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Signs and Portents
I introduced a couple of friends to Babylon 5 recently, and I have been watching the show alongside them. I didn't realise that this was fairly wide-spread; evidently, the 20th anniversary has brought about a resurgence of interest!
We've covered Season 2, and are in the middle of S3 thus far. Some thoughts, with the benefit of hindsight:
1) I used to draw hearts around Delenn and Sheridan, then went through a phase of having absolutely no interest in them. I've come back around to being very interested in them again, primarily because of the utter respect on both their parts for the other. They are very different, and yet they respect those differences and try to accommodate them. I don't know whether it is a case of television moving towards bombastic, dramatic relationships and away from quiet build-ups, or whether this was always somewhat rare to see, but it strikes me as something I no longer see on screen. Even on shows where there is ostensibly a slow-build, it feels more like a will-they/won't-they dynamic, rather than a gradual growing together. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I do like it.
2) I'm more and more convinced that there was an intention to do something with Talia's arc rather than just leave it hanging. Did we ever see this resolved in a novel? I know that Bester references her later on in Dust to Dust but I feel that his comment is more designed to provoke.
3) I really, really appreciate the creation of the different races. Yes, we have the main players, but we also get to see the other races fleshed out until you can spot them. OK, maybe I never learned the name of the fishpeople, but I remember Ambassador FishPerson being concerned with Homeguard terrorism. I can spot the unfortunate Markab, the garrulous Drazi, the curiously identical-looking Brakiri. (I think it's established that the Drazi don't have any females - or that they reproduce in a non-binary way, anyway - but is it ever explained about the Brakiri? Or have I selectively not noticed any female Brakiri?) And the Hyach (Hyatt? No, that's a hotel chain) and the Pak'Ma'Ra and so forth. Even if they are not one of the main races, from very early on they have a coherent look which helps the station to feel real.
4) I've discovered the Babylon 5 audio guide podcasts and they are excellent! Great discussion for each episode, and suitable for both new viewers and those doing a re-watch. (They have a loud noise to indicate the start of spoilers.)
5) You can now find a whole bunch of convention videos online! The 20th anniversary con panels are mostly on YouTube (here, here, here and here... and here, here) but here are also some 1990s clips. I haven't watched them so I can't swear as to the quality, but it's nice to see them!
6) I feel like more than a couple of governments have watched this show and thought, "yes, the Earth Alliance approach to things is actually pretty great, we should totally implement that at home." Some of it is even worse. I'm fairly certain that Donald Trump's speeches map word for word against Londo's most bombastic, aggressive declarations. He is, after all, going to make the Centauri Republic great again.
7) Julie Musante would have been hired by David Cameron's team in seconds.
8) I really like how we see representatives of the Earth Alliance and they're not all American? There are people from all across the Alliance.
9) ... I miss Andreas.
We've covered Season 2, and are in the middle of S3 thus far. Some thoughts, with the benefit of hindsight:
1) I used to draw hearts around Delenn and Sheridan, then went through a phase of having absolutely no interest in them. I've come back around to being very interested in them again, primarily because of the utter respect on both their parts for the other. They are very different, and yet they respect those differences and try to accommodate them. I don't know whether it is a case of television moving towards bombastic, dramatic relationships and away from quiet build-ups, or whether this was always somewhat rare to see, but it strikes me as something I no longer see on screen. Even on shows where there is ostensibly a slow-build, it feels more like a will-they/won't-they dynamic, rather than a gradual growing together. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I do like it.
2) I'm more and more convinced that there was an intention to do something with Talia's arc rather than just leave it hanging. Did we ever see this resolved in a novel? I know that Bester references her later on in Dust to Dust but I feel that his comment is more designed to provoke.
