B5, S04E01-4
Mar. 25th, 2012 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyAnd the exciting and sparkly new adventure that is Season 4 begins!
I have been warned that Season 4 is full of all the things. So these recaps may get into incomprehensible territory if you haven’t seen the show. But I think everyone reading them has seen the show.
Anyway!
The Hour of the Wolf:
It’s been seven days since the finale of Season 3, which confuses me as it’s also a new year. I have given up trying to keep track of time on this show. (That is the least of my concerns; as we’ll see in a bit, I have also lost track of which ships blew up.) Sheridan is still missing, presumed dead, Garibaldi is still missing, presumed who-the-fuck-cares?, and the pause button has still been hit on the Shadow War. Without an immediate threat to unify them, Dumbledore’s Army is falling apart. Not!Kosh is playing hooky at meetings and the Non-Aligned Worlds want to retreat and lick their wounds while the Shadows are still out of the picture. Also, the Gaim is still cool.
Ivanova has taken to drinking heavily and not sleeping. I wish I looked as good as she does when I’m depressed. She’s quite attractive on a normal day but when she’s despairing, she’s luminous.
Delenn is doing the fasting-and-praying routine and insists that Sheridan is not dead, obviously, because he’s still in the credits.
Speaking of the credits, they are terrible! The opening voiceover is now everyone, which sounds completely weird and wrong, and the music is worse than the last season. The only improvement is the removal of the strange head-turn thing. Oh, and Lyta is now in the opening credits. Great.
In other news, the White Star apparently wasn’t destroyed in the last episode. D’oh! Some kind of automatic sequence drove it away from Z’ha’dum at the last minute. Well, that’s good; hate to ruin a pretty ship like that. I’m confused as to what was carrying the nukes that exploded at the end, however.
Londo has been sent to Centauri Prime to HOO-BOY CHECK OUT THE NEW EMPEROR. He is FABULOUS. I mean normally I hate it when the villain is just straight-up insane but this guy does it with class.
THINGS THAT ARE GREAT ABOUT EMPEROR CARTAGIA:
1. His name. It is meant to evoke both Caligula and Carthage and probably something else that I’m not steeped enough in Classics to notice.
2. His new haircut and the fact that he’s really proud of it.
3. The fact that he has not outgrown his bratty childhood.
4. He invites the Shadows to come hang out on Centauri Prime so that they can make him a god later.
5. HE KEEPS THE SEVERED HEADS OF HIS ENEMIES ON HIS DESK AND TALKS TO THEM.
Uh, yes. I am excited for Emperor Cartagia and his inevitable karmic death. It probably won’t be as amazing as Refa’s, but a girl can dream. In the meantime he is wicked entertaining. Londo takes one look at this situation and is all, “Ohhhhh shit better call Vir.”
Speaking of Vir, he is still the best of them, using the fact that the Shadows still apparently use him as Londo’s answering machine to let Ivanova know what happened on Z’ha’dum. Then he goes right to Londo because, as Londo says, a conspiracy requires more than one person. They have a very touching reunion as they plot to kill Cartagia and I swear that’s just a piece of grit in my eye.
<3 <3 <3
I bet you were wondering what G’Kar is up to when he’s not arms dealing or narrating. He is, in fact, being quite awesome. Everyone is so concerned with what happened to Sheridan that no one is looking for Garibaldi, but Garibaldi once gave G’Kar a second chance, and G’Kar feels that he owes him one. So he breaks into Garibaldi’s quarters and…tries on his hat. It looks good. I think it looks better on G’Kar than on Garibaldi, to tell you the truth. Also G’Kar’s going to go search for Garibaldi. Awww.
Lyta trips on Not!Kosh’s Space Jesus vibes but they apparently aren’t as good as Regular!Kosh’s Space Jesus vibes. Not only does this make no sense if you haven’t seen the show, but it probably doesn’t make sense if you haven’t been following my recaps. Actually, I don’t know what’s going on with this whole thing. Apparently people can carry Vorlons around with them. And Sheridan is carrying Kosh around with him, so Lyta thinks that she can find him if he’s still alive on Z’ha’dum.
