was a weirdly intense experience of remembering watching this completely unspoiled in the 90s, and a viscerally creepy sense of impending doom. I didn't remember any of this before it happened, but I specifically remember the scene in the corridor with Morden(?) and the Vorlon (and then later with Morden talking to the Shadows at the end of season one), and then the destruction of the raider ship by the Shadow ship! I gasped out loud when that happened this time around, because I had completely forgotten it, but also as it happened I remembered being completely shocked by that the first time, and having no idea what was up with that ship, but I love that the very design of the ship makes it clear that it is BAD.
And the fights with the Narn and the Shadow ships - once again fully unprepared for my visceral reaction to the Shadow ships, which is kind of a mix of "oh NO" and "oh, it's you!" I still remembered what they looked like, if only vaguely, but their design is just so fantastically creepy and they're such a wonderful, horrible enemy, I'm really looking forward to more of this.
1x18-1x19 2-parter: That was so good, I loved it! Eerie, fun, classic-style sci-fi TV (weird alien ruins! starship battles!). I really enjoyed Londo and Delenn clearly having an actual sort-of friendship - I figured that he was going down with them, but 100% expected it to be a slightly comedic case of Londo sneaking onto their ship last-minute in the hopes of finding wealth/glory for the Centauri/etc. So I didn't expect it to have a lot more gravitas, with open information-sharing and Londo going down with both eyes wide open about what he was getting into, knowing that one of the three of them wasn't coming back and it might be him. Also, he used to be a fighter pilot and he's still pretty good at it!
Londo in general: Of all the completely insane things to remember about this show, the fact that Londo has sex tentacles and uses them to cheat at cards is something that stuck with me. Although I thought it was more hinted at and didn't realize it was outright explained. (Maybe that seemed subtler to a 16-year-old.)
I like how he's such a contradiction, and also how physical he is with people (touching Delenn a few times on the alien planet, touching G'Kar when he's talking to him, even), and that he genuinely has friends here - he does have a weird little friendship going with Garibaldi, helps him out when Garibaldi's on the run (and Londo helping people with no strings attached doesn't seem to be a thing he does often - I was expecting him to give him the money as a high-interest loan, but I think he just gave it to him?) and then showing up in the medbay to sit with Ivanova and watch over Garibaldi after he's shot.
(And Garibaldi I think did actually chase Londo and Delenn down to the planet through a gauntlet of gunfire in 1x19 simply because he was worried about them on a personal level. Actually, along those lines, moving on to Garibaldi ...)
Garibaldi: Okay, yeah, I like him a lot. <3 At least some of this is possibly blorbo-in-law feelings (he's
sheron's favorite) but also, he's just a person who really cares a lot, and you can tell. He seems to make friends with the aliens easily - he's friendly with Londo, Delenn, and Lennier individually, in spite of his prickly exterior he's basically a complete pushover for anyone who asks him for anything (e.g. having absolutely no ability to say "no" to Lennier with the motorcycle), and he also really worries about people. I feel like he's much less effective than Ivanova or Sinclair at separating the personal side from the work side of himself, and you see this pretty clearly when one of them is in the field compared to when he's the one in the field - it's not that they don't care, but they (Ivanova especially) are good at shutting down the emotional functions and just focusing on the mission, whereas Garibaldi might try but he simply worries a lot: openly worrying about them in the field, or being so distracted by worrying about his ex-girlfriend on Mars that he can barely work, or chasing Londo and Delenn's ship down to the planet's surface. He just cares a lot, and he cares openly, and it's neat to see.Of course then he's in a coma for 3 episodes, and when he wakes up, Sinclair is gone and everything has changed; poor guy. (I spent at least an episode or so being like "You guys remember you have a magic healing device, right?" and then they DID remember and that was great. Also really enjoyed Sheridan contributing healing energy to help. I'm interested to see how his working/personal relationship with Garibaldi develops independently of what Garibaldi and Sinclair had.)
[Delenn section redacted because I don't have any urge to argue about it]
Ohhhhh let's see, what else. I really like Ivanova but I don't have much to say about her specifically. I enjoyed the Sinclair-Ivanova-Garibaldi command triad, I'm a little sad that it's gone, but curious how the Sheridan-Ivanova-Garibaldi(-Franklin?) grouping is going to work out. I have watched season one in like a WEEK and I can feel that the pace of ongoing plot is picking up, oh no.
