B5, episodes 11-13 + bonus ramble
Jan. 15th, 2012 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyDid you miss my reviews? I bet you didn't. Oh well. Here's some more reaction to B5.
Survivors is all about Garibaldi having angsty backstory. There’s an explosion on B5 right before President No Chin is due to arrive on the station (I bet he’s evil because he has no chin and his vice president has several), and the lone victim blames Garibaldi right before snuffing it. The head of President No Chin’s security is said angsty backstory, a young woman who holds Garibaldi and his drinking problem responsible for her father’s death.
Anyway, Garibaldi is framed for the explosion. There is an actual Turn In Your Gun and Badge scene, and Garibaldi responds to the accusations against him the way any reasonable person would—by kicking one of the arresting officers in the balls and making a run for it. He then proceeds to punch lots and lots of people in the face and then drink various aliens under the table. It’s pretty great. In the end, it turns out that the guy blew himself up by accident and was a member of the Home Guard. Another one of President No Chin’s security guards is also either a member or in their pay and attempts to sabotage the landing, but Garibaldi saves the day by punching him in the face.
Can I just say that I love plots where anti-immigration fascist-type groups are the villains? Also, Garibaldi looks like Bruce Willis, especially when he’s punching people.
Much love for the horrible, horrible green screen effects in the transport thingy. If you haven’t seen the show, basically every time people have to move long distances on the station, you see them holding handles like on a subway, and then there’s a monitor behind them showing the journey through the transport tubes. It’s charmingly awful to look at.
By Any Means Necessary is just great. Cheesy as hell in the way that genre TV always is when it has to deal with social issues, but incredibly enjoyable.
The main plot is about an illegal strike on the space docks, introducing my new favourite character, Neeoma Connally. Is she in other episodes? Tell me she is in other episodes. She is a righteous union maid who is all about kicking ass for the working class. OMG I love her. There is also a foreman who looks like Mario whose brother (Luigi, I can only assume) gets killed in the shipping accident that sets off the strike. The strike meetings are a wonderful representation of what TV thinks union meetings look like. The workers all kind of grimy and some have gigantic wrenches and hammers. You guys it is so great.
Anyway, basically there is a whole lot to do with budget issues on Babylon 5 and political and economic woes back on Earth, which I also love because how often do you see sci-fi plots around that sort of thing? But the dockworkers, being government employees, have signed a contract that prevents them from striking. A senator whom I don’t think we’ve seen before, Hidoshi, is pressuring Sinclair to do something quickly, and the government calls in a skeezy negotiator, Zento. Zento threatens to invoke the Rush Act, which allows B5 to end the strike “by any means necessary.”
Fisticuffs ensue between Garibaldi’s security team and the strikers. Then Sinclair ends the strike—by redirecting military funds to give the dockworkers the extra people and equipment they need. Because the Rush Act is very badly worded. Hahaha. Okay, Commander Boring, you’re not so bad.
The B-Plot is about Londo and G’Kar fighting over a flower, which is every bit as funny as you would expect, and also extremely gay. These two should just get drunk and make out already. Both the station and the universe would be more peaceful for it.
Hey, how did I not notice that the station’s communication system is called BABCOM? For some reason that amuses me greatly.
Signs and Portents
Yay! Plot twists! Epic space battles! Things blowing up! Lens flares! Ivanova’s mouth tasting like old carpet in the morning (what?).
The raiders, which I admittedly forgot about, are getting daring and ending up in places they shouldn’t be because they need to use the jumpgate like everyone else. Meanwhile, Sinclair asks Garibaldi to investigate his missing time problem, and admits that it was definitely Delenn he saw in the flashbacks. Londo has acquired the Eye, an artifact that belonged to the first Centauri Emperor, and a couple of Centauri nobles, Lord Kiro and Lady Ladira, have come to retrieve it. Problem being that Kiro wants the artifact, and what remains of the Centauri Empire, for himself. And to make matters more plotty and cryptic, a fellow named Morden, who looks a bit like John Stamos, has turned up on the station to ask the various ambassadors what they want.
What they want is as follows: For Morden to GTFO. When pressed, G’Kar wants to burn the Centauri Empire to the ground and salt the earth for great justice, etc., and Londo wants to restore the Centauri Empire to its former might. Delenn doesn’t answer because her forehead has suddenly sprouted a triangle. Morden lacks the stones to directly ask Kosh what he wants for fear that the answer might make everyone’s brain explode, but nevertheless, Kosh tells him to stuff it. Kosh really needs to be in every episode.
Oh, and occasionally Morden turns into a shadow. Ladira, who is a seer, once had a vision of Kiro being killed by shadows, so it’s obvious where that plot is going. She’s also had a vision of B5 ASPLODING, which looks to happen if the raiders keep being so cocky.
Anyway, the raiders show up and steal the Eye, taking Londo, Ladira, and Kiro as hostages, but only manage to get away with the Eye and Kiro. Ivanova, Garibaldi, and co. go after them, but it turns out that there is in fact a HUGE ASS raider ship that is its own jumpgate, and that’s how they’ve been getting places. Cue epic space battles.
