rivendellrose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rivendellrose) wrote2006-09-21 11:15 am
rivendellrose) wrote2006-09-21 11:15 am
episode reviews, etc
How is "Love Lessons from TV Doctors" one of the main headlines on MSN.com today? It must really be a slow news day...
And I hate when people's voice mail messages start out sounding like a real person, so I make a fool of myself by starting to talk to the message and then realizing no, no - it's just another damned machine.
(Ohmigod, my actual degree has come in handy twice in the last two days! ...I really hate that this is a wonderful surprise to me. Being an English major without actual technical training kind of sucks.)
Episode reviews continue below!
A Tragedy of Telepaths:
So... apparently in 200+ years, humans have come up with no better alternative to spray paint. We can travel the stars, put sick people in stasis, and interact on a daily basis with dozens of alien species... we can even run an interstellar alliance of those species. But we can't find a better way to mark walls than aeresol cans of black paint. I weep for the future of humanity.
Oh, and I was happy to see Na'Toth again, even though it couldn't be thereal original actress. And I loved how they got her out of the palace.
Phoenix Rising:
This episode made me unreasonably cranky, because I spent the whole slowly realizing that, in a twisted and entirely plot-oriented way, the original plan for Ivanova to fall for Byron would have made a degree of sense. It'd be a handy way of tying up the telepathy plotline that she'd been walking from the beginning, and it would almost make sense for her to attach herself to a guy who wanted to give teeps freedom from the Corps. I can even forgive the romance angle because... okay, she just blew it big time with Marcus. She's aware of that, now. And then this other guy walks in, and maybe she thinks "maybe I should give it a go, give him a chanceeven if he seems like a creepy worthless bastard." I've done that. It's an almost inevitably stupid thing to do, mind you, but I've done it, and I think a lot of other people probably do it at one or another point in their lives.
(And yes, I finally found JMS's statements on the whole plot - It's no secret that I would've had Ivanova becoming somewhat linked to Byron romantically (she would see him as a character like Marcus, which is why there are certain similarities, and she would take a chance only to find it wrong this time, underlining that she'd missed her one major opportunity thus far for a good relationship). This was expressed to Claudia toward the last part of S4, so she knew at that time that her latent ability would be coming out, and that she'd have a big part in S5.
In this scenario, Lyta would have become a devoted follower of Byron's, much as she has, but it would have been more love from afar: protective, somewhat unrequited but hoping for more...so that when he met his fate, Lyta would end up right where she is now, just by a different road.
In other words, damn you for making sense, JMS. I don't like it when things I disagree with make sense.
I'm still glad it didn't go down that way, though. And I cheered when Byron finally offed himself and his creepy little associates, although he took way too damned long having his melodramatic and sappy little goodbye. Seriously, he's making me dislike Lyta by pure association, and then at the end there she was being almost as wangsty and obnoxious as him. The wangst is contagious. But at least now he's finally dead.
Bester was the only good thing about that whole plotline. Well... Garibaldi desperately trying to shoot Bester was good, too, but as that pertains to Bester I figure it counts. So much love for Walter Koenig. He's such a perky, boyish, adorable incarnation of evil.
(Geek moment of joy for Asimov's laws! ♥)
The Lurker's Guide page wonders whether the bomb at the Psi Corps HQ might be Garibaldi's doing. Considering the newscaster specifically mentions that the words "Remember Byron" were found at the scene, I rather think he's missed the point. Garibaldi did his stupid thing - he started drinking again.
The Ragged Edge:
As much as I like Garibaldi, episodes about him usually put me to sleep. This was no exception. I absolutely loved the opening scene with Delenn and Sheridan, though. Delenn tells him she'd like to start a war with Earth, and Sheridan just kind of nods in frustration and says something like "I'll sign it as soon as I can." And there's that big, brilliant 'you're so dumb sometimes, and I think that's why I love you' grin. :D
...And that's really all I have to say about this episode. I got a lot of knitting done between it and the Byron stuff earlier.
The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father:
More Bester! Yay! More telepaths! Boo!
I'm sorry, I hate the whole ongoing telepath plot - I always have, and I probably always will. But seeing them from the Psi Corps perspective did make things a lot more interesting, so that was nice. And I loved how adorably in awe of Bester little Lauren was. Very cute little creepy girl. ♥ Bester in this episode reminds me of the kind of awesome professor everybody wants in college... except for that whole fascism thing. Ah well - everybody's got their faults... ;)
I'm a big cheat and I like to peek at chapter titles before seeing the episode. The first ep for tonight (Meditations on the Abyss) includes the title "Ambassador Vir" (!) and a lot of Lennier stuff. I have come to fear Lennier episodes. Experience so far in this season indicates that it will not be anything good. In fact, I expect no more good to come for him for the rest of the series. Alas. JMS loves to be mean to exactly the characters that I love.
And I hate when people's voice mail messages start out sounding like a real person, so I make a fool of myself by starting to talk to the message and then realizing no, no - it's just another damned machine.
(Ohmigod, my actual degree has come in handy twice in the last two days! ...I really hate that this is a wonderful surprise to me. Being an English major without actual technical training kind of sucks.)
Episode reviews continue below!
A Tragedy of Telepaths:
So... apparently in 200+ years, humans have come up with no better alternative to spray paint. We can travel the stars, put sick people in stasis, and interact on a daily basis with dozens of alien species... we can even run an interstellar alliance of those species. But we can't find a better way to mark walls than aeresol cans of black paint. I weep for the future of humanity.
