The Babylon 5 Rewatch: 1.01 and 1.02.
Dec. 5th, 2021 05:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAnd so it begins.
Even after all those years and at the nth rewatch, I still think this series opener is great and pulls off something I've only seen the BSG episode 33 pull off, which is: being essentially a second pilot without repeating what the pilot did. (In the BSG case, put "miniseries" instead of "pilot".) The episode has to reintroduce some of the surviving pilot characters, introduces new ones, sets up the basic s1 premise of the station, and do so in a way that doesn't feel like endless exposition hammering down. At the same time, if you watch it after knowing the rest of the show, you're aware just how much JMS has set up, introduced and reintroduced here.
For example:
- the Narn/Centauri conflict and backstory
- Londo's dream
- Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters along with Ivanova's backstory and the basics about the Psi Corps and the legal situation of telepaths in this universe
- Earth elections, the identity of the candidates (Santiago's VP isn't mentioned by name, but he is mentioned) and a hint of "Earth First" xenophobia in the election pogram
- Viiiiiiiiiiir.
Now, with the acting, I think at time it's obvious this is early days and not everyone is comfortable with their characters yet. For example, this time around I found Claudia Christian a bit stiff at first (not just during the initial encounter between Ivanova and Talia, when she's meant to be), with her coming across as the Susan Ivanova I remember only in the last scene with Talia when she talks about her mother. Whrereas Andrea Thompson as Talia is there from the start, but her reaction when accidentally reading Londo's mind is terribly over the top and feels clumsy. (She's fine in all other scenes, though.) Londo and G'Kar, by contrast, already feel themselves throughout. Mind you, I remember when a friend of mine who had followed the terrible advice of starting the show with s2, had already finished it and then started with s1, she took great offense at G'Kar's characterisation in this episode. Which I think is one of many reasons why you should not start with s2. G'Kar's character development - and his and Londo's arcs are the best of the series - just can't be appreciated in its full greatness if you start with s2 and haven't seen G'Kar in his conniving expansionist smugness. Note that the script and Andreas Katsulas' performance do mention the brutal backstory, that Narn has been occupied by the Centauri for a century, that G'Kar as an individual and the Narn as a people aren't just acting out of nowhere. But he's still the antagonist in this first episode. The way the season has been planned (let alone the show) becomes apparent for the first time when you're reaching the s1 finale and remember it openened with a Narn attack on a civilian Centauri outpost disguised as something else, with no warning.
Not that the entire episode is a continuity feast. The existence of Londo's nephew Karn and Londo feeling close to him is one of the few bits of backstory referenced this once and then never heard of again in the entire show. (My personal headcanon for this which I used in one fanfiction is that after this episode, Karn felt pressured into committing suicide, and that this was yet another element souring Londo's relationship with the Turhan government. But that's just fanfiction.) And in retrospect the raider subplot starting here really was only there because the network told JMS they wanted some space fighting scenes in their new space show. Oh, and speaking of the network, I can never decide whether Garibaldi's fondness for Warner cartoons is there because the series was produced by WB. Here in this episode it feels a bit too quirky.
The scene with Garibaldi stopping Londo reminded me how much I liked the early friendship between Londo and Garibaldi, and it serves as a great mirror to a certain scene in The Coming of Shadows in s2, which I think I forgot until this rewatch (the mirroring, not the scene!).
Delenn's comments about the pointlessness of revenge and what a bad cycle this is: on the one hand, yes, otoh, she's one to talk. On the third, yes, she is, precisely because revenge isn't a foreign concept to her. Also, this rewatch carries an extra does of poignancy for me because of how many of our cast are dead by now, and Mira Furlan was the most recent to go. When I heard her voice for the first time in this episode, my throat felt constricted.
Costuming: you can tell they went for the film noir/1940s association with Talia in a way they just didn't with Lyta, neither in the pilot nor later. Otoh, no one else from Earth dresses like this, but then most of the human women we see are in uniform. Vir's hair crest looks a bit dishevelled which feels ic for Vir at this point, and I appreciate the way Vir's hair crest through the show changes and grows and tells us something about where Vir's in his development by itself. Londo's s1 purple suite always makes me think of the dream, even before he mentions it. And Great Maker - when you watch that scene where he tells Sinclair about the dream for the first time you have NO idea what's coming, and yet, it's all there. This feels to me this time around a bit like an Agatha Christie novel where in retrospect you can spot all the clues, but only in retrospect.
Make-up: It still slays me how well Andreas Katsulas is able to act through all that latex. G'Kar's face and body language never feel any less vivid and full of expressions as those of the human characters, au contraire. And this is true from his very first scene onwards.
Lastly; I think it was definitely the right decision not to introduce the other s1 regulars (Dr. Franklin, Lennier, Na'Toth) in this episode as well, but let them show up one by one in the next few eps. This way, you can get to know them far better. But seriously: in terms of pacing, character introductions, theme introductions, this is just a very very good opener, and I still love it to bits.
