Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
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Oh boy....Can: open. Worms: everywhere!
Short version? Crusade never got the chance to be great, it only managed to be OK and had to fight tooth an nail just to get that. A lot of crazy stuff has since come out about the nonsense the network tried to convince JMS to put in the show. Having a designated "sex officer" on the crew is an oft quoted one. Apparently her proposed job description--because of course it'd be a female--was to have sex with aliens in order to understand them. Another one was the demand to have more fist fights on the bridge...because reasons!
As it turns out (though this didn't come out until years later) it seems as though all of that was just a tactic to get the production crew to refuse to comply and thus be in breach of contract, allowing the network to cancel them.
The thing is, when TNT rescued B5 for the 5th season and ordered a bunch of TV movies & a spin-off, they'd done so in the hopes that they'd attract a larger audience to their other programming. That didn't happen. The B5 fans just showed up to watch B5 and their existing audience pretty much ignored B5, so they wanted rid of the whole thing ASAP.
So the end result is a show that got badly mangled, but still by sheer determination managed to be an OK show for the half season that it lasted. The real shame of it is that one of the very next episodes to be filmed right before the plug was pulled was going to be the first season's big game changer, like "Signs and Portents" was for B5.
I won't spoil anything but in broad terms, the stated premise of the show was that a "bad thing" had happened on Earth and it was up to this one ship and crew to go and find a specific "fix" for this thing (hence "crusade" being the title.) What that episode would reveal however was that there was a lot more going on underneath the surface.
Some of the early groundwork to the mystery was laid (the equivalent to Sinclair's missing time) and some of the backstory stretched all the way back to the B5's first season. But they never got to do the big reveal, though the script (along with the cliffhanger season finale & an episode featuring a major B5 character unexpectedly returning) did find it's way into the wild, so at least the premise is known for those that are curious.
Yeah...that really was the short version. The long version has much more swearing and complicated flowchart assisted episode viewing orders in it, plus there's this whole situation with the uniforms...blech!
If you want to know if it's worth watching...yeah, I'd say so, but this is one of those things where "original aired order" really is a bad idea for the first viewing. It's complicated.
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Yes, actually. Oh, there are flaws (see Reverend's post above) but the characters were great, IMO, and had a good chemistry together and I was left wanting more - much more. As a first season, I'd say it far surpassed B5 insofar as character development went.
When I did my chronological watch through, I went and picked up Crusade just to be a completist and found that I enjoyed it much more than I did when it was in first run. It's an unorganized mess but is still worth the watch. I really wish it had gotten the chance to continue....too bad it can't cash in on the nostalgia phase we're going through with shows from decades ago getting new life.
Or hell, even a comic or book series. I'd probably enjoy a comic more myself.
Alas, Warner Bros owns the show from Airlocks to Zocalo and appear disinclined to do anything with the show at all - despite their connection with DC Comics. Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with JMS' proposed reboot feature film (the only rights he owns).
In case you were wondering what the whole deal with spoo is or where it came from: watch this clip. If you don't get the relevance, then just have a look at this bit too.
I acknowledge View From the Gallery was an attempt at something different, but I hated it. I didn't think either of the featured actors were any good, or their characters interesting. The joke about not knowing what their equipment did was stupid. And the aliens of the week, never to be seen again, a total waste.
One thing that drew me into B5 was having ordinary schmucks like those two guys from time to time. Not everyone has degrees in physics, philosophy, and Altairian Medieval Poetry from the academy and practices 20th century jazz in their free time between bouts of practicing the latest Klingon Ritual for some cultural appreciation.
Everyone is not a special snowflake in the B5 universe.
Yeah...like the 'raiders' that showed up ever-so-conveniently whenever some convenient space conflict was wanted were a big part of the story arc?
Or the aliens who sent the 'test' questions in 'A Day in the Strife'? It didn't happen all that often but sometimes even B5 did something for the sake of convenience.
^I don't mind the raiders so much as they weren't a specific group or race so much as just the reality of living out in the border territories. You're always going to get pirates and marauders in areas where people either have no power to do anything about it and none of the people with power care enough to bother (or as we saw in ("The Paragon of Animals"), had a vested interest in encouraging it.)