This is really stretching it, but of course Lyta, Ivanova, Delenn, and Lennier take the not-exploded White Star and fly off to Z’ha’dum to rescue Sheridan. Lyta now apparently has awesome telepathy and can block all of the ships. When did this happen? There’s no sign of Sheridan, but there’s a cool glowy thing that knows all of their names and tries to lure them down to the planet. This is the same cool glowy thing that Ivanova saw that time she was in the Great Machine. Apparently it’s called the Eye. Hey, wasn’t there some kind of prophecy about the Eye?
They narrowly escape, and only because Lennier is actually capable of thinking ahead, unlike everyone else, but they miss the fact that obviously Sheridan is still alive. He’s dressed like a hobo in some underground tunnels. Then Space Satan joins him at his little campfire. What? Well, I was close in my predictions.
Other things!
- I was wrong. Morden’s still alive. He is all burnt and flaky and ewww is he picking flakes off of his skin and dropping them on Londo’s floor? Because if so, that’s disgusting. If not, I’m sure whatever he is dropping on Londo’s floor is disgusting anyway. I predict that he is going to be the evil thing that possesses Londo when he’s Emperor.
- Two nods to prophecy here: When the Shadows arrive at Centauri Prime, it’s straight out of Londo’s dream. Also the Eye thing.
- What is Not!Kosh up to?
- I think I would have gotten along with Ivanova’s dad.
Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?:
This one feels to me like filler of a different sort. It’s not irrelevant—stuff happens, and the plot gets advanced, but there’s not really a resolution within the episode itself. It kind of feels like it should be Part 2 of 3 or some such.
In terms of thematic consistency, everyone gets stuck down a hole. Mostly literal holes. Was this written by a particularly sadistic GM?
It’s now two days later. Delenn is still not eating. Franklin, now freed from his Very Special Storyline, actually does something useful by reminding her that she’s half-human now and can’t just starve herself, Minbari-style. Hey, great, he remembered that he was a doctor! Anyway, the whole thing is very OOC for Delenn, grief-stricken or not. Franklin shows her a recording Sheridan made with an inspirational message and she snaps out of it, finally, and decides to gather the Rangers and attack Z’ha’dum. So she manages to get out of her metaphorical hole.
The most interesting storyline is the one mentioned in the title. G’Kar is now hanging around sleazy bars trying to hunt down Garibaldi. He briefly teams up with Marcus. This is too brief—they are actually pretty hilarious together. Then G’Kar gets captured by some random Centauris, who deliver him to Londo and Emperor Crazypants, and actually this is an even better team-up, as Londo enlists G’Kar in the plot to kill Cartagia and promises to free Narn. Oh man. Can the whole season be political intrigue in the Centauri Imperial court? For those keeping track, there’s one metaphorical hole (Londo’s new position) and one literal one (the prison cell in which they dump G’Kar).
Unfortunately, the bulk of the storyline is given to Sheridan’s literal and metaphorical hole. He’s still stuck in the underground cavern with the single most irritating character B5 has ever produced, and I’m including Zack when I say this. I hate Lorien and I want him to die. He probably won’t, because he’s the First One, the oldest living being blah-dee-blah, but I’ll settle for him never being on the show again. Every time he opens his mouth I want to reach through the computer monitor and slap him. He starts every other sentence with, “…Perhaps,” and talks a lot of cheesy sci-fi ancient being of wisdom bollocks. If the idea is to get me to sympathize with Sheridan, I totally do, because being trapped with this guy for nine days has got to be complete hell.
There is one cool concept here, which is that Lorien, after dancing around the point for a bit, mentions that Sheridan has been underground for nine days and hasn’t eaten, and is then, “Check your pulse, yo.” So Sheridan is dead. Well, he is only mostly dead, which is slightly alive. More to the point, he is still falling down the chasm. That is kind of cool. There didn’t need to be all that pretentious dialogue to get there, though.
As for Garibaldi, despite the fact that he gets an episode named after him, he is also in a hole, being questioned by disembodied voices. To his credit, he attempts to smash up the room he’s imprisoned in. To their credit, they respond by pumping in some gas. Heh.
The Summoning:
Marcus is a virgin, everyone!
Don't blame me; Ivanova said "unicorn" first.
Just thought I’d get that out of the way. What is with this show and its virgin obsession? I mean, Vir (well, other than the one tentacle) and now Marcus, and as much as I’d like to imagine that Lennier is neck-deep in poontang, I highly doubt he’s ever gotten laid.