Whereas I haven't rewatched this episode once until now. I don't violently object to it or anything, otherwise I'd have left it out. It does its job in the overall narrative: more exposition disguised by action, because the Minbari belief in souls and reincarnation is really incredibly important to the show, and of course it's a reminder to the audience of a central s1 mystery, i.e. "Why did the Minbari suggest Sinclair for the running of B5 and what happened to him at the Battle of the Line?" , along with "what is Delenn up to?" You also see (or see again, if you have watched the pilot) that Delenn isn't all wise space elf-ness as she tried to kill the Soul Hunter on sight, and it hammers down how strongly the Minbari feel about the whole soul concept.
Perhaps because I hadn't watched this episode more than once, I had misremembered it as being more ambigous as to whether or not the Minbari (and the Soul Hunters) are actually correct re: the existence of transferable souls. The show otherwise is pretty careful not to mark anyone's beliefs as the one true belief, or others as false, but the soul globes swarming around the mad Soul Hunter in a vengeful manner and Delenn releasing them in the final scene are pretty definite.
Also, Franklin saying that maybe you could reproduce someone's personality in a matrix, but not a soul: possible set up for a fix-it for you -know-who after s2?
Aaanyway, the concept of souls locked up in globes for eternity did strike me as pretty horrible this time around even without a Minbari-like belief in reincarnation, but the scene where the Soul Hunter catches a glimpse of Delenn's long term plan doesn't work for me as well as the scene with Londo telling Sinclair his dream did in terms of foreshadowing and knowing how the narrative twists the expected. I mean, JMS is a bit coy here, trying to make it sound as if Delenn is Up To No Good, but I'm not sure whether I ever believed that, and certainly rewatching the scene reawakens my annoyance that with a very few exceptions, characters who critique Delenn and Sheridan in this show are either mistaken or villainous or both. But that's in the future.
Leaving aside one of the movies, JMS didn't use the Soul Hunters again, perhaps because having characters who know where and when someone will die, far more precisely than in a Centauri death dream, would be a narrative short cut our regulars shouldn't have. But on a Watsonian level, I wonder why the Soul Hunters didn't show up for a couple of significant deaths in future seasons. Surely Sinclair's "keep away from this station" wasn't that impressive?
Lastly: Christopher Franke's soundtrack and the s1 version of the B5 credits theme do all kinds of nostalgic things to me. Oh show, I love you so much, still.
The other episodes
Even after all those years and at the nth rewatch, I still think this series opener is great and pulls off something I've only seen the BSG episode 33 pull off, which is: being essentially a second pilot without repeating what the pilot did. (In the BSG case, put "miniseries" instead of "pilot".) The episode has to reintroduce some of the surviving pilot characters, introduces new ones, sets up the basic s1 premise of the station, and do so in a way that doesn't feel like endless exposition hammering down. At the same time, if you watch it after knowing the rest of the show, you're aware just how much JMS has set up, introduced and reintroduced here.
For example:
- the Narn/Centauri conflict and backstory
- Londo's dream
- Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters along with Ivanova's backstory and the basics about the Psi Corps and the legal situation of telepaths in this universe
- Earth elections, the identity of the candidates (Santiago's VP isn't mentioned by name, but he is mentioned) and a hint of "Earth First" xenophobia in the election pogram
- Viiiiiiiiiiir.
Now, with the acting, I think at time it's obvious this is early days and not everyone is comfortable with their characters yet. For example, this time around I found Claudia Christian a bit stiff at first (not just during the initial encounter between Ivanova and Talia, when she's meant to be), with her coming across as the Susan Ivanova I remember only in the last scene with Talia when she talks about her mother. Whrereas Andrea Thompson as Talia is there from the start, but her reaction when accidentally reading Londo's mind is terribly over the top and feels clumsy. (She's fine in all other scenes, though.) Londo and G'Kar, by contrast, already feel themselves throughout. Mind you, I remember when a friend of mine who had followed the terrible advice of starting the show with s2, had already finished it and then started with s1, she took great offense at G'Kar's characterisation in this episode. Which I think is one of many reasons why you should not start with s2. G'Kar's character development - and his and Londo's arcs are the best of the series - just can't be appreciated in its full greatness if you start with s2 and haven't seen G'Kar in his conniving expansionist smugness. Note that the script and Andreas Katsulas' performance do mention the brutal backstory, that Narn has been occupied by the Centauri for a century, that G'Kar as an individual and the Narn as a people aren't just acting out of nowhere. But he's still the antagonist in this first episode. The way the season has been planned (let alone the show) becomes apparent for the first time when you're reaching the s1 finale and remember it openened with a Narn attack on a civilian Centauri outpost disguised as something else, with no warning.
