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Babylon 5 5x03-04
We've slowed down a bit (busy season at husband's work), but this is a good time for it, since we're running out of show and this makes it last longer! To be fair, we've watched two entire seasons and change since the end of March.
The season four opening with the rotating voiceovers was my favorite of the various openers (well, that and the season 1 opening, because I have nice nostalgia vibes about the part of the show I originally saw - it was the dawn of the third age of mankind! Last best hope for peace! etc.). But I also like this season's, with the clips/voice clips from earlier seasons by year, in part because it's such an interesting mix of clips, especially early on. (Bester gets to be on there at last! And Londo collapsing on the table in season one.)
5x03 "The Paragon of Animals"
I have officially reached the point where I would happily watch these characters read the telephone book. Or, in this case, write their constitution and argue about it. (Things we do not normally see in scifi: the revolution is over and now you have to do the actual paperwork of running the place.)
Londo: I would remind the Drazi ambassador that the Centauri Republic has already signed!
G'Kar: And if the Centauri can sign it, anyone can sign it!
Londo: That's right -- wait a minute!
Garibaldi sitting in the conference room amphitheater with his feet on a table looking like he's about to die of boredom listening to them argue about diplomatic paperwork.
The friendly bickering and gentle teasing! The whole group are all just so *fond* of each other at this point in the show. There's a lovely warm vibe that is delighting me.
G'Kar: Shhh, my muse is speaking to me.
Sheridan: Okay, while we're waiting for G'Kar's muse ...
I am completely in love with the seating patterns in the conference room this season. For the entirety of seasons 1-4, whenever we saw the conference room, the seating is always, *always* with Londo and G'Kar on opposite ends of the table. Now the regular seating pattern has them next to each other.
And it's not just because they can be trusted to sit together without killing each other now. They actually like it and interact constantly, whether it's to trade pointed looks or smiles or just playfully razz each other.
Londo, leaning over to nitpick his spelling: There's no Y in "liberties."
G'Kar: Go repress someone else.
Also, Londo telling Delenn that they can give his body as tribute to the particular group of aliens they're currently arguing about, because he's going to be dead anyway after another round of council deliberations.
G'Kar: I second the motion.
Londo's reaction:
Sheridan's dead-on Londo impression later in the episode is also very funny and adorable.
I really enjoy Garibaldi and Sheridan's relationship this season (the little in-tune bit where Garibaldi, looking in the conference room door, sympathetically mimes gun-to-the-head and Sheridan nods back; the conversation on the observation deck). They're so much in sync and also clearly very fond of each other, and it's so nice to see after the distance in season four.
And I really love what we hear of G'Kar's preamble to the Alliance declaration of rights. It's very him, and it genuinely is nicely written.
The actual plot was a bit meh - I'm not that interested in the telepath plot that's developing this season. I did like the realpolitik turnaround with the Drazi, and the conversation between Lyta and Garibaldi about what it's like to be in someone's mind when they die. (Orion: That could explain a lot about Bester, honestly.) It is extremely obvious that they're undervaluing Lyta and pushing her further away. If she goes and joins the telepath liberation front, you all have no one but yourselves to blame!
I'm also a bit nervous about Garibaldi going further to the black ops side in his new spymaster job.
But everyone is so beautifully happy when they finally get the declaration signed! It's hard to find a shot properly showing them all, because the camera is mostly panning around the table, but they're just so delightful in their excitement and happiness.
I love them. <3
(Caps as usual from here.)
5x04 "A View from the Gallery"
This was fun! I really enjoyed the concept of the space battle from the maintenance guys' POV and seeing parts of the station we don't normally see. (Also the maintenance guys reacting to some of the wilder aspects of the show, like the telepath colony or Sheridan coming back from the dead: LMAOOOO.) I fully expected one or both of the outside POV guys to die in the fight, and I was glad they didn't.
The two standout things in the episode for me, though, were:
a) The Franklin scenes, the explanation for why he became a doctor, and then the absolutely wrenching scene at the end when he is quietly and matter-of-factly cataloging the dead, and you can see that he both accepts this as a regular part of his job, but has to lock down the emotional side of himself in order to do it. I think in seasons 1-2 I didn't really have a lot of feeling for him other than enjoying him as part of the crew, but over the last couple of seasons, especially season four, Franklin has crept up on me to be another top fave when I wasn't looking.
b) Londo and G'Kar's conversation about their childhoods in the B5 bomb shelter, because I am completely predictable.