Anyway, on with the plot. Did I say that I wanted to see more of the Centauri Imperial court? Because, no, it’s actually really disgusting and I don’t think I want to see it. Cartagia’s favourite hobby is now torturing G’Kar and watering the plants in the garden with his blood. Dude, that is really fucked up. At first Vir is all, “Can we find some way to fix all this that doesn’t involve conspiracies and assassination?” but after the blood thing he’s like, “Actually, no, we need to kill him.”
Kudos to the show for writing multiple torture scenes that are actually horrifying to watch. Most shows seem to cop out and go for the pain ray solution, but not B5. I am really going to enjoy watching Cartagia die and so is Londo.
Lyta is basically in an abusive relationship with Not!Kosh, who makes her remove all the furniture from her quarters and zaps her with electricity when she asks too many questions. Damn. I can’t stand Lyta and her terrible, terrible acting, but that’s not cool, Not!Kosh.
Ivanova asks Delenn if she can borrow the White Star for a spin. Or a White Star—apparently all of the ships in the fleet are called that in the same way that all of the Vorlons are named Kosh. This is kind of confusing. She wants to go look for more First Ones. And she’s learned Minbari. Not very well, though, so Marcus has to come along, which is how we find out he’s a virgin. He’s saving himself for Ivanova. How sweet. But if he doesn’t at least try to have sex before the assault on Z’ha’dum, he’s a total idiot. They don’t find any First Ones, but what they do find is a massive secret Vorlon fleet. Ohhhhh shit.
Delenn has problems of her own, which is that the Non-Aligned Worlds are now mostly against attacking Z’ha’dum. Rather than shut them up, she tries to engage them in the most ill-timed open debate ever. Just as they’re claiming that no one has ever returned from Z’ha’dum alive, Sheridan, accompanied by ohgawd-I-hope-we-don’t-get-him-all-season Lorien, chooses to make his triumphant comeback. His explanation for the being dead thing? “I got better.” Heh. So the Non-Aligneds are back in, I guess.
Garibaldi also returns, which even Zack thinks is just way too easy. The Shadows have brainwashed him and stuck him in cling film like he’s Roy Orbison (you know you’ve been on the intertubes too long when…), and now he’s just really bitchy. He threatens to derail a Dumbledore’s Army meeting by asking who Lorien is (why are they letting Lorien join Dumbledore’s Army? Can’t he go back into his bottomless pit?), but the meeting is derailed anyway when Ivanova, Marcus, and Lyta come in to announce that the Vorlons just destroyed an entire planet because there was a Shadow base there. Apparently they’ve decided that anything that’s come into contact with Shadows—which is everything—needs to be blown up. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, Vorlons!
Falling Toward Apotheosis:
Instead of a recap, imagine me saying “eeek!” for 40 minutes straight.
Let’s see! So:
- Sheridan is the new Space Jesus.
- The Vorlons are going around killing the shit out of everything.
- Sheridan plots to have Not!Kosh removed. This involves setting up Garibaldi to get his freshly bald head kicked in by force!lightning
- “He had some of Kosh and some of me inside of him.” EWW SHERIDAN HOW DID LORIEN GET INSIDE OF YOU? The mental images here are not good.
- We finally get to see what Vorlons look like, and it’s more tentacle hentai than it is harp-strumming angels. Good.
- Garibaldi is really, really bitchy. But I can’t believe he’s the only one questioning Sheridan and Lorien’s new BFF status.
- Sheridan and Delenn’s dialogue is cheesy to the extreme but I kind of love it.
- Eww Morden how are you still walking around like that?
- Haha, Cartagia wants the Vorlons to blow up Centauri Prime. And he shows Londo his severed head collection! I really hope he stays alive until the season finale.
- Aww Londo is scheming to get his boyfriend off Centauri Prime when the Vorlons torch it. That is at least as romantic as anything going on between Sheridan and Delenn. I hope G’Kar appreciates it. I hope that he’s also planning to get Vir off.
- Unfortunately G’Kar needs to lose an eye for this to happen so as to better match Londo's prophetic dreams. Yikes. But also he looks badass with an eye patch. I feel for his actor, though. It already must be a pain to wear all that makeup and prosthetics and armor, and now he has to get an eye patch too.
