Babylon 5 blind watch thread: Maybe they're Zorlons?

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > Babylon 5 blind watch thread: Maybe they're Zorlons?

«‹›2 »

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

TheAardvark posted:

Holy gently caress S1E6!!! let me make sure I get this straight
[...]
I'm going to ignore the transparent 3d CG model of him post transcendence because lmao

From the main Babylon 5 thread, my favorite take on that:
He literally turns into the galaxy brain meme.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2020 13:59

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:11

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

TheAardvark posted:

S1E9
This episode is absolutely all over the place but there's so much good poo poo here.

First off the obvious: "Understanding is a three edged sword." The Kosh and Abbut scenes here were great. The Vorlons implying they are immortal.

Hell yeah our first assembly! Finally this politics tag feels right.

Also Lennier is cool and my friend and I will not allow ill to be spoken of him. There are so many characters on this show that are so damned good and so well acted. I think part of it goes back to the cast fluctuating in and out.

And I assumed the serum was some kind of poison, I like the "cost" twist a lot more.

Talia's thing at the end. He's a recorder? So he was recording her thought patterns and Kosh was.. what, using varying nonsense sentences until they triggered a terrible memory?

drat there was a lot going on in this episode.

Please, continue.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2020 04:07

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

The Lurker's Guide is great for subsequent watches. It's full of incredibly refined speculation and, even without actually using info from later episodes, will spoil you on things if you read it during a first watch.

It also has comments J. Michael Straczynski made online at the time, and I forget if it arranges those by when he said them or by what episode he said them about. (for instance, if during S4 he made some comment about an S2 episode that referenced things which happened in S3, is that on the page for the S2 episode? I don't remember.)

# ¿ Jun 3, 2020 11:25

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

I think those are from a rebroadcast in 2003.

Here's the modified order:

code:

    Midnight on the Firing Line
    Soul Hunter
    Born to the Purple
    Infection
    The Parliament of Dreams
    Mind War
    The War Prayer
    And The Sky Full Of Stars
    Deathwalker
    Believers
    Survivors
    By Any Means Necessary
    Signs and Portents
    Grail
    Eyes
    A Voice in the Wilderness part 1
    A Voice in the Wilderness part 2
    Babylon Squared
    The Quality of Mercy
    TKO
    Legacies
    Chrysalis

It's pretty much entirely little changes based on things JMS said, like "Oh, the show was going on hiatus for a few weeks here and we didn't want to come back on a downer episode" or "Yes, this episode was supposed to happen then, but it took so long to render the CGI that we bumped it back." It makes a lot of subtle little character details flow much better, but they're not big enough deals to worry about.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2020 19:59

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

It's also the order they're in on the DVDs.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2020 20:05

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

A note for other series veterans that has nothing really to do with the content of my post aside from that I'm using spoiler tags and am a series veteran: My intent is to offer only per-episode analysis and stuff based on previous episodes, not future (from The_Doctor's position) episodes. I think this should be fine for a blind watch thread but if y'all think any series veteran posting stuff in spoiler tags is a problem I'll go from watching my words to just biting my tongue and staying silent.

(A note for The_Doctor: what I wrote below is fine, really, there've just been some discussions in the main thread about how much this thread should be left alone and I try to err on the side of caution and respect.)

The_Doctor posted:

S1ep10 - Beliebers

�The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.�

Ah, we�re doing a religious thing here. Isn�t it Jehovah�s Witnesses that have something like this about blood transfusions? And no puncturing the skin at all? Jeez, I slice one of my fingers open at least once a year while cooking.

Interestingly, this is 4 years before the anti-vax movement started, and this is a good encapsulation of that daftness.

I honestly think Kosh said something mysterious and vague just to get them to go away.

�You are refusing because of your beliefs?!� Yeah ironic, huh?

The only message I�m getting here is �religion is really, really dumb�, which honestly feels at odds with �Parliament of Dreams� where we saw the other worlds� religions, and it all came across as very deferential.

And Ivanova did a thing too, I guess? The parallel �breaking orders� thing feels very weak, and honestly the whole episode is poor. I honestly kept pausing and wandering off during this ep I was so disengaged.

