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Chevy Slyme posted:FYI the early drafts literally did have Delenn doing a Gender swap/Teansition but IIRC it was abandoned largely for very 90’s logistical reasons that were also probably a convenient cover for the fact that it probably made a nonzero number of suits uncomfortable. This was mentioned the last time I shoehorned a trans reference into my comments, it's a cool detail! I mean I was very much planning on excessively reading in to everything Delenn does for trans subtext regardless, but this does give me an excuse for it
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Sep 15, 2022 23:15
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Chevy Slyme posted:FYI the early drafts literally did have Delenn doing a Gender swap/Teansition but IIRC it was abandoned largely for very 90’s logistical reasons that were also probably a convenient cover for the fact that it probably made a nonzero number of suits uncomfortable. JMS has said it was entirely because the voice modulation sounded like poo poo, and in the clip that got out it does, indeed, sound terrible. He's specifically said they had no pushback on the concept from anybody, it just wasn't technically viable.
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Sep 15, 2022 23:32
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It does make me wonder how it would have worked out if they had managed to do it. As far as I'm aware there was hardly any representation of trans people on 90s TV beyond like, jerry springer and the like, so a show with a major recurring character who was both trans and sympathetic would have really been something at the time. Not to mention a trans man, which is still very rare on-screen. How far would the show have gone with making the analogues with real life trans people very obvious? Would the suits have realised things were getting a bit too gay and asked them to tone it down at some point? Would anyone outside or within the viewership make a noise about it, would anyone have noticed a queer character on a weird space show for nerds, would the bigots be too busy moral panicking about gay people to bother to learn what a trans person was beyond Buffalo Bill, would trans men today talk about coming out the cocoon. what could have been. On a related note, generally how much did the suits bother Straczynski and the rest of them? Where were they on the scale from total micromanagement to not giving a gently caress at all e: lol was looking at early trans characters and jesus christ, sort this by date and look at the horrific slim pickings of the 90s and 2000s. The loving Nutshack Angepain fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Sep 16, 2022 |
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Sep 16, 2022 01:04
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Angepain posted:On a related note, generally how much did the suits bother Straczynski and the rest of them? Where were they on the scale from total micromanagement to not giving a gently caress at all The B5 crew had a lot of freedom for the most part. It'll be easier to talk about the instances where they didn't as you get further.
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Sep 16, 2022 01:09
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Angepain posted:It does make me wonder how it would have worked out if they had managed to do it. As far as I'm aware there was hardly any representation of trans people on 90s TV beyond like, jerry springer and the like, so a show with a major recurring character who was both trans and sympathetic would have really been something at the time. Not to mention a trans man, which is still very rare on-screen. How far would the show have gone with making the analogues with real life trans people very obvious? Would the suits have realised things were getting a bit too gay and asked them to tone it down at some point? Would anyone outside or within the viewership make a noise about it, would anyone have noticed a queer character on a weird space show for nerds, would the bigots be too busy moral panicking about gay people to bother to learn what a trans person was beyond Buffalo Bill, would trans men today talk about coming out the cocoon. what could have been. Pretty sure the plan always would have been Trans Woman eventually, with a Male Delenn in S1
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Sep 16, 2022 01:24
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Angepain posted:On a related note, generally how much did the suits bother Straczynski and the rest of them? Where were they on the scale from total micromanagement to not giving a gently caress at all From what he's said there was very very little micromanagement. The most prominent case of it was adding Keffer in season 2 was a network thing, not his idea.
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Sep 16, 2022 01:26
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Chevy Slyme posted:Pretty sure the plan always would have been Trans Woman eventually, with a Male Delenn in S1 that does make a bit more sense with the casting a woman for it (though casting trans people has never been great in that regard)
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Sep 16, 2022 01:39
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And in the pilot she's in the original male makeup since they were still trying to get it to work, but dropped the voice during production.
