sabotabby | Babble-On Five

By popular request, I am watching the entire series of Babylon 5 (assuming that it doesn’t start to suck, but it’s been highly recommended by people whose taste I trust, so I’m guessing that I’ll like it) and blogging as much as I can bother with before we all get bored with these posts and you guys stop commenting.

A few things off the top:

1) Yes, I am a 32-year-old übernerd who has only ever seen one episode of Babylon 5. I’m not exactly sure why this happened—it certainly wasn’t on purpose. Back when I got free cable, I saw a random episode, and it involved people with funny hair and capes standing around and talking. The funny hair and capes did not dissuade me (I’ve always been into that kind of thing) but the fact that I didn’t understand what they were talking about put me off. I asked some people about it and they said that you had to watch the episodes in order, and since this was before you could just torrent everything and DVD box sets were expensive, I never bothered.

You’d think I’d still have seen it, though! I mean, I was really into DS9 and they aired at roughly the same time.

2) I know virtually nothing about the show beyond that it is supposedly like DS9 but better, it was one of the first shows to have a continuous story arc, and there are lesbians at some point. I think one is named Ivanova.

3) It is probably too much to ask that no one post spoilers in the comments. I’m not Mark and the show is approximately 200 years old. I will endeavour to stay as unspoiled as possible but I read TVTropes all the time and I’m not very good at suspense. But it’s probably funnier the less I know, so keep that in mind.

4) I tend to watch telly when I’m feeling braindead, frequently under the influence of sleeping pills, so this is going to be more of a ramble and less of a critical analysis. Probably.

The first three episodes are Midnight on the Firing Line, Soul Hunter, and Born to the Purple. I am already prepared to cut the first season a lot of slack because it’s the first season. Still, they were all interesting enough that I kept watching even though I was tired. I’m only going to talk about the first one for now; the next two struck me as mostly filler/character development.

Midnight starts off with a bang. Literally. There are guys with funny hair and they get blown up. Later we find out that the funny-haired guys are Centaurians. From Alpha Centauri?

I should probably get my prejudice against rubber-forehead aliens out of the way right at the beginning. I have a prejudice against rubber-forehead aliens. I’m completely able to overcome it with the aid of compelling writing, but I’d much prefer aliens that look like the ones in Farscape, or at least a wanky explanation involving parallel evolution or common ancestors. Instead, we get a handwave that the Centaurians are actually not related to humans but like to claim that so that humans will take their side on things. Okay, show. I can accept that.

So anyway, after the Centaurians get blown up, we cut to the titular Babylon 5 and meet some main characters. There’s Susan Ivanova, who is new to the station and looks a bit like Jadzia Dax, so I like her right off the bat. Then there’s Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, who is apparently hanging out in the zócalo. Which is an actual zócalo? Apparently yes. I don’t get much of anything from Sinclair other than he’s harried.

Then we meet Garibaldi, who is in charge of security or something. I admit that in these first few episodes, I had a hard time telling Garibaldi and Sinclair apart, despite the fact that they don’t look much like each other. Anyway, Garibaldi is funnier. Then there are two Centauri main characters, Londo, who’s an ambassador with a ridiculous Russian accent, and Vir, who I guess is his dimwitted sidekick but gets billed first so maybe he’s more important later. I seriously have an easier time telling them apart even though they have the same silly hair.

Oh, did I mention that the costumes on this show are really good? All of the non-human characters wear capes. The human characters all wear military uniforms. It is rad. I am so over skintight catsuits in my sci-fi.

I hate the intro thing. I hope they get rid of it, otherwise I’m skipping over it.

Then everyone is freaking out over the attack on the Centauri. This is confusing. Should I have watched the movie first? There are a bunch more characters:

G’Kar: The ambassador for the Narn, who apparently hate the Centauri and vice versa. He has the best outfit so far and looks like a giant lizard. That is more the type of alien that I like but still not all the way there.

Delenn: The ambassador from Minbari. The Minbari used to be at war with Earth but apparently aren’t anymore. She also has a rubber forehead but is hotter than the male rubber-forehead aliens.

Talia: Who is a telepath, and accordingly, has to go around telling everyone that she is a telepath. I guess so that they don’t find out in the wrong way. I could think of about a million ways to find out that someone is a telepath, and none of them are very good, so I understand why she goes around telling people instead of letting them find out for themselves. In other news, she looks like an Ayn Rand heroine and is stalking Ivanova, who is having none of it. I am guessing that they end up as a couple.

Other things that are going on: There’s an election for President of Earth, but apparently there are still countries. I am curious to find out how this works. There are also raiders attacking transport ships in a B-plot that I’m sure will be much less confusing once I figure out what everyone’s ships look like.

Anyway, the Centauri see a Narn ship in a lol1980s video (!!!) of the attack on their colony. So Londo gets pissed off at G’Kar, and there’s an exchange that to me suggests that the Centauri colonized Narn, the Narn kicked them out and are now planning revenge. Londo tells Sinclair that he has wet dreams about killing G’kar, but not to worry because it happens about 20 years from now.

