Yora reviews Babylon 5

[bguy]

I imagine that on more major settlements (Earth itself, Mars, etc.) there likely are telepaths who specialize in dealing with the criminally insane in some capacity or other, possibly even specializing specifically in being an official witness to a death of personality. But Babylon 5, for all it's importance in interstellar diplomacy and trade, is still a pretty small and (at least for anything internal to Earth Alliance) out of the way. Depending on the specific rates of various types of crime, a telepath specializing in criminal psych might simply not have enough work to support themselves out there. And it's a long enough trip that they can't exactly call one in on demand. So instead the job gets foisted onto the local business mediator telepath because she's the best they've got.

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It's established in the 3rd season that B5 is only two days flight from Earth, which isn't so far that it would seem that difficult to bring in a specialist telepath for such a sensitive job.

[factotum]

They also added a fighter pilot to the opening credits that I frankly don't remember at all.

Ah, yes, the famous Warren Keffer. The story goes that the studio bosses wanted to have a fighter jock type aboard the station so they forced JMS to include him.

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Needless to say, he's used as little as is humanly possible, and gets killed off in the final episode of the season.

As for the episode, I think the revelation about why the Minbari surrendered at the Battle of the Line is perforce robbed of much of its impact because it's being revealed to Sheridan. If it had been revealed to Sinclair, which is obviously what the original intent was before O'Hare's departure, then that would have been wrapping up 10 years of questions for the character and a season's worth for the viewer following that character, so it would have to have been more dramatic.

Oh, minor point of order, by the way: the Agamemnon is a destroyer (Omega class), not a battleship. I'm not sure if any ships in the B5 universe are ever called battleships--the Raider ship from season 1 was occasionally called a "battlewagon", but that's about as close as it gets.

[Thufir]

Now minor spoiler for the first 3 minutes of the next episode, but after this episode Sinclair gets replaced by Sheridan. I know Sheridan has a lot of big fans, and I've actually come across several articles and posts that said it was a great change because Sinclair was a weak character. I am absolutely not feeling it. I actually don't like Sheridan particularly much, for basically the same reasons I also don't really like Sisko from Deep Space Nine. Just a bit too aggressive and slightly hammy without any charming irony.
I'm also saying something slightly controversial and state that I actually really like Sinclair. He might be my favorite character this season, actually. I am really glad the actor was up to doing a few more appearances to close the time loop from E20: Babylon Squared. But I would absolutely have loved to see five seasons with him.

I also really like Sinclair, but debatably it's Sheridan's flaws that make him better. What's always struck about the difference between them is that Sinclair feels like someone who has already undergone most of his important character development before we meet him - he already has that more serene, spiritual side to him. By contrast Sheridan starts out as pure soldier and a large part of his ensuing character arc essentially boils down to him gradually becoming more like Sinclair.

I'd agree utterly. The Centauri still have the ships and the technology they just lack the Will to use them.

Alternatively there are different factions within the military loyal to different nobles and so the problem isn't that they don't have the power but that they can't get enough of it pointed in the same direction.

[Yora]

I know.

But the people making the show did not know what a cruiser, a destroyer, and a battleship is.

Going by 20th/21st warship classification, they are from largest to smallest:

Battleship
Cruiser
Destroyer
Frigate
Corvette

In Babylon 5, the Omega class destroyer is much bigger than the Hyperion cruiser. Either the Omegas are battleships or the Hyperions are frigates.

Since the Sharlin, Primus, and G'Quan are all classed as cruisers, I would classify the Omegas as cruisers as well. With the Hyperions being destroyers.

[Rodin]

The big reveal that Minbari are reincarnated as humans was somehow done in a really underwhelming way. I know all the major plot points of the whole show, but I can still see how great many other important scenes were done. This one feels almost dull. Though that might lie in the nature of the reveal. It's surprising, but it does not actually imply and major consequences. So humans and Minbari have a unique relationship. And...?

What confused me is Lennier saying that the Minbari have been growing weaker in recent generations because the power of their souls was disappearing to somewhere. But if humans and Minbari share the same souls, would that not have always been the case? How is that connected with soul power being lost?
Something that would make some sense would be that it's only been a recent thing and that the Minbari souls make human telepaths, which also have been around since only recently, I believe. But Sinclair is not a telepath, so that probably isn't it. If anyone has any clues on that, mark it as spoilers.

After multiple times through the series, the impression I've come away with is that this is all of Sinclair's character arc compressed down into a single conversation. This is all information that likely would have been doled out steadily over the course of season 2, as Sinclair continued his investigation into the hole in his mind. O'Hare leaving the show left them in a sticky position - they had to answer these questions, but also had to fit in the introduction of a new captain AND give him his own storyline.

The result doesn't quite work, because the stuff about Minbari souls is pretty much dropped at this point. It shows up a couple more times IIRC, but it's no longer a major focus.

