Babylon 5 1x19 - 2x01
Oct. 12th, 2014 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkBabylon 5 continues to be fantastic.
"A Voice in the Wilderness": I don't think we got the name of the mysterious dead advanced race? They remind me of the Ancients, except instead of Ascended they're dead, plus one guy strapped into a machine. The Ancients had a pretty strict non-interference policy, what about the Machine? They say that the other races aren't ready yet for their knowledge. But the old guy seemed fond of Babylon 5. Could Drall use the Machine to defend Babylon 5 against attackers? Best defense system.
So the hologram was looking for people willing to sacrifice themselves, and it appeared - in that order - to Sinclair, Londo, and Drall. I wonder who would have been next.
Sinclair and Ivanova on a field trip! Very irresponsible, which they knew and deliberately exploited loopholes, heh.
Londo is a crazy (and) good pilot!
The Babylon 5 mantra is genius: "Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is god. And, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out."
Susan Ivanova <3
"Babylon Squared": Babylon 4! Finally! (Or "already", I wasn't expecting it to appear in season 1 tbh.) Unstuck in time, hm. At least they got everyone out. So Sinclair is "the One"? A leader in the coming Great War. He looks quite a few years older, at least.
Delenn being offered the leadership of the Minbari! Did not see that coming. And she most likely loses her place on the Grey Council, and there's a rift among the Minbari... very interesting. So the Triluminary is a rare artifact, I guess it has something to do with the triangle that showed up on her forehead when she met the Shadow guy?
I was a bit puzzled by her explanation why humans are unique. They're passionate, they don't give up, and they achieve things despite/through diversity and pluralism - and that's unique among the races? Not the impression I got so far... okay, maybe humans are a bit more diverse, we don't know because we haven't seen any other home planets.
"The Quality of Mercy": Londo and Lennier were fun together. (AV's face when he figured out Londo's "appendage"!)
So their criminal justice system substitutes a complete personality mindwipe for the death penalty. The penalty for the person is the same, they cease to exist, but the society gets free labor out of it. A bit cynical, isn't it? I'm also wondering what different religions with different concepts of "soul" think of it.
Dr. Franklin is prone to quick judgements, but at least he listened. Medical Plot Device detected.
"Chrysalis": Aaaah, everything is happening! And things are Not Good! I kept flailing at the screen during this episode.
(Last episode of season 1, and the first time both AV and I got the complete intro right *high-five*)
"Look, do you want to get married or don't you?" Awww :) Sinclair and Sakai are engaged! I wish we'd seen her one or two more times during the season, but I really like their relationship. And Garibaldi as Sinclair's best man! (Ivanova as Sakai's maid of honor because Sakai said she doesn't really know many people on the station is a bit more surprising and less happy. I choose to believe that Ivanova and Sakai spent some time together and became friends when Sakai was on the station instead of that Sakai barely knows anyone on Babylon 5.)
Londo, c'mon, you have to know Morden is bad news (even the name is not at all subtle.) The Shadows killed 10.000 Narns... Londo agreed to the bargain because of his ego, and now the Shadows will come to collect a favor. Not Good.
The Shadow ships looked a bit more like spiders this time - tentacles at first, but then they seemed to solidify while firing, and the invisible things in the room on Babylon 5 also looked spider-like. Shadow tentacle spider ships *nods*
At least G'kar figured out that it can't be one of the known races and that there must be a new player, and he's gone to investigate. I wonder if he suspects the Shadows, if the Narn have heard of them?
Garibaldi! As soon as that other security guy came in I knew that he's bad news. Nooo, Garibaldi :( He's just a tiny bit too late, and the president dies. Uh-oh. My first guess was that the Shadows are involved and the new president is the human's version of Londo, but then why were there humans involved? Why would they bother to make it look like an accident after they didn't care in quadrant A37? Is there another player in the game?
Of course Sinclair is too late to visit Delenn :( A cocoon, really? Transformation, towards what... Obviously Khosh knows something, but he never says anything.
The year is 2259! What a season finale.
"Points of Departure": Ivanova runs the station for one week and almost runs out of patience, no surprise. Garibaldi still unconscious :(
Sinclair's been reassigned?! Wow! I expected that to happen at some point, but not so soon. Ambassador on Minbar. I really hope Sakai will be allowed to visit! He and Ivanova didn't get a chance to say goodbye.
New Commander Sheridan looks extremely young. He was a ship captain twelve years ago, so he must be easily over thirty, but he doesn't look like it.
