Sfdebris.net

[url]https://sfdebris.com/videos/babylon5/b5s3e01.php[/url]

I really liked this episode. Looking back on it, though, I have one criticism:

The Bonehead maneuver is something that should have been mentioned in a previous episode. While it makes sense, it is somewhat techno-babbly in that it suddenly comes up in this episode and is never mentioned before or since.

I really think that in "Signs and Portents" someone should have brought up a concern that the Raider capital ship was going to try something like that if cornered, or perhaps the Centauri craft in "And Now for a Word." It really ought to have been brought up earlier, especially given JMS's big belief in Chekhov's gun.

None of those situations make sense to bring it up. It was an insanely inefficient, suicidal, and classified maneuver that even Humanity on the brink of extinction ultimately decided was too stupid to do. There is just no way for something like that to come up naturally in conversation unless they are in a very desperate situation like in this episode. Even without knowing what it did Ivanova treated Sheridan's question of what happens when you open a jump point inside of a jump gate as the dumbest thing she has ever heard.

Not everything needs to be foreshadowed.

I think Jason Carter was a surprise to everyone on the show. And it in turn pulled what TVTropes calls early installment weirdness. Where a character early on does or says things that contradict later expansion of the character. So they wrote Mr Silenttype then saw his charisma and talent and tossed that out an airlock. Able to fight? Sure. Friends in low places? yup. Quiet? oh hells no.

Nealithi wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 2:18 pm I think Jason Carter was a surprise to everyone on the show. And it in turn pulled what TVTropes calls early installment weirdness. Where a character early on does or says things that contradict later expansion of the character. So they wrote Mr Silenttype then saw his charisma and talent and tossed that out an airlock. Able to fight? Sure. Friends in low places? yup. Quiet? oh hells no.

Truth be told, I'd actually would agree that Marcus has something to say on everything.
He can talk and somethimes ramble on, but don't think I've ever seen him talk juts to fill the silence.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQ-y589mx8]Sing yes, talk no[/url]

Coyote's Own wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 4:56 pm

Nealithi wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 2:18 pm I think Jason Carter was a surprise to everyone on the show. And it in turn pulled what TVTropes calls early installment weirdness. Where a character early on does or says things that contradict later expansion of the character. So they wrote Mr Silenttype then saw his charisma and talent and tossed that out an airlock. Able to fight? Sure. Friends in low places? yup. Quiet? oh hells no.

Truth be told, I'd actually would agree that Marcus has something to say on everything.
He can talk and somethimes ramble on, but don't think I've ever seen him talk juts to fill the silence.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQ-y589mx8]Sing yes, talk no[/url]

He didn't say he was the silent type, Ivanova did that. Marcus just said he only spoke when he had something to say, he didn't say that he didn't always have something to say. You can tell he had Minbari training. Yeah I love hearing him talk too. That guy was peak nineties hearthrob.

CrypticMirror wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 6:02 pm He didn't say he was the silent type, Ivanova did that. Marcus just said he only spoke when he had something to say, he didn't say that he didn't always have something to say. You can tell he had Minbari training. Yeah I love hearing him talk too. That guy was peak nineties hearthrob.

He has my favorite B5 quote, or at least the one that probably has the most signficance to my worldview

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03bOrvlAyeQ[/url]

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."

Coyote's Own wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 4:56 pm

Nealithi wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 2:18 pm I think Jason Carter was a surprise to everyone on the show. And it in turn pulled what TVTropes calls early installment weirdness. Where a character early on does or says things that contradict later expansion of the character. So they wrote Mr Silenttype then saw his charisma and talent and tossed that out an airlock. Able to fight? Sure. Friends in low places? yup. Quiet? oh hells no.

Truth be told, I'd actually would agree that Marcus has something to say on everything.
He can talk and somethimes ramble on, but don't think I've ever seen him talk juts to fill the silence.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQ-y589mx8]Sing yes, talk no[/url]

Singing Gilbert and Sullivan when he and Dr. Franklin are travelling in a cargo hold when the Dr. wanted him to be quiet and stop fidgeting, was no to just fill silence? Okay annoying Dr. Franklin may be its own reward. . .

"Most of the time on B5, space combat is about the drama that leads up to that moment, rather than being exciting in and of itself [...] so it doesn't have to depend on vacuous action scenes."

Ain't that the truth.

I remember watching Revenge of the Sith when it hit theaters, and by the end of the opening scene, I had experienced for the first time how it felt to be utterly bored with a space battle. It was several minutes of one group I don't care about fighting another group I don't care about, while two characters whose survival is a foregone conclusion zip around pretending they're in danger before they finally board Dooku's ship and start the plot. That opening battle could be edited down to thirty seconds or less, and nothing would be lost.

For the most part, shows like Babylon 5 and 20th century Star Trek did it right. They typically limited themselves to quick cuts of action to move the story forward, and when the action became the focus, it was a payoff for a story arc that naturally built up to it. Of course, it was also a good excuse to blow shit up, but at least shit was getting blowed up for a purpose.