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The pilot in the intro credits is Lieutenant Warren Keffer. He was forced upon JMS by the executives, who felt you couldn't have a space show without a hot-shot pilot. The more things change, the more things stay the same, eh? *cough*STAR WARS*cough*

Still, I quite like Keffer. He's less of a hot shot than he might have been, and it adds a viewpoint character in a Starfury that isn't on the command team. A modern show would have a larger cast and nobody would bat an eye at having a Starfury pilot be one of a number of minor characters providing an extra perspective.

[Droid Tony]

What confused me is Lennier saying that the Minbari have been growing weaker in recent generations because the power of their souls was disappearing to somewhere. But if humans and Minbari share the same souls, would that not have always been the case? How is that connected with soul power being lost?
Something that would make some sense would be that it's only been a recent thing and that the Minbari souls make human telepaths, which also have been around since only recently, I believe. But Sinclair is not a telepath, so that probably isn't it. If anyone has any clues on that, mark it as spoilers.

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Sinclar....aka Valen.

Minbari and humans were seperate....until 1000 years ago when Valen came along and introduced human bits. So it's recent as in the last 1000 years.

Human telepaths come from the same place as all telepaths: The Vorlons.

So, this is the first time we see an Omega class Destroyer, and I have a question: HOW does the crew get from the roating part to the rest of the ship? Like, say how does a starfury piolt get from his quarters to the fighter?

The middle of the ship rotates to provide the sense of gravity. And that is at about 60 miles an hour. So the crew quarters, bridge, and piolts breifing room are all in the two spinning parts.

The starfuries are in the micro gravity front of the ship. Not moving at all, relative to the spinning parts.

So you can climb ''up" the spinning section to the top, where you'd be zipping arpund a 60 MPH ish around the empty(?) middle of the ship.

So....guess you could jump up and off the spinning part...to float in the micro gravity...at 60 miles and hour and spin around. I guess without thrust you'd slow down eventually, after maybe hours. But this would be no way to ''launch fighters" in a resonable way.

Is there an elevator/space pod? That you can go ''up" in and then fire the thrusters to slow down and stop? That seems like a bit much too.....

So anyone know how it works?

[Yora]

You go to the central axis of the rotating section where each full rotation covers a much shorter path, resulting in much lower speed and much lower pressure towards the floor. Getting on and off in that area should be relatively simple.
I can even think of a configuration in which there is no risk of getting crushed between dorjams, but that's difficult to describe in words.

On Babylon 5 there is a monorail running along the main axis of rotation. It's noy really visible, but it's supposed to be zero gravity, which is why everone is always holding on to something or strapped to a seat.

[GrayDeath]

When I first watched it back in the 90ies, I was really angry that Sinclair left, because partially bad acting aside, I really liked his kind of serene but resolute way of dealing with babylon 5.

And had watched Boxleitners Agent series a while before,a s back then there was a big rerun and my mother was a huge fan, so everytime it was on, I was exposed to this slightly sleezy Agent guy, who suddenly was supposed to be Babylon 5s Captain. Ugh.

Later on he gets better than Sinclair ever was, but at the start its a jarring transition.


@ Destroyers. I think they went with the (wrong^^) Star Wars Declaration of "Destroyer is the Big Scary Ship, dangit!".

[Yora]

Star Destroyer is a specific name. They are not destroyers of the Star class. Han and Lando actually call them cruisers many times. [/starwarsnerd]

This week I realized the FreeSpace games are total Babylon 5 ripoffs. The first game came out the same year as season 5. It's not super obvious there, but you got the Shivans being basically Shadows and hyperspace jumps look more or less the same. They don't have jump gates, but you can only jump between star systems at specific points that basically serve the same role. And fighters shot glowing balls of something instead of beams.
But the second game adds beam canons and anti-fighter rapid-fire beams. We have not really seen them at this point, but FreeSpace 2 looks basically like season 4. The planets and nebulas in the background also look like they do on the show.
Oh, and the humans name all their ships with Greek names and the fighters with Greek letters.
Coincidence? I think not.

Freespace also happens to be the worst offender with ship classifications. Like with the Hyperions, the games call the huge Orion cruisers destroyers. But then they call the mid-size ships corvets and the small ships cruisers.



I actually once played a Babylon 5 mod for FS2, but it never ocured to me to see the paralels between the two.

[GrayDeath]

They (depending on EU Book) call thaem all kinds of names, true.

But in B5 they also dont call them Destroyers, they call them Earth Destroyers. ^^



Aside on Freespace: Which did nothing to make them worse games. Still the best past Tie Wings/X Wings SPace Combat game.

[Cikomyr]

Oh man. Freespace. That takes me baaaack. I need to pick it up again. Do they do VR adaptation of these old school dogfighting games?