Fortunately for Kiro, he’s been working with the raiders all along in a plot to overthrow the Centauri government. Unfortunately for Kiro, the raiders have added up the numbers and decided that they’d get more out of it by ransoming him and the Eye back to the Centauri. But the biggest pwnage comes moments later, when an even more gigantic ship and ZOMG DOES IT HAVE TENTACLES shows up and blasts them all out of the sky.
Wheeeee!
Londo naturally thinks that this is going to lose him his job, but the Eye turns up after all, having been acquired by Morden. Who is creepy as hell. B5 comes away with some damage and one dead pilot. The surviving raiders all get sent back to Earth to stand trial. Ladira gives Sinclair a nice CGI effect of the station exploding before going home. Oh, and Garibaldi’s research reveals that Sinclair was approximately one-billionth in line for command of B5, but the Minbari rejected everyone else until they got to him. Why do the Minbari love Sinclair so much? I mean, I'm warming up to him a bit—presumably just in time for him to get offed—but he's not that amazing.
I get why you guys like this show, though. For those keeping track, I am now at the point where I’m skipping over the monologue but listening to the theme song because it’s wonderful.
In other I-spend-too-much-time-watching-pirated-telly news, I also watched Another Country. I didn’t like it very much, though I’d have probably have liked it more if I hadn’t watched Cambridge Spies first. Mostly, Tom Hollander’s manic trainwreck of a human being is infinitely more fun to watch than Rupert Everett’s mopey emo kid. I have no idea which is more historically accurate but given what Burgess reportedly said about Paul Robeson, I’m going to err on the side of the miniseries. Also, Colin Firth’s for-some-reason-straight version of Julian Bell reminded me of Rick on The Young Ones and then I couldn’t un-think it, and this led to my brain going to even stranger places.
It’s weird too because there’s a practically identical scene in both the movie and the miniseries, where Guy tells someone about how his father died of a heart attack in mid-coitus with his mother. In Another Country he’s on a date (what?) with Westley from Princess Bride (double what? I really should like this movie more than I did) and it’s kind of to get sympathy and kind of because he’s hella socially awkward. It’s a little funny but mostly played for tragedy. The same conversation in Cambridge Spies involves him trying to recruit Maclean, is mostly hilarious right up until the punchline, when it becomes clear that he’s not above using his and Maclean’s own personal tragedies for manipulative purposes.
Probably I should watch less telly and sleep more, but where's the fun in that?
Survivors is all about Garibaldi having angsty backstory. There’s an explosion on B5 right before President No Chin is due to arrive on the station (I bet he’s evil because he has no chin and his vice president has several), and the lone victim blames Garibaldi right before snuffing it. The head of President No Chin’s security is said angsty backstory, a young woman who holds Garibaldi and his drinking problem responsible for her father’s death.
Anyway, Garibaldi is framed for the explosion. There is an actual Turn In Your Gun and Badge scene, and Garibaldi responds to the accusations against him the way any reasonable person would—by kicking one of the arresting officers in the balls and making a run for it. He then proceeds to punch lots and lots of people in the face and then drink various aliens under the table. It’s pretty great. In the end, it turns out that the guy blew himself up by accident and was a member of the Home Guard. Another one of President No Chin’s security guards is also either a member or in their pay and attempts to sabotage the landing, but Garibaldi saves the day by punching him in the face.
Can I just say that I love plots where anti-immigration fascist-type groups are the villains? Also, Garibaldi looks like Bruce Willis, especially when he’s punching people.
Much love for the horrible, horrible green screen effects in the transport thingy. If you haven’t seen the show, basically every time people have to move long distances on the station, you see them holding handles like on a subway, and then there’s a monitor behind them showing the journey through the transport tubes. It’s charmingly awful to look at.
By Any Means Necessary is just great. Cheesy as hell in the way that genre TV always is when it has to deal with social issues, but incredibly enjoyable.
The main plot is about an illegal strike on the space docks, introducing my new favourite character, Neeoma Connally. Is she in other episodes? Tell me she is in other episodes. She is a righteous union maid who is all about kicking ass for the working class. OMG I love her. There is also a foreman who looks like Mario whose brother (Luigi, I can only assume) gets killed in the shipping accident that sets off the strike. The strike meetings are a wonderful representation of what TV thinks union meetings look like. The workers all kind of grimy and some have gigantic wrenches and hammers. You guys it is so great.
Anyway, basically there is a whole lot to do with budget issues on Babylon 5 and political and economic woes back on Earth, which I also love because how often do you see sci-fi plots around that sort of thing? But the dockworkers, being government employees, have signed a contract that prevents them from striking. A senator whom I don’t think we’ve seen before, Hidoshi, is pressuring Sinclair to do something quickly, and the government calls in a skeezy negotiator, Zento. Zento threatens to invoke the Rush Act, which allows B5 to end the strike “by any means necessary.”