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Sep 16, 2022 01:51
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Angepain posted:On a related note, generally how much did the suits bother Straczynski and the rest of them? Where were they on the scale from total micromanagement to not giving a gently caress at all JMS has said he stopped getting notes from the network in S2. Past that point he was basically operating on his own. The reason is fairly interesting: Warner Brothers had a TV development arm that made shows for the networks, and it also had a TV syndication arm that sold old WB shows to stations. The syndication people decided that they'd try to create their own mini-network by using independent stations: if a station in every market across the country purchased a block of shows to air as first-run shows in prime time, they'd together constitute a kind of de-facto network (that they named PTN, the "prime-time network") but it would only need to program shows in a few time slots. The PTN package included B5. I think by the second year, B5 and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues were the only successful shows on PTN and the concept mostly petered out, leaving the indy stations purchasing two shows a week to air new programming. The established TV development arm had been in the early stages of what became the WB network. PTN launched in January 1993; the WB was announced in November. The TV development folks weren't real excited at the thought of being counterprogrammed in prime time by another branch of Warner Brothers. So far as I can tell, they not only refused to have anything to do with B5, they essentially blacklisted the show internally because the executives in charge of WB had had no role in the show whatsoever. If they had backed B5 to create a WB version of the Star Trek franchise, they'd essentially have been saying that the TV syndication execs could do their jobs better than they could. With the TV development people treating B5 as a pariah show, and with the PTN project essentially dead, there was little incentive for any executive at WB to meddle at all. It meant the show's renewal was always a last-minute affair--the show's fourth season was approved so late that they didn't have an assigned budget and would never have been able to meet deadlines if JMS and other producers hadn't taken on loans to temporarily fund things until Warner Brothers paid up--but it also meant that JMS had pretty unprecedented autonomy.
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Sep 16, 2022 18:48
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Narsham posted:JMS has said he stopped getting notes from the network in S2. Past that point he was basically operating on his own. PTEN (not PTN) actually only ever had four shows: the launch triad of B5, Kung Fu and Time Trax, and Pointman (which replaced Time Trax after its second season and ran for one year). By the time Chris-Craft pulled out to operate UPN at the end of 1997 Babylon 5 was the only show on the network.
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Sep 17, 2022 01:10
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Time Trax was goofy but fun (based on my memory of it from 30 years ago). I also liked how they addressed the eventual coloring of America and the lessening white majority. I'm curious if any of it still holds up. My local fox affiliate picked all the shows up and showed them at 9pm with star trek. Monday was Kung Fu Tuesday was Babylon 5 Wednesday was DS9 Thursday was TNG Friday was Time Trax
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Sep 18, 2022 16:18
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https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1571878278788517888
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Sep 19, 2022 17:11
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"the decision also rests heavily with @WarnerbrosTV" Ah, so it's hosed then
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Sep 20, 2022 18:36
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Yeah, it's dead.
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Sep 20, 2022 19:52
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EEK!!!  Just discovered this thread.I assume all this hullabaloo was just to keep the rights for the show? edit: I was working in a video rental store back in 1993 when our video rep made his usual Monday visit to promote new vids, one of them was the B5 pilot. It rented okish (hicksville Northern Ireland had a low SF rating back then.. still does a bit) and after a few weeks i got to see it. That was me hooked even before the first season came out, when that pilot vid ran its course in the shop i bought it, it's sitting on my shelf. 
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Nov 7, 2022 16:10
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Just Another Lurker posted:EEK!!! If you've already seen the whole show you will also like the main B5 thread. This one was for people who had never seen it before to share their observations as they worked through it so it's a spoiler-free zone. The linked thread, anything goes!
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Nov 8, 2022 02:27
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Just Another Lurker posted:EEK!!! Goondolances if you liked the pilot but I'm happy for you.
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Nov 8, 2022 07:52
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2nd Amendment posted:Goondolances if you liked the pilot but I'm happy for you. Decent SF in the 90s was limited. lol
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Nov 8, 2022 12:20
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Grand Fromage posted:JMS has said it was entirely because the voice modulation sounded like poo poo, and in the clip that got out it does, indeed, sound terrible. He's specifically said they had no pushback on the concept from anybody, it just wasn't technically viable. I seem to recall reading somewhere that also Mira Furlan wasn't happy with the idea of playing a role where she'd both be in heavy makeup and have her voice modulated. I assume this was also why they didn't just go with having her lines be dubbed over - I can't imagine she'd have been too reassured to be told that no, if we make it to season two, she'll totally be recognizable onscreen then!
