B5, S05E10-12
Jun. 6th, 2012 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyDelayed due to IRL having a life and the second season of Game of Thrones. Which is fantastic. Especially the breathtaking penultimate episode that broke the internet last week. Anyway, if you want to geek out about GoT with me, I'm now caught up and currently reading the second book.
But back to B5. A favour, folks? Could we keep the spoilers down a bit? I am almost done but there is still the odd good part and I’d like to be surprised. I am guilty of soliciting spoilers with my wild predictions and begging to know if the show ever gets better, but you must all be strong and sit on your hands for just a bit longer.
Here’s a needlessly gory guide as to what is and is not a spoiler:
Not a spoiler
“Byron sucks! Fortunately, you don’t have to endure him for much longer. You’re going to love how this storyline ends.”
A spoiler
“Bester captures Byron in the next episode and transports him back to PsyCorps headquarters, where he proceeds to dissect him alive, starting with his tongue so that he can’t annoy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sabotabby with his godawful dialogue. I particularly love the bit where his eyeballs go squishity-squoosh! I wonder how they got that sound effect.”
Anyway!
A Tragedy of Telepaths:
Huh, is “tragedy” the collective noun for telepaths? Like a piteousness of doves, or a murder of crows, or a superfluity of nuns? That would be cool.
Moving on, this episode is actually good. The telepath stuff is minimal and involves Bester, the homoerotic buddy cop adventures of G’Kar and Londo continue to be excellent, and one of my favourite characters makes a return. The various ambassadors in the ISA have caught the Idiot Ball, but that plotline is mercifully short.
Lochley looks really good in a tank top. I don’t really like her stupid eyebrows, but she has great arms. I’m just saying. She is as fed up with the Space Hippie storyline as I am. You know what I’d do if I were her? I’d be like, “Sure, you can have a homeworld. Take the Vorlon one. They’re not using it, and besides, they created you people.”
Then I’d tell Bester where to find them. Everyone goes home happy! Except the Space Hippies, but who cares about them?
Lochley is still trying to find some other way, like reasoning with them. So she crawls through a ventilation shaft in a moment of impressive fanservice and tries to talk to Byron.
You know what I’d do if I were the telepaths? Make sure Lochley’s comm was on so everyone could hear, then fuck with her mind to make her say, “Sure, you can have a homeworld. Take the Vorlon one. They’re not using it, and besides, they created you people.” Then she’d have given her word and they would get what they wanted, and once it was discovered that they’d fucked with her mind, she probably wouldn’t even get in trouble. Plus it’s no more violent than some of the other shit they’ve done.
No one on the show is as clever as me, though, so reason doesn’t work and Lochley calls Bester to deal with the situation. But the escaped Space Hippies are not so pacifist, and they steal some weapons and shoot at Lochley, Bester, Zack, and some security guys with all the aiming prowess of Imperial Stormtroopers, conveniently only managing to kill some redshirts. Yawn.
The more interesting storyline is still on Centauri, obviously, where Londo and G’Kar banter. The whole show should be them bantering. It’s over food, which leads G’Kar to realize that there’s another Narn in the palace. In the prisons, no less. And it’s Na’Toth!
What is not so happy is that the Emperor had her thrown in a cell and never rescinded the order, so no one, not even Prime Minister Londo, can legally free her. Also, she’s been down there two years. Poor Na’Toth. Damn. Anyway, G’Kar and Londo hatch a cunning plan to spring her. Yay! In doing so, we discover that Emperor Cartagia was into cross-dressing. Why didn’t we get to see that? That would have been a fine moment that would add some character nuance and also, it was a really pretty dress.
The ISA plot is really boring. The New and Improved Raiders (yeah, it’s totally the Drakh) are cutting off bits of one race’s ships and putting them in the wreckage of other race’s ships to make it look like the Brakiri attacked the Drazi and the Drazi attacked the Gaim. Sheridan and Delenn aren’t stupid enough to fall for it but everyone else is. How you could have a spacefaring civilization and be that dumb, I have no idea.
Can we just get to the telepath massacre already? This title was misleading. The only tragedy was how bored I am by the Space Hippie storyline.
Phoenix Rising:
On a completely personal note, I really hate that Byron is named Byron. For one thing, I like the poet, but for another:
I walked around for like a year with a button that said, “Free Byron.” Here’s why.