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I last saw B5 (other than a handful of rewatched eps) in uni 30 years ago so.../o\ Most of it since then was, like, osmosis from Joe being REALLY into the CCG and the miniature wargame (Babylon-5 Wars: honestly pretty good but very crunchy in that miniature wargame way, you'd basically figure a match betwen people who knew the system still taking 4-6 hours kind of thing).
I like Delenn. I do not like her hair. XD
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lmao he does and we heard all about it in 2x02. I suppose the narrative function was to humanize the new guy, but I was not prepared to care about it yet!
I like Delenn. I do not like her hair. XD
THANK YOU, SAME. *cling* (The fact that in order to give her hair, they had to pick a hairstyle, and it's a very generic actress-y one is probably part of the problem, tbh - I think it might feel less jarring to me if they'd done something a little different with it. I do remember wondering at the time if they wanted to give her the option of spending less time in makeup every day.)
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(I'm waiting for someone to explain that they loved the hair. I mean, this is me, I suck at fashion, totes okitty! But I personally didn't like it aesthetically.)
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Hah big same *g*
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That would be the first episode of Babylon 5 I ever saw.
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It's unforgettable!
"Is it cold in here or is it just me?"
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I especially didn't know if I was going to because I remember being very put off by the change of protagonist when I watched this show the first time
What we know now, which wasn't revealed at the time and was only revealed with the permission of the actor's estate, is that Sinclair's actor spent the entire first season struggling with a sudden case of schizophrenia. He was able to make it through the season, but that was the absolute limit. So they had to write him off quickly and then give all his plot to Sheridan. The sister, the wife - it was already planned, just for our first guy.
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Oh, that's fascinating about the actor! I'm glad he was able to leave gracefully. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that because of the 5-year planned plot, there was also a backup plan for each of the main characters in case they needed to switch actors suddenly. (I don't think I want to know any more specifics about this at the present time, but I may fish for information later ...)
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Given Sinclair's canonically honking levels of Minbari War PTSD, I actually feel that giving the dead wife to Sheridan usefully redistributed the angst.
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Re: the changes Sheridan brings - one of them is that he's closer to Ivanova as they know each other of old, and doesn't know Garibaldi yet, whereas it was the reverse with Sinclair, Garibaldi and Ivanova.
Garibaldi caring and showing it: yes. Anger and affection both.
Londo and Delenn: the more time passes, the more I am intrigued by their relationship, but can't say more without getting into spoilery territory. It's why I wrote a story about them last month.
Londo helping people with no strings attached doesn't seem to be a thing he does often - I was expecting him to give him the money as a high-interest loan, but I think he just gave it to him?
He did. Londo has many flaws, but he's generous by nature - with people he likes. He's as able to play the political game with knowledge and favours as anyone with the rest (see also him having the purple files that provided the MacGuffin in the Adira episode to begin with).
But one thing I do really love about Delenn is how sweet she is. And it's not just because she's Minbari - I mean, Lennier is also really sweet, but we've also met plenty of Minbari who were jerks. She's simply a sweet, affectionate person.
Now that's an intriguing characterisation, and I can argue without spoilers here, because in s1 alone we have: Delenn stealing a body and finding it bewildering that this isn't accepted as a religious miracle, causing an entire episode of dangerous tension on the station which is finally solved by her pulling rank with Neroon, which I don't think anyone assumes will help with the warrior caste vs religious caste tension in the long run; Delenn being an expert in dealing out highly edited versions of the truth (by necessity, since she doesn't want Sinclair to know about the reason why the Minbari surrendered, but she's really good at it); Delenn threatening G'Kar when he tries to intimidate her in the pilot; Delenn being pragmatic and putting politics over sentiment in episodes like the one with the Mengele avatar or the one with the religious parents who don't want their kid operate. She's definitely affectionate with her friends like Shaal Mayan or Draal, and nice towards Lennier, but "sweet" I would argue with (whereas yes, Lennier is).
(This all is not meant as a negative about Delenn. I think she's complex, and I like that about her.)
The hair: I think Mira Furlan didn't like the early s2 version, either. As far as I recall, upon first watching I did regret Delenn looked less alien now.
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Londo has many flaws, but he's generous by nature - with people he likes. He's as able to play the political game with knowledge and favours as anyone with the rest (see also him having the purple files that provided the MacGuffin in the Adira episode to begin with).
Yes! I really like that about him. His affection with people he likes is genuine, just as much so as his social climbing, ruthlessness, and willingness to screw people over in pursuit of political games is also genuinely him.
