meganbmoore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meganbmoore) wrote2009-04-06 10:37 pm
meganbmoore) wrote2009-04-06 10:37 pm
Entry tags:
Babylon 5 1.1-1.8
I have, I think, figured out why I often find it hard to latch onto space scifi, or if I do latch on to it, to like it different reasons than others seem to. When I watch space scifi with humans and aliens, I seem to want to know more about the aliens, and less about the humans. It’s rather like how I like Crichton in Farscape, but often think of him as an excuse to have all the aliens, human looking and otherwise. The shows, however, seem to make the natural assumption that since I’m a human, I’m more interested in the humans. I don’t blame them, though that only seems to be true for me with Stargate: SG-1.
Babylon 5 is a classic 90s scifi series about a space station designed to help promote peace between all the known races in the mid-23rd century, created after a war between Earth and a race called the Minbari. I haven’t learned a lot of character and race names yet (almost too many characters to keep track of, and I’m bad with names to start with), so bear with me. Possibly the most striking thing about the series, watching it for the first time in 2008, is how incredibly dated the FX are. They’re pretty decent when it’s just the FX, but when it’s FX mixed with live action, you get things like the most hilarious lightning I’ve seen. So far, I find most of the episodic plots forgettable to ok enough. The characters and their stories, though, are largely engaging.
The alien preference seems to be holding steady, though, as the only human characters who’ve really caught my attention so far are Ivanova and the blonde telepath. Ivanova because she’s superstoic and I like stoic second-in-commands. The telepath because I find it interesting how she seems to dislike and fear the Psi-Corps, yet she also buys into their doctrine regarding behavior, and that telepaths are dangerous and must be controlled. I find Sinclair, Garibaldi, the doctor, and Sinclair’s girlfriend all to be perfectly fine, if a bit typical so far, but not as attention grabbing as those two, or the aliens.
But the aliens! I adore Londo, the loud ambassador with Shi’ar-like hair who seems to be a noisy braggart and more than a little ridiculous, but who’s also rather jaded to the world, and knows how to work systems to his end. Then there’s his opposite number, a lizard-like ambassador whose race seems to have been the enemy of Londo’s, and who is almost as much of a loud braggart, but who’s rather scheming and surprisingly thoughtful at times. I also really like his super-efficient and long suffering (even after just the first day on the job) Na’Toth, who is listed in the credits, but has only been in one episode so far. My favorite, though, is Delenn, the Zhaan-like representative of the Minbari, who keeps a lot of secrets, both about her own rank, and apparently about the war.
There are several things that jar me on the human/alien front. I get why they specifically refer to everything in Earth time, because all the races have different measurements of time, and they need something to all use, but some descriptions startle me. For example, at one point, Garibaldi, who’s a security officer, is asking an alien to describe someone, and asks if they were humanoid, or looked like an alien. I mean, for starters, he’s the alien to the person he was talking to, but the wording overall was weird. Then there’s the fact that it sometimes seems that the less human an alien looks, the more likely it is to be evil. The most “Uhm…what?” moment for me, though, is when there’s a firefight and Sinclair, Ivanova, and Random Helpless Alien Ambassador (RHAA) are being shot at. RHAA is shackled and doesn’t look like she can move very fast, while Sinclair and Ivanova are uninjured and not shacckled. So Sinclair covers Ivanova while the head for cover. Now, I strongly endorse Ivanova not getting shot and/or killed, but you know, she’s clearly very physically capable and wouldn’t be second-in-command if she couldn’t handle herself in a fight. If I were Sinclair, I’d be trusting her to get to cover while I helped RHAA. Instead, we see RHAA crawling for cover, and then she’s never seen again. And so I spent the next few minutes going “But what about poor RHAA? Was she shot? Is anyone going to unshackle her? Where’d she go?”
So, fun series so far, if mostly for the characters.
Babylon 5 is a classic 90s scifi series about a space station designed to help promote peace between all the known races in the mid-23rd century, created after a war between Earth and a race called the Minbari. I haven’t learned a lot of character and race names yet (almost too many characters to keep track of, and I’m bad with names to start with), so bear with me. Possibly the most striking thing about the series, watching it for the first time in 2008, is how incredibly dated the FX are. They’re pretty decent when it’s just the FX, but when it’s FX mixed with live action, you get things like the most hilarious lightning I’ve seen. So far, I find most of the episodic plots forgettable to ok enough. The characters and their stories, though, are largely engaging.
