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bobkatt013 posted:The first season of SG-1 also had he Mongol episode which is easily the worst episode. That and the Space African episode of TNG are possibly the two worst episodes of a science fiction show in history. And unsurprisingly they were both written by the same woman.
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| # ? Mar 3, 2011 18:51 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 05:07 |
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Palleon posted:That and the Space African episode of TNG are possibly the two worst episodes of a science fiction show in history. And unsurprisingly they were both written by the same woman. Wait, are you kidding? Holy poo poo. It all makes sense now.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2011 03:21 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Even when DS9 "gets real" it doesn't have the groundedness of B5. A large part of this is because they were restricted in how serialised they could make it, but that doesn't change the end effect - where B5 has refugee problems, DS9 has games of baseball against vulcans where the crew learn that it's the taking part that's important. Agreed. The Narn-Centauri war really felt like you felt the effects of war, as much as one can in a sci-fi show. Streams of refugees (really just the same actors walking in a circle), politics stopping what you should be doing, doing what you can when you can on the sly. DS9 goes into that a bit, but I never felt it did it as much and that it should have done more.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2011 10:00 |
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Remember DS9 had a lot of trouble that JMS didn't have to deal with. The suits wanted the Dominion War to be two or three episodes total. The only reason they got away with anything was that the suits decided Voyager was the flagship show and ignored DS9 enough that they could mostly do what they wanted. Considering the Star Trek constraints and terrible executives they had to fight they did a drat fine job. They did have characters with PTSD and stuff, way beyond the "main characters have no flaws" style of Roddenberry.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2011 13:43 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Even when DS9 "gets real" it doesn't have the groundedness of B5. A large part of this is because they were restricted in how serialised they could make it, but that doesn't change the end effect - where B5 has refugee problems, DS9 has games of baseball against vulcans where the crew learn that it's the taking part that's important. Grand Fromage posted:Remember DS9 had a lot of trouble that JMS didn't have to deal with. The suits wanted the Dominion War to be two or three episodes total. The only reason they got away with anything was that the suits decided Voyager was the flagship show and ignored DS9 enough that they could mostly do what they wanted. Considering the Star Trek constraints and terrible executives they had to fight they did a drat fine job. They did have characters with PTSD and stuff, way beyond the "main characters have no flaws" style of Roddenberry. I know why things like "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" happened the way they did, but there was such a huge disconnect between the war episodes and everything else. You often felt like the latter were from another season. The mood didn't necessarily carry over from week to week
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| # ? Mar 4, 2011 23:43 |
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I've been watching B5 through again and I seem to have either missed or completely imagined an episode. Kosh takes Sheriden to someplace in down-below and I seem to remember a song or something being sung by a hooded figure. Somebody else remembers this right?
