More thoughts on Babylon 5 after finishing the whole show

[sholio]

• I loved it throughout, and I feel the whole show is really good, and every season is wonderfully different and contains many favorite moments. But I think the high-water mark of the show for me is season three through the first half of season four. That was just utterly some of the most brilliant television I've ever seen. There are parts of it I wish I could watch for the first time all over again, like "Dust to Dust," or the moment when you see old!Londo's face and realize exactly where Sheridan (and we) are in the future, or the Cartagia arc.

• Still cannot believe the Cartagia arc is an actual thing that happened on my TV screen. Rarely has anything on TV hit so many of my underserved iddy kinks so hard. I'm reasonably sure that the last episodes of the show I saw back in the 90s were from this arc, and even though I remembered absolutely nothing specific about it, I can see why it gave me a lifelong desire to find out where Londo and G'Kar's arc went eventually. Which I somehow did remain mostly unspoiled for, at least in any sense that would have affected my enjoyment of watching it unfold in front of me.

• And speaking of Londo and G'Kar, as a long-time lover of enemies-to-whatever arcs, that was an absolutely stunning one. Cannot believe how it just took every button I have for that kind of relationship and stomped all over it. And then doubled down! Their hate is fated in the stars! Except they die in each others' arms in a grand act of sacrifice and in spite of knowing how they die for decades, THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW WRONG THEY ARE until it happens! aaaaaaaaa. And we watch two and a half seasons of the show knowing exactly where they go while they are completely oblivious! I will never be normal about this.

• Kinda curious what G'Kar has been up to for the last 15 years, because we know why future Londo looks like 10 miles of bad road, but G'Kar does too, and it's clear that he's got nothing else going on that is more important than dying on Londo's behalf. Life has not been kind to either of them.

• I was thinking about how, if Sheridan had to flash forward to a part of the future, he managed to get one of the absolute worst parts. Almost anything else would have been nicer! The finale was actually really pleasant and lovely! But no, he lands in the middle of the Centauri-Drakh Apocalypse.

• I can't believe we only saw the Drakh ships once, and that was like a season or so from the end! I really thought there was going to be a lot more to do with the Drakh in the actual show itself.

• But in general, I cannot get over the sheer amount of planning that went into this show. It has been a looooong time since I've watched something that rewards close viewing and analysis like this show does. And this show wrung a level of emotion and (occasionally) shock out of me that is really hard to get from me anymore - and it's 30 years old! Just absolutely wonderful, wonderful TV. I am so glad I watched it.

• Edit: a brief moment of fridge horror regarding Londo's situation - so I was thinking about that unmonitored time with Delenn and Sheridan, and the fact that he seems to do this regularly with the Drakh; he evidently secured a similar kind of tit-for-tat swap for Delenn's rescue in 5x18, where he got what he wanted (Delenn's safety) in exchange for concessions to them. Now, Londo is naturally good at this - he's a born wheeler-dealer. But this specific dynamic reminds me very strongly of how his negotiations with G'Kar used to go, back when they were enemies cooperating for the same goal, and G'Kar would never let him off the hook without getting something back in return. And that makes me wonder if that was where he learned how to do this, but in G'Kar's position this time: if they really can't accomplish their goals without him, then he has a strong bargaining position to ask for a concession so that they get what they want, but he still gets something that he wants too. And if so, then it was G'Kar who gave him the tools to maintain that negotiating edge which has more or less carved out a small space to keep himself sane in the ongoing horror of his life with the Drakh - in the same way that G'Kar himself did when the horror controlling his life was Londo. So I'll just be pondering this and not being normal about it, probably.

• Edit2: Okay, rewatching the final Londo-G'Kar future scene in season 3 is absolutely wild now, because that is season 5 Londo and G'Kar's body language! I remember watching it back in season 3 and recognizing the much warmer vibe between them, but in general, it's not what they say, it's what they do; and a big part of it is actually the open, familiar way Londo leans towards him and talks to him. Especially at the start of that scene, where between the softness in Londo's voice and the way he leans towards G'Kar and gestures when he's talking to him, you can tell at a glance that he's talking to someone he likes and cares about and feels comfortable with. Which the actors didn't actually have a chance to develop for two seasons yet. Amazing.