I really wonder about the politics of assigning him! A man the Minbari call Starkiller? (It was a war, what, did they expect humans not to try and blow up their ships?) (Both AV and I immediately thought of Star Wars, points to us.) It doesn't make any sense that Ivanova doesn't know exactly how he blew up those ships, btw, it should be in reports and stuff.
I like that he and Ivanova worked together before and have an established relationship with mutual respect. That makes the transition much easier. I also like that he seems like a bit of a dork, otherwise he would have been boring. And he's smart, that's good, and he's not a shoot-first kind of person which is also good. But does he have any diplomatic training?
I'm less worried about Garibaldi than I would be if they didn't have Dr. Rosen's medical device. Sure, it'd be risky, and Dr. Franklin probably hasn't fine-tuned it yet, but still better than not waking up at all.
I don't think these were all the Minbari who were unsatisfied with the surrender back then, just an inkling.
One Minbari secret revealed! They're diminishing as a race, they're losing souls, and they found out that some of them are in humans. Wow, the implications of that. They must have a way to not only measure quantity, but also specific qualities of "soul", very interesting. Also Sinclair has a Minbari soul, whatever that means. (They gave back Sinclair, but they said they also captured other humans, what about them? Forgotten?) So why would that happen, and how? Of course with the "Minbari don't kill Minbari" that means they had to stop the war immediately. But they didn't tell the warriors, because it'd be a huge shock for their whole society. They'll have to tell them one day, do they have any kind of plan? It must be one in connection with the mysterious prophecy.
New intro: 2259, the year the Great War begins! Oh no, so soon? I don't know how to feel about this yet.
So in short, I really really love this show right now and I'm looking forward to more. (Thursday, probably!)
I already had a sleep deficit, but on the other hand today is Sunday, so I stayed up until 4am to watch the Pens-Leafs game. It was a lot of fun. Hockey is beautiful! The Pens played very well! Sid is so good, wow. Hornqvist fits in very well. And Geno is getting into game shape, I thought "Looks like he's getting his speed back" one shift before he scored. (Potash: "How much does it mean to get on the board so soon?" Geno: "It's not soon. It's not first game. It's second." Geno <3) We have a bottom 6 that can trap the Leafs' top line in their zone (tbf that was probably a big exception, their top lines had a bad time in general), and Flower was solid. 5-2 :) I'm very excited for this season.
Also the Caps shut out the Bruins and the Habs won against the Flyers after being down 0-3, very nice.
"A Voice in the Wilderness": I don't think we got the name of the mysterious dead advanced race? They remind me of the Ancients, except instead of Ascended they're dead, plus one guy strapped into a machine. The Ancients had a pretty strict non-interference policy, what about the Machine? They say that the other races aren't ready yet for their knowledge. But the old guy seemed fond of Babylon 5. Could Drall use the Machine to defend Babylon 5 against attackers? Best defense system.
So the hologram was looking for people willing to sacrifice themselves, and it appeared - in that order - to Sinclair, Londo, and Drall. I wonder who would have been next.
Sinclair and Ivanova on a field trip! Very irresponsible, which they knew and deliberately exploited loopholes, heh.
Londo is a crazy (and) good pilot!
The Babylon 5 mantra is genius: "Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is god. And, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out."
Susan Ivanova <3
"Babylon Squared": Babylon 4! Finally! (Or "already", I wasn't expecting it to appear in season 1 tbh.) Unstuck in time, hm. At least they got everyone out. So Sinclair is "the One"? A leader in the coming Great War. He looks quite a few years older, at least.
Delenn being offered the leadership of the Minbari! Did not see that coming. And she most likely loses her place on the Grey Council, and there's a rift among the Minbari... very interesting. So the Triluminary is a rare artifact, I guess it has something to do with the triangle that showed up on her forehead when she met the Shadow guy?
I was a bit puzzled by her explanation why humans are unique. They're passionate, they don't give up, and they achieve things despite/through diversity and pluralism - and that's unique among the races? Not the impression I got so far... okay, maybe humans are a bit more diverse, we don't know because we haven't seen any other home planets.
"The Quality of Mercy": Londo and Lennier were fun together. (AV's face when he figured out Londo's "appendage"!)
So their criminal justice system substitutes a complete personality mindwipe for the death penalty. The penalty for the person is the same, they cease to exist, but the society gets free labor out of it. A bit cynical, isn't it? I'm also wondering what different religions with different concepts of "soul" think of it.
Dr. Franklin is prone to quick judgements, but at least he listened. Medical Plot Device detected.
"Chrysalis": Aaaah, everything is happening! And things are Not Good! I kept flailing at the screen during this episode.