3) I really, really appreciate the creation of the different races. Yes, we have the main players, but we also get to see the other races fleshed out until you can spot them. OK, maybe I never learned the name of the fishpeople, but I remember Ambassador FishPerson being concerned with Homeguard terrorism. I can spot the unfortunate Markab, the garrulous Drazi, the curiously identical-looking Brakiri. (I think it's established that the Drazi don't have any females - or that they reproduce in a non-binary way, anyway - but is it ever explained about the Brakiri? Or have I selectively not noticed any female Brakiri?) And the Hyach (Hyatt? No, that's a hotel chain) and the Pak'Ma'Ra and so forth. Even if they are not one of the main races, from very early on they have a coherent look which helps the station to feel real.
4) I've discovered the Babylon 5 audio guide podcasts and they are excellent! Great discussion for each episode, and suitable for both new viewers and those doing a re-watch. (They have a loud noise to indicate the start of spoilers.)
5) You can now find a whole bunch of convention videos online! The 20th anniversary con panels are mostly on YouTube (here, here, here and here... and here, here) but here are also some 1990s clips. I haven't watched them so I can't swear as to the quality, but it's nice to see them!
6) I feel like more than a couple of governments have watched this show and thought, "yes, the Earth Alliance approach to things is actually pretty great, we should totally implement that at home." Some of it is even worse. I'm fairly certain that Donald Trump's speeches map word for word against Londo's most bombastic, aggressive declarations. He is, after all, going to make the Centauri Republic great again.
7) Julie Musante would have been hired by David Cameron's team in seconds.
8) I really like how we see representatives of the Earth Alliance and they're not all American? There are people from all across the Alliance.
9) ... I miss Andreas.
no subject
Oh, that video is heart-breaking! I've been trying to find footage of Andreas online and it's so rare as to be almost non-existent. Same for Michael and Rick. Whatever isn't on the show is missing. And for Andreas, I can't even find any interviews, which is especially sad.
Re: John/Delenn - honestly, I find it so rare for there to be happily married, respectful couples on screen that I grow more and more appreciative of them. J/D and Jed/Abby from The West Wing are the only ones that spring to mind! (And both have the spectre of early death hanging over them.)
Re: Home Guard, honestly, the rise of the far right is so spot on in the show that when we look around and see it happening it makes you realise how slowly and how gradually everything has been sliding to the right. In Voices of Authority, when Julie Musante says that the homeless don't exist and the newbie who was watching was like "OMG what did they do to them???" And then when Musante said that this was because they re-wrote the dictionary and definition of homelessness, she had a moment when she thought "oh that's ok, that's just what we do - WAIT WHAT OH SHIT."
Some of it is so gradual and hidden that you don't realise what it adds up to.
no subject
What I liked best about it is that Zack also went along with it at first, not because he was brainwashed or evil, but simply because the Ministry of Peace paid him some extra and he didn't realise until later what it really meant.
Also, I used to think that "The Illusion of Truth" was unrealistic, but on my last rewatch I realised that it was scarily accurate portrayal of how the pro-Russia propagandists work today. It just seemed so over the top that surely no-one could really believe it, but if you replaced Minbari and aliens with immigrants, it wouldn't be that far removed from stuff that's being shared on social media...
no subject
Yes, exactly! Because... well, they don't need him to do anything other than what he's already doing, right? And after that slow, gradual slide, there isn't any way to backpedal from it. While Sheridan et al can hang in the middle, trying to keep Earth off their backs, Zack doesn't have a choice. He is either for Nightwatch, or against it. And he is stuck in the 'for' camp until it gets to a point where he realises he would be irrevocably committed. It's great that he had that choice and he made the right call, but thinking about it logically, there must have been others who reached that point and went, "well, but if I back out, it's going to go badly for me and I have a family. So I guess I'm committed to this." There is a certain freedom that all those characters enjoy of having very few areas in which they can feel pressured.
Also, I used to think that "The Illusion of Truth" was unrealistic, but on my last rewatch I realised that it was scarily accurate portrayal of how the pro-Russia propagandists work today. It just seemed so over the top that surely no-one could really believe it, but if you replaced Minbari and aliens with immigrants, it wouldn't be that far removed from stuff that's being shared on social media...
Yes, OMG. Same for Trump, for UKIP, for all those acceptable faces of xenophobia and racism we see getting more and more airtime.