Then there is a Vorlon ambassador. That is more like it. The Vorlon looks super-cool. There is a mecha-type thing, only it doesn’t move, and the alien’s voice comes from somewhere behind a screen with a lot of smoke. The thing is weird and inscrutable and I like it a lot.

Some diplomacy and research happens. I don’t mean to give it short shrift, because it’s pretty interesting, but I have a feeling that this show is mostly about diplomacy so I could be going on a long time.

Garibaldi goes around hitting on everyone, asking various women if they’d like to come back to his quarters and see his “second-favourite thing in the universe.” I’m sure it’s going to be something incredibly innocent. If it’s a gigantic purple vibrator I’ll be impressed at the show’s moxie, though.

Meanwhile, I was right! The Centauri totally occupied Narn and were strip-mining it. This makes me like the Narn more than the Centauri for reasons unrelated to their appearances. Sinclair doesn’t agree with me, though, even though the Narn supported the humans in their war with the Minbari. Apparently the Narn are just opportunistic arms dealers.

The raiders are raiding everything in sight. Garibaldi figures out that the company that sells transport ships jumpgate privileges (until someone tells me otherwise, I’m going to assume that a jumpgate is like a wormhole but you need to pay to get through) is selling this information to the raiders. The only thing left to raid is a refugee transport ship. Did I mention that the raiders are killing everyone in addition to raiding them? Dun-dun-duuuuuunn.

What follows is a neat bit of politics. A council is called to determine whether the various governments should impose sanctions on the Narn for attacking the Centaurian colony or attack them or what. The Centauri government won’t do anything because it’s too far away and by the time they send doodz, everyone in their base will be killed. Earth’s government won’t do anything about the attack because they’re on the eve of an election, and humans don’t fancy the idea of getting into another war. Sinclair is pro-intervention, but the senator he’s talking to orders him to abstain. So he fucks off to go after the raiders and leaves Ivanova in charge, sans abstention orders.

I might as well also admit to a prejudice against having the guy in charge also go on away missions. Yes, I know, that’s how Star Trek did it. But I’ve still found it irksome ever since Orson Scott Card (unfortunately) pointed out how an actual military institution wouldn’t do it that way.

But even with the switch-up, the council doesn’t go as planned because G’Kar points out that the colony that was attacked used to belong to Narn and they were just taking it back. In case that wasn’t a heavy-handed enough metaphor, Delenn says something about a cycle of hatred. G’Kar then pulls up another hilarious video feed where Londo’s nephew, who lives on the colony in question, says that no, they asked nicely for the Narn to blow stuff up. Everyone on the council goes along with this except Londo, who’s like, “Seriously? Did you notice that this is a medium-close up shot so that you can’t see the gun that is obviously pointed at him, morons?”

Sinclair goes after the raiders and there are sweet 80s special effects that still look better than today’s CGI bollocks.

Then Londo decides that if diplomacy isn’t going to work, assassination is his next best bet. He’s thwarted by Talia because, um, telepath. It will be interesting to see how they deal with telepathy on this show. I thought that maybe she couldn’t read minds unless she was physically touching someone (she bumps into him) but later she says that she picked up everyone’s thoughts until trained not to.

But Londo gets his revenge after all, kind of, because Sinclair figures out that the raiders were being aided by Narns. So he tells them to GTFO the colony unless they want all the trouble.

Then Ivanova and Talia finally hang out, and it’s revealed that Ivanova has a problem with telepaths because her mother was one. And committed suicide. We also find out that Garibaldi’s second favourite thing in the universe is Warner Bros. cartoons. The lucky woman who finds this out is Delenn.

Hah, I like this show! It’s a little shaky, and the acting is definitely hammy as anything, but it’s cool that they’ve thrown so much politics at the viewer in the first episode. This bodes well for my favourite things, intrigue and shifty allegiances.

The next two episodes are also pretty cool. Soul Hunter is exactly what it sounds like: An alien hunts souls. And puts them in spheres and talks to them in an extremely creepy way. He’s supposed to wait for the person to actually die, but apparently many aliens, particularly the Minbari, kind of object to having their souls trapped in spheres, and so he keeps losing souls. So he stops waiting for death and causes it instead. Delenn is basically a screaming helpless victim, which is annoying.

Born to the Purple involves Londo and his really sad love life. He falls for a stripper, who is secretly a slave employed to steal his diplomatic secrets. The B-plot is about Ivanova’s dying father and is more interesting than the A-plot.

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From:

ironed_orchid

I watched most of season one, but with bad company who had seen the whole thing, and I wasn't that impressed, but lots of people whose opinions I respect have good things to say about it, and if you are doing this, I might try to watch it again.

From:

sabotabby

Yay!

beam_oflight is also doing it. It'll be as though the show is actually on the air!

i'll tell you all my secrets but i'll lie about my past

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