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 00:14 |
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Season 2, episode 14: "There All the Honor Lies"
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 00:35 |
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CommunistMojo posted:I've been watching B5 through again and I seem to have either missed or completely imagined an episode. Kosh takes Sheriden to someplace in down-below and I seem to remember a song or something being sung by a hooded figure. Somebody else remembers this right? This was all likely a psychic projection made by Kosh.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 01:33 |
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R-Type posted:This was all likely a psychic projection made by Kosh. Man I wish I could get some good kosh that did that crazy poo poo around here.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 01:54 |
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I'm watching Season 5 right now. Byran goes from Space Telepath Ghandi to Space Telepath Hitler demanding Lebensraum because of what the Vorlon's did to them in the span of a cowgirl ride from Leeta. It's stunning how bad this is, and then the next episode we have Mordan back talking with Lenear with Mordan as the picture of 
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 10:17 |
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CommunistMojo posted:I've been watching B5 through again and I seem to have either missed or completely imagined an episode. Kosh takes Sheriden to someplace in down-below and I seem to remember a song or something being sung by a hooded figure. Somebody else remembers this right? loving owns. "What's in there?" "One moment of perfect beauty." Good to know the Dominicans are still rocking out with their chants in space. I love how Sheridan starts talking more and more like a Vorlon till he finally hits his peak and arguably out-Vorlons the Vorlons in this awesome moment with Lorien. Lorien - "You heard?" Sheridan - "I heard." Lorien - "They need to believe." Sheridan - "Not in me." Lorien - "You can't save them all." Sheridan - "I can try." Lorien - "You'll fail." Sheridan - "We'll see." EDIT: Speaking of DS9, the ending is the most retarded poo poo ever. Granted it gave Sisko and Ducat another chance to chew on the scenery, provided a suitably heinous end for that high priestess stinkyhole, and wrapped up the stupid Emissary subplot. Stupid poo poo about the ascended ancients and Ori from Stargate is not where I wanted the show to end though. The war was cool enough. Nathilus fucked around with this message at Mar 5, 2011 around 12:12 |
| # ? Mar 5, 2011 12:07 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:If you don't mind that it's anime (seriously it doesn't matter) then try Legend of Galactic Heroes. Very classy series. Made in an era when anime characters looked more like normal humans and there was actual emphasis on story and no super units. Lots of dialogue and political scheming. Also the unique narrative from the perspective of future historian re-telling events taking place. And massive fleets of thousands of ships battling it out. To the soundtrack of classical music. First two episodes, ep 1 1/1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDpO7P65dY8 ep 1 1/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoFVMUSuiEI ep 2 1/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm_ANle7pgk ep 2 2/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDvF5uuhXjU Casualties in first two episodes: over 1,6 million.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 13:37 |
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TheShadowAvatar posted:I'm watching Season 5 right now. Byran goes from Space Telepath Ghandi to Space Telepath Hitler demanding Lebensraum because of what the Vorlon's did to them in the span of a cowgirl ride from Leeta. It kind of makes sense when you consider that Byron's rhetoric is just a cleaned up version of Bester's own beliefs - a very "Us VS Them" mentality. So, of course, the moment it gets a bit stressful Byron brings out the whole "gently caress you mundanes, we're better than you so give us what we want" part of it. (Phoenix Rising spoiler) Also: Byron, Lyta, Lennier, Morden.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 14:17 |
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Nathilus posted:
Well it was where the show began so it ended with the prophets made sense.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 15:35 |
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It's still space magic bullshit that doesn't fit in well with the rest of the show. The wormhole aliens work but the P'ah wraiths are just silly. It's almost worth it to discover the hilarity of Winn and Ducat loving.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2011 16:29 |
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hope and vaseline posted:Fringe is amazing, once you get past the first few eps of season 1. Nothing as painful as B5's first season though, just very wooden acting from everyone but John Noble. A number of the B5 fans (myself included) I know have enjoyed Avatar: The Last Bender, which isn't sci-fi but has a pretty awesome story arc. Edit: Milky Moor posted:Morden. 
