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Unintentional Love Song to Babylon 5
I am trying to finish dad's Deep Space Nine DVDs before making a play for his dSLR, but I faded a bit in early season seven. Apparently I saw more late-run DS9 than I thought, or absorbed several episode summaries. So I popped out an episode with a mad Vorta and Another Ferengi Trading Scheme, and popped Babylon 5 S2 in. The special effects are painful. The sets are just fine on a 19" screen, but some of the secondary and tertiary acting is pretty wooden. However, the plots are awesome. Also, Delenn gets lines like, "the universe puts us in the right place at the right time," and Mira Furlan delivers them. And I saw all this during its first run, which made a huge difference.
The original Babylon 5 TV movie / pilot aired in Feburary of 1992, and the last episode of the series aired right before Thanksgiving in 1998, nicely bridging my elementary, middle and high school years and all events thereunto. I got to stay up to watch the end of B5, but would get sent to bed next year before the end of the DS9 premiere; by the time "Sleeping in Light" aired mom didn't care much what time I put myself to bed. So I have absolutely zero perspective on B5's flaws or successes; there is incredibly obvious bluescreen and shoestring CGI on my TV, but it's just not registering in my brain. Look! Look, it's "The Geometry of Shadows", and JMS is doing a variation on Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", who cares how obviously bluescreened the technomages' magic is? Look, it's GROPOS, it's the episode where I started looking for the show instead of just stopping if I flipped channels and found it. Look, it's "And Now For a Word", which was a revelation when I was eleven (and Clinton was halfway through his first term) and a whole bunch of episodes that I would not be afraid to watch today. Which is why my birthday and Christmas presents for about two years were B5 DVDs. (Thanks, dad!)
The final four episodes of S2 just rocked my world, and introduced me to the amazing possibilities of multi-episode plot arcs. As well as Sheridan's apology rehearsal.
And then there was S3, which were consistently strong to awesome with the exception of Garibaldi's B-plot in "Gray 17 Is Missing", though S4 got kind of messy, and we do not talk about the telepath plot in S5. Anyway. I think I may have a marathon while on vacation.
JMS is still my frustratingly human tin house-god, who was my gateway drug into speculative fiction. Watching his posts and interaction in rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated was an education in midlist fame and humanity (or, JMS does dumb stuff and gets in flamewars on the internet, while also having occasional moments of awesome), as well as an introduction to the ABCs (Asimov, Bester, Clarke). I am glad to see he's well-employed and busy, and seems happy, many years after I found his work.
(And, um, I still need to see Changeling. Whoops.)
This was supposed to be an entry about other stuff - days left to Chicago, list of activities I've been postponing, me and The Millionaire Next Door (or, why I will never be fat enough) - but obviously I am having a massive old school kick this month. Watching old B5 episodes explains a lot about how I approach fiction and television.
By the way, by 11:30 PM tomorrow, I will have been on vacation for five and one-half hours. I cannot wait.
The original Babylon 5 TV movie / pilot aired in Feburary of 1992, and the last episode of the series aired right before Thanksgiving in 1998, nicely bridging my elementary, middle and high school years and all events thereunto. I got to stay up to watch the end of B5, but would get sent to bed next year before the end of the DS9 premiere; by the time "Sleeping in Light" aired mom didn't care much what time I put myself to bed. So I have absolutely zero perspective on B5's flaws or successes; there is incredibly obvious bluescreen and shoestring CGI on my TV, but it's just not registering in my brain. Look! Look, it's "The Geometry of Shadows", and JMS is doing a variation on Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", who cares how obviously bluescreened the technomages' magic is? Look, it's GROPOS, it's the episode where I started looking for the show instead of just stopping if I flipped channels and found it. Look, it's "And Now For a Word", which was a revelation when I was eleven (and Clinton was halfway through his first term) and a whole bunch of episodes that I would not be afraid to watch today. Which is why my birthday and Christmas presents for about two years were B5 DVDs. (Thanks, dad!)
The final four episodes of S2 just rocked my world, and introduced me to the amazing possibilities of multi-episode plot arcs. As well as Sheridan's apology rehearsal.
"I apologize.
I'm .. sorry.
I'm sorry we had to defend ourselves against an unwarranted attack. I'm sorry that your crew was stupid enough to fire on a station filled with a quarter million civilians, including your own people. And I'm sorry I waited as long as I did before I blew them all straight to Hell.
As with everything else, it's the thought that counts."
And then there was S3, which were consistently strong to awesome with the exception of Garibaldi's B-plot in "Gray 17 Is Missing", though S4 got kind of messy, and we do not talk about the telepath plot in S5. Anyway. I think I may have a marathon while on vacation.
JMS is still my frustratingly human tin house-god, who was my gateway drug into speculative fiction. Watching his posts and interaction in rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated was an education in midlist fame and humanity (or, JMS does dumb stuff and gets in flamewars on the internet, while also having occasional moments of awesome), as well as an introduction to the ABCs (Asimov, Bester, Clarke). I am glad to see he's well-employed and busy, and seems happy, many years after I found his work.
(And, um, I still need to see Changeling. Whoops.)
This was supposed to be an entry about other stuff - days left to Chicago, list of activities I've been postponing, me and The Millionaire Next Door (or, why I will never be fat enough) - but obviously I am having a massive old school kick this month. Watching old B5 episodes explains a lot about how I approach fiction and television.
By the way, by 11:30 PM tomorrow, I will have been on vacation for five and one-half hours. I cannot wait.