I really loved seeing the shelters a bit more, in general. We know that they have them, and we've glimpsed them briefly in the past. But this is the first time we've been on that side of a fight; normally we're out there with the characters who are fighting, as opposed to stuck in the shelter with the ones who are simply hanging out on cots waiting for things to be over.
Anyway, though, I feel that, no more than we see them in this episode, we get a lot of little clues about the way they relate to each other at this point in the show, including the fact that they can genuinely hurt each other now with a careless remark in a way I don't think was possible just a few episodes ago. I do think there's a clash of mutually incompatible coping mechanisms going on when Londo's reaction to G'Kar telling him about his (G'Kar's) experiences in bomb shelters as a kid is a tossed-off joke, but of course Londo does that because that's how he handles emotionally charged situations: he deflects.
This is something that Londo probably could have done without it being a big thing a few episodes ago, but not now, because G'Kar is being unusually open - admittedly with the obvious purpose of driving a point through Londo's thick head - and telling him something fairly personal and painful (and in response to Londo actually being, if not intentionally a dick, then certainly obtuse AF about their relative imbalance of power and privilege in the situation they're in and the one they're talking about). And you can see the almost physical flinch on Londo's end, the way his face shuts down as he starts to realize what his casual complaining looks like from G'Kar's side of things - which he then reacts to as he does, by deflecting with a joke.
Which actually hurts and angers G'Kar, and then G'Kar doubles down in a way that you can see stings Londo because it's meant to ("While I was sitting in a bomb shelter learning to hate your people, where were you spending your time as a child? Playing in the Imperial gardens?") - it's the pettiest that G'Kar has been towards him in a while. And he pushes hard enough to get a straight answer out of Londo for a change. The interesting thing is that the dynamic flips at that point - G'Kar's still defensive but not really angry at him anymore, he switches to a sort of semi-sympathetic (or at least empathetic) psychoanalysis, but now Londo's getting mad and defensive himself - the hissed-through-his-teeth answers, he's getting really sick of G'Kar dropping truth bombs on him (or, depending on your point of view, psychoanalyzing him rather uncharitably against his will). But G'Kar is clearly determined not to let him walk away mad or hurt; when Londo decides to withdraw, G'Kar goes with him, and their last exchange is a little more playful, starting to get past the upset and get back to their friendlier dynamic.
This is an actual fight, not just banter, but it's a fight mostly because they care about each other enough to be more open with each other than they used to be, and to be hurt when they get dismissiveness and sarcasm back. It may be the first fight they have that's born out of mutual fondness, rather than anger and antagonism; their newly deepening friendship clashing with the massive, massive history of all the pain and blood and power imbalance and atrocity that lies between them. And it's a fight that ends up actually underscoring the strength of their newly developing ability to have painful, emotionally charged conversations, which clearly this is, for both of them, and to go too far and walk it back and try to resolve it (in their own strange way) rather than letting the other one walk away mad. I mean, if G'Kar really doesn't want to talk to him anymore, he can just let him leave, and if Londo's actually done with the conversation he can make it clear that he's serious about walking away, and neither of them do that.
I think the level of G'Kar's pushback against Londo is at least partly trauma-fueled, as well. Londo asks him how he's handling the station bombardment/bomb shelter situation so calmly and G'Kar answers that he's comfortable with it because he's used to it, basically, but there is *no way* that a guy who spent his childhood under aerial bombardment, and definitely lost a lot of friends/family that way, doesn't have a huge load of trauma surrounding it. So G'Kar is also snapping back because he's in a situation that's personally traumatic for him and he's on edge and in those circumstances, Londo - especially Londo at his Londo-est - is going to become a target once again for G'Kar's general feelings on Centauri. But it doesn't stay that way for long.
In fact, if nothing else, this whole exchange illustrates something important, which is that G'Kar at this point feels that Londo - for all his obtuseness and flaws, after everything he's done - is worth it: worth explaining to, worth letting go of anger and hurt, worth pushing him to confront his own moral blind spots until his better nature comes to the surface. Worth spending time around, even when he's on edge and Londo is, however accidentally, pressing on all the sensitive spots left over from their wars both cultural and personal.