[bguy]

The pilot in the intro credits is Lieutenant Warren Keffer. He was forced upon JMS by the executives, who felt you couldn't have a space show without a hot-shot pilot. The more things change, the more things stay the same, eh? *cough*STAR WARS*cough*

Still, I quite like Keffer. He's less of a hot shot than he might have been, and it adds a viewpoint character in a Starfury that isn't on the command team. A modern show would have a larger cast and nobody would bat an eye at having a Starfury pilot be one of a number of minor characters providing an extra perspective.

Yeah, I never got why JMS hated the Keffer character so much. If you're going to have star-fighters in your show then it makes a lot more sense having a dedicated pilot in the cast rather than repeatedly having the station CO or XO (to say nothing of the Security Chief) off playing fighter jock.

[Olinser]

Star Destroyer is a specific name. They are not destroyers of the Star class. Han and Lando actually call them cruisers many times. [/starwarsnerd]

This week I realized the FreeSpace games are total Babylon 5 ripoffs. The first game came out the same year as season 5. It's not super obvious there, but you got the Shivans being basically Shadows and hyperspace jumps look more or less the same. They don't have jump gates, but you can only jump between star systems at specific points that basically serve the same role. And fighters shot glowing balls of something instead of beams.
But the second game adds beam canons and anti-fighter rapid-fire beams. We have not really seen them at this point, but FreeSpace 2 looks basically like season 4. The planets and nebulas in the background also look like they do on the show.
Oh, and the humans name all their ships with Greek names and the fighters with Greek letters.
Coincidence? I think not.

Freespace also happens to be the worst offender with ship classifications. Like with the Hyperions, the games call the huge Orion cruisers destroyers. But then they call the mid-size ships corvets and the small ships cruisers.



I actually once played a Babylon 5 mod for FS2, but it never ocured to me to see the paralels between the two.

Yes. The original Chassis from the prequels was actually the Venator-class Attack Cruiser. (Also remember in A New Hope Han also refers to it as an Imperial cruiser).

As far as the ship types, yes, both Hollywood and companies like EA are notorious for being utterly incompetent with portraying military rank, tactics, weapons, and ships.

Strictly by WW2 ship types, Cruisers were SIGNIFICANTLY bigger than Destroyers - Destroyers tended to be about 2-4k tons, while Cruisers could be up to 10k tons (and were actually defined by treaties as to how large they could be). Yet a lot of fiction has 'cruisers' as barely bigger than fighters, and 'destroyers' as the biggest ship possible (until they remember Battleships and Dreadnoughts exist).

[Thufir]

Yeah, I never got why JMS hated the Keffer character so much. If you're going to have star-fighters in your show then it makes a lot more sense having a dedicated pilot in the cast rather than repeatedly having the station CO or XO (to say nothing of the Security Chief) off playing fighter jock.

Star-fighters and space battles aren't that large a component of the story so it doesn't make much sense to dedicate a whole character to them. Easier to have one of the command staff step in on the rare occasions that the fighters-eye view is required.

[LadyEowyn]

I prefer Boxleitner’s acting to O’Hara’s.

I agree that the the Minbari come across really badly in this episode. They hate Sheridan for destroying one of their ships, in a war where they nearly exterminated humanity? It’s a war. That you could have stopped fighting at any time. You’re seriously going to be bitter about the only battle that you lost?

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Earth was trying to surrender at the Battle of the Line and the Minbari ignored them. Continuing a war against an enemy that’s unconditionally surrendering is just flat-out evil. Honestly, reading In the Beginning made me feel like the B5 narrative POV treated the Minbari far too generously. It explains things like Earth extremists trying to kill Minbari - they committed genocide against humanity a few years ago, of course people hate them! Of course it looks bad to be making nice with them! It makes the extremists morons for trying to restart a war with an enemy who can easily wipe us out, but it doesn’t really line up with them being portrayed as one-dimensionally evil and the Minbari (at least religious caste) as these moral enlightened spiritual types.

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Delenn’s treated as the moral centre of the show, and she’s arguably got more blood on her hands than even Londo manages to accumulate. Her arc does work a lot better once you see Season 4 and read her actions as atonement, not just as being a basically moral person.

[russdm]

Yeah, I never got why JMS hated the Keffer character so much. If you're going to have star-fighters in your show then it makes a lot more sense having a dedicated pilot in the cast rather than repeatedly having the station CO or XO (to say nothing of the Security Chief) off playing fighter jock.

I actually liked the fighter jock character. It really humanized the show and made it distinct from Star Trek, which never had a character like that. Given how much Babylon 5 basically runs ST:TNG style more so than ST:DS9 in my opinion, having a fighter pilot character makes it different than The Next Generation.