- Epsilon III is accepting refugees? Shouldn’t they run that by Draal and his crazy booby traps?
- Sheridan only has 20 years to live. ;__;
- And immediately after telling her that, he proposes to Delenn. Hmm. That is kind of emotionally manipulative, dude.
- I know! Maybe Lorien should heroically sacrifice all of his life force so that Sheridan can have a normal human lifespan. That would be awesome.
I just noticed that Vir is doing his little wave in the credits. Okay, I like the credits a lot more now.
I have been warned that Season 4 is full of all the things. So these recaps may get into incomprehensible territory if you haven’t seen the show. But I think everyone reading them has seen the show.
Anyway!
The Hour of the Wolf:
It’s been seven days since the finale of Season 3, which confuses me as it’s also a new year. I have given up trying to keep track of time on this show. (That is the least of my concerns; as we’ll see in a bit, I have also lost track of which ships blew up.) Sheridan is still missing, presumed dead, Garibaldi is still missing, presumed who-the-fuck-cares?, and the pause button has still been hit on the Shadow War. Without an immediate threat to unify them, Dumbledore’s Army is falling apart. Not!Kosh is playing hooky at meetings and the Non-Aligned Worlds want to retreat and lick their wounds while the Shadows are still out of the picture. Also, the Gaim is still cool.
Ivanova has taken to drinking heavily and not sleeping. I wish I looked as good as she does when I’m depressed. She’s quite attractive on a normal day but when she’s despairing, she’s luminous.
Delenn is doing the fasting-and-praying routine and insists that Sheridan is not dead, obviously, because he’s still in the credits.
Speaking of the credits, they are terrible! The opening voiceover is now everyone, which sounds completely weird and wrong, and the music is worse than the last season. The only improvement is the removal of the strange head-turn thing. Oh, and Lyta is now in the opening credits. Great.
In other news, the White Star apparently wasn’t destroyed in the last episode. D’oh! Some kind of automatic sequence drove it away from Z’ha’dum at the last minute. Well, that’s good; hate to ruin a pretty ship like that. I’m confused as to what was carrying the nukes that exploded at the end, however.
Londo has been sent to Centauri Prime to HOO-BOY CHECK OUT THE NEW EMPEROR. He is FABULOUS. I mean normally I hate it when the villain is just straight-up insane but this guy does it with class.
THINGS THAT ARE GREAT ABOUT EMPEROR CARTAGIA:
1. His name. It is meant to evoke both Caligula and Carthage and probably something else that I’m not steeped enough in Classics to notice.
2. His new haircut and the fact that he’s really proud of it.
3. The fact that he has not outgrown his bratty childhood.
4. He invites the Shadows to come hang out on Centauri Prime so that they can make him a god later.
5. HE KEEPS THE SEVERED HEADS OF HIS ENEMIES ON HIS DESK AND TALKS TO THEM.
Uh, yes. I am excited for Emperor Cartagia and his inevitable karmic death. It probably won’t be as amazing as Refa’s, but a girl can dream. In the meantime he is wicked entertaining. Londo takes one look at this situation and is all, “Ohhhhh shit better call Vir.”
Speaking of Vir, he is still the best of them, using the fact that the Shadows still apparently use him as Londo’s answering machine to let Ivanova know what happened on Z’ha’dum. Then he goes right to Londo because, as Londo says, a conspiracy requires more than one person. They have a very touching reunion as they plot to kill Cartagia and I swear that’s just a piece of grit in my eye.
<3 <3 <3
I bet you were wondering what G’Kar is up to when he’s not arms dealing or narrating. He is, in fact, being quite awesome. Everyone is so concerned with what happened to Sheridan that no one is looking for Garibaldi, but Garibaldi once gave G’Kar a second chance, and G’Kar feels that he owes him one. So he breaks into Garibaldi’s quarters and…tries on his hat. It looks good. I think it looks better on G’Kar than on Garibaldi, to tell you the truth. Also G’Kar’s going to go search for Garibaldi. Awww.
Lyta trips on Not!Kosh’s Space Jesus vibes but they apparently aren’t as good as Regular!Kosh’s Space Jesus vibes. Not only does this make no sense if you haven’t seen the show, but it probably doesn’t make sense if you haven’t been following my recaps. Actually, I don’t know what’s going on with this whole thing. Apparently people can carry Vorlons around with them. And Sheridan is carrying Kosh around with him, so Lyta thinks that she can find him if he’s still alive on Z’ha’dum.