Not that the entire episode is a continuity feast. The existence of Londo's nephew Karn and Londo feeling close to him is one of the few bits of backstory referenced this once and then never heard of again in the entire show. (My personal headcanon for this which I used in one fanfiction is that after this episode, Karn felt pressured into committing suicide, and that this was yet another element souring Londo's relationship with the Turhan government. But that's just fanfiction.) And in retrospect the raider subplot starting here really was only there because the network told JMS they wanted some space fighting scenes in their new space show. Oh, and speaking of the network, I can never decide whether Garibaldi's fondness for Warner cartoons is there because the series was produced by WB. Here in this episode it feels a bit too quirky.
The scene with Garibaldi stopping Londo reminded me how much I liked the early friendship between Londo and Garibaldi, and it serves as a great mirror to a certain scene in The Coming of Shadows in s2, which I think I forgot until this rewatch (the mirroring, not the scene!).
Delenn's comments about the pointlessness of revenge and what a bad cycle this is: on the one hand, yes, otoh, she's one to talk. On the third, yes, she is, precisely because revenge isn't a foreign concept to her. Also, this rewatch carries an extra does of poignancy for me because of how many of our cast are dead by now, and Mira Furlan was the most recent to go. When I heard her voice for the first time in this episode, my throat felt constricted.
Costuming: you can tell they went for the film noir/1940s association with Talia in a way they just didn't with Lyta, neither in the pilot nor later. Otoh, no one else from Earth dresses like this, but then most of the human women we see are in uniform. Vir's hair crest looks a bit dishevelled which feels ic for Vir at this point, and I appreciate the way Vir's hair crest through the show changes and grows and tells us something about where Vir's in his development by itself. Londo's s1 purple suite always makes me think of the dream, even before he mentions it. And Great Maker - when you watch that scene where he tells Sinclair about the dream for the first time you have NO idea what's coming, and yet, it's all there. This feels to me this time around a bit like an Agatha Christie novel where in retrospect you can spot all the clues, but only in retrospect.
Make-up: It still slays me how well Andreas Katsulas is able to act through all that latex. G'Kar's face and body language never feel any less vivid and full of expressions as those of the human characters, au contraire. And this is true from his very first scene onwards.
Lastly; I think it was definitely the right decision not to introduce the other s1 regulars (Dr. Franklin, Lennier, Na'Toth) in this episode as well, but let them show up one by one in the next few eps. This way, you can get to know them far better. But seriously: in terms of pacing, character introductions, theme introductions, this is just a very very good opener, and I still love it to bits.
Whereas I haven't rewatched this episode once until now. I don't violently object to it or anything, otherwise I'd have left it out. It does its job in the overall narrative: more exposition disguised by action, because the Minbari belief in souls and reincarnation is really incredibly important to the show, and of course it's a reminder to the audience of a central s1 mystery, i.e. "Why did the Minbari suggest Sinclair for the running of B5 and what happened to him at the Battle of the Line?" , along with "what is Delenn up to?" You also see (or see again, if you have watched the pilot) that Delenn isn't all wise space elf-ness as she tried to kill the Soul Hunter on sight, and it hammers down how strongly the Minbari feel about the whole soul concept.
Perhaps because I hadn't watched this episode more than once, I had misremembered it as being more ambigous as to whether or not the Minbari (and the Soul Hunters) are actually correct re: the existence of transferable souls. The show otherwise is pretty careful not to mark anyone's beliefs as the one true belief, or others as false, but the soul globes swarming around the mad Soul Hunter in a vengeful manner and Delenn releasing them in the final scene are pretty definite.
Also, Franklin saying that maybe you could reproduce someone's personality in a matrix, but not a soul: possible set up for a fix-it for you -know-who after s2?
Aaanyway, the concept of souls locked up in globes for eternity did strike me as pretty horrible this time around even without a Minbari-like belief in reincarnation, but the scene where the Soul Hunter catches a glimpse of Delenn's long term plan doesn't work for me as well as the scene with Londo telling Sinclair his dream did in terms of foreshadowing and knowing how the narrative twists the expected. I mean, JMS is a bit coy here, trying to make it sound as if Delenn is Up To No Good, but I'm not sure whether I ever believed that, and certainly rewatching the scene reawakens my annoyance that with a very few exceptions, characters who critique Delenn and Sheridan in this show are either mistaken or villainous or both. But that's in the future.
Leaving aside one of the movies, JMS didn't use the Soul Hunters again, perhaps because having characters who know where and when someone will die, far more precisely than in a Centauri death dream, would be a narrative short cut our regulars shouldn't have. But on a Watsonian level, I wonder why the Soul Hunters didn't show up for a couple of significant deaths in future seasons. Surely Sinclair's "keep away from this station" wasn't that impressive?
Lastly: Christopher Franke's soundtrack and the s1 version of the B5 credits theme do all kinds of nostalgic things to me. Oh show, I love you so much, still.
The other episodes
no subject
Date: 2021-12-05 08:01 am (UTC)