Random early B5 thoughts
Apr. 22nd, 2011 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eponymous_roseSince power is back, I've been watching a bunch of early Babylon 5 episodes, so now you get subjected to my random thoughts:
First, I watched "The Gathering" with commentary, which was more interesting than I expected (though I did lose count of the number of times JMS said something along the lines of "And nobody believed we could do it! BUT WE DID."). He did make up for it with a lot of "Oh, yes, that was the writing's fault, I'll cop to that.", so that was kinda fun. Also, the story about how Peter Jurasik got into character by marching up and down the hallway shouting "Mister Garibaldi!" over and over again.
Re: "The Gathering" itself, I enjoy it more each time I watch it, but it definitely is a very pilot-ish pilot. I think, unlike most shows' pilots, the problem wasn't that the characters/premises weren't in place - IMO, it was the inexperience in terms of editing and direction (and a few iffy moments of writing and acting) that really let the thing down. It was interesting to hear that this was an improved copy, and I so appreciate that they brought back the bits of humor and character moments, because that was the best part of the whole shebang. All in all, it was about everyone finding their footing, and it worked out very well in the end.
Anyway! Love all the foreshadowing I missed the first time around - Kosh's first words, the little advertisements for Psi-Corps on the monorail thingie. It was also really neat to hear about how they came up with various colour schemes for the sets and such - I especially liked that their strategy for dealing with a boring wall was to stick some pipes on it. And I think I can appreciate these early episodes a whole lot more now that I know how much of it was misdirection - it was all, "here's the show you think you're going to be watching, here's the characters you think are good and the ones you think are bad, and then everything's gonna change over the course of the next season or so and it'll be awesome".
On to the series itself? Yes! The one thing I can't stop noticing in these early episodes is how often they have someone starting to leave a room, and someone in the room will stop them and say "Oh, and so-and-so?", wait for the other guy to turn around, and conclude with, "Parting words of wisdom/threat/plot contrivance." Nobody can just leave a room on this station! It's gotta get better at some point, but right now it's happening two or three times per episode, and it cracks me up every time.
I'm enjoying Sinclair more than I remembered - the sheer amount of stress he's under comes across well, and the fact that he's just barely holding it together is pretty interesting. Ivanova's character takes a while to be firmly established, but that makes sense since she's new to the place, and she has a lot of awesome moments from the start - especially with Talia. As for Talia, I get a little frustrated because I feel like she's a really interesting character who's being let down a bit by some odd acting choices. Hmm, who else? I'd forgotten how entertaining Franklin is in these first few episodes - he's fascinatingly arrogant, but not on the stims yet, so it's a bit of a lighter side of him. Garibaldi is also in silly mode, which is kinda fun, and I love his friendships with Ivanova, Sinclair, and Londo (and popcorn/Daffy Duck with Delenn will never not be funny).
And Londo and G'Kar! They are so amazingly over-the-top in these early episodes, and I love them for it ("But in purple, I'm stunning!" and G'Kar's fishies song, yay). Londo's got the hidden depths going right from the start (the shark conversation with Garibaldi is in "The Gathering" - I figured it for way later), but G'Kar is a bit of a moustache-twirling baddie at this point, which is so awesome/painful, knowing what comes next. Na'Toth is ridiculously excellent and I wish she could've stayed on. Lennier and Vir are the very definitions of adorable, though neither of them's had much to do yet. And Kosh, oh man, I still crack up anytime he does, well, anything. There's one shot where he just sort of tilts his head at the camera, and I immediately heard Bugs Bunny's voice going "Ain't I a stinker?" Now I can't get the image out of my head.
And, okay, that was all so that this wasn't totally about Delenn, but: DELENN. I love the buildup, here - the missing-24-hours mystery is one of the best parts of the season (which is why I get confused when people recommend starting with "In the Beginning" - I mean, it's a better movie than "The Gathering", and it takes place ten years before the series, but dude, half the fun of the early stuff is slowly piecing together what happened ten years ago). And the slow shift from vaguely-mysterious ally to vaguely-threatening-still-ally-but-possibly-enemy-wait-what-is-even-happening is really well done. She's the catalyst for the whole thing, and it sorta sneaks up on you because a lot of the time, her role is just to provide a bit of sanity to the Council meetings and hang around being mysterious. I love a lot of "And the Sky Full of Stars" for her interactions with Sinclair - I have a ridiculous love for their incredibly uneven emotional power dynamic at this point. RIDICULOUS LOVE. There's also the first hints that she's starting to get caught between a rock and a hard place, politically speaking. So cool. Such a great character. Excuse me while I squee a bit.
Ahem. Anyway. Individual episode-wise, yow, "Infection" is still terrible. It does have the one important character moment where Garibaldi calls Sinclair on his survivor's guilt, though, so there's that. Hmm. I need to keep notes, because there was stuff I wanted to talk about on almost all of them. "The Parliament of Dreams" was very entertaining and had a lot of fun moments. Oh, and "Mind War" had Bester! How could I forget Bester, with his references to The Prisoner and his highly sarcastic eyebrows. Hi, Bester. ♥ I really like all the Psi Corps stuff at this point - all the conflict follows logically from the problem of telepathy itself, so the plots feel very natural. Very cool. And then there's the election, sneakily going on in the background. Ivanova doesn't trust the VP! Good call there, Ivanova.