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Nov 8, 2022 12:49
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Just Another Lurker posted:Decent SF in the 90s was limited. lol There is a good borscht-belt joke here. The food is bad but the portions, they are so small!
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Nov 9, 2022 06:37
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"Babylon 5 for the First Time" just hit Coming of Shadows and their reactions are priceless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2WFvD97FPM
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Jan 2, 2023 20:05
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After fifteen odd years I am finally watching Babylon 5 for the first time, I just finished episode 8 of season 1. I'm really enjoying it so far -- I'm a big fan of the sustained narrative structure, Londo, and Sinclair's eyebrows
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Jan 25, 2023 21:09
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Excellent! Glad you like it. You will make many friends should you post your feelings about the show here.
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Jan 25, 2023 21:41
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Trying to figure out where the 15 years is coming from. It finished airing nearly 25 years ago, or do you mean more like 15 years of being aware of it or something?
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Jan 25, 2023 21:43
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What do you mean 1993 wasn't 10 years ago? I'm not old.
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Jan 25, 2023 21:52
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Yeah sorry, was a bit distracted - I mean that it came on my radar in the mid 2000s but I never got around to watching it until now I gotta admit I'm not super keen so far on the psy cops and mind reading components. It seems like a common enough trope for sci fi but it usually feels like a hacky gimmick that opens up way more holes than it's worth
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Jan 25, 2023 21:52
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I kinda think of Babylon 5 as being a sort of midpoint straddling between old and new sci-fi, and that's one of the big old sci-fi things. There was a lot of fascination with psychic powers, and even an expectation that they would be a big factor in the future. And I think ultimately most of that interest was ultimately generated by real-world frauds, who have since been debunked and not replaced so there's nobody really considering that in the real world anymore, but we're still left with all this weird fiction trying to figure out the implications of psychic powers.
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Jan 25, 2023 22:21
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That's a very good point - but I think also as sci fi evolved it also learned to better handle character work and interpersonal conflicts rather than lofty abstract concept work, and Babylon 5 seems to also be kicking off the next generation of sci fi in that respect, but with some clashing cheesy holdovers at times. Like, I'm watching S1E10 (the believers) now, and I'm noticing how much I appreciate the character work on Londo and G'Kar when they're explaining why they won't help. G'Kar seems sincerely sympathetic and so tells them plainly that there's nothing to be gained and everything to be lost for them, whereas Londo pretends to care and wraps an excuse in fancy bureaucracy that he knows will bewilder the Children of Time, but it comes off as his typical insincere pageantry. Which is very consistent for them and also runs counter to gimmicky writing that you'd expect from other sci fi shows, even of later generations. But then the episode feels like it's stumbling a bit on the doctor, who is supposed to have a lot of experience working with various races and presumably also their cultural/religious idiosyncracies, and yet is an antagonistic foil for the main premise of religion vs medical care, which is very much a known thing even on earth - so he doesn't need to even be an alien doctor, just a doctor full stop. But he's forced into that aggressive dynamic in what feels like a somewhat clumsy way, when he has previously come off as more nuanced, if I remember that right But despite that nitpicking the show still carries off what it wants to say pretty well, both conceptually and just as something to watch, which is more than I can say for some other seminal works that I might struggle to pick up again these days, because they've just been so overshadowed by the next generation of shows that built off what they did
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Jan 25, 2023 22:58
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Whoops, also forgot to make the actual connection to my point - that mind reading and so forth feels like a really gimmicky/finicky thing to mesh with character work and stems from a more conceptual side of sci fi. I imagine there are ways to do it with more finesse but it'd presumably take a lot of work to set up rules and structures, which they're not willing to invest for the idea they're trying to get out of it, so it invariably comes off as cheesy and even partly non-canon If that makes sense
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Jan 25, 2023 23:08
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Great comments and thoughts! Based on them I am confident b5 will not disappoint you, keep them coming! It might feel like talking into the void as this is a strict no spoiler zone, but it's really fun hearing newbies impressions as they move through the series.