This is really stretching it, but of course Lyta, Ivanova, Delenn, and Lennier take the not-exploded White Star and fly off to Z’ha’dum to rescue Sheridan. Lyta now apparently has awesome telepathy and can block all of the ships. When did this happen? There’s no sign of Sheridan, but there’s a cool glowy thing that knows all of their names and tries to lure them down to the planet. This is the same cool glowy thing that Ivanova saw that time she was in the Great Machine. Apparently it’s called the Eye. Hey, wasn’t there some kind of prophecy about the Eye?
They narrowly escape, and only because Lennier is actually capable of thinking ahead, unlike everyone else, but they miss the fact that obviously Sheridan is still alive. He’s dressed like a hobo in some underground tunnels. Then Space Satan joins him at his little campfire. What? Well, I was close in my predictions.
Other things!
- I was wrong. Morden’s still alive. He is all burnt and flaky and ewww is he picking flakes off of his skin and dropping them on Londo’s floor? Because if so, that’s disgusting. If not, I’m sure whatever he is dropping on Londo’s floor is disgusting anyway. I predict that he is going to be the evil thing that possesses Londo when he’s Emperor.
- Two nods to prophecy here: When the Shadows arrive at Centauri Prime, it’s straight out of Londo’s dream. Also the Eye thing.
- What is Not!Kosh up to?
- I think I would have gotten along with Ivanova’s dad.
Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?:
This one feels to me like filler of a different sort. It’s not irrelevant—stuff happens, and the plot gets advanced, but there’s not really a resolution within the episode itself. It kind of feels like it should be Part 2 of 3 or some such.
In terms of thematic consistency, everyone gets stuck down a hole. Mostly literal holes. Was this written by a particularly sadistic GM?
It’s now two days later. Delenn is still not eating. Franklin, now freed from his Very Special Storyline, actually does something useful by reminding her that she’s half-human now and can’t just starve herself, Minbari-style. Hey, great, he remembered that he was a doctor! Anyway, the whole thing is very OOC for Delenn, grief-stricken or not. Franklin shows her a recording Sheridan made with an inspirational message and she snaps out of it, finally, and decides to gather the Rangers and attack Z’ha’dum. So she manages to get out of her metaphorical hole.
The most interesting storyline is the one mentioned in the title. G’Kar is now hanging around sleazy bars trying to hunt down Garibaldi. He briefly teams up with Marcus. This is too brief—they are actually pretty hilarious together. Then G’Kar gets captured by some random Centauris, who deliver him to Londo and Emperor Crazypants, and actually this is an even better team-up, as Londo enlists G’Kar in the plot to kill Cartagia and promises to free Narn. Oh man. Can the whole season be political intrigue in the Centauri Imperial court? For those keeping track, there’s one metaphorical hole (Londo’s new position) and one literal one (the prison cell in which they dump G’Kar).
Unfortunately, the bulk of the storyline is given to Sheridan’s literal and metaphorical hole. He’s still stuck in the underground cavern with the single most irritating character B5 has ever produced, and I’m including Zack when I say this. I hate Lorien and I want him to die. He probably won’t, because he’s the First One, the oldest living being blah-dee-blah, but I’ll settle for him never being on the show again. Every time he opens his mouth I want to reach through the computer monitor and slap him. He starts every other sentence with, “…Perhaps,” and talks a lot of cheesy sci-fi ancient being of wisdom bollocks. If the idea is to get me to sympathize with Sheridan, I totally do, because being trapped with this guy for nine days has got to be complete hell.
There is one cool concept here, which is that Lorien, after dancing around the point for a bit, mentions that Sheridan has been underground for nine days and hasn’t eaten, and is then, “Check your pulse, yo.” So Sheridan is dead. Well, he is only mostly dead, which is slightly alive. More to the point, he is still falling down the chasm. That is kind of cool. There didn’t need to be all that pretentious dialogue to get there, though.
As for Garibaldi, despite the fact that he gets an episode named after him, he is also in a hole, being questioned by disembodied voices. To his credit, he attempts to smash up the room he’s imprisoned in. To their credit, they respond by pumping in some gas. Heh.
The Summoning:
Marcus is a virgin, everyone!