To be honest, for a show that supposedly pioneered story arcs and whatever, there isn't really any happening. A few events for later happen, sure, but there are no real payoffs. The events happen, then disappear, maybe showing up again. Frankly, B5 here felt or feels like TNG on a space station. It all changes in Season 2 with Sheridan.

The Events of course are: Doctor Franklin Violating Medical Ethics and breaking the law (No pay off, and umm, He gets off completely, from I know of medical ethics laws, Franklin broke them over his knee and lit them on fire as I recall and Sinclair gives him merely a slap on the wrist. I mean, I guess, Franklin's tendency to break the law and get away scot free of consequences does happen later, right?), Londo and Morden (pays off later), G'Kar and Londo (Pays off later), Narn and Centauri troubles (Pays off later), Sinclair and the Minbari Soul Transfer/Reincarnation??/Matter (Doesn't pay off well at all. Could have stood to include more episodes as why it mattered so much to the Minbari, more than a couple of forgettable lines. Seriously, why not an episode to help cover this better?), the dockworkers and how Babylon 5 station is run (No pay off, apparently after the strike ended, nothing ever comes up again, from my recollection. I mean, Babylon 5 is a partially or fully military run station with civilian workers, maybe more about station affairs? See Sinclair actually doing his job beyond "Monster of the Week" problems), The Assembly of Political Rubber Foreheads or the place where the diplomacy happens (Almost little pay off. I don't recall seeing many discussions there unless the plot directly calls for it, there isn't any real major talks. Like have any the races/species being doing talks/treaties/agreements? Has there been any time taken here?), Diplomats (Definite no pay off; I don't recall many scenes of watching Londo playing the Ambassador role he had. Like maybe more meetings than a mere handful?).

So, I really don't understand how or why Babylon 5 gets all the praise for starting Story Arc shows when it doesn't appear anything of the sort doesn't start until Season 2 and from what I recall pretty far on in Season 2. I mean, not to be mean or anything, but why couldn't you just slap the label "Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starbase Adventures/ Starbase Babylon" on this series, based on the first season.

Thank goodness for Sheridan showing up.

Note: Yeah, Yeah, the Raiders. But they don't seem to do much really (They aren't treated as near threat for very long times, get forgot about between episodes), before they get destroyed. Complete waste of using them.

I think the real issue here is that Babylon 5's myth arc takes way too much time to get started. It takes from my memory something like 2 whole seasons (1 season and three quarters of the second season) to get running. That was too long, and more should have been done in the first season than what was there. More mystery build-up, less "Monster of the Week" garbage. I think Star Trek could do "Monster of the Week" better because the original series was mostly camp, with TNG slightly less so. Babylon 5 takes itself way to seriously for "Monster of the Week" to work as well.

It's nice seeing Ducky (From NCIS) in the show. Got portrayal.

Things that I didn't care for much)
Garibadi: So basically the Sheriff, chief of police; but he really didn't do much policing. I mean, I was hoping for more seeing him doing investigations or something as why Sinclair pulled springs to get him. If he wasn't a main character, I couldn't see any reason he works better than any body else they could have gotten for the job. Even a few deputies seem to be able to do Garibaldi's job.
Londo & G'Kar: I am going to see that the entire relationship between these characters and their respective races was really undersold. I actually found myself not caring at all about them. I mean, we get their history but it is so under developed and so the later big Londo & G'Kar event (Those who have watched the show completely, know what I am talking about) just falls flat to me. Maybe if there had been more exploration of their conflict and the consequence, like the Bajorans and Cardassians of Deep Space 9, I think I would have actually felt more and been more concerned or getting the feels. Without the gravitas, the whole story arc feels just basically plot. I think that JMS failed to use these two properly.
Morden: I wanted to see more of him, not talking to the mains, or getting real involved, but seeing him in the background, and do this or that. Showing that Morden is a pro-active and is busy. Otherwise it felt that he exists solely to prod Londo around. I wanted to get the feeling that steps were being taken to help influence events. I mean, why couldn't Morden cause plot between Londo & G'Kar, stir the pot some? Why not action?
The Minabari-Sinclair Plot: This should have been expanded on mainly in regards to why it matters so much. Nothing shows the reasons why it matters about the souls, and seems to run simply on that killing people/murdering people is bad. Why would it matter to the Minabari, and why does it matter whether Sinclair has a soul that could be Minabari or not? Even Worse, the plot gets dropped before the end of the season. So much for that matter.
"Monster of the Week" plots: Babylon 5 Season 1 follows gloriously in this vein. Really with there had been less of this and more worldbuilding.
Worldbuilding: Given the uniqueness of Babylon 5 and its setting, I feel that more episodes should have been used to focus on worldbuilding. Hearing about G'Kar struggling to get moisture vaporators or whatever to fix some damage caused by the Centauri would have really helped to get a good feel for the bad feelings between the two species/races. Having it just mentioned once or twice at most, then just played very little in the under-hum of feelings didn't work very well. I forgot a few times that the two races didn't really like each other that much. It made it jarring when it become such a big deal. just simply jarring.