Specifically on the first point, I believe JMS clarified on usenet that it's more about the abdominal cavity or some kind of organ sac that species has, not just the skin.

On the fifth point, I think that's a difference in focal characters. Sinclair was the focus in Parliament, and is much more tolerant of religious beliefs in Believers than Franklin is. The episode's following Franklin's reaction of "Well that's just insane.", not Sinclair's "I respect that you are doing what you feel you must."

# ¿ Jun 5, 2020 21:31

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

TheAardvark posted:

Proud of Delenn's actress for demanding less makeup.

I believe they said her S2 appearance was actually a lot harder to deal with, though maybe I'm remembering people saying it was harder to make look right, since it has to have her hair pass through. I know Bill Mumy (Lennier) has said he absolutely hated the standard Minbari makeup. But then, he joined the show saying "This looks great, I love the premise, I will play anything but an alien keep me out of prosthetics." :v:

Zaroff posted:

Regarding the first point:
This is an error on the US DVDs - the episodes as broadcast had Delenn in her S1 Minbari makeup up until her reveal.
Thankfully the UK DVDs had this error corrected.

Oh cool. I didn't realize there was a non-VHS version of the correct S2 intros out there.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2020 08:15

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

The_Doctor posted:

S1Ep20 - Babylon Squared

This is really good, and bombs along at a proper clip! I love a good time travel plot,

I'm shocked, shocked I say.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2020 10:25

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Neo Rasa posted:

This is correct. Not really a spoiler just general observation, I always liked that it was a relatively small number compared to lot of large cities irl because the amount of people actually for real living on the station or assigned to it for a length of time is pretty small compared to how much of it is the infrastructure that keeps it going and communal spaces/food production/etc. type of stuff. There's a few amusingly dated calls about how certain stuff things work in the future but at the same time it's very real in a lot of ways a lot of the other 90s sci-fi shows never really went for.

DS9 was similar, it has a capacity 7,000 people but the actual for real there full time population is something crazy small for the size of the station like < 1000 people because its original purpose was that of an ore processing plant and most of the station is just storage space. I think the actual complement was only 300.

I worked out the numbers once and found that Babylon 5 has about the same population density as Hong Kong.

5 mile long centrifuge^�, 1 mile diameter, gives a 5 * π square miles interior: about 15.7 sq mi. A quarter million divided by 15.7 gives about 16k/sq mi. Hong Kong's population density is about 17.5k/sq mi.

When you factor in that B5 has something like 50 decks, it's like you've taken a very long, broad skyscraper with an elaborate rooftop garden, and rolled it into a tube.

�They always say the station is five miles long, but a production designer explained in an interview that it's the living section that's five miles, while the whole station was about eight miles long, according to how they'd designed and built the 3d model.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 03:13

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Neo Rasa posted:

I never knew this, I too thought the entire station was five miles.

I only learned it reading an interview a few months ago, from a very spoiler-heavy website that I'll link in the main B5 thread.

edit: Also, this, very much:

Polaron posted:

I hope you guys keep these lists around so you can revisit them when you finish the show.

Vavrek fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Jun 12, 2020

# ¿ Jun 12, 2020 04:55

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Awesome! Have a good time, let us know what you think.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2020 12:51

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Discussing Believers:

Unkempt posted:

Yeah, I think that was what they were going for and I certainly don't think we're supposed to believe anyone there approved of their actions, but the implication here is that people on Bab 5 are allowed to murder, rape, torture or enslave anyone (of their own species) as long as they've got a religion that says it's OK. I'm going to be 'that guy' and suggest that actually that's a bit poo poo.

edit: I guess they could get kicked off the station? That's still a little bit poo poo.