I also enjoyed seeing this exchange back-to-back with their playfulness and obvious mutual affection in the previous episode, when things are going well. They can be like that and they can also be like this, and either way the tentative but growing fondness comes through.
The season four opening with the rotating voiceovers was my favorite of the various openers (well, that and the season 1 opening, because I have nice nostalgia vibes about the part of the show I originally saw - it was the dawn of the third age of mankind! Last best hope for peace! etc.). But I also like this season's, with the clips/voice clips from earlier seasons by year, in part because it's such an interesting mix of clips, especially early on. (Bester gets to be on there at last! And Londo collapsing on the table in season one.)
5x03 "The Paragon of Animals"
I have officially reached the point where I would happily watch these characters read the telephone book. Or, in this case, write their constitution and argue about it. (Things we do not normally see in scifi: the revolution is over and now you have to do the actual paperwork of running the place.)
Londo: I would remind the Drazi ambassador that the Centauri Republic has already signed!
G'Kar: And if the Centauri can sign it, anyone can sign it!
Londo: That's right -- wait a minute!
Garibaldi sitting in the conference room amphitheater with his feet on a table looking like he's about to die of boredom listening to them argue about diplomatic paperwork.
The friendly bickering and gentle teasing! The whole group are all just so *fond* of each other at this point in the show. There's a lovely warm vibe that is delighting me.
G'Kar: Shhh, my muse is speaking to me.
Sheridan: Okay, while we're waiting for G'Kar's muse ...
I am completely in love with the seating patterns in the conference room this season. For the entirety of seasons 1-4, whenever we saw the conference room, the seating is always, *always* with Londo and G'Kar on opposite ends of the table. Now the regular seating pattern has them next to each other.
And it's not just because they can be trusted to sit together without killing each other now. They actually like it and interact constantly, whether it's to trade pointed looks or smiles or just playfully razz each other.
Londo, leaning over to nitpick his spelling: There's no Y in "liberties."
G'Kar: Go repress someone else.
Also, Londo telling Delenn that they can give his body as tribute to the particular group of aliens they're currently arguing about, because he's going to be dead anyway after another round of council deliberations.
G'Kar: I second the motion.
Londo's reaction:
Sheridan's dead-on Londo impression later in the episode is also very funny and adorable.
I really enjoy Garibaldi and Sheridan's relationship this season (the little in-tune bit where Garibaldi, looking in the conference room door, sympathetically mimes gun-to-the-head and Sheridan nods back; the conversation on the observation deck). They're so much in sync and also clearly very fond of each other, and it's so nice to see after the distance in season four.
And I really love what we hear of G'Kar's preamble to the Alliance declaration of rights. It's very him, and it genuinely is nicely written.
The actual plot was a bit meh - I'm not that interested in the telepath plot that's developing this season. I did like the realpolitik turnaround with the Drazi, and the conversation between Lyta and Garibaldi about what it's like to be in someone's mind when they die. (Orion: That could explain a lot about Bester, honestly.) It is extremely obvious that they're undervaluing Lyta and pushing her further away. If she goes and joins the telepath liberation front, you all have no one but yourselves to blame!
I'm also a bit nervous about Garibaldi going further to the black ops side in his new spymaster job.
But everyone is so beautifully happy when they finally get the declaration signed! It's hard to find a shot properly showing them all, because the camera is mostly panning around the table, but they're just so delightful in their excitement and happiness.
I love them. <3
(Caps as usual from here.)
5x04 "A View from the Gallery"
This was fun! I really enjoyed the concept of the space battle from the maintenance guys' POV and seeing parts of the station we don't normally see. (Also the maintenance guys reacting to some of the wilder aspects of the show, like the telepath colony or Sheridan coming back from the dead: LMAOOOO.) I fully expected one or both of the outside POV guys to die in the fight, and I was glad they didn't.
The two standout things in the episode for me, though, were:
a) The Franklin scenes, the explanation for why he became a doctor, and then the absolutely wrenching scene at the end when he is quietly and matter-of-factly cataloging the dead, and you can see that he both accepts this as a regular part of his job, but has to lock down the emotional side of himself in order to do it. I think in seasons 1-2 I didn't really have a lot of feeling for him other than enjoying him as part of the crew, but over the last couple of seasons, especially season four, Franklin has crept up on me to be another top fave when I wasn't looking.
b) Londo and G'Kar's conversation about their childhoods in the B5 bomb shelter, because I am completely predictable.