There were probably great episodes, but overall, I would say that the first season is disappointing. It doesn't build up its mysteries enough, there doesn't feel like enough pay off for some of those mysteries to matter, and it doesn't build up any of the relationship of the Narn and Centauri strongly enough to pay off. Deep Space 9 did it better with showing the three Klingons Kor, Koloth, and Kang, with Kang's comments about the Klingon restaurant. That sold the general feel of how much had changed, and how much was felt.

Then you had stuff about the relationship between the Cardassians and Bajorans; it wasn't much, I will admit, but it seems to be more than what showed up for the Narn and Centauri in Babylon 5. Only the fact that Londo & G'kar were so well acted did I care. Well, I cared about them. Not sure that I did about their races.

[Droid Tony]

Later on he gets better than Sinclair ever was, but at the start its a jarring transition.

More then most shows, even more so 80/90 shows, B5 really has a lot of cast changes. But...it works. It really makes B5 feel like the story of the STATION, not a couple of people. It also adds a huge touch of realism as people do come and go in real life. Only on TV are they locked forever in place.

Compare to: Star Trek the Next Generation. Every couple of epsiodes a character would ''allmost" die (haha). Like a barrel falls on Worf and its all ''oh no he is dead"....but at the last second, oh wait, amazingly he lives! Or like the many times they had Riker ''think" about leaving the ship to be a captain...and he'd whine for a whole epsiode about how he was ''thinking" about it...and then of course, never leave.

And really many shows are like that: the characters never leave. But not B5.

Yeah, I never got why JMS hated the Keffer character so much.

I think it was mostly that he was forced to add the character. Like JMS is trying to tell a huge epic story......and some guy in a suit is like ''a space show..add a fighter pilot so we can go 'pew pew'".

I think JMS really did fit Keffer into the show perfectly. It was nice to see a ''lower'' person and he even had a nice arc that added to the whole big story arc about the Shadows. You'd almost think JMS planned to have a Keffer character ''find" the shadows. The Keffer arc fits in SO perfectly with the unknown Shadows.....even more so the bit where Earth investigates the 'unknown ship'.

[Rodin]

Stuff about how Babylon 5 isn't an arc-based show

Complaining that Babylon 5 isn't an arc-based show because the first season is slow is like saying that Lord of the Rings isn't an epic fantasy adventure because it takes over 100 pages for the Hobbits to leave the Shire.

The claim about B5 being like TNG is easily refuted by a simple question: What is the plot of Star Trek TNG?

Don't describe what the show is about. That's a premise, not a plot. What actually happens? How is the starship Enterprise different at the end of season 7 from how it was in the first episode? What is the history of the Federation during that time? How do the main characters change and grow?

The answer is...nothing. It's a purely episodic show, and for the most part you can pick any pair of episodes and swap them.

Now, can you do the same thing for Babylon 5? No. You can kind of fiddle around with the running order of some of the filler episodes within a season, but between seasons? Good luck. The universe changes drastically even between seasons 1 and 2. The relationships of the characters change. The course of history changes. Even background information in the episodes give away where the episode fits in the overall course of the story.

And if asked to describe the plot of Babylon 5, I could give a long, multiple page summary that only covers the basics.

[factotum]

Yes, people say B5 is one of the first major US series to have a plot arc running through it, and it took a while to get that all up and running. The reason for that is because it *was* the first! JMS had no idea if the viewing public, or the studios, would permit a show that couldn't just be chopped up and shown in any order in syndication, so he had to soft-pedal the arc stuff in the first season. I mean, it's still there--see Signs and Portents and Chrysalis for excellent examples--but it was only when they were well into production on season 2 and they realised how popular the show was becoming that he could really let rip.

You'll note that Star Trek: DS9 didn't really start *its* overriding arc until well into the second season as well.

[Yora]

And even those were character arcs at the most, or only went for five episodes.
Where Deep Space Nine went really episodic was with season 6. Which also introduces more space magic and commits to a great galactic war.

Deep Space Nine is not a Babylon 5 ripoff. Except season 6, that one totally is.

[Daimbert]

I also really like Sinclair, but debatably it's Sheridan's flaws that make him better. What's always struck about the difference between them is that Sinclair feels like someone who has already undergone most of his important character development before we meet him - he already has that more serene, spiritual side to him. By contrast Sheridan starts out as pure soldier and a large part of his ensuing character arc essentially boils down to him gradually becoming more like Sinclair.

The difference between Sinclair and Sheridan is one of the reasons that I prefer season 1 to the other seasons, generally. On his own, Sheridan is a goofy moron. Compared to Sinclair, he's utterly unqualified for the job, and never really gets better. I mostly find him annoying and in the later seasons tend to agree with Garibaldi's view of him as the show focuses on his importance.

