the garden of eden was in jackson county, missouri

[pensnest]

I have failed to write down my thoughts as they occurred, which I shall try to amend in future. So here's a bunch of fairly random thoughts. I'm half-way through season two at the moment (but don't worry about spoilers, I have seen the whole show).



Well. The final episode of Season One (Crysalis) pretty much draws a thick black line across everything we've come to expect from B5 and says, that show you thought you were watching? Hah! Going somewhere new now! G'Kar is gone, Delenn is in a cocoon, Garibaldi is in a coma. It must have been very exciting, worrying and bewildering for those fans who watched it 'live' back in the '90s.

And season two throws another change into the mix by disappearing Sinclair and installing a very different leader in John Sheridan. Overall, I think the change made great sense for the story of B5, and the way they'll be using Sinclair is great... I miss his narration, though, over the opening credits. Sinclair had more gravitas than Sheridan, who seems human-sized in his narration instead of epic-hero-like. And actually, on this re-watch, I found Sinclair more interesting than hitherto.

A brief thought or two along the way, as I don't seem to have been making notes: that scene with Delenn's HAIR (Soul Mates) annoyed me so much. I can't quite define why, but it felt like a mockery of All Those Women With Their Hair And Their Shampoo And Conditioner And Aren't They Hilarious. Ick. Now, it's probably fair to say that Delenn needed a good talk with someone who could explain human female physiology to her, but I don't think making it comic was a pleasing choice.

Another highly displeasing choice to make comedy out of something is that hideous plotline in 'Acts of Sacrifice' in which Ivanova is supposed to have sex with the pompous alien. For Franklin to make a joke out of the idea that a command officer, a representative of EarthForce, a representative of Earth, a woman whom he would probably have classified as a friend, an independent and autonomous human being, dammit, could seriously consider being prostituted out for the sake of a treaty—I find that atrocious. And nobody in the production seems to have thought it was anything other than funny. Graaar!! I mean, if you have to go *there*, take it seriously and think it through.

An aside: I wish they had used a general term such as 'sentients', which would have been more honest, a better language presentation of the fact that the other races are human equivalents in abilities, and would have provided an easy means of telling who was a bigot. If someone says 'humans and aliens' they are lumping together the Minbari and the PakMara, the Narns and the Vorlons, and so forth. They're all "OTHER". We're trying to do better right here, right now; it would be nice to posit a future in which we at least try to get the language right. And from a writerly perspective JMS was getting the 'alien' POV quite wrong. A Centauri such as Londo would not consider himself to be an 'alien', he'd consider the humans to be the 'aliens'. Sadly, in the show, the non-human races seem perfectly happy to be lumped in as 'non-humans', a category which almost inevitably carries a connotation of "less than". Bah. Language, people.

I love how Vir pleads with Londo not to make the choice he's making, not to have the mysterious 'associates' destroy the Narn. But Londo insists that he has no choice—of course he has a choice, and he chooses his own personal advantage even though he was shocked and horrified by the original destruction of the Narn colony. It worked for him, for his political reputation, so it must have been the right choice... Such petty priorities he has.

Comments

[stranger]

Agree about Sinclair having gravitas, but having Sheridan as the new leader does make some sense. From within the story: Sinclair was appointed to head the fifth station after four complete disasters, and had to be something of a "try it, he's politically expendable" candidate. When B5 station had lasted a year, it was time to put in a more personable (but no less hard-headed) leader to the successful experiment expanding Earth's influence, and Sinclair could be kicked upstairs to ambassador to Minbar.

The humans-plus-"aliens" problem (and some mis-steps about women and sex) were, well, not good, but kind of what you'd expect from a total 1980s fanboy making a massive new genre epic with barely enough resources to keep the episodes coming. He showed a huge variety of nonhumans, made them real characters, gave them politics separate from human interests... and still had the human-centric mindset and wrote it into the language. Women could be leaders, but still have hair problems? Love (romantic and otherwise) is real and moving, but sex is a joke?

I'm still transfixed by -- not precisely the special effects, which were the best they could do at the time -- but the carried-through concepts of the station's hardware and construction, the centrifugal Starfury launches, the zero-gee core. The time-travel that isn't a gimmick. The underlying theme that whatever religion is, it's important to sapients, and no one vision is the only one.

[watervole]

I remember it was the show's treatment of religion that was one of the things that sold me on it. (I'm an atheist, but I've no problem with religion in a show if it's handled well).

The fact that the non-human races didn't have monobloc religions - eg. Many sects G'Kar's people - and that wonderful scene where Sinclair introduces the endless line of all Earth's different religions.

Londo was riding a wild horse that he couldn't get off without breaking his neck.