I really loved seeing the shelters a bit more, in general. We know that they have them, and we've glimpsed them briefly in the past. But this is the first time we've been on that side of a fight; normally we're out there with the characters who are fighting, as opposed to stuck in the shelter with the ones who are simply hanging out on cots waiting for things to be over.
Anyway, though, I feel that, no more than we see them in this episode, we get a lot of little clues about the way they relate to each other at this point in the show, including the fact that they can genuinely hurt each other now with a careless remark in a way I don't think was possible just a few episodes ago. I do think there's a clash of mutually incompatible coping mechanisms going on when Londo's reaction to G'Kar telling him about his (G'Kar's) experiences in bomb shelters as a kid is a tossed-off joke, but of course Londo does that because that's how he handles emotionally charged situations: he deflects.
This is something that Londo probably could have done without it being a big thing a few episodes ago, but not now, because G'Kar is being unusually open - admittedly with the obvious purpose of driving a point through Londo's thick head - and telling him something fairly personal and painful (and in response to Londo actually being, if not intentionally a dick, then certainly obtuse AF about their relative imbalance of power and privilege in the situation they're in and the one they're talking about). And you can see the almost physical flinch on Londo's end, the way his face shuts down as he starts to realize what his casual complaining looks like from G'Kar's side of things - which he then reacts to as he does, by deflecting with a joke.
Which actually hurts and angers G'Kar, and then G'Kar doubles down in a way that you can see stings Londo because it's meant to ("While I was sitting in a bomb shelter learning to hate your people, where were you spending your time as a child? Playing in the Imperial gardens?") - it's the pettiest that G'Kar has been towards him in a while. And he pushes hard enough to get a straight answer out of Londo for a change. The interesting thing is that the dynamic flips at that point - G'Kar's still defensive but not really angry at him anymore, he switches to a sort of semi-sympathetic (or at least empathetic) psychoanalysis, but now Londo's getting mad and defensive himself - the hissed-through-his-teeth answers, he's getting really sick of G'Kar dropping truth bombs on him (or, depending on your point of view, psychoanalyzing him rather uncharitably against his will). But G'Kar is clearly determined not to let him walk away mad or hurt; when Londo decides to withdraw, G'Kar goes with him, and their last exchange is a little more playful, starting to get past the upset and get back to their friendlier dynamic.
This is an actual fight, not just banter, but it's a fight mostly because they care about each other enough to be more open with each other than they used to be, and to be hurt when they get dismissiveness and sarcasm back. It may be the first fight they have that's born out of mutual fondness, rather than anger and antagonism; their newly deepening friendship clashing with the massive, massive history of all the pain and blood and power imbalance and atrocity that lies between them. And it's a fight that ends up actually underscoring the strength of their newly developing ability to have painful, emotionally charged conversations, which clearly this is, for both of them, and to go too far and walk it back and try to resolve it (in their own strange way) rather than letting the other one walk away mad. I mean, if G'Kar really doesn't want to talk to him anymore, he can just let him leave, and if Londo's actually done with the conversation he can make it clear that he's serious about walking away, and neither of them do that.
I think the level of G'Kar's pushback against Londo is at least partly trauma-fueled, as well. Londo asks him how he's handling the station bombardment/bomb shelter situation so calmly and G'Kar answers that he's comfortable with it because he's used to it, basically, but there is *no way* that a guy who spent his childhood under aerial bombardment, and definitely lost a lot of friends/family that way, doesn't have a huge load of trauma surrounding it. So G'Kar is also snapping back because he's in a situation that's personally traumatic for him and he's on edge and in those circumstances, Londo - especially Londo at his Londo-est - is going to become a target once again for G'Kar's general feelings on Centauri. But it doesn't stay that way for long.
In fact, if nothing else, this whole exchange illustrates something important, which is that G'Kar at this point feels that Londo - for all his obtuseness and flaws, after everything he's done - is worth it: worth explaining to, worth letting go of anger and hurt, worth pushing him to confront his own moral blind spots until his better nature comes to the surface. Worth spending time around, even when he's on edge and Londo is, however accidentally, pressing on all the sensitive spots left over from their wars both cultural and personal.
I also enjoyed seeing this exchange back-to-back with their playfulness and obvious mutual affection in the previous episode, when things are going well. They can be like that and they can also be like this, and either way the tentative but growing fondness comes through.