Yeah, I know. That one isn’t actually the show’s fault. But I still find it annoying. Byron Sonne is from all reports a pretty cool guy and I’m glad his charges were finally dismissed.
B5’s Byron, conversely, deserves to die in a fire, and guess what? He does! It’s kind of disappointing, though.
So now there are three groups of telepaths on the station. There’s the PsyCorps (and man oh man, Bester has the creepy charming thing turned up to 11 and gets some really fun lines). There’s the Space Hippies proper, who are holed up in Down Below on hunger strike. And then there’s the breakaway Space Hippies, who are I guess the Space Weather Underground or something, running around and taking hostages and shooting people. The Malcolm X guy is now no longer the leader of the breakaway group; it’s someone named Thomas with hair nearly as fabulous as Byron’s.
Oh, and Byron used to be a Psy Cop—Bester’s protégé, actually—and Bester made him kill a bunch of unarmed people and the whole Space Jesus thing is atonement. Don’t care.
Garibaldi makes an attempt to force a confession out of Bester, or off him—either’s good, really—but it turns out that Bester is the only character in this situation who is not totally stupid, and has implanted “Asimovs” in Garibaldi’s brain. Robot Garibaldi can’t harm Bester. Ahahaha. This drives Garibaldi to drink. Oy.
The rest of the episode is basically hostage negotiations and shootouts. It’s nice that the shooting stops long enough for Byron and Lyta to have a tearful farewell! Then Byron and the Space Weather Underground blow themselves up. It’s satisfying, I guess, but with a plot of this length, I would hope for something a little cooler.
This episode has really awful cinematography and horrible blocking. The former can be justified because they’re trying to go for a real-time, handheld camera look to increase tension (it doesn’t work); the former is awful and even manages to rob Byron’s suicide of whatever poignancy it might otherwise possess. What made him suddenly change his mind? A PPG blast to the shoulder and a convenient chemical spill? That’s stupid.
However, I call for a gif party in the comments to celebrate the fact that at least now, Byron and his horrible, horrible plotline is dead and buried. I’ll get you started with some appropriate music.
The Ragged Edge:
The first Byron-free episode is only meh, but I live in hope because there’s at least one interesting tidbit dropped.
Garibaldi has borrowed Franklin’s Very Special Storyline and I’m already bored. He sleeps through everything, including a mission to the Drazi homeworld where he tries to rescue a pilot who is the only surviving witness to the New and Improved Raiders. Neither the pilot nor Garibaldi’s walking Arab stereotype friend make it out, but Garibaldi manages to rescue a button from their mysterious attackers. Yay? Londo identifies it as a Centauri Palace Guard button, but everyone else elects not to tell him why this is important.
G’Kar accidentally becomes the next Space Jesus. He is certainly an improvement over the last Space Jesus! Apparently when he went off to Centauri Prime with Londo, the other Narn thought he was dead, broke into his quarters, and took the book that he was working on for two years. That sounds like something my mother would do. They make a bunch of copies, which is actually lifting my suspension of disbelief for a high-tech, sci-fi setting (can’t they just scan it? Why is making copies a big deal?) and follow him around the station bowing and shit. A pep talk from Ta’Lon (OMG HI TA’LON!) leads him to embrace his responsibilities, so he invites all of his worshippers into his quarters and teaches them about multiculturalism and unreliable narrators by slamming their faces in a book. Heh. Londo finds this plotline as funny as I do.
Meanwhile Franklin gets a promotion and will be off the station shortly. Yawn.
Hey, did you know that I have some awesome friends?rohmie and seanmonster (ETA: and jamie_miller—oops! You also rock! ETA II: and qraccoon—so many awesome people in my life!) sent me some presents, and snarkitysnarks and I took pictures of them to illustrate all of the fun things that Londo and G’Kar do off-screen!
How romantic!
Even their ships are in love.
Alas, they have a tragic sex life. G’Kar’s arms don’t bend and Londo’s legs don’t bend so their sex is really awkward.
Is that a tentacle in my pouch or are you just happy to see me?
When I was a little kid, my relatives angsted because I wouldn’t play with dolls. I guess now I do. Somehow I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
Everyone, now: “D’AWWWW!”
And here they are in their permanent home on my bookshelf.