[pensnest]

I liked that scene with the long line of religious representatives, too. The show did a good job of representing aliens as disparate groups, with the Centauri politicking, the different Narn sects, the Minbari caste system, even the bizarre Drazi Green/Purple thing, which is... probably not much more ridiculous than the myriad reasons humans always manage to find to kill each other. (And pulling a sash out of a sack is probably just about as effective as the divine right of kings in selecting effective leaders!)

Londo had opportunities *not* to go where he went, but he chose to go there anyway. He seemed stunned by the magnitude of what happened when that first Narn outpost was destroyed, and there was a definite absence of glee in his reaction then. But, he chose to go right back there when next he had an opportunity, and all for his own political ambitions. I liked the way Vir pleaded with him not to do this, but Londo's reply that he had no choice was a lie. He wanted what he wanted, and that was the easiest way to get it. I love the way the series shows how personal ambitions, individual characters and choices, lead to huge outcomes. I like the contrast with G'Kar who forced his people on the station not to be violent because that petty choice could have a large effect, and how he chose to do what was not natural to him in order to work for the good of his people.

[watervole]

I largely agree about Londo, but I think he hit a point where he was terrified of what Morden would do if he changed his mind.

Both Londo and G'Kar were brilliantly written and acted.

[pensnest]

Yes, I think at some point he realised he was not in control.... of course, he wasn't really in control from the beginning, but he didn't recognise that yet. I wonder if I'll spot the point of no return, on this rewatch?

Oh, wonderful actors, both, most definitely. Epic makeup and silly hair notwithstanding, I never failed to believe that those two characters were real people.

Andreas Katsulas is 'my' Aral Vorkosigan, too.

[watervole]

Hm. I wouldn't really equate him with Aral, though I see the principle of honour.

But a big part of Aral's life is his oath to the Emperor and G'Kar really has no equivalent to that.

[pensnest]

G'Kar isn't my Aral, the actor very much is. His voice is marvellous, and I think, when he isn't encased in Narn or Romulan makeup, he'd look right, too.

[watervole]

Ah, now there we are in agreement. Andreas looks very much like Aral should.

[pensnest]

By the way, I think it was you who warned me about rats eating dropped bird food? I spotted a rat yesterday, half-way up the bush where the fat balls are hanging! It had got itself into the wrong bit of bush, but eeeeek! I mean, squirrels I can roar at, but I somehow couldn't bring myself to roar at a rat.

[watervole]

That would have been me. We saw a rat a week or two ago, climbing through the hedge to get to the fat ball feeder.

[pensnest]

What intrepid little buggers they are.

[pensnest]

Also, Sheridan looked to EarthGov like a hardheaded warrior who would take no nonsense from aliens, thanks very much - just what an Earth First government wanted. Fortunately for all concerned, that's not really who he is. They didn't bother to get Minbari approval for Sheridan.

On the whole, I think B5 was a job very well done. I nitpick, here and there, because I love the show enough to care about what wasn't right about it. I know Dorothy Fontana was involved, but the creative team seemed to be *very* male, so it isn't surprising that they failed to notice some sillinesses and inadequacies in the treatment of women. And of sex - the attitudes to sex are rather one-note, I think. At the same time, they did manage to create some excellent female characters, which is better than most SF in, well, forever (at that point).

They definitely thought through the science in a way that ST:TNG (my first love) totally failed to do. Sadly, though, the B5 'futuristic' stuff often looks really clunky in a way that the TNG stuff managed to escape — those flimsies as substitutes for paper memos, most noticeably! The future overtook the fantasy waaaay sooner than expected there! But the launching of Starfuries is excellent, the station is intelligently thought out (plus, I love the fact that there are bolshie dock workers and a seedy underside as well as methane bathrooms) and the uniforms actually look like uniforms a military organisation would use, and work for a range of ages and body types. No shrink-wrap onesies!

[stranger]

Oh, yes, the range of the human classes and cultures in B5 was greater than SF generally showed then. I think by now the SW franchise has done a lot with in-universe marginalized groups, but not much before 1999, and the framework is fantasy space-opera, not real-physics space-opera.

I have some complicated opinions about Delenn, but it boils down to her being the centerpiece of the main B5 plotline. Sheridan and Sinclair command the station to be the "Captain Kirk" that keeps the fan base (probably including JMS himself) happy, but she's running, or at least keeping up with, the multi-race fate of the galaxy's sapients. It's remarkable sleight-of-hand.

[pensnest]

A sort of still, calm centre (most of the time). I find it pretty well impossible to say which is my favourite character, because they are all so well realised. Sheridan is more of an audience-pleaser than Delenn, indeed, but I think you're right that she is the centrepiece.

[turlough]

I have some complicated opinions about Delenn, but it boils down to her being the centerpiece of the main B5 plotline.

I've never actually thought of it before but yes, I think I agree with you about Delenn's centrality. Though I think I might want to add in Londo & Gkar too so you get a sort of central tripod.