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Jan 25, 2023 23:33
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S1E11 - survivors Garibaldi is on the run after being framed and he's completely dismissive of the obvious plot against him right up until the moment he legs it. A little while later a member of the station security, who presumably used to report to him as his boss or boss's boss, sees him - and immediately whips out his gun and starts blasting at him. Something tells me that guy ain't getting a christmas bonus once the frame job is cleared up
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Jan 26, 2023 00:13
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Interested in your thoughts on Sinclair
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Jan 26, 2023 00:17
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That's a tough one. I think so far the actor is doing a good job at hitting the most important parts of the character, and sometimes not a great job at things that fall outside that range, but the character itself is a bit flat and pretty 2d anyway. And when it calls for something that goes beyond "sympathetic, confident, charming dad" (which he nails) or "disappointed or angry dad" then it feels like it's both poorly written and like he's a bit out of his element. I'm thinking of that romance episode earlier in the season which felt very off, with Kathryn or Kaitlin or something, and action scenes, torture scenes, nuanced emotion, and so forth It feels like he is mostly sliding into just being a calm presence that backgrounds the more exciting or well developed characters and I guess provides some historical or world building exposition, but without so much of a complex person to pin it to? But the thing is I mostly don't care while I'm watching him, he's got a great vibe for the majority purpose the character seems to be supposed to serve, so I'm enjoying it so far. Will need to think about it some more though However I did read the actors Wikipedia page a few episodes ago cos I wanted to know what else he was in, so I spoiled a little for myself and also got a bit sad
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Jan 26, 2023 00:43
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I’d avoid looking other things up - there’s a lot in Babylon 5 which benefit from coming in blind!
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Jan 26, 2023 01:50
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sebmojo posted:It might feel like talking into the void as this is a strict no spoiler zone, but it's really fun hearing newbies impressions as they move through the series. Yup, this. Post your reactions to each episode and there are a surprising number of people in here who'll basically be hanging on your every word. People tend to focus on different stuff, so it's always interesting to see what about the show is reaching out and grabbing you. I just finished chronicling my own first watch-through a few months ago. When I was done, it was cool to have those posts to go back to, for example to find all the predictions I'd made that turned out to be hilariously off-base. 
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Jan 26, 2023 02:30
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boofhead posted:That's a tough one. I think so far the actor is doing a good job at hitting the most important parts of the character, and sometimes not a great job at things that fall outside that range, but the character itself is a bit flat and pretty 2d anyway. And when it calls for something that goes beyond "sympathetic, confident, charming dad" (which he nails) or "disappointed or angry dad" then it feels like it's both poorly written and like he's a bit out of his element. I'm thinking of that romance episode earlier in the season which felt very off, with Kathryn or Kaitlin or something, and action scenes, torture scenes, nuanced emotion, and so forth Babylon 5 actors have really rotten luck. The running "joke" in the main B5 thread is to be wary of a lot of new posts in said thread, because it usually means another cast member has died  I really enjoy reading new watchers thoughts, but we're always super careful not to spoil anything. So don't be discouraged if you don't get a lot of reactions to your posts.
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Jan 26, 2023 02:54
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I always feel when Sinclair is monologuing that it's just a hair's breadth away from shifting into a Leslie Nielsen-style Police Squad! monologue by accident.
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Jan 26, 2023 12:33
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Whybird posted:I always feel when Sinclair is monologuing that it's just a hair's breadth away from shifting into a Leslie Nielsen-style Police Squad! monologue by accident. I can totally see that
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Jan 26, 2023 13:04
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Whybird posted:I always feel when Sinclair is monologuing that it's just a hair's breadth away from shifting into a Leslie Nielsen-style Police Squad! monologue by accident.
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Jan 31, 2023 09:18
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jng2058 posted:"Babylon 5 for the First Time" just hit Coming of Shadows and their reactions are priceless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2WFvD97FPM I tried to watch these guys because who doesn’t want more babylon5-related content to listen to. Bearded navy guy often comes out with some insightful commentary but dollar store Kenny Powers is just super insufferable. I didn’t make it too far.
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