I prefer Boxleitner’s acting to O’Hara’s.

I think they both do quite well for the characters they're playing. Every time I watch DS9, I always think that O'Hare would have made a much better Berreil than the actor they got, because that actor comes off as clipped a lot of the time whereas O'Hare did have that kind of mostly deadpan character down pat.

I agree that the the Minbari come across really badly in this episode. They hate Sheridan for destroying one of their ships, in a war where they nearly exterminated humanity? It’s a war. That you could have stopped fighting at any time. You’re seriously going to be bitter about the only battle that you lost?

"In the Beginning" really ruins this, because the introduction here sets up a lot of interesting plot threads, including that one. Sheridan's description makes it sound like a deliberate strategy, where it can easily be inferred that he mined the field, sent out a presumably fake distress call, and then triggered them and destroyed the fleet when they came to investigate. The immediate interpretation of this is that he did something that is against all typical rules of war and exploited the normal tendency to respond to distress calls to give aid to win a tactical victory, which is something that they would reasonably be upset at. It makes Sheridan look like someone who will do whatever it takes to get a victory as well, which is consistent with his character. And then, if you think about it a bit, you can wonder about the fact that since the Minbari were on a mission of utter genocide, would they really be coming to help damaged Earth ships, or destroy them? And then you can wonder why the Warrior Caste is so upset about the deception, considering that of all the castes they would realize the use of deception in war, and we see that they aren't above doing that themselves. Maybe, then, the Warrior Caste, is more upset that they were beaten and are using the claims of deception as a way to get the other Castes to agree with them, since given the Minbari distaste for lying that's an argument that those Castes will understand and agree with more than the "We lost!' angle.

And then "In the Beginning" ruins it by (I'm not sure if we still need spoilers for that episode):

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... having Sheridan really be in distress and setting that up only as a defense in case the Minbari show up first, as if they did they'd destroy the ship. It removes all ambiguity from the event and simply makes Sheridan right, which hurts the Minbari and also removes Sheridan's biggest example of doing whatever it takes, even if morally dubious, to win.

[factotum]

I disagree with that assessment of "In The Beginning":

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Yes, Sheridan's ship had already been damaged by the Black Star, but nonetheless, he did do exactly what you said he did--he sent out a distress call in the sure knowledge the Minbari would show up to finish them off, and then set off the nukes when they arrived. Thus, the Minbari attitude here is somewhat justified, especially when you consider "honour in war" to be very high on their list of priorities. Heck, it was doing the honourable thing and approaching the Earth vessel with their gunports open that led to the war in the first place!

[GloatingSwine]

I know.

But the people making the show did not know what a cruiser, a destroyer, and a battleship is.

To be fair, most people complaining about scifi warship classifications don't really know what they're about either.

Warship classifications aren't "this one is bigger than that one" (for reference, the Arleigh Burke class destroyer and Ticonderoga class cruiser have the same displacement, and the Tico is only about 50 feet longer in the beam, and USS Zumwalt, a destroyer, has 50% greater displacement than either), they're a description of what the warship's role is.

A Destroyer is called that because the original full name of the classification was "Torpedo Boat Destroyer", they were ships that were designed to be fast enough and well enough armed to stop enemy torpedo boats before they were able to get in range to strike at larger less mobile ships. And throughout the history of modern naval warfare they've largely had the same picket role of intercepting and destroying incoming threats to whatever they're escorting, which for modern destroyers more likely means aircraft and cruise missiles.

A Cruiser is called that because it was originally designed for very long range/duration operations, the point of a cruiser was to have a ship that could stay at sea for a long period of time and protect widely dispersed colonial assets. It's worth noting that most navies don't even use cruisers any more because modern Destroyers can fulfil that range requirement and carry just as much armament.

A Battleship is called that because its primary purpose is combat with other ships.

A Battlecruiser is a long range high endurance ship fast enough to catch an enemy cruiser and consistently outfight it either through battleship grade firepower or protection.

Things like size and armament of a ship are a consequence of its intended role. Cruisers aren't "bigger than destroyers", they're "big enough to hold enough coal/diesel* and food and water to meet the endurance requirements" and the armament is "what can we fit on that size of ship to project power where we need it".

[Yora]

Oh man. Freespace. That takes me baaaack. I need to pick it up again. Do they do VR adaptation of these old school dogfighting games?

I just looked up the FreeSpace intro. How did I miss all the years that it's such an obvious B5 homage? They really tried to capture that look.