(Last episode of season 1, and the first time both AV and I got the complete intro right *high-five*)
"Look, do you want to get married or don't you?" Awww :) Sinclair and Sakai are engaged! I wish we'd seen her one or two more times during the season, but I really like their relationship. And Garibaldi as Sinclair's best man! (Ivanova as Sakai's maid of honor because Sakai said she doesn't really know many people on the station is a bit more surprising and less happy. I choose to believe that Ivanova and Sakai spent some time together and became friends when Sakai was on the station instead of that Sakai barely knows anyone on Babylon 5.)
Londo, c'mon, you have to know Morden is bad news (even the name is not at all subtle.) The Shadows killed 10.000 Narns... Londo agreed to the bargain because of his ego, and now the Shadows will come to collect a favor. Not Good.
The Shadow ships looked a bit more like spiders this time - tentacles at first, but then they seemed to solidify while firing, and the invisible things in the room on Babylon 5 also looked spider-like. Shadow tentacle spider ships *nods*
At least G'kar figured out that it can't be one of the known races and that there must be a new player, and he's gone to investigate. I wonder if he suspects the Shadows, if the Narn have heard of them?
Garibaldi! As soon as that other security guy came in I knew that he's bad news. Nooo, Garibaldi :( He's just a tiny bit too late, and the president dies. Uh-oh. My first guess was that the Shadows are involved and the new president is the human's version of Londo, but then why were there humans involved? Why would they bother to make it look like an accident after they didn't care in quadrant A37? Is there another player in the game?
Of course Sinclair is too late to visit Delenn :( A cocoon, really? Transformation, towards what... Obviously Khosh knows something, but he never says anything.
The year is 2259! What a season finale.
"Points of Departure": Ivanova runs the station for one week and almost runs out of patience, no surprise. Garibaldi still unconscious :(
Sinclair's been reassigned?! Wow! I expected that to happen at some point, but not so soon. Ambassador on Minbar. I really hope Sakai will be allowed to visit! He and Ivanova didn't get a chance to say goodbye.
New Commander Sheridan looks extremely young. He was a ship captain twelve years ago, so he must be easily over thirty, but he doesn't look like it.
I really wonder about the politics of assigning him! A man the Minbari call Starkiller? (It was a war, what, did they expect humans not to try and blow up their ships?) (Both AV and I immediately thought of Star Wars, points to us.) It doesn't make any sense that Ivanova doesn't know exactly how he blew up those ships, btw, it should be in reports and stuff.
I like that he and Ivanova worked together before and have an established relationship with mutual respect. That makes the transition much easier. I also like that he seems like a bit of a dork, otherwise he would have been boring. And he's smart, that's good, and he's not a shoot-first kind of person which is also good. But does he have any diplomatic training?
I'm less worried about Garibaldi than I would be if they didn't have Dr. Rosen's medical device. Sure, it'd be risky, and Dr. Franklin probably hasn't fine-tuned it yet, but still better than not waking up at all.
I don't think these were all the Minbari who were unsatisfied with the surrender back then, just an inkling.
One Minbari secret revealed! They're diminishing as a race, they're losing souls, and they found out that some of them are in humans. Wow, the implications of that. They must have a way to not only measure quantity, but also specific qualities of "soul", very interesting. Also Sinclair has a Minbari soul, whatever that means. (They gave back Sinclair, but they said they also captured other humans, what about them? Forgotten?) So why would that happen, and how? Of course with the "Minbari don't kill Minbari" that means they had to stop the war immediately. But they didn't tell the warriors, because it'd be a huge shock for their whole society. They'll have to tell them one day, do they have any kind of plan? It must be one in connection with the mysterious prophecy.
New intro: 2259, the year the Great War begins! Oh no, so soon? I don't know how to feel about this yet.
So in short, I really really love this show right now and I'm looking forward to more. (Thursday, probably!)
I already had a sleep deficit, but on the other hand today is Sunday, so I stayed up until 4am to watch the Pens-Leafs game. It was a lot of fun. Hockey is beautiful! The Pens played very well! Sid is so good, wow. Hornqvist fits in very well. And Geno is getting into game shape, I thought "Looks like he's getting his speed back" one shift before he scored. (Potash: "How much does it mean to get on the board so soon?" Geno: "It's not soon. It's not first game. It's second." Geno <3) We have a bottom 6 that can trap the Leafs' top line in their zone (tbf that was probably a big exception, their top lines had a bad time in general), and Flower was solid. 5-2 :) I'm very excited for this season.