Don't blame me; Ivanova said "unicorn" first.
Just thought I’d get that out of the way. What is with this show and its virgin obsession? I mean, Vir (well, other than the one tentacle) and now Marcus, and as much as I’d like to imagine that Lennier is neck-deep in poontang, I highly doubt he’s ever gotten laid.
Anyway, on with the plot. Did I say that I wanted to see more of the Centauri Imperial court? Because, no, it’s actually really disgusting and I don’t think I want to see it. Cartagia’s favourite hobby is now torturing G’Kar and watering the plants in the garden with his blood. Dude, that is really fucked up. At first Vir is all, “Can we find some way to fix all this that doesn’t involve conspiracies and assassination?” but after the blood thing he’s like, “Actually, no, we need to kill him.”
Kudos to the show for writing multiple torture scenes that are actually horrifying to watch. Most shows seem to cop out and go for the pain ray solution, but not B5. I am really going to enjoy watching Cartagia die and so is Londo.
Lyta is basically in an abusive relationship with Not!Kosh, who makes her remove all the furniture from her quarters and zaps her with electricity when she asks too many questions. Damn. I can’t stand Lyta and her terrible, terrible acting, but that’s not cool, Not!Kosh.
Ivanova asks Delenn if she can borrow the White Star for a spin. Or a White Star—apparently all of the ships in the fleet are called that in the same way that all of the Vorlons are named Kosh. This is kind of confusing. She wants to go look for more First Ones. And she’s learned Minbari. Not very well, though, so Marcus has to come along, which is how we find out he’s a virgin. He’s saving himself for Ivanova. How sweet. But if he doesn’t at least try to have sex before the assault on Z’ha’dum, he’s a total idiot. They don’t find any First Ones, but what they do find is a massive secret Vorlon fleet. Ohhhhh shit.
Delenn has problems of her own, which is that the Non-Aligned Worlds are now mostly against attacking Z’ha’dum. Rather than shut them up, she tries to engage them in the most ill-timed open debate ever. Just as they’re claiming that no one has ever returned from Z’ha’dum alive, Sheridan, accompanied by ohgawd-I-hope-we-don’t-get-him-all-season Lorien, chooses to make his triumphant comeback. His explanation for the being dead thing? “I got better.” Heh. So the Non-Aligneds are back in, I guess.
Garibaldi also returns, which even Zack thinks is just way too easy. The Shadows have brainwashed him and stuck him in cling film like he’s Roy Orbison (you know you’ve been on the intertubes too long when…), and now he’s just really bitchy. He threatens to derail a Dumbledore’s Army meeting by asking who Lorien is (why are they letting Lorien join Dumbledore’s Army? Can’t he go back into his bottomless pit?), but the meeting is derailed anyway when Ivanova, Marcus, and Lyta come in to announce that the Vorlons just destroyed an entire planet because there was a Shadow base there. Apparently they’ve decided that anything that’s come into contact with Shadows—which is everything—needs to be blown up. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, Vorlons!
Falling Toward Apotheosis:
Instead of a recap, imagine me saying “eeek!” for 40 minutes straight.
Let’s see! So:
- Sheridan is the new Space Jesus.
- The Vorlons are going around killing the shit out of everything.
- Sheridan plots to have Not!Kosh removed. This involves setting up Garibaldi to get his freshly bald head kicked in by force!lightning
- “He had some of Kosh and some of me inside of him.” EWW SHERIDAN HOW DID LORIEN GET INSIDE OF YOU? The mental images here are not good.
- We finally get to see what Vorlons look like, and it’s more tentacle hentai than it is harp-strumming angels. Good.
- Garibaldi is really, really bitchy. But I can’t believe he’s the only one questioning Sheridan and Lorien’s new BFF status.
- Sheridan and Delenn’s dialogue is cheesy to the extreme but I kind of love it.
- Eww Morden how are you still walking around like that?
- Haha, Cartagia wants the Vorlons to blow up Centauri Prime. And he shows Londo his severed head collection! I really hope he stays alive until the season finale.
- Aww Londo is scheming to get his boyfriend off Centauri Prime when the Vorlons torch it. That is at least as romantic as anything going on between Sheridan and Delenn. I hope G’Kar appreciates it. I hope that he’s also planning to get Vir off.