Thanks guys!
But back to B5. A favour, folks? Could we keep the spoilers down a bit? I am almost done but there is still the odd good part and I’d like to be surprised. I am guilty of soliciting spoilers with my wild predictions and begging to know if the show ever gets better, but you must all be strong and sit on your hands for just a bit longer.
Here’s a needlessly gory guide as to what is and is not a spoiler:
Not a spoiler
“Byron sucks! Fortunately, you don’t have to endure him for much longer. You’re going to love how this storyline ends.”
A spoiler
“Bester captures Byron in the next episode and transports him back to PsyCorps headquarters, where he proceeds to dissect him alive, starting with his tongue so that he can’t annoy
sabotabby with his godawful dialogue. I particularly love the bit where his eyeballs go squishity-squoosh! I wonder how they got that sound effect.”Anyway!
A Tragedy of Telepaths:
Huh, is “tragedy” the collective noun for telepaths? Like a piteousness of doves, or a murder of crows, or a superfluity of nuns? That would be cool.
Moving on, this episode is actually good. The telepath stuff is minimal and involves Bester, the homoerotic buddy cop adventures of G’Kar and Londo continue to be excellent, and one of my favourite characters makes a return. The various ambassadors in the ISA have caught the Idiot Ball, but that plotline is mercifully short.
Lochley looks really good in a tank top. I don’t really like her stupid eyebrows, but she has great arms. I’m just saying. She is as fed up with the Space Hippie storyline as I am. You know what I’d do if I were her? I’d be like, “Sure, you can have a homeworld. Take the Vorlon one. They’re not using it, and besides, they created you people.”
Then I’d tell Bester where to find them. Everyone goes home happy! Except the Space Hippies, but who cares about them?
Lochley is still trying to find some other way, like reasoning with them. So she crawls through a ventilation shaft in a moment of impressive fanservice and tries to talk to Byron.
You know what I’d do if I were the telepaths? Make sure Lochley’s comm was on so everyone could hear, then fuck with her mind to make her say, “Sure, you can have a homeworld. Take the Vorlon one. They’re not using it, and besides, they created you people.” Then she’d have given her word and they would get what they wanted, and once it was discovered that they’d fucked with her mind, she probably wouldn’t even get in trouble. Plus it’s no more violent than some of the other shit they’ve done.
No one on the show is as clever as me, though, so reason doesn’t work and Lochley calls Bester to deal with the situation. But the escaped Space Hippies are not so pacifist, and they steal some weapons and shoot at Lochley, Bester, Zack, and some security guys with all the aiming prowess of Imperial Stormtroopers, conveniently only managing to kill some redshirts. Yawn.
The more interesting storyline is still on Centauri, obviously, where Londo and G’Kar banter. The whole show should be them bantering. It’s over food, which leads G’Kar to realize that there’s another Narn in the palace. In the prisons, no less. And it’s Na’Toth!
What is not so happy is that the Emperor had her thrown in a cell and never rescinded the order, so no one, not even Prime Minister Londo, can legally free her. Also, she’s been down there two years. Poor Na’Toth. Damn. Anyway, G’Kar and Londo hatch a cunning plan to spring her. Yay! In doing so, we discover that Emperor Cartagia was into cross-dressing. Why didn’t we get to see that? That would have been a fine moment that would add some character nuance and also, it was a really pretty dress.
The ISA plot is really boring. The New and Improved Raiders (yeah, it’s totally the Drakh) are cutting off bits of one race’s ships and putting them in the wreckage of other race’s ships to make it look like the Brakiri attacked the Drazi and the Drazi attacked the Gaim. Sheridan and Delenn aren’t stupid enough to fall for it but everyone else is. How you could have a spacefaring civilization and be that dumb, I have no idea.
Can we just get to the telepath massacre already? This title was misleading. The only tragedy was how bored I am by the Space Hippie storyline.
Phoenix Rising:
On a completely personal note, I really hate that Byron is named Byron. For one thing, I like the poet, but for another:
I walked around for like a year with a button that said, “Free Byron.” Here’s why.
Yeah, I know. That one isn’t actually the show’s fault. But I still find it annoying. Byron Sonne is from all reports a pretty cool guy and I’m glad his charges were finally dismissed.