Okay, now I just want to go back to watching. To the batcave! Um. Babcave?
First, I watched "The Gathering" with commentary, which was more interesting than I expected (though I did lose count of the number of times JMS said something along the lines of "And nobody believed we could do it! BUT WE DID."). He did make up for it with a lot of "Oh, yes, that was the writing's fault, I'll cop to that.", so that was kinda fun. Also, the story about how Peter Jurasik got into character by marching up and down the hallway shouting "Mister Garibaldi!" over and over again.
Re: "The Gathering" itself, I enjoy it more each time I watch it, but it definitely is a very pilot-ish pilot. I think, unlike most shows' pilots, the problem wasn't that the characters/premises weren't in place - IMO, it was the inexperience in terms of editing and direction (and a few iffy moments of writing and acting) that really let the thing down. It was interesting to hear that this was an improved copy, and I so appreciate that they brought back the bits of humor and character moments, because that was the best part of the whole shebang. All in all, it was about everyone finding their footing, and it worked out very well in the end.
Anyway! Love all the foreshadowing I missed the first time around - Kosh's first words, the little advertisements for Psi-Corps on the monorail thingie. It was also really neat to hear about how they came up with various colour schemes for the sets and such - I especially liked that their strategy for dealing with a boring wall was to stick some pipes on it. And I think I can appreciate these early episodes a whole lot more now that I know how much of it was misdirection - it was all, "here's the show you think you're going to be watching, here's the characters you think are good and the ones you think are bad, and then everything's gonna change over the course of the next season or so and it'll be awesome".
On to the series itself? Yes! The one thing I can't stop noticing in these early episodes is how often they have someone starting to leave a room, and someone in the room will stop them and say "Oh, and so-and-so?", wait for the other guy to turn around, and conclude with, "Parting words of wisdom/threat/plot contrivance." Nobody can just leave a room on this station! It's gotta get better at some point, but right now it's happening two or three times per episode, and it cracks me up every time.
I'm enjoying Sinclair more than I remembered - the sheer amount of stress he's under comes across well, and the fact that he's just barely holding it together is pretty interesting. Ivanova's character takes a while to be firmly established, but that makes sense since she's new to the place, and she has a lot of awesome moments from the start - especially with Talia. As for Talia, I get a little frustrated because I feel like she's a really interesting character who's being let down a bit by some odd acting choices. Hmm, who else? I'd forgotten how entertaining Franklin is in these first few episodes - he's fascinatingly arrogant, but not on the stims yet, so it's a bit of a lighter side of him. Garibaldi is also in silly mode, which is kinda fun, and I love his friendships with Ivanova, Sinclair, and Londo (and popcorn/Daffy Duck with Delenn will never not be funny).
And Londo and G'Kar! They are so amazingly over-the-top in these early episodes, and I love them for it ("But in purple, I'm stunning!" and G'Kar's fishies song, yay). Londo's got the hidden depths going right from the start (the shark conversation with Garibaldi is in "The Gathering" - I figured it for way later), but G'Kar is a bit of a moustache-twirling baddie at this point, which is so awesome/painful, knowing what comes next. Na'Toth is ridiculously excellent and I wish she could've stayed on. Lennier and Vir are the very definitions of adorable, though neither of them's had much to do yet. And Kosh, oh man, I still crack up anytime he does, well, anything. There's one shot where he just sort of tilts his head at the camera, and I immediately heard Bugs Bunny's voice going "Ain't I a stinker?" Now I can't get the image out of my head.
And, okay, that was all so that this wasn't totally about Delenn, but: DELENN. I love the buildup, here - the missing-24-hours mystery is one of the best parts of the season (which is why I get confused when people recommend starting with "In the Beginning" - I mean, it's a better movie than "The Gathering", and it takes place ten years before the series, but dude, half the fun of the early stuff is slowly piecing together what happened ten years ago). And the slow shift from vaguely-mysterious ally to vaguely-threatening-still-ally-but-possibly-enemy-wait-what-is-even-happening is really well done. She's the catalyst for the whole thing, and it sorta sneaks up on you because a lot of the time, her role is just to provide a bit of sanity to the Council meetings and hang around being mysterious. I love a lot of "And the Sky Full of Stars" for her interactions with Sinclair - I have a ridiculous love for their incredibly uneven emotional power dynamic at this point. RIDICULOUS LOVE. There's also the first hints that she's starting to get caught between a rock and a hard place, politically speaking. So cool. Such a great character. Excuse me while I squee a bit.
Ahem. Anyway. Individual episode-wise, yow, "Infection" is still terrible. It does have the one important character moment where Garibaldi calls Sinclair on his survivor's guilt, though, so there's that. Hmm. I need to keep notes, because there was stuff I wanted to talk about on almost all of them. "The Parliament of Dreams" was very entertaining and had a lot of fun moments. Oh, and "Mind War" had Bester! How could I forget Bester, with his references to The Prisoner and his highly sarcastic eyebrows. Hi, Bester. ♥ I really like all the Psi Corps stuff at this point - all the conflict follows logically from the problem of telepathy itself, so the plots feel very natural. Very cool. And then there's the election, sneakily going on in the background. Ivanova doesn't trust the VP! Good call there, Ivanova.
Okay, now I just want to go back to watching. To the batcave! Um. Babcave?