- Unfortunately G’Kar needs to lose an eye for this to happen so as to better match Londo's prophetic dreams. Yikes. But also he looks badass with an eye patch. I feel for his actor, though. It already must be a pain to wear all that makeup and prosthetics and armor, and now he has to get an eye patch too.
- Epsilon III is accepting refugees? Shouldn’t they run that by Draal and his crazy booby traps?
- Sheridan only has 20 years to live. ;__;
- And immediately after telling her that, he proposes to Delenn. Hmm. That is kind of emotionally manipulative, dude.
- I know! Maybe Lorien should heroically sacrifice all of his life force so that Sheridan can have a normal human lifespan. That would be awesome.
I just noticed that Vir is doing his little wave in the credits. Okay, I like the credits a lot more now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 02:36 am (UTC)Each season is roughly a year in story time so it is going to be New Year's either for the premier or the finale. This also explains the season opening voice overs: "It was the year that ..." Since there is no weather in space, this does not complicate the shooting schedule.
Speaking of the credits, they are terrible! The opening voiceover is now everyone, which sounds completely weird and wrong, and the music is worse than the last season. The only improvement is the removal of the strange head-turn thing.
I disagree. This was an improvement. It's still hokey and annoying, but season 3's were nails-across-a-blackboard bad. I HAD to fast forward through them. I could not let it play while I got something out of the fridge because I would still be able to hear it.
Lyta now apparently has awesome telepathy and can block all of the ships. When did this happen?
When Vorlons take up residence in your head, they upgrade the facilities. They want better Wi-Fi. Think "Kosh Eye for the Human Mind Mule." There is semi-precedent for this. Remember that Jason Ironheart was not only upgraded by Psi Corps, he was able to upgrade Talia Winters so that she could move pennies. Otherwise, capacity upgrades are almost unheard of - before Ironheart, they were previously thought to be impossible.
I think I would have gotten along with Ivanova’s dad.
Expound. I just saw this but I forget. It's on the tip of my frontal lobe.
Or a White Star—apparently all of the ships in the fleet are called that in the same way that all of the Vorlons are named Kosh.
White Star is the name of the design, just as Kalashnikov is the name of a particular type of assault rifle.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 10:45 am (UTC)It was the thing about he drank one glass of vodka to keep the wolf at bay, and then a bunch of shots in case she had puppies.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 12:08 pm (UTC)♥
S3's credits were appalling; 4's are just kinda hokey and uncomfortable.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 04:27 am (UTC)Marcus makes all the buddy teams on B5 work. Normally, chivalric romantics annoy me, but he has enough impish gadfly to excuse it. As a lone, errant knight, he is boring, but team him up with someone he can argue with and his character suddenly works. Speaking of boring, he improves Dr. Boring considerably. Indeed, the Dr. shines once free of med lab and walkabout. The Dr. and Marcus later become the new G'Kar and Londo. It's like JMS finally figured out how to best use those characters.
Sadly, Garibaldi's character for me goes downhill from here and never really comes back.
He certainly becomes less likable, but the story works and makes sense for B5. It's a good vehicle for exploring the corporate side of B5. I initially didn't like Garibaldi because I do not like bullies and he was cast as the cliche "cop who plays by his own rules" which works even less if he is head of security and only has to answer to the captain. (If memory serves, he was more thuggish in the pilot.) Then he grew on me because of the actor. His re-becoming a jerk brought things full circle for me and seemed realistic.
I kind of like Delenn and Sheridan on paper but I felt for some reason the actors never had any chemistry together.
Agreed. Although, I'm not sure how well they worked on paper either.
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Date: 2012-03-26 05:39 am (UTC)My thing is I don't like shows that romanticize cops who rough up suspects. During this story, he is less the "rough around the edges" good guy. He is troubled and he gets dark and paranoid, but you also see him trying to help people so there is a struggle. That's why I said realistic. I was not looking at it in the context of his being in recovery, although that is certainly an important established part of his character. The scale of the show is grandiose and there are plenty of conspiracies around to be suspicious about. (And the story is of course, yet another dark, grandiose conspiracy, so although driving away his friends is dysfunctional behavior, it is consistent with the environment/story.) Garibaldi goes rogue, in an understated way, but it is not portrayed as a cool, rebel thing, but a fucked up thing. Hence, I see it as subverting a trope that I don't like. Plus, there is the evil corporate stuff to flesh out the B5 universe and I liked watching that.