Oh, and I was happy to see Na'Toth again, even though it couldn't be the
Phoenix Rising:
This episode made me unreasonably cranky, because I spent the whole slowly realizing that, in a twisted and entirely plot-oriented way, the original plan for Ivanova to fall for Byron would have made a degree of sense. It'd be a handy way of tying up the telepathy plotline that she'd been walking from the beginning, and it would almost make sense for her to attach herself to a guy who wanted to give teeps freedom from the Corps. I can even forgive the romance angle because... okay, she just blew it big time with Marcus. She's aware of that, now. And then this other guy walks in, and maybe she thinks "maybe I should give it a go, give him a chance
(And yes, I finally found JMS's statements on the whole plot - It's no secret that I would've had Ivanova becoming somewhat linked to Byron romantically (she would see him as a character like Marcus, which is why there are certain similarities, and she would take a chance only to find it wrong this time, underlining that she'd missed her one major opportunity thus far for a good relationship). This was expressed to Claudia toward the last part of S4, so she knew at that time that her latent ability would be coming out, and that she'd have a big part in S5.
In this scenario, Lyta would have become a devoted follower of Byron's, much as she has, but it would have been more love from afar: protective, somewhat unrequited but hoping for more...so that when he met his fate, Lyta would end up right where she is now, just by a different road.
In other words, damn you for making sense, JMS. I don't like it when things I disagree with make sense.
I'm still glad it didn't go down that way, though. And I cheered when Byron finally offed himself and his creepy little associates, although he took way too damned long having his melodramatic and sappy little goodbye. Seriously, he's making me dislike Lyta by pure association, and then at the end there she was being almost as wangsty and obnoxious as him. The wangst is contagious. But at least now he's finally dead.
Bester was the only good thing about that whole plotline. Well... Garibaldi desperately trying to shoot Bester was good, too, but as that pertains to Bester I figure it counts. So much love for Walter Koenig. He's such a perky, boyish, adorable incarnation of evil.
(Geek moment of joy for Asimov's laws! ♥)
The Lurker's Guide page wonders whether the bomb at the Psi Corps HQ might be Garibaldi's doing. Considering the newscaster specifically mentions that the words "Remember Byron" were found at the scene, I rather think he's missed the point. Garibaldi did his stupid thing - he started drinking again.
The Ragged Edge:
As much as I like Garibaldi, episodes about him usually put me to sleep. This was no exception. I absolutely loved the opening scene with Delenn and Sheridan, though. Delenn tells him she'd like to start a war with Earth, and Sheridan just kind of nods in frustration and says something like "I'll sign it as soon as I can." And there's that big, brilliant 'you're so dumb sometimes, and I think that's why I love you' grin. :D
...And that's really all I have to say about this episode. I got a lot of knitting done between it and the Byron stuff earlier.
The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father:
More Bester! Yay! More telepaths! Boo!
I'm sorry, I hate the whole ongoing telepath plot - I always have, and I probably always will. But seeing them from the Psi Corps perspective did make things a lot more interesting, so that was nice. And I loved how adorably in awe of Bester little Lauren was. Very cute little creepy girl. ♥ Bester in this episode reminds me of the kind of awesome professor everybody wants in college... except for that whole fascism thing. Ah well - everybody's got their faults... ;)
I'm a big cheat and I like to peek at chapter titles before seeing the episode. The first ep for tonight (Meditations on the Abyss) includes the title "Ambassador Vir" (!) and a lot of Lennier stuff. I have come to fear Lennier episodes. Experience so far in this season indicates that it will not be anything good. In fact, I expect no more good to come for him for the rest of the series. Alas. JMS loves to be mean to exactly the characters that I love.
no subject
no subject
...And the alien makeup here is pretty bad sometimes, too. I mean... there's only so much you can do with latex, right? I love effects makeup, but unfortunately that means I've read a lot about it, paid attention to it... and can now usually point out the exact seams on a latex application, how everything's been shaded, where the texture of the makeup doesn't match the actor's skin... And this is early 90s, so there's a lot of that. :P
no subject
Like this:
"wow... so they were setting this up all the way back then? Holy crap!"
There is oh so much of that in Farscape. It was all plotted out to only last five seasons, and I'm pretty sure they had to have known where they were going with it the entire time. Unfortunately it got cancelled at the end of s4 and so they had to cram all of s5 into a miniseries (kinda like when Joss crammed six seasons of Firefly into Serenity).
But yeah -- B5's similiarites to Farscape intrigue me.
no subject
The similarities between these shows are getting creepy.
Babylon 5 wasn't actually cancelled... but they thought it was going to be. So they said "screw it" and smushed everything they needed to bring the major plots to a conclusion into S4... and then got renewed. Which was great, except it meant that S5, especially in the beginning, is really rocky. Particularly because one of the main actresses didn't renew her contract, so they had to scramble to find other ways of handling storylines that had been meant for her.
Okay, here's the deal, then - we need to trade shows, and each try to give the other one exactly as much a chance as we hope the other one is giving ours. If that makes sense. I've been meaning to track down Farscape, anyway, once my brain recovers from watching the end of B5. ;)
I still want that drunken internet tell-all that Joss promised us, damn it. I want to know what he had planned!!!
no subject
How much B5 do you have left, anyway?
no subject
I apologize in advance for S1, it has some of the worst guest actors I've literally ever seen.XDEleven episodes (ack!) and, if I decide to hunt it down, one prequel movie with almost all of the cast. I'll probably give it some time on the prequel, if nothing else - no sense rushing around trying to find it when it's not going to tell me anything significantly new.
no subject
no subject
...And then there will probably be a lot of fanfic as I try to come to grips with whatever happens.