The alien preference seems to be holding steady, though, as the only human characters who’ve really caught my attention so far are Ivanova and the blonde telepath. Ivanova because she’s superstoic and I like stoic second-in-commands. The telepath because I find it interesting how she seems to dislike and fear the Psi-Corps, yet she also buys into their doctrine regarding behavior, and that telepaths are dangerous and must be controlled. I find Sinclair, Garibaldi, the doctor, and Sinclair’s girlfriend all to be perfectly fine, if a bit typical so far, but not as attention grabbing as those two, or the aliens.
But the aliens! I adore Londo, the loud ambassador with Shi’ar-like hair who seems to be a noisy braggart and more than a little ridiculous, but who’s also rather jaded to the world, and knows how to work systems to his end. Then there’s his opposite number, a lizard-like ambassador whose race seems to have been the enemy of Londo’s, and who is almost as much of a loud braggart, but who’s rather scheming and surprisingly thoughtful at times. I also really like his super-efficient and long suffering (even after just the first day on the job) Na’Toth, who is listed in the credits, but has only been in one episode so far. My favorite, though, is Delenn, the Zhaan-like representative of the Minbari, who keeps a lot of secrets, both about her own rank, and apparently about the war.
There are several things that jar me on the human/alien front. I get why they specifically refer to everything in Earth time, because all the races have different measurements of time, and they need something to all use, but some descriptions startle me. For example, at one point, Garibaldi, who’s a security officer, is asking an alien to describe someone, and asks if they were humanoid, or looked like an alien. I mean, for starters, he’s the alien to the person he was talking to, but the wording overall was weird. Then there’s the fact that it sometimes seems that the less human an alien looks, the more likely it is to be evil. The most “Uhm…what?” moment for me, though, is when there’s a firefight and Sinclair, Ivanova, and Random Helpless Alien Ambassador (RHAA) are being shot at. RHAA is shackled and doesn’t look like she can move very fast, while Sinclair and Ivanova are uninjured and not shacckled. So Sinclair covers Ivanova while the head for cover. Now, I strongly endorse Ivanova not getting shot and/or killed, but you know, she’s clearly very physically capable and wouldn’t be second-in-command if she couldn’t handle herself in a fight. If I were Sinclair, I’d be trusting her to get to cover while I helped RHAA. Instead, we see RHAA crawling for cover, and then she’s never seen again. And so I spent the next few minutes going “But what about poor RHAA? Was she shot? Is anyone going to unshackle her? Where’d she go?”
So, fun series so far, if mostly for the characters.
no subject
*fans self*
The show really went downhill for me after Tyr left, and I'm not just saying that because of the loss of Grade-A USDA Prime beefcake; the character made for a lot of really interesting storylines and constant tension amongst the crew because he's from a culture that has essentially elevated Randian self-interest into a religion, so there was always a constant uncertainty as to how far he could be trusted.
And don't get me wrong, I didn't hate Sorbo here, it's just he was the one stuck playing a character type that very rarely resonates with me, and was in a role that by design pretty much was guaranteed more of the spotlight than the minor characters I found more intriguing. The character definitely had his moments and I certainly wasn't rooting for him to fall out of an airlock or anything, I just couldn't bring myself to be as interested in him in particular as the scripts wanted me to be.
no subject
I missed Tyr a lot and was relatively angry about the way they got rid of him because it didn't make sense to me. I had the impression that the show was shifting from more of an ensemble to a very strong focus on just Dylan. I disliked that as I was interested in his impact on the other characters rather than in their impact on him.
no subject
*nods* Much the same here -- I don't find his sort of idealistic-crusading-hero sort all that intriguing on its own, but the early seasons where his drive to Save The World is constantly crashing up against Beka's crew of scruffy, cynically jaded survivors, and Tyr's flat-out what's-in-it-for-me absolute self-interest, were somewhat nifty. With Tyr gone and more of the Maru folks falling under Dylan's spell and the spotlight focusing more and more on him, my interest in the show slipped a lot. I still watched all of the last season because it was there and it was something to play in the background while I was knitting or doing other stuff, but for the most part I didn't really care, either -- it was pretty much at the level of a mystery novel where I only bother to keep turning pages 'cause I need something to read on the train and I'm idly curious as to whodunit.