[comicshorse]

I disagree with that assessment of "In The Beginning":

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Yes, Sheridan's ship had already been damaged by the Black Star, but nonetheless, he did do exactly what you said he did--he sent out a distress call in the sure knowledge the Minbari would show up to finish them off, and then set off the nukes when they arrived. Thus, the Minbari attitude here is somewhat justified, especially when you consider "honour in war" to be very high on their list of priorities.

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Only if you consider it a 'honourable' action to search for the signals of helpless ships and then hunt them down and destroy them when they're utterly unable to defend themselves
It always seemed to me the Warrior Caste were ,rightly, embarrassed they lost their best ship to an enemy severely technologically inferior to them and tried to cover for this by saying they only lost 'cause the enemy behaved 'dishonourably'

[Rodin]

All this Babylon 5 talk has gotten my Youtube feed to start showing me old Babylon 5 videos, and there were a couple of interesting interviews in there that I hadn't seen before.

The first was with Bill Mumy, who said that he very nearly turned down the role of Lennier due to the make-up requirements. He was assured that it would only take an hour to get into make-up. When he arrived on his first day, the actress playing Na'toth ran off screaming because she couldn't handle it. Checking the wiki, this appears to have been Susan Kellerman - meaning that there were at actually three people they had playing Na'Toth, with only two eventually winding up on the show. That Narn makeup must have been awful.

Mumy's makeup wound up taking four and a half hours to do, and he requested an immediate meeting with the producers and told them he was NOT going to do that every day. They managed to get the time down to two and a half hours, along with other compromises about his working hours so he wouldn't be subjected to it unnecessarily.

The other interesting interview was with Walter Koenig, who said he was originally offered the part of the mysterious agent dude who goes deep-diving in Sheridan's mind. He was all set to do the role when he had a literal heart attack. They delayed production of the episode until they couldn't wait any more, then re-cast the part. When Koenig recovered, they offered him the part of Bester - a much meatier role that would kick-start "the second act of my acting career".

Looking at his IMDB page, it's weird to think that Babylon 5 was his first major role after Star Trek - and of the two, he considers Babylon 5 to be the greater acting accomplishment. Star Trek was all "Klingon wessel off the starboard bow" type of material. Alfred Bester allowed him to really let loose.

Just think...the only reason we got Bester is because Walter Koenig almost died and required quadruple-bypass surgery.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, the Minbari are very often victims to their own pride. They got upset with Sheridan because he didn't follow their rules, and they just sort of assume everyone knows what those rules are and will respond as expected.

[Daimbert]

I disagree with that assessment of "In The Beginning":

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Yes, Sheridan's ship had already been damaged by the Black Star, but nonetheless, he did do exactly what you said he did--he sent out a distress call in the sure knowledge the Minbari would show up to finish them off, and then set off the nukes when they arrived. Thus, the Minbari attitude here is somewhat justified, especially when you consider "honour in war" to be very high on their list of priorities. Heck, it was doing the honourable thing and approaching the Earth vessel with their gunports open that led to the war in the first place!

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He sets them out because the ship might still be there and might show up first, but he was hoping that EA forces would arrive first. And he only does that because he knows that if they show up they will indeed simply destroy the ship, and he rightly doesn't want his pretty much helpless crew to die.
So it confirms that the Minbari were acting dishonourably there which was only something that was implied or brought out later in the series, and turns Sheridan's actions into an act of desperation and not a reasoned tactic. That kills the moral ambiguity of the action and can't be used as an example of Sheridan's tactical genius or his ability to take any action necessary to win a victory.

[Yora]

S2E2: Revelations

Londo complains that the council can't work with G'Kar just running off to somewhere with no word, and Delenn deciding to become a butterfly. He wants new ambassadors sent by the Narn and Minbari, but neither Sinclair nor Kosh support his motion. Na'Toth tells Londo that G'Kar has gone to Quadrant 37, she doesn't know anything else, and that she doesn't need to because G'Kar can handle himself.

G'Kar is in a fighter fleeing at high speed from a black planet in a dark red nebula, pursued by organic black ships. The other four Narn fighters sacrifice themselves to make sure he can escape to hyperspace. Their weapons don't do much, but the last pilot destroys one by crashing his fighter into it.

Garibaldi is not recovering and Franklin asks Sherridan for permission to use the alien healing machine from S1E21: The Quality of Mercy.

Sherridan is visited by his sister. They talk a bit about his wife whose expedition ship exploded a few years ago, but he really doesn't want to talk about it.

Morden tells Londo everything went well with destroying the Narn base and there's no chance anything can be traced back to them. If Londo needs something else destroyed, like a colony, he just has to give the word. Londo does not believe they can do that and asks why then just don't destroy the Narn home world, and Morden tells him it's not the time for that yet.
If Londo hears anything curious happening in the remote regions, it would be nice to let Morden know, as a gesture of goodwill.

Sherridan goes to the medical station and tells Franklin that he wants to donate life force to heal Garibaldi, so that Franklin can turn the machine off if something goes wrong. Franklin wants to do it himself, but they agree to share it between them.