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| # ? Mar 6, 2011 07:54 |
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WTF ? Ed Wasser, Mark Hamil and George Takei did voices in something called "Robot Astronomy Talk Show" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1493131/fullcredits#cast Three episodes in and no guest stars, and if that's Ed Wasser the voice modulation hides it pretty well. Your science dollars at work here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq7glXZn73Y
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| # ? Mar 6, 2011 08:34 |
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Small White Dragon posted:A number of the B5 fans (myself included) I know have enjoyed Avatar: The Last Bender, which isn't sci-fi but has a pretty awesome story arc. My favorite TV series of all time are Babylon 5 and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I have several others I like a lot, but those two really stand out head and shoulders above the others. Both have complex narratives that revolve around the characters. Both have long-reaching, serialized storylines. Both have memorable characters who seem to exist purely in shades of grey, set against a backdrop of war and genocide. And both have a fantastic setting in which awesome things happen regularly. One is a children's show that somehow got away with some really disturbing scenes, like the one another SA user spoke of in the Avatar thread spiderhyphenman posted:^^^ If I had told you seven years ago that a show on Nickelodeon would have a scene where a thirteen year old boy pleads for mercy with tears in his eyes right before his father brutally scars him, and the show wouldn't IMMEDIATELY get canceled, you would have said the same thing. And the other show is sci-fi. These are the two genres that seem to get shafted by insipid, uninspired writing above all others, yet they have produced my two favorite shows.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2011 13:40 |
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mllaneza posted:WTF ? Ed Wasser, Mark Hamil and George Takei did voices in something called "Robot Astronomy Talk Show" Sounds like an SNL sketch.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2011 14:45 |
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Kerbtree posted:What about Space: Above and Beyond, if you like BSG stuff? It's got R Lee Ermery shouting at people, 'grit', cloned James Morrison, multiple arced stories, and at one point, Coolio. Space: A&B is weird, unfriendly and violent. Which is exactly why it should have continued but didn't. gently caress this world. I've always wished a cyberpunk/Singularity series could take flight, but it never will. Perhaps a debased spin-off of the Vernor Vinge Zones of Thought? I have no idea. The Singularity poses obvious problems since it quickly passes by human thought. Sleeping in Light is such an amazing send-off. Bruce can act when given sufficient subtlety and told not to turn it up to 11. His journey into inhuman intelligence is so touching. Neurosis fucked around with this message at Mar 6, 2011 around 15:30 |
| # ? Mar 6, 2011 14:47 |
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Neurosis posted:Space: A&B is weird, unfriendly and violent. Which is exactly why it should have continued but didn't. gently caress this world.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2011 18:11 |
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My favorite Morden story is one Ed Wasser tells (the guy that plays Morden). Apparently one day a few years back he was out shopping, and went to a florist to get some flowers. He walks in and looks around until the owner comes up and says, "What do you want?" and Wasser says, "Well I was thinking about X and Y arrangement blah blah blah." and the owners says, "But what do you want?" Ed Wasser then reacted thusly:  .... 
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| # ? Mar 10, 2011 19:55 |
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I love that the difference between Vorlons and Shadows can be summed up by their respective questions, and how Lorien's superior wisdom is shown in his. Storytelling at it's finest.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2011 20:11 |
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There was something delightful about watching Franklin make a complete rear end of himself in that story with the religious alien parents. Sinclair's Angry Acting has never been so satisfying as when he's holding back from kicking Franklin out an airlock.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2011 22:20 |
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Miss Fats posted:My favorite Morden story is one Ed Wasser tells (the guy that plays Morden). Apparently one day a few years back he was out shopping, and went to a florist to get some flowers. He walks in and looks around until the owner comes up and says, "What do you want?" and Wasser says, "Well I was thinking about X and Y arrangement blah blah blah." and the owners says, "But what do you want?" He hasn't done a lot since B5 has he? That's a shame, he played a really good bad guy.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2011 23:25 |
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TheShadowAvatar posted:He hasn't done a lot since B5 has he? That's a shame, he played a really good bad guy. He was on Ripley's Believe It or Not once because his son was riding a skateboard at age three or something like that. I didn't know him by name yet, just by appearance, and immediately went to IMDB to check and see if this "Ed Wasser" guy I had just seen was actually Morden.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2011 23:45 |
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Just finished the series. Watched 1-4 years ago, then season 5 aired at a weird hour and I only saw episodes in fits and starts. Getting through early season 5 was a chore, but worth it in the end. Sun's coming up 
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| # ? Mar 11, 2011 01:31 |
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:There was something delightful about watching Franklin make a complete rear end of himself in that story with the religious alien parents. Sinclair's Angry Acting has never been so satisfying as when he's holding back from kicking Franklin out an airlock. The first time I watched that episode (I couldn't have been older than 8 or 9 as I watched season 1 as it aired) I remember being really confused and infuriated. But now that I watch it as an adult, Franklin being a total piece of poo poo is really funny and Michael O'Hare's acting is priceless.