From back in Born to the Purple:
Adira Tyree is a slave. Londo's shocked that she's a slave, but not that slavery exists, and his way to deal with it is to buy her freedom rather than bring the issue to any authorities.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2020 18:06

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

My assumption is there's some maximum words per screen and/or words per second limit they're operating under, intended so that people can read and keep up with the subtitles without struggling. If you get too long or complex a sentence, it's simplified so that it's quicker to read while maintaining the same overall meaning. And with the maximum set at 'general populace' reading speed, rather than 'anime fan, subs purist', you'd have to cut down a lot of Babylon 5's lines.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2020 08:43

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Grand Fromage posted:

Yeah, they specifically told him not to do an accent then he showed up with that accent ready to go and would not stop doing it, so they gave up. Peter Jurasik rules.

He explained in an interview I listened to that he'd just previously been in a play set somewhere in the American south (A Streetcar Named Desire, maybe?) and had worked very hard on getting his accent exactly right and authentic, only for some critic to complain about it. When he got the chance to audition for an alien, he realized that no one could say his accent was wrong.

When they said, "Hey, uh, we weren't really thinking of Londo as an accent character, so ..." he replied: "VHAT AKSENT?!"

The thing about the crest was a pair of people not getting that the other person was joking: Jurasik looked at the original, full-length wig that had been produced (designed to be cut down to the right length) and thought "Man, it'd be hilarious if Joe thought I loved this stupid wig just as it is." JMS ... did think so, I guess because Jurasik's a good actor. So that's what he's wearing in The Gathering, which they had to then work into the character design and try to make it look less terrible once they got into the show proper.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2020 06:01

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

RedSnapper posted:

re: coffee
Maybe it's the issue of actual grown vs highly-processed instant?

S2E8
I always figured that was it, since there's some line earlier about "You have coffee, real coffee?" Then there's just the plothole of a whole conspiracy to get it properly roasted without anyone noticing ...

# ¿ Jun 27, 2020 08:01

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

TheAardvark posted:

The show's quality and my interest in it have ramped up super hard over the last few episodes and I can't possibly stop watching now.

Welcome to Babylon 5.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2020 16:22

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

The_Doctor posted:

I�m 6�4 already, any taller and doors would become an issue.

You've hit on my favorite dumb thing about the Kosh costume: It doesn't fit through the doors on Babylon 5. This is why Kosh is always mysteriously already standing there in any scene he appears in.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2020 17:55

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

The_Doctor posted:

Don�t tell me how to watch TV, thanks. Unless it�s a better episode order like earlier this season or something. Then tell me how to watch it.

One point, not about how to watch TV, but related to your most recent episode summary (2x20) and a few earlier comments:
I've often seen B5 described as being very theatrical in its production style, and I never quite knew what was meant by that. Like, the dialogue style, the way the characters were portrayed, the scope of the story? ... it just wasn't clear to me what people were saying. Your reaction to the Centauri homeworld and imperial throne room made it clear to me in a way I'd overlooked before:

"Awesome, get to see an alien homeworld and it's ... a room with some curtains."

"You know this throne room is actually really small."

Given the confines of the station (and the limitations of doing composite shots) it's just always seemed natural to me that the whole story takes place indoors. So thanks for pointing out the curtains.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2020 09:00

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

boo boo bear posted:

speaking of not having artificial gravity and how glorious that can be... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYBjIbs4bPc

the older the earth alliance ships get, the cooler they are. the mudshark-looking destroyers where the crew had to strap in are the best. real space cowboy vibes from that one.

I get that this is a fan render looking at a moment that happened offscreen in the show (inasmuch as anything actually happens in that video), but this is the blind watch thread and the video's description talks about plot details. It just makes me uncomfortable, because I'm overprotective of this thread.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Apr 18, 2021

# ¿ Apr 16, 2021 00:06

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Hollismason posted:

Goddamn I'm at Season 1 Episode 23 Goddamn what a episode I don't remember any of this its so loving good goddamn

That's the right goddamn quotient for a Babylon 5 season-ender.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 13:05

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Chevy Slyme posted:

The short answer is, at the time it was never explained and many people assumed network fuckery. In truth, the actor playing Sinclair, Michael O'Hare, was struggling with Paranoid Schizophrenia, which was apparently exacerbated by the stress of working on a TV Series, and, especially, a TV Series in which he was on set with people in monster suits and poo poo all the time. He literally just could not handle the job in his condition, and was lashing out at people and hallucinating at inopportune moments. Very few people knew the truth, and it only came out after his death, in keeping with his own wishes on the matter. :/

I really appreciate how O'Hare handled it, according to JMS.

