Babylon 5 4.1-4.12

[meganbmoore]

Did I complain about Franklin’s drug arc last season? I take it back. I can’t tell if Garibaldi is brainwashed, plotting something, or a combination of the two, but I’m almost fast forwarding through his scenes this season. (He got better for about half an episode, and then he started railing at his ex and implying she was a gold digger because she didn’t come flying across the galaxy and fling herself in his arms when her husband dumped her.) I mean, the Franklin arc was tolerable because…well, it was Franklin. Now, I’m very fond of Garibaldi, and typically very entertained by him as well, but he isn’t as endearing as Franklin is. That said “white man acts strangely in an annoying plotline caused by brainwashing/plot-unknown-to-audience” does thankfully lack the cringe factor of “black man acts strangely in an annoying plotline about his drug addiction.”

Speaking of Franklin, I have no interest in reading it at all, but I will lose all faith in fandom if his and Marcus’s adventures on Mars didn’t inspire scads of fic from serenading with “Pirates of Penzance” straight on to the fake marriage. Of course, Marcus himself is kind of busy shipping Franklin with the resistance leader. Do we think he suffers withdrawal symptoms if there’s nothing around for him to fanboy?

Speaking of Marcus, I am both amused and saddened that he’s saving himself for Ivanova The One. Amused because…he always amuses me. Saddened because he clearly sealed his own doom with that scene.

Speaking of amusing, Mira Furlan (Furlani? No idea.) clearly thinks all the rituals the Minbari have are a hoot. The way she delivers the lines, I keep expecting Delenn to reveal that she’s at least partly teasing Sheridan, but no! She means it all! It distracts me some from the “Look how much he loves her! He’ll go through all these strange and embarrassing customs to be with her!” message I suspect we’re meant to get out of it. And…though not unexpected, I’m a bit annoyed that Sinclair is her ancestor. Like, she already went through the ritual to alter her DNA, but why did the alien the Hero fell for have to be part human even before that? (For similar reasons, I wish they’d met before she became part human.)

The insane Centauri emperor was…inappropriately entertaining, in a way. Though I was glad when Londo and G’Kar finally offed him. They’re rather good at getting rid of the few characters I dislike on the show. And it was nice to see G’Kar revert to his early season 1 self for a moment when he realized he could use his new fake eye for spying purposes.

I’m glad I was warned that I wouldn’t care for what they were doing with Lyta, because it made me expect something annoying that would last all season, instead of just a few episodes. Sadly, they don’t seem sure what to do with her now that the Vorlon stuff is older. For the most part, though, the show does a pretty good job of bringing characters in just as I’m starting to miss them, such as my mentioning that I thought I was about to go into Scruffy* withdrawals in IMs and then he showed up in the next episode. Singing.

On a final note, Vir has lost an alarming amount of weight. *gets concerned about the actor a decade after the fact*

*That being what I called Marcus until I learned his name.
 

Can someone go ahead and lay out the order of the post-series movies and where Crusade (I think that's the one) falls in for me?  At this rate, I should be there in a couple weeks, barring Netflix delays/bad discs.

Comments

[eisen]

Garibaldi's story is made of oww, this season.

Oh, the really annoying stuff with Lyta doesn't come until s5. Not even awesome Bester backstory can save that plotline.

"In the Beginning" is set before the series, and is about the Earth-Minbari War; "Thirdspace" is somewhere in season 4 (don't ask me where); "River of Souls" in season 5 (again, don't ask me where); and "A Call to Arms" is the prelude to CRUSADE, so it's set after season 5. CRUSADE picks up maaaybe a few weeks at most after "A Call to Arms" - it's been a while, so my time sense is off, but my gut says there's actually only a few days between the end of "A Call to Arms" and the first ep of CRUSADE.