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| # ? Mar 11, 2011 01:46 |
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Holy crap I saw product placement for loving Zima.
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| # ? Mar 12, 2011 20:24 |
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Holy crap I saw product placement for loving Zima. I just did a bit of research on this and according to tv.com that it was NOT a product placement. http://www.tv.com/babylon-5/tko/epi...48/summary.html quote:There has been some controversy about the Zima sign in this episode of Babylon 5. Many consider the sign for the alcoholic beverage an example of shameless product placement. J. Michael Straczynski has said, we "got not a dime for sticking in the Zima sign. We just thought... well, it'd be funny."
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| # ? Mar 14, 2011 05:15 |
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Well, if it wasn't funny then it's certainly funny now.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2011 05:26 |
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Must be Garibaldi's drink of choice!
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| # ? Mar 14, 2011 05:27 |
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hope and vaseline posted:Must be Garibaldi's drink of choice! He's not that much of an alcoholic.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2011 05:28 |
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:He's not that much of an alcoholic. Is anybody?
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| # ? Mar 14, 2011 07:21 |
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Polaron posted:Is anybody? Distrust wasn't the only thing Bester planted in his head...
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| # ? Mar 14, 2011 10:27 |
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Haha hilarious to imagine that theres a commercial equivalent of the psycorps that maraudes around stimulating the economy!
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| # ? Mar 14, 2011 10:34 |
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Just watched In the Beginning, and I'm shocked that the Earth-Minbari war lasted two years. I always figured it was more like two weeks, considering the astounding technological superiority the Minbari had. Why did it take them two years to reach/conquer Earth, when Sheridan could do it in months (right?)? I don't really remember hearing about very many colonies falling to the Minbari either -- never any mention of returning territory to Human hands anyway -- so what on Earth were the Minbari doing for two whole years? I seem to recall the human death toll being something under a million for the whole war, which seems amazingly low for two years of warfare against a race thousands of years ahead technologically.
alby mangels fucked around with this message at Mar 18, 2011 around 12:55 |
| # ? Mar 18, 2011 12:52 |
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alby mangels posted:Just watched In the Beginning, and I'm shocked that the Earth-Minbari war lasted two years. I always figured it was more like two weeks, considering the astounding technological superiority the Minbari had. Why did it take them two years to reach/conquer Earth, when Sheridan could do it in months (right?)? I don't really remember hearing about very many colonies falling to the Minbari either -- never any mention of returning territory to Human hands anyway -- so what on Earth were the Minbari doing for two whole years? I seem to recall the human death toll being something under a million for the whole war, which seems amazingly low for two years of warfare against a race thousands of years ahead technologically. They may not have known where all the human planets were, and Sheridan kind of was under special circumstances.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2011 13:10 |
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Also, I think the Minbari systematically took care of every Human colony out there and worked their way to Earth. Sheridan cut to the chase.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2011 13:57 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 05:07 |
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alby mangels posted:Just watched In the Beginning, and I'm shocked that the Earth-Minbari war lasted two years. I always figured it was more like two weeks, considering the astounding technological superiority the Minbari had. Why did it take them two years to reach/conquer Earth, when Sheridan could do it in months (right?)? I don't really remember hearing about very many colonies falling to the Minbari either -- never any mention of returning territory to Human hands anyway -- so what on Earth were the Minbari doing for two whole years? I seem to recall the human death toll being something under a million for the whole war, which seems amazingly low for two years of warfare against a race thousands of years ahead technologically. I forget in which episode it's mentioned, but Delenn said that the Minbari bypassed several Earth colonies to go straight for Earth itself in the final days of the war - that's what resulted in the Battle of the Line. And Sheridan had the advantage of a ton of Earth forces defecting to join his side. When you've only got half an army left on your side, you're easier to topple.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2011 14:02 |
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