There was an episode in the early run of season one, the one in which Franklin's archaeologist friend tries to tempt him with a bribe, that I think crystalized why I'm enjoying Londo so much in these early episodes, and why he made such an impression on me as a teen - because of course there's never really any doubt that one of Our Heroes would take a bribe to cover something up, and Franklin turning him down is perfectly predictable. But Londo isn't predictable. It was so rare at that time to have a character in this type of show who was so morally complex and hard to nail down. (I probably would've imprinted on Blake's 7 like a baby duckling if I had known it existed back then.)
Re: Delenn, I simply redacted that part of the post because I have no desire to argue about characterization with someone who knows the show much better than I do; that's not an argument I can win and therefore not one I choose to participate in. No offense taken or hopefully given!
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I still remembered what they looked like, if only vaguely, but their design is just so fantastically creepy and they're such a wonderful, horrible enemy,
The Shadows are amazing, especially visually! I watched B5 with my kids (rewatch for me, first watch for them) when they were quite young, and the Shadows' aesthetic has definitely proven foundational. Often we'll be watching something else with an evil-looking spiky bad guy or contraption (e.g. Nero's ship in Star Trek AOS) and all three of us would think it looks like the Shadows, ditto for some freaky-looking marine invertebrates.
the fact that Londo has sex tentacles and uses them to cheat at cards is something that stuck with me
:DD It is one of my favorite random details, and yeah, quite memorable XD
When I was first watching, as a teenager, Franklin was my favorite of the humans, but as time passed, this ended up being Garibaldi. I love his and Londo's friendship, I love the motorcycle bit with Lennier. Also, "blorbo-in-law" is an excellent concept, haha!
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Yes! I was going into it from the perspective of remembering that I didn't like him all that much as a kid, so I was completely unprepared to be this charmed. He's just a really enjoyable dork (as well as a war hero/criminal) and I do like his general affect better than Sinclair's brooding standoffishness - I mean, I can see why they made the narrative choices they did with Sinclair, but I had a lot of trouble warming to him.
The Shadows are a really brilliant visual concept! I really love how you can tell from the beginning that they're Trouble with a capital T even without knowing anything about them.
I was fully unprepared for Garibaldi and Londo's friendship because I didn't even remember it existed. It's interesting what I remember about the show and what I don't, and most of what I remember seems to have been in season one, with the exception of a random assortment of bits from later on. I might have only seen two seasons, or maybe even less, which means there's a lot ahead of me to enjoy!
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*imprints on a quirky friendship like a duckling*
I do love Garibaldi and especially his weird friendship with Londo that they both can't fully admit to. It's just adorable and I'm SO THERE for about 5 seasons of them interacting with each other and getting in trouble.
The sense of impending doom, however, is real. I'm glad I watched it this far (although like you I totally spaced out on the wife/sister whatever because it was too soon!)
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I kind of fell for Bruce Boxleitner in Scarecrow and Mrs. King, so I was very happy to accept Sheridan. I think even without that, I'd have found him easier to like than Sinclair. I didn't dislike Sinclair so much as not care in the way I felt I should, knowing what I knew about him!
Mira Furlan blew me away throughout the show. I found her quite convincingly alien, with or without hair! (But I agree about the bad hair here!)
I remember the broad outlines of this show and then some very specific things; I had buried the memory of seeing Londo's penis until you wrote about it, and it popped back up! (Yes, I meant to say that.) I have a lot of emotional memories connected to it. This show had ALL THE FEELS for me, and I think that really started in s2.
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I think in a way this was the actual problem for me when I watched the show before, because I also knew him from that show, so it was a mix of "too familiar" and "wrong vibe" when I was used to Sinclair's vibe! But I also think Sinclair is definitely a character who worked better for me as a teen, when I think I was more into that heroic strong-jawed leaderly type of character than I am now, when I want more emotional range and variability. I feel like I enjoy the general feel of the cast dynamic better with Sheridan than I did with Sinclair, though I'm sure either of them would've worked.
I think I'm far enough along now to begin to see why this show was such a formative show for so many people, because the kind of growth over time that this show does, and planting seeds early that pay off in a big way later on, was something that didn't come into television in a major way until the 2000s. It's not that I haven't ever seen any shows from the 80s/90s that did it - and in fact, even at that age I'd seen other shows that did it - but it was certainly rare, especially on this level, and watching this when you didn't expect it to do that would've been quite an experience.
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