The berserker probe I felt, didn't need further elaboration. That thing could have been travelling around the galaxy for thousands of years, with the race that sent it long gone or forgotten. I'm sure random relics like that would be a rare but not unprecedented encounter. The galaxy is a big place and I can see some races choosing to decide it's safer not to be noticed and take precautions against anything out there becoming a threat. Honestly, I'm surprised it's not more common (anyone who's read 'The Dark Forest' Cixin Liu will be very familiar with this concept.) I actually like that the galaxy feels like there's some history to it and unlike Star Trek, things didn't just jet interesting when humans showed up. It's full of dead worlds, active weapons and traps left over from conflicts that took place eons ago and the like.
Indeed, that's pretty much what galactic civilization is based on. As is touched on in one of the movies (that I won't get into for spoilery reasons) none of the existing races invented hyperspace technology. Most just found ancient inactive jumpgates already there once they started exploring their system and reverse engineered the tech.
Getting back to the "aliens of the week" syndrome, I think B5 avoided it for the most part. Most aliens that were only prominently featured once (like the Abbai, the Onteen, the Vree, Hurr etc,) were still represented as part of the background extras. The Dilgar and the Markab were both made extinct fairly soon after they appeared, but both were still mentioned from time to time.
The only example that ever bothered me was the Lumati. They made such a big deal about how important an ally they'd be and how advanced they were and yet they were never seen or really mentioned again (I think Delenn may have mentioned them in passing, but that's about it.)
The berserker probe I felt, didn't need further elaboration. That thing could have been travelling around the galaxy for thousands of years, with the race that sent it long gone or forgotten. I'm sure random relics like that would be a rare but not unprecedented encounter. The galaxy is a big place and I can see some races choosing to decide it's safer not to be noticed and take precautions against anything out there becoming a threat. Honestly, I'm surprised it's not more common (anyone who's read 'The Dark Forest' Cixin Liu will be very familiar with this concept.) I actually like that the galaxy feels like there's some history to it and unlike Star Trek, things didn't just jet interesting when humans showed up. It's full of dead worlds, active weapons and traps left over from conflicts that took place eons ago and the like.
Indeed, that's pretty much what galactic civilization is based on. As is touched on in one of the movies (that I won't get into for spoilery reasons) none of the existing races invented hyperspace technology. Most just found ancient inactive jumpgates already there once they started exploring their system and reverse engineered the tech.
Getting back to the "aliens of the week" syndrome, I think B5 avoided it for the most part. Most aliens that were only prominently featured once (like the Abbai, the Onteen, the Vree, Hurr etc,) were still represented as part of the background extras. The Dilgar and the Markab were both made extinct fairly soon after they appeared, but both were still mentioned from time to time.
The only example that ever bothered me was the Lumati. They made such a big deal about how important an ally they'd be and how advanced they were and yet they were never seen or really mentioned again (I think Delenn may have mentioned them in passing, but that's about it.)
I imagine if the 4th season hadn't been compressed, JMS might have worked an episode like "A view from the Gallery" into one of the larger conflicts (Shadow war or civil war). IIRC Byron's telepaths were also meant to come onboard while the civil war was still happening.
Well...the Lumati made a big deal about how advanced they were - but they would, wouldn't they?. But it was the Diplomatic Office who really wanted them as allies or as part of the League. I think all Ivanova said was that their ship was impressive, wasn't it?
The way I remember it; the diplomatic office said they were "advanced" an assessment that Ivanova agreed with (to her surprise) based on a first look at the ship. If I had to guestimate I'd say they were probably on a level similar to the likes of the Abbai, Hyach & Yolu. More advanced than Earth, Drazi Narn etc, not as advanced as the Centauri or Minbari. Impossible to say precisely of course, but you have to think someone had reason to believe they're above average by League standards, beyond their boasting.
The only other mention of them is Delenn drafting a letter declining opening trade negotiations with them. Presumably the implied gag being that Minbari social mores aren't compatible with Lumati traditions. I imagine they ran into that trouble with a number of races. I don't even want to know what happened with the pak'ma'ra...while I suspect they were game, I doubt the Lumati were up for it.
There's a pun in there.
Agree, Crusade was good. I wanted a second season. It reminded me of the first season of the animated series Star Blazers:Quest For Iscandar , basically a space journey to save Earth.
http://epguides.com/Crusade/
http://epguides.com/Babylon5/
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I just realized that when I watched B5 the first time I forgot to watch Crusade, but I have been meaning too. Would it be better to do a B5 rewatch first? I know I could watch just A Call to Arms and Crusade without being lost since it is a separate series, but I was just curious if I'd miss anything without B5. I do remember most of the basics of B5, I'm just blurry on the details.
^well, any excuse to rewatch Babylon 5 will do.
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