Perhaps you are talking about stuff that happens much further on. I'm near the end of re-watching season 4 and have just finished up the storyline we are discussing. I don't remember much from my first viewing shortly after it aired years ago and I have not re-watched the pilot, so my memory is fragmentary. We probably should not say much more lest we reveal spoilers.
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Date: 2012-03-26 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 10:33 pm (UTC)The thing is, ironically, I think audiences would completely take Garibaldi side if we weren't repeatedly reminded that he is mind controlled. If you will forgive me this micro-spoiler, Sheridan shortly starts to act erratic: He isolates himself and starts laughing inappropriately. He starts weirding out his own commend staff. (Delen is away on Minbar doing space elf politics, so she cannot be there for him.) His strange behavior supports Garibaldi's concerns. Plus, as an atheist, I don't like this "The One"/"The First One" shit either. So both Sheridan and Garibaldi are cutting themselves off from others in different ways. If you did not see the frequent mind control reminders, you might give more weight to Garibaldi's take. Or, alternately, with the reminders, you could argue that Garibaldi is right, but only coincidentally for the wrong reasons.
One last bit. Recall that Garibaldi was tight with Sinclair, not Sheridan. It was Ivanova who knew and liked Sheridan, but Garibaldi was wary of the new guy. Eventually, he warmed to Sheridan, but not to the degree of trust and friendship he shared with Sinclair. Now that he is back from Zahad'um, Sheridan is the new guy again, an unknown quantity. Except this time he is making lots of demands. And Garibaldi has been portrayed as a suspicious character from day one. So, again, the character is coming full circle.
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Date: 2012-03-26 10:40 pm (UTC)(Icon meant to represent Garibaldi and Sheridan's relationship, not my reaction to your comment.)
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Date: 2012-03-26 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 04:45 am (UTC)Edit: Actually, you get a small hint of this in the earlier "Cronenberg episode." They made a good team.
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Date: 2012-03-26 11:06 am (UTC)YAY!
I kind of like Delenn and Sheridan on paper but I felt for some reason the actors never had any chemistry together.
I'm still finding Delenn's actor really stilted. But I love their relationship so far.
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Date: 2012-03-26 05:32 am (UTC)Angel season 4 was a letdown as well.
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Date: 2012-03-26 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 12:07 pm (UTC)BTW, I did start watching B5, all because of your recaps. I … um … watched up to a bit past this point in the space of about two weeks. I took a bit of a break (I can't imagine why!) and am just about ready to go back to it.
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Date: 2012-03-26 11:07 pm (UTC)I think I would have loved Illyria if there had been one more season with her. She was certainly headed in interesting places. But they fridged Fred and Cordelia after making both too saintly, and I mostly am into Whedon for his female characters. Well, and Wesley, but [season 5 finale that never happened]. They should have kept Faith and/or Gwen and I would have been more interested.
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Date: 2012-03-26 03:32 pm (UTC)The repeated viewing is also why I like Alien3 the best of the series. The first two are so imprinted in the brain that I know exactly what is happening at every moment. The third one was a weird surprise when I saw it again - definitely a Fincher movie (even at that time he was the unknown music video director who was screwed up the Gibson plot and killed Newt)
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Date: 2012-03-26 10:50 pm (UTC)I've figured this out: She looks better with less make up. Seriously. In one of the DVD extras, she is interviewed while wearing a thick mask of make up (not for the show) and she looks terrible. Granted, time has passed since the series aired, but not that much. During the show, her appearance improved because the script called for her to be in more casual settings where her character did not have time to put on make up. Hence she looks better in her unguarded moments - i.e. while drinking or just waking up.
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Date: 2012-03-26 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 10:53 pm (UTC)I'm heartbroken that you don't like Lorien. He's played by the same guy who played Sebasian the Inquisitor, BTW.
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Date: 2012-03-26 11:04 pm (UTC)I have an allergy to powerful characters who were doing nothing much until the hero stopped along. And also to pretentious gits. And a large number of mentors. I'm not sure what he's doing there that, say, Draal or the Tiki mask couldn't be doing, and his character design is stupid to boot.
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Date: 2012-03-26 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-03 01:56 am (UTC)