JMS: "Look, I think you're having problems, and I know they're deeply personal so I will keep this secret until I die."
O'Hare: "No, keep this secret until I die, and then tell people about it. I don't want to deal with people's reactions, but if telling my story can help other people please do that."

# ¿ Sep 26, 2021 23:37

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

The United States posted:

[Video of a TV]

This is still the blind watch thread.

mllaneza posted:

They really should have cut S03e08-10 into a movie and maybe added a couple of scenes. I've shown that to people as a standalone movie and they loved it.

I should try that sometime. It sounds like a cool idea. Need the right mix of "friend who hasn't seen Babylon 5" and "friend who doesn't mind mid-S3 spoilers for Babylon 5."

# ¿ Sep 29, 2021 08:13

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Grand Fromage posted:

It's crazy to me that B5 ended in 99, looking much better but still fairly primitive, then four years later we get BSG which I think looks just as good as any 2021 space CG. The Centurions look a little rough sometimes, but it's still hard to mix CG and live action well.

First thought: What, no, wasn't that '06 ...
One Wikipedia check later: The pilot came out December 2003?!

Wow.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2021 21:10

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Grand Fromage posted:

On cheapness, IIRC B5's per episode budget was a bit under half that of Star Trek's. It's really impressive how good the show looks given how little money there was.

jms posted:

The VOYAGER pilot is *$23 million*?!

The BABYLON 5 pilot was $3.5 million.

With $23 million, we could make 1.3 SEASONS of B5. And have a bit of money left over for a wrap party.

Amazing....

To be fair, I remember the Voyager pilot being, uh. Extravagant? There's a lot going on in the Voyager pilot.

To Powered Descent: Welcome! The Narnia joke never occurred to me. I hope you enjoy the show, and look forward to your thoughts (good or bad) as you watch episodes. I like Midnight on the Firing Line quite a lot, but it's impossible for me to disentangle my feelings about any episode from my knowledge of where the series and characters go.

fake edit: I see many others have already joined the water you chummed.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 05:01

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Grand Fromage posted:

Pilots are expensive, they have to build all the sets and poo poo. My memory is a standard DS9 episode was ~1.5 million and B5 was like 650k but I could be wrong.

Using the numbers JMS gave there as a rough guide: B5 had 22-episode seasons. 1.3 seasons is 28.6 episodes. $23 million spread across 28.6 episodes is about $804 thousand per episode, and JMS was saying that he'd have money left over. So, ballpark, about the same as you remembered. I'm sure B5's budget varied over time. Voyager debuted ... sometime during the first third or so of Babylon 5, season 2. I always forget how early Voyager started. (I always think of it as a late-90s show.)

But yeah: Something I mentioned once to a friend, which they were a bit surprised by (hadn't considered it at all one way or the other), is that Babylon 5 was a distinctly low-budget show. They pioneered CGI on television! ... which meant they didn't have to actually make any physical models of the ships. Those are expensive.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 08:54

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Powered Descent posted:

There are some good bits in here, but man, this episode is just all over the place.

If nothing else, I enjoyed your description of the shifting focus. Really captured the feel of watching Infection. I look forward to your thoughts on the next few.

fake edit: Also, yes, B5 has a Dukhat and even a Lyta (she was in the pilot movie). I forget if there are any other name overlaps, but the actress for Lyta was the stuntdouble for Terry Farrell and Nana Visitor, which I find hilarious.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 06:10

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Powered Descent posted:

Overall, I'm digging the show. The characters are really starting to grow on me.

Great! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Others have addressed the other little points (Josh the Zorlon, jumpgates), so I don't have anything to add beyond "hooray!"

# ¿ Nov 6, 2021 07:00

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Elder Postsman posted:

Not the first time I've seen someone say this but games contemporary to Babylon 5 season 1 include TIE Fighter and Doom 2. Even season 5 we're talking about, like, Star Wars Rogue Squadron and Half Life 1. The CG in B5 is way ahead of those games and I have no idea how anyone can say they are on par.

