GeoCities.us
» Area51 » Orion|
GeoCities.us
» Area51 » Orion |
Get your FREE home page! |
 |
|
Welcome aboard My name is Neil Brandvold. I'm 36, I keep the network running at a hospital in Sacramento, and for five years my Wednesday nights belonged to a space station. I watched "The Gathering" when it aired in February 1993, mostly because nothing else was on, and I've been hooked ever since. I taped every single episode on SP speed, never EP, which is why my tapes still look better than my brother-in-law's. (He'll tell you that isn't the reason. It is.) The series ended last November with "Sleeping in Light." I figured it was time to write down what the whole thing meant to me before the details start to blur, and to make the case to anyone who missed it that it's worth sitting down with all 110 episodes, in order, from the beginning. |
|
Why this show and not the others Most TV science fiction resets every week. Somebody gets possessed, somebody gets un-possessed, and by the next episode nobody remembers it happened. Babylon 5 was planned from the start as one story with a beginning, a middle and an end, five years long, like a novel for television. J. Michael Straczynski (JMS, to anyone who's read the newsgroup) created it and ended up writing nearly every episode himself from the third season on. He also answered fans' questions online the whole time it was on, which no other producer I know of has ever done. What that planning buys you is this: a throwaway line in season one turns out to be the key to season three. A character you wrote off as comic relief becomes the most tragic figure on the show. People change, and they stay changed. When somebody dies on Babylon 5, they're gone. It also looked like nothing else. The ships were done on computers (Amigas running LightWave, at first) instead of with models, and the space battles move the way things would actually move without air. As a computer guy I thought that was the coolest thing on television in 1994, and I still do. And it was noticed: two Hugo Awards in a row, for "The Coming of Shadows" in 1996 and "Severed Dreams" in 1997. |
|
The people I'd follow anywhere Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik). The Centauri ambassador. Starts out as a drunk with ridiculous hair, a man mourning his empire's lost glory. He gets everything he asks for, and it's the worst thing that ever happens to him. G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas). The Narn ambassador. Starts as Londo's enemy and ends as the conscience of the whole show. If you watch one character's journey closely, make it his. Delenn (Mira Furlan). The Minbari ambassador, who carries a secret about the Earth-Minbari War for a long time, and then changes more than anyone. Commander Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O'Hare), season one, and Captain John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner), seasons two through five. I know people who argue about which one was better. I think the story needed both of them, and you'll see why. Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian). The best second-in-command in science fiction. Dry as a bone. I missed her badly in season five. Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), chief of security, the everyman. Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs). Vir Cotto (Stephen Furst), Londo's aide, the kindest person on the station. Lennier (Bill Mumy). Marcus Cole (Jason Carter), the Ranger. And Kosh, the Vorlon, who never says more than he has to. Special mention: Bester, the Psi Cop, played by Walter Koenig (Chekov himself). Every time he shows up, something bad is about to happen, and you can't wait. |
|
If you've never seen it Start at the beginning. Season one is slower and some of it is clunky, and friends I've lent tapes to have given up around episode six. Push through. Everything in season one matters later, including episodes that seem like filler. By the end of season two you'll be calling in sick. Don't start with season four because somebody told you it's the best. It is the best, but it's the best because of the three seasons before it. When you're ready for spoilers, the whole story is laid out on my season-by-season page. And if you've already finished, come read about Crusade and help me keep the lights on. |