B5’s Byron, conversely, deserves to die in a fire, and guess what? He does! It’s kind of disappointing, though.
So now there are three groups of telepaths on the station. There’s the PsyCorps (and man oh man, Bester has the creepy charming thing turned up to 11 and gets some really fun lines). There’s the Space Hippies proper, who are holed up in Down Below on hunger strike. And then there’s the breakaway Space Hippies, who are I guess the Space Weather Underground or something, running around and taking hostages and shooting people. The Malcolm X guy is now no longer the leader of the breakaway group; it’s someone named Thomas with hair nearly as fabulous as Byron’s.
Oh, and Byron used to be a Psy Cop—Bester’s protégé, actually—and Bester made him kill a bunch of unarmed people and the whole Space Jesus thing is atonement. Don’t care.
Garibaldi makes an attempt to force a confession out of Bester, or off him—either’s good, really—but it turns out that Bester is the only character in this situation who is not totally stupid, and has implanted “Asimovs” in Garibaldi’s brain. Robot Garibaldi can’t harm Bester. Ahahaha. This drives Garibaldi to drink. Oy.
The rest of the episode is basically hostage negotiations and shootouts. It’s nice that the shooting stops long enough for Byron and Lyta to have a tearful farewell! Then Byron and the Space Weather Underground blow themselves up. It’s satisfying, I guess, but with a plot of this length, I would hope for something a little cooler.
This episode has really awful cinematography and horrible blocking. The former can be justified because they’re trying to go for a real-time, handheld camera look to increase tension (it doesn’t work); the former is awful and even manages to rob Byron’s suicide of whatever poignancy it might otherwise possess. What made him suddenly change his mind? A PPG blast to the shoulder and a convenient chemical spill? That’s stupid.
However, I call for a gif party in the comments to celebrate the fact that at least now, Byron and his horrible, horrible plotline is dead and buried. I’ll get you started with some appropriate music.
The Ragged Edge:
The first Byron-free episode is only meh, but I live in hope because there’s at least one interesting tidbit dropped.
Garibaldi has borrowed Franklin’s Very Special Storyline and I’m already bored. He sleeps through everything, including a mission to the Drazi homeworld where he tries to rescue a pilot who is the only surviving witness to the New and Improved Raiders. Neither the pilot nor Garibaldi’s walking Arab stereotype friend make it out, but Garibaldi manages to rescue a button from their mysterious attackers. Yay? Londo identifies it as a Centauri Palace Guard button, but everyone else elects not to tell him why this is important.
G’Kar accidentally becomes the next Space Jesus. He is certainly an improvement over the last Space Jesus! Apparently when he went off to Centauri Prime with Londo, the other Narn thought he was dead, broke into his quarters, and took the book that he was working on for two years. That sounds like something my mother would do. They make a bunch of copies, which is actually lifting my suspension of disbelief for a high-tech, sci-fi setting (can’t they just scan it? Why is making copies a big deal?) and follow him around the station bowing and shit. A pep talk from Ta’Lon (OMG HI TA’LON!) leads him to embrace his responsibilities, so he invites all of his worshippers into his quarters and teaches them about multiculturalism and unreliable narrators by slamming their faces in a book. Heh. Londo finds this plotline as funny as I do.
Meanwhile Franklin gets a promotion and will be off the station shortly. Yawn.
Hey, did you know that I have some awesome friends?
rohmie and seanmonster (ETA: and jamie_miller—oops! You also rock! ETA II: and qraccoon—so many awesome people in my life!) sent me some presents, and snarkitysnarks and I took pictures of them to illustrate all of the fun things that Londo and G’Kar do off-screen!
How romantic!
Even their ships are in love.
Alas, they have a tragic sex life. G’Kar’s arms don’t bend and Londo’s legs don’t bend so their sex is really awkward.
Is that a tentacle in my pouch or are you just happy to see me?
When I was a little kid, my relatives angsted because I wouldn’t play with dolls. I guess now I do. Somehow I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
Everyone, now: “D’AWWWW!”
And here they are in their permanent home on my bookshelf.
Thanks guys!
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 10:28 am (UTC)(The spider was from
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Date: 2012-06-07 02:58 pm (UTC)I have a hard time picturing Kosh saying hi. :)
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Date: 2012-06-08 02:12 pm (UTC)