I was thinking, maybe, in comparison to pre-rendered cinematics in mid-90s games? I doubt it'd hold up, and I haven't played enough games from the era to know firsthand, but it'd make more sense than comparing B5's CGI to Dark Forces (released right in the middle of Babylon 5, Season 2).

# ¿ Nov 21, 2021 05:45

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Powered Descent posted:

s01e10 - Believers

I particularly enjoyed all four ambassadors weaseling out of getting involved, each in their own way.

I really like Londo's response. "Oh, yes, I quite understand and sympathize. What can you give me? You're from a nonaligned race, so you're not already a Centauri client. If I intercede here, that uses up some of my time and political capital, which are both limited, so ... what can you give me?" He seems to agree with them, or is at least quite polite in hearing their request, but his job as Centauri Ambassador isn't helping people he agrees with. It's furthering the interests of the Centauri.

Stripping the spoiler tags from these two:

Powered Descent posted:

s01e10 - Believers

They keep referring to stuff from that first pilot episode; I really need to find that thing.

Is the pilot hard to find? Not on a streaming service? I have DVDs (or, I have a family member I can borrow DVDs from), so I haven't looked deeply into where B5 can be found these days.

discoukulele posted:

Points of Departure (S02e01)

I haven't mentioned it before, but I love how tense it is that they're just sitting right next to a gate that anything could pop out of at any time.

That's a good point. DS9 and Stargate have the same thing, particularly the latter: there's a doorway to the unknown right there and it could open at any time.

General S2 question: How do you feel about oranges? Orange juice? Fresh oranges?

# ¿ Nov 21, 2021 16:17

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Zat posted:

At least it's on HBO Max in the US (in fact they consider it episode 1 of season 1 of the series, which is a little silly.)

I figured it was something like that leading to discoukulele calling Chrysalis s1e23.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2021 17:42

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

SlothfulCobra posted:

The way I remember it, G'kar was the one really asking for them to prove some kind of strategic relevance for his nation, Londo just wanted a bribe.

That might be it. I was phone posting and didn't look up to confirm who did what. (I did think those two had similar reactions, but couldn't remember which was which and just guessed.)

# ¿ Nov 21, 2021 21:41

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Grand Fromage posted:

NASA accidentally put someone in a vacuum chamber once so we actually know this.

Do you have the story, there? Because, uh, voice in the back of my head keeps going "What the gently caress? What the fuuuck?"

I'd heard all those details about spacing before, from Farscape and Babylon 5, and people saying "yeah that's about right". The only other details I remember are: your eyes might get hosed up, as lowering pressure drops the boiling point of water, and you shouldn't try to hold your breath because the 1 Atm. of pressure inside your lungs can rupture some tissues.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2021 01:37

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

discoukulele posted:

s02e03 - Geometry of Shadows

Poor Vir :\ (I have a feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot)

First OJ moment! So Sheridan : Oranges :: Agent Cooper : Coffee

I just want to say I love this comparison. It's so good, and never occurred to me before.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2021 16:18

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

discoukulele posted:

s02e06 - A Spider in the Web

I'd love to know more about Mars; I'm imagining that it's a little bit like The Expanse in that it's an Earth colony where everyone is several generations removed from having any real loyalty to Earth. It also sounds like it's economically disadvantaged.

It sounds like the first colony ship to Mars was about 100 years ago or so?

That's something where I'm interested in how things would've gone with Sinclair. It's mentioned in passing, but Sinclair was born on Mars. Doesn't feel a huge amount of loyalty to it, compared to, like, Earth Alliance generally. But it would've been an interesting additional thread, as we learn more about Mars, to have someone from there in the main cast of characters.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2021 22:10

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

discoukulele posted:

s02e10 - Gropos

Dodger is thirsty for Garibaldi

Oh my god, they're going to gently caress underneath his Daffy Duck poster

I love Dodger. I love her for herself, and for how she picks this one guy who just has so many relationship issues that he just can't handle the idea of, y'know, a one-night stand.

