gdp's Comments

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S04E22 - The Deconstruction of Falling Stars

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 12:44:27 +0000

I am somewhere similar on this one; I really admire the ambition but am not entirely sur the execution lives up to it.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S04E20 - Endgame

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 01:16:51 +0000

Of the several places B5 could have ended, this plus the last couple of episodes of S4 is by far my favourite at an arc level. The more times I watch the climax of the Shadow War the more it seems not just inconsistent but silly that the First Ones are so easily driven off - perhaps because G'Kar's "we are as ants to them" introduction of them in Mind War is still so effective and I just can't make myself believe humans would move out of somewhere because of being impressed with one ant dying for another. This one's got it all, though; triumph tempered with enough loss and moral complexity for the heroism to shine all the more brightly.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S04E10 - Racing Mars

Sun, 20 Jan 2019 22:33:24 +0000

I really liked, both at the time andon subsequent watchings, how well balanced that sequence was in having Marcus riff on the thought that he might be married to Franklin, in ways that make it clear the specific pairing is amusing to him, while so totally avoiding anything negative about same-sex marriage as a general thing.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': Thirdspace

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 23:37:25 +0000

The strongest impression I have from seeing this when it first came out is being mildly annoyed that the artifacts of entities so godlike in capacity that even the Vorlons are scared witless of them are still depicted as vulnerable to such relatively primitive tech as a nuclear warhead; it felt to me like the classic frustration of playing in a Civ-type game when some guy with a bronze spear takes down your Stealth bomber or trashes your tanks.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E22 - Z'ha'dum

Wed, 26 Dec 2018 15:24:38 +0000

I've never been entirely convinced the episode needs Justin, for what that is worth; it does not seem to me it would have lost any significant impact if Morden had been the one to make those arguments.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E20 - And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 22:39:15 +0000

Such a wonderful development in Londo and G'kar's relationship, though.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E17 - War Without End, Part Two

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 21:51:58 +0000

Yeah, that one is next to unbearable to rewatch now, knowing about this. I really admire O'Hare being clear on wanting the story told eventually.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E17 - War Without End, Part Two

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 23:56:58 +0000

Like many others here, Sinclair turning out to be Valen absolutely blew me away. I do wonder whether JMS was deliberately in previous episodes doing things with what we heard of Valen to implicitly direct attention away from a possibility like this. The first time "Minbari not born of Minbari" came up, for example, I thought it was hinting at incarnation of a messianic figure being another thing like angelic appearance the Vorlons used to steer younger races, and that we might have been heading for a revelation about Christianity in the B5 universe.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E17 - War Without End, Part Two

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 23:38:19 +0000

He lets them go saying they are his last chance for redemption. But are they? Didn't Lady Morella give him one other option? To surrender to his greatest fear, knowing it will destroy him. I always took that as referring to choosing to die at G'Kar's hands.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E16 - War Without End, Part One

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 21:10:22 +0000

This two-parter is probably my personal high point of the entire show, and it is so satisfying that we have finally reached it.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E15 - Interludes and Examinations

Sat, 15 Dec 2018 19:25:01 +0000

It feels to me like a failure of imagination on any writer's part to resort to "they are just like us in basic emotions and psychology" as the only way to make us care about and feel a connection to characters., though. Particularly when the value of "just like us" they use is notably more like some of the audience than others. I have difficulty believing in aliens who are psychologically more similar to late 20th century Americans than I am as a late 20th century European-born voluntary Canadian.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E15 - Interludes and Examinations

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 21:31:27 +0000

I was never very fond of humanising Kosh here, for what that may be worth. I prefer my elder aliens vast and mysterious and genuinely alien as per G'Kar's wonderful speech way back in "Mind War", rather than turning out to be just like us at heart when the chips are down. Still, I suppose it's not as much of a diminution as the farce made of the First Ones in "Voices of Authority".

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E10 - Severed Dreams

Fri, 7 Dec 2018 23:25:10 +0000

Pacing wise, I have always thought of, and usually watch, this and the previous two episodes as a three-parter. It works rather well that way.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S03E04 - Passing Through Gethesmane

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 22:59:12 +0000

This is as complex a theological argument as we’re ever likely to see in an American drama series, And that would be why it's my favourite standalone B5 episode and one of my favourite bits of televised drama ever; I come to this as a very firmly ex-Catholic born and raised Catholic in Ireland from the 1970s through to the mid-1990s, so making this shape of exploration of Christian perspectives sympathetic to me is a really difficult thing for a show to attempt, and this one succeeded entirely..

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S02E22 - The Fall of Night

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 23:06:09 +0000

My SO of the time was somewhat devout, and thought the Vorlons being angels was great and meant we could trust them to be Good after all and have some ineffable reason for their more dubious actions, whereas it read to me as manipulative from the start. Lookigng back now, I should probably have been less surprised that we parted ways shortly thereafter.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S02E21 - Comes the Inquisitor

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 23:08:44 +0000

This is probably the episode of B5 I am most divided about, overall. Because on the one hand, the content of the main plot is something I really strongly dislike, and cemented for me that the Vorlons are as fundamentally evil as the Shadows; on the other, it is just so well done, Wayne Alexander brilliant himself and bring out high-end-of-their-range performances in everyone he plays opposite.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S02E20 - The Long, Twilight Struggle

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 21:57:09 +0000

You all are bringing back memories of just how spectacularly good this run of episodes at the end of Season 2 was. I've been looking forward to this since Mark doing B5 was announced.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S02E14 - There All The Honor Lies

Mon, 12 Nov 2018 23:18:44 +0000

As it happens, I am slowly making my way through DS9 right now, and there is an episode - I think it is very early season 2, but it might be late season 1, where Quark greets the start of the plot of the week by grumbling "Naq fb vg ortvaf", which both made me laugh like a loon and wonder idly what the relative timing was with this B5 episode.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S02E12 - Acts of Sacrifice

Thu, 8 Nov 2018 22:07:09 +0000

I think the climax of the Lumati subplot is my personal nomination for worst thing in the first four seasons of B5. It would also have to be the only bit of B5 my mother has actually seen, having randomly walked in on it and hence scuppered any chance of selling her on its strengths forever sfaict.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Babylon 5': S02E09 - The Coming of Shadows

Tue, 6 Nov 2018 03:43:31 +0000

Pretty much anything I can think of say about the content of this episode has been said already, it absolutely blew me away at the time and its quality has held up very well over time, to my mind; I would note that when it came out, it was the first time I can remember a serialised show I was following being willing to make such major irrevocable changes to the underlying premise, that were also so organically growing out of so much of what had come before. I will put up with any amount of being mildly to moderately irritated by Sheridan for the quality of Londo and G'Kar we get here.