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last_best_hopeIt's Friday night, it must be time for a discussion post! This week's offering:
1x01: Midnight on the Firing Line
When the Narn attack a Centauri colony, Londo and G'Kar nearly come to blows. Meanwhile, raiders are attacking transport ships near the station.
Vital Stats
Production number: 103
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Richard Compton
Original air date: January 26, 1994
Arc Notes / Story Points of Interest
- This season's intro narration, along with the emphasis of this story on the Narn/Centauri conflict and the role of the B5 staff in the Council, sets the stage for the primary five-season theme of war and peace among the stars. More subtle is the apparently "flavor" information about the presidential elections back on Earth. Sinclair's waning attention at Santiago's winning platform is an especially sneaky touch.
- The fate of Sophie Ivanova, though rather harder to miss, is likewise subtle in that it seems to be merely a combination of character detail and "this is how telepathy works here" Psi Corps exposition.
- The most deft moment has got to be Sinclair's conversation with Kosh. It's astonishing how much more sense the Vorlons make once the series is over.
Trivia
- The episode title comes from a song by Harry Chapin, specifically the lyrics
and if our future lies on the firing line
are we brave enough to see the signals and the signs
JMS also picked the name for somewhat meta reasons, referring to his belief that the show would come under fire and his decision to be cool with that.
- Part of the purpose of putting Sinclair in a Starfury was to prove that Babylon 5 "isn't Star Trek," since of course you'd never see Picard flying around shooting shit in a fighter craft. You may speculate amongst yourselves as to how JMS factored Kirk into this equation.
- It had been a while since the pilot movie was filmed, and most of the returning actors took a while to get back into character and remember their various motivations and secrets and tics and whatnot. Apparently Peter Jurasik just stood up straight and yelled "MISter GariBALdi!" and boom, just like that he was Londo.
Our story begins here, guys. So exciting! What were your first impressions? Your favorite characters out of the gate? Your questions and speculations? How'd you feel about the sets and costuming and special effects?
A reminder: not everyone playing along has seen the series before, so please be considerate about major spoilers. Vagueness, warnings and/or spoiler tags are appreciated.
1x01: Midnight on the Firing Line
When the Narn attack a Centauri colony, Londo and G'Kar nearly come to blows. Meanwhile, raiders are attacking transport ships near the station.
Vital Stats
Production number: 103
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Richard Compton
Original air date: January 26, 1994
Arc Notes / Story Points of Interest
- This season's intro narration, along with the emphasis of this story on the Narn/Centauri conflict and the role of the B5 staff in the Council, sets the stage for the primary five-season theme of war and peace among the stars. More subtle is the apparently "flavor" information about the presidential elections back on Earth. Sinclair's waning attention at Santiago's winning platform is an especially sneaky touch.
- The fate of Sophie Ivanova, though rather harder to miss, is likewise subtle in that it seems to be merely a combination of character detail and "this is how telepathy works here" Psi Corps exposition.
- The most deft moment has got to be Sinclair's conversation with Kosh. It's astonishing how much more sense the Vorlons make once the series is over.
Trivia
- The episode title comes from a song by Harry Chapin, specifically the lyrics
and if our future lies on the firing line
are we brave enough to see the signals and the signs
JMS also picked the name for somewhat meta reasons, referring to his belief that the show would come under fire and his decision to be cool with that.
- Part of the purpose of putting Sinclair in a Starfury was to prove that Babylon 5 "isn't Star Trek," since of course you'd never see Picard flying around shooting shit in a fighter craft. You may speculate amongst yourselves as to how JMS factored Kirk into this equation.
- It had been a while since the pilot movie was filmed, and most of the returning actors took a while to get back into character and remember their various motivations and secrets and tics and whatnot. Apparently Peter Jurasik just stood up straight and yelled "MISter GariBALdi!" and boom, just like that he was Londo.
Our story begins here, guys. So exciting! What were your first impressions? Your favorite characters out of the gate? Your questions and speculations? How'd you feel about the sets and costuming and special effects?
A reminder: not everyone playing along has seen the series before, so please be considerate about major spoilers. Vagueness, warnings and/or spoiler tags are appreciated.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 02:39 pm (UTC)Talia Winters was getting kinda slashy at the end in the bar scene. "I just wanted to know if it was me" sounds like an awkward breakup line.
I did notice that Delenn's Minbari-head looked waaay cheaper than in the pilot. And I loled heartily at the space-CGI, considering the first season of ReBoot was airing about that time.
This Sinclair guy is still incredibly boring and annoying and needs to die yesterday. I was kinda hoping in my ignorance that he was just a pilot character who'd get replaced like with Ivanova, but no. (Is the pilot in continuity? Confusingly TheWB.com put up the wrong summary for this episode so I thought it'd be a retelling at first.)
And this is kinda par for the sci-fi course, but it seemed really incongruous to have on the one hand, blatant foreshadowing of a speciesist human supremacist political plotline, and on the other, blatant generalizations about how Narns all sell out to the highest bidder and Minbari are all "honorable" and would never use sneak-attacks (...except for that sneaky assassin that tried to start a war by framing the commander for murder?), and the narrative just presents those as basic facts that the whole plot hinged on.
G'Kar is so awesome, I don't even know.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 10:22 am (UTC)Actually...They were trying to make her appear more masculine than, and decided that was rather stupid and went with something more appropriately shaped for the actress.
this is kinda par for the sci-fi course...
Now this is interesting and I wonder what it really is doing. You learn a lot more about the various alien species the further you go in, and they feel more culturally real (not completely, not at all, but a lot more) than they do here at first glance. So I'm wondering if the writer, JMS, wrote it this way because he knew a lot of people would have more familiarity with Trek, so was playing off their expectations on aliens..
This Sinclair guy is still incredibly boring and annoying and needs to die yesterday.
I felt like you once. By the time I was 3/4ths through the first season, I liked him a lot more. You may too, keep an open mind.
G'Kar is so awesome, I don't even know.
No, you don't. But you will.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 04:08 pm (UTC)That would be interesting, but what's weird is they actually treated the post-imperialist Centauri as more like people this week, what with the in-fighting and giving Londo half the episode's PoV time. Whereas the oppressed!species and the exotic-religious!species were pretty well othered, and not in the intriguing actually-alien way the Vorlons are.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 09:43 pm (UTC)And to the oppressed!species. Oh how I love the Narns. trust me. The three major alien species are, IMO, given a lot of time throughout the series.