Na'Toth finds that G'Kar is back in his quarters. He tells her since none of the great or minor powers on the station could have destroyed their base, so he sees only two options. Either it was a new power, or an old power. The holy book of his faith has stories about a great ancient war and a dark world at the edge of known space. Having seen the ships that attacked him at the destroyed base, he is certain the dark enemies have awoken again.

Garibaldi wakes up and Franklin calls Ivanova and Sherridan. Traitor officer listens in and goes to the medical station to hear what Garibaldi is telling the others. He didn't see who shot him, so the traitor quietly leaves again.

Londo hears that G'Kar is back and goes to nag him, but G'Kar tells him there is something very dangerous threatening all of them and he needs to talk with all the ambassadors.

Delenn hatches from the cocoon and is covered in gray scales and feeling terrible. Lennier calls Franklin and reminds him that everything about Delenn has to be kept secret.

Sherridan talks some more with his sisters about his dead wife.

G'Kar informs Londo, Sherridan, and Kosh about his encounter with the alien ships and that be believes them to be the ancient aliens from the holy texts. The Narn government is not convinced, but he got them to send a cruiser to their homeworld Zahadum to see if there is any activity.

Londo tells Morden about it. Morden pretends that it means nothing to him, but Londo can see that he recognizes the name. Morden thanks him and asks if he knows when the cruiser is supposed to arrive.

Garibaldi's lieutenant brings Talia to the medical station and Garibaldi asks her to try help him find the memory of who shot him. He sees the traitor in a reflection and security goes to arrest him. Garibaldi insists that he has to get out of bed to talk with him and get some answers. He tells Garibaldi that he's part of a big conspiracy that will soon take power on Earth, but nothing more. Garibaldi wants to know if it's Home Guard, but he dismisses Home Guard as irrelevant.

President Clark calls Sherridan to ask about the prisoner and orders him to be send to Earth immediately. Sherridan seems to find it a bit strange.

The Narn cruiser arrives at Zahadum where two shadow ships are waiting and destroy it in seconds.

G'Kar gets news of the ship's destruction, which is attributed to a fault in the hyperspace drive as it came out of hyperspace. But he knows that Narn ships can't use communication for a few seconds after coming out of hyperspace and it could have been destroyed then. But the only people who knew about the ship were Na'Toth, Sherridan, Londo, and Kosh. G'Kar knows which one of the four he suspects, but does not accuse Londo of anything yet.

Delenn has completed her transformation and has turned into a Minbari-Human hybrid.

Sherridan's sister tells him that she got the record from her final conversation with his wife, which was about him, and gives it to him in case he wants to see it.

Garibaldi thanks Talia for her help and once she has left he talks to Ivanova and Franklin in private. When he was talking with the traitor he made a gesture that reminded Geribaldi of Bester. In a recent debate about PsiCorps regulation, Clark had sided with the PsiCorps against President Santiago, and perhaps they wanted a president that was more positive towards them.

Ivanova calls Sherridan that the transport to Earth had transferred the prisoner to an Earth Security ship, but she checked the IDs and that ship is not in the official fleet registers and nowhere to be found. She tried to call the president, but he isn't taking their calls.

--

Well, this was okay, once again. Pretty good, actually. But on rewatching it, it's not really very exciting.

Delenn turning into a human hybrid is odd, but it does not really seem to have any implications or consequences at this point. It's just there.

G'Kar has probably the most interesting part this episode. I guess watching it the first time, this is actually pretty exciting. The people "working for" Londo are actually very powerful ancient aliens that G'Kar considers a great threat to the entire galaxy because they are old monsters from Narn mythology. And we see them showing off more of their firepower. First with their small fighters wiping out G'Kar's escort, and then by ambushing a cruiser and destroying it the moment it comes out of hyperspace. The targets that they destroyed previously were much smaller or we didn't really know how strong they were. This huge warship getting instant-killed is pretty clear, though.
But when you watch the show a second time, you already know all these things, so it's actually a bit boring.

The last thing we learn is that there really is a big conspiracy going on on Earth and PsiCorps seems to be involved, and it now appears that the new president is at either its leader or its pawn.

What I think wasn't a good choice is to have the other half of Sherridan's backstory getting told in his second episode, and it all happening in interactions with a character we've never seen before and we probably won't ever see again. At this stage, there isn't even an implication of a mystery surrounding his wife's death, so why should we care about any of this? It would have been better at a later point when we care more about Sherridan, and perhaps happen in an interaction with Ivanova for example.

That's not just an A-plot and a B-plot, but also a C-plot and a D-plot. That's simply too much and makes all of them feel rushed.

[Cikomyr]

You know what I never get tired of?

Narn ships getting blown up by Shadow vessels