Also the Caps shut out the Bruins and the Habs won against the Flyers after being down 0-3, very nice.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-12 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-12 06:51 pm (UTC)Ich hätte mir gewünscht, dass mir mehr Leute und/oder öfter Bab5 empfohlen hätten, also muss ich natürlich mit gutem Beispiel vorangehen. (Nur von Susan Ivanova hab ich öfter gehört, aber das war nicht genug, weil Fandom auch einzelne Charaktere liebt, deren Serie nicht sehenswert ist.)
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 09:07 am (UTC)Es ist traurig, dass mir momentan keine gute space TV show einfällt... Der Trend geht eher in Richtung Superhelden. Die ich auch mag, aber trotzdem schade.
(Oder vielleicht gibt es welche, die ich nur nicht kenne, könnte natürlich auch sein.)
Die letzte Serie mit Raumschiffen, an die ich mich erinnern kann, sind die Stargate-Serien. Teilweise gute Unterhaltung, aber nicht das Niveau von Bab5.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 09:24 am (UTC)Oh wow. Are you in for a treat. Ganz anderes Kaliber als Babylon 5, aber auf seine Art ebenso fabelhaft. Hat halt mit Feel-Good-TV à la Stargate Null und Nuller zu tun, das muss einem bewusst sein. BG würde ich tatsächlich als "realistische SciFi" klassifizieren, insofern das bei dem Genre möglich ist.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-12 06:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, I couldn't decide how much of last night's game was us being good, and how much of it was the Leafs being bad. I think Kessel ended up taking three penalties? It was terrible.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-12 06:59 pm (UTC)It started similarly with the Habs, at first I only liked PK but by now the whole team. (They have a very good PR team.)
The Leafs were weird: their whole top line seemed off their game, Bernier wasn't that good, and they don't have the depth or defense to compensate for that. The penalties were bad, and they were offside extremely often.
Oh well, Dallas next! That should be a lot of fun, I've heard very good things about their forwards and their goalie (but the opposite about their D.) (Who needs sleep anyway.)
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 01:32 am (UTC)Apparently Toronto got fed up last night, because they're back tonight against the Rangers and were up 6-2 in the second, which was the last time I looked.
I am mostly pro-Caps because of my friend, and also Russian Machine Never Breaks, which is The Best blog. And also Ovechkin himself - he's such a character, and I always enjoy interviews with him.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 09:01 am (UTC)Good for Toronto! Leafs and Oilers fans are two groups I just feel sorry for because their teams constantly fall short and disappoint.
Maybe they could start fixing the PK by playing Scuderi less. I want Scuderi to do well this year! Mostly because that would increase his trade value, but also so he doesn't hurt the team if he has to stay. But I trust almost everyone else more on the PK than him.
Let's see if they did indeed call up Harrington to sit Scuds... because who else? Nobody is injured, sitting Despres would be stupid he has to get at least one extended look and ideally with a better partner... though splitting up Letang/Ehrhoff/Martin/Maatta just so that one can play with Despres also seems kind of a waste. And Bortuzzo will come back in a few games.
It's good that there are people whose full-time job it is to worry about these things.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 06:13 pm (UTC)Did you see Ovi's date with a 10-year-old recently? It was SO adorable. I about died of cute, and I don't even like kids.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 08:34 pm (UTC)(Right now I'm confused by many fans' insistence that we trade Paul Martin. He's arguable our best defenseman! Asset management whatever, we need him for the playoffs. Trade Despres. Sorry Despres.)
I saw an article, there was video?
He did a new Russian music video that almost made me cringe in second-hand-embarrassment, I'll try to forget that.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-16 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-17 04:37 pm (UTC)Delenn has an excellent reason to be fixated on humans. And, from the Minbari point of view, there is something that makes Humans very interesting that Delenn doesn't know yet. And neither does anyone else.
When Stracynzki was doing the show, he had all five seasons planned out, complete with "what to do if an actor wants/needs to leave the show earlier than I planned for them," which did happen a couple of times. Sinclair was supposed to stay on the show longer, but had to leave for personal reasons. O'Hare was mentally ill, and struggled with delusions and hallucinations and couldn't continue to work, and so he had to go. (He will come back for a two-parter!) As for the rest of the plan, the studio told him (mid season 3? mid season 4? I don't remember) that he wasn't going to get five seasons, he was only going to get four, so he crammed all the rest of his plot into the time remaining ... and then season four was so popular that they said "here, you can have another season just like you wanted!" and Stracynzki had to scramble to figure out some kind of plot arc to fill it.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-17 09:17 pm (UTC)I love Susan Ivanova a lot.
Yeah, I heard that about the last two seasons. That sucks. But at least there was a plan for a plot arc! Many shows just seem to figure it out as they go along (or they try but don't succeed.)