discoukulele posted:

s02e11 - All Alone in the Night

Okay, adding "stuck in dying fighter ship and slowly getting inescapable radiation poisoning" to my list of horrifying ways to die in space

Weird dream/prophetic vision sequence with Sheridan in a room with these lines. Sorry for another Twin Peaks reference, but it kinda felt like Agent Cooper's first dream of the Red Room-

Responding to each in order:

It's not great!
I really like the Twin Peaks comparisons, actually. Didn't watch Twin Peaks in the 90s. Was very familiar with Babylon 5, through the aughts (and home video), for like ... I don't know, fifteen years? before I finally saw Twin Peaks. So I don't really think much about how it was a predecessor to Babylon 5, how I'm sure JMS saw it, how it would've had some overlap in fans which shaped the conversation about B5 ... It's a neat idea and you're helping me think about it.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2021 09:13

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

SlothfulCobra posted:

Quarians were originally playing off of the idea of a species having their immune systems atrophy from being in sterile environments, but that got rewritten.

Did that get rewritten? I thought they just emphasized the chirality more as the series went on. Turians don't go around in sealed environment suits all the time, and they have the same chirality issues.

Mild spoilers for Mass Effect 2, I guess: (maybe ME3, but I think this scene is in 2.)
I was expecting when Shep went to the migrant fleet, there'd be an inversion: Shep &co fully suited up, but Quarians unsuited. Instead, it was "yeah it turns out living in space ships for three hundred years really fucks up the immune system" and a bunch of still-suited Quarians.

SlothfulCobra posted:

And nothing about the Asari makes any
sense.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: They are an entire species of Zhaan.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2021 22:58

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

SlothfulCobra posted:

I think Knives may be my favorite Londo episode.

Knives is great. It's also, if I remember right (maybe not with the rearranged order?), the last episode written by someone other than JMS until the one S5 episode by Neil Gaiman.

SlothfulCobra posted:

Sort of. They added in a bit where Quarian immune systems were always weird from having some kind of symbiosis with their planet. I think they wanted to double down on reasons for the Quarians to all be suited in ME2, since designing an unsuited Quarian would be a lot of work, and they had already given them the extravagance of two genders with separate body types.

On the bright side...

Thaaaaat makes a lot of sense. The drive to not have to make, effectively, a new species design (since the existing Quarians are defined by their suits). Except instead of a free hand when making the new design, you've got to somehow match or exceed everyone's idea of what they look like under the helmets ...

I still wish they'd done it and will add it to the list of ME2's sins. :colbert:

# ¿ Nov 28, 2021 02:17

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Jedit posted:

Correct - sort of. JMS wrote 57 consecutive episodes between 2X17 and 5X07, a record for US television at the time and making him the first man to ever write two entire seasons of one show. However, JMS only did the teleplay for 5X04, co-writing the story with Harlan Ellison.

Right. I thought of that one, briefly, but only realized Ellison had co-writer credit recently and so it's not stuck in my head yet as "JMS wrote all but 1.5 of the episodes in S5", so I neglected to mention it. Thanks for the correction.

Lawman 0 posted:

The HBO max version is all messed up.

What's wrong with it?

# ¿ Nov 28, 2021 03:30

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Lawman 0 posted:

The audio is completely desynced lol.
It's basically unwatchable.

That's no good!

discoukulele posted:

Yeah I've had to just download a few episodes. It doesn't matter if I use the app or browser. The back half of season 2 hasn't been bad overall. But yeah it sucks.

That's no good at all!

I assume being a legitimate streaming service, there's no option to just download the raw files and play them in your own video player, where you could adjust the audio sync manually? I'm used to problems like this with :filez:

, and they're easily solved once you find the setting, but not with discs or streaming options.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2021 06:54

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:11

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

discoukulele posted:

s02e21 � Comes the Inquisitor

lol the Inquisitor is Jack the Ripper

It's a contractual obligation of some kind. Every science fiction television show has to involve Jack the Ripper. There's no other explanation.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2021 18:11

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > Babylon 5 blind watch thread: Maybe they're Zorlons?

«‹›2 »