Fisticuffs ensue between Garibaldi’s security team and the strikers. Then Sinclair ends the strike—by redirecting military funds to give the dockworkers the extra people and equipment they need. Because the Rush Act is very badly worded. Hahaha. Okay, Commander Boring, you’re not so bad.
The B-Plot is about Londo and G’Kar fighting over a flower, which is every bit as funny as you would expect, and also extremely gay. These two should just get drunk and make out already. Both the station and the universe would be more peaceful for it.
Hey, how did I not notice that the station’s communication system is called BABCOM? For some reason that amuses me greatly.
Signs and Portents
Yay! Plot twists! Epic space battles! Things blowing up! Lens flares! Ivanova’s mouth tasting like old carpet in the morning (what?).
The raiders, which I admittedly forgot about, are getting daring and ending up in places they shouldn’t be because they need to use the jumpgate like everyone else. Meanwhile, Sinclair asks Garibaldi to investigate his missing time problem, and admits that it was definitely Delenn he saw in the flashbacks. Londo has acquired the Eye, an artifact that belonged to the first Centauri Emperor, and a couple of Centauri nobles, Lord Kiro and Lady Ladira, have come to retrieve it. Problem being that Kiro wants the artifact, and what remains of the Centauri Empire, for himself. And to make matters more plotty and cryptic, a fellow named Morden, who looks a bit like John Stamos, has turned up on the station to ask the various ambassadors what they want.
What they want is as follows: For Morden to GTFO. When pressed, G’Kar wants to burn the Centauri Empire to the ground and salt the earth for great justice, etc., and Londo wants to restore the Centauri Empire to its former might. Delenn doesn’t answer because her forehead has suddenly sprouted a triangle. Morden lacks the stones to directly ask Kosh what he wants for fear that the answer might make everyone’s brain explode, but nevertheless, Kosh tells him to stuff it. Kosh really needs to be in every episode.
Oh, and occasionally Morden turns into a shadow. Ladira, who is a seer, once had a vision of Kiro being killed by shadows, so it’s obvious where that plot is going. She’s also had a vision of B5 ASPLODING, which looks to happen if the raiders keep being so cocky.
Anyway, the raiders show up and steal the Eye, taking Londo, Ladira, and Kiro as hostages, but only manage to get away with the Eye and Kiro. Ivanova, Garibaldi, and co. go after them, but it turns out that there is in fact a HUGE ASS raider ship that is its own jumpgate, and that’s how they’ve been getting places. Cue epic space battles.
Fortunately for Kiro, he’s been working with the raiders all along in a plot to overthrow the Centauri government. Unfortunately for Kiro, the raiders have added up the numbers and decided that they’d get more out of it by ransoming him and the Eye back to the Centauri. But the biggest pwnage comes moments later, when an even more gigantic ship and ZOMG DOES IT HAVE TENTACLES shows up and blasts them all out of the sky.
Wheeeee!
Londo naturally thinks that this is going to lose him his job, but the Eye turns up after all, having been acquired by Morden. Who is creepy as hell. B5 comes away with some damage and one dead pilot. The surviving raiders all get sent back to Earth to stand trial. Ladira gives Sinclair a nice CGI effect of the station exploding before going home. Oh, and Garibaldi’s research reveals that Sinclair was approximately one-billionth in line for command of B5, but the Minbari rejected everyone else until they got to him. Why do the Minbari love Sinclair so much? I mean, I'm warming up to him a bit—presumably just in time for him to get offed—but he's not that amazing.
I get why you guys like this show, though. For those keeping track, I am now at the point where I’m skipping over the monologue but listening to the theme song because it’s wonderful.
In other I-spend-too-much-time-watching-pirated-telly news, I also watched Another Country. I didn’t like it very much, though I’d have probably have liked it more if I hadn’t watched Cambridge Spies first. Mostly, Tom Hollander’s manic trainwreck of a human being is infinitely more fun to watch than Rupert Everett’s mopey emo kid. I have no idea which is more historically accurate but given what Burgess reportedly said about Paul Robeson, I’m going to err on the side of the miniseries. Also, Colin Firth’s for-some-reason-straight version of Julian Bell reminded me of Rick on The Young Ones and then I couldn’t un-think it, and this led to my brain going to even stranger places.
It’s weird too because there’s a practically identical scene in both the movie and the miniseries, where Guy tells someone about how his father died of a heart attack in mid-coitus with his mother. In Another Country he’s on a date (what?) with Westley from Princess Bride (double what? I really should like this movie more than I did) and it’s kind of to get sympathy and kind of because he’s hella socially awkward. It’s a little funny but mostly played for tragedy. The same conversation in Cambridge Spies involves him trying to recruit Maclean, is mostly hilarious right up until the punchline, when it becomes clear that he’s not above using his and Maclean’s own personal tragedies for manipulative purposes.
Probably I should watch less telly and sleep more, but where's the fun in that?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 01:05 pm (UTC)