Babylon 5 Season 2 No Spoilers

[sindatur]

LOL, touche Merle

[ProfCrash]

Mea Culpa. I posted prior to the episode airing. My bad, won't do it again.

How about tonights ep?

[sindatur]

Geometry of Shadows.

What an episode. The Drazi, Purple/Green Feud. Always a welcome viewing. The Technomage storyline. This was so great seeing this after having read, especially the first Technomage book, and less so after reading the Centauri Prime Trilogy.

Ery, hope you taped this one. When the series is all done for you, you'll want to expand your knowledge of the TEchnomages by viewing Crusade Series and also by reading the Centauri Trilogy and The Technomage Trilogy. Don't go there before you finish the B5 Series though, too many spoilers could creep in. I really enjoyed seeing this with all the knowledge we gained frrom the 1st Technomage novel. So much of the mystery has now been explained and things mean so much more this time. Even more than they did the last time I saw this episode on Scifi Channel's first run of it.

[Wizz]

This <u>was</u> a good episode. All of the predictive conversations with Londo and Lord Refa & Elric and Sheridan. What was neat was watching the Crusade episode right after it. These two episodes with the book tied in kind of nicely.

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Do not tempt the patience of Wizzards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.

[ProfCrash]

This eisode left me wondering about the techno mages. Who were they? How were they selected? What did they know that most folks didn't? How did Elric change that crystal into an orange blossom (complete with the appropriate scent)? The Mages are by far one of the more intriguing races in the B5 universe.

I also enjoyed watching Londo in this episode. He is so desperate to gain power back home that he is willing to anger the Mages. No offense, but if you know a race's greatest strength is their mastery of technology, why would you try to bug a meeting with that race? The Narn opera and the holo demons were fun to watch. Londo suffered immediate consequences for his actions, which was nice to see.

Elric's prediction about Londo's future struck me as being more then a wee bit scary. One only hopes that it causes Londo to change his ways.

I loved the Drazi storyline. The Drazi are a reasonably dense race, arn't they? The idea of choosing leadership by drawing colors out of a basket and then fighting one another seems rather arbitraty. Does this mean that all of the leadership for the Drazi comes form the winning color? I wish some of the consequences for this little fight were mentioned. It strikes me as a unique method of governance.

Garibaldi troubles me in this ep. The playing with the PPG when Sheridan walked in could not be a good thing. It is clear that he does not know where he stands or what he should do. Nice to see Sheridan reaching out to him.

Pet Peeve time, ok SInclair is gone. Garibaldi was at B5 only because Sinclair insisted on his appointment. It was clear form season 1 that Garibaldi and Sinclair were friends. So why is it that in the two episodes that Garibaldi has not been in a coma, Sinclair has only been mentioned once, adn that was in passing. I really wish JMS had focused a bit more on this. Have Franklin or Ivanova talk to Garibaldi about Sinclair's departure. Something (shrugs)

Might I suggest that comments about the books and what info they may hold might best be held in the books or Crusade topic. I am not sure that it is nice to be tempting Ery with info about the Mages and the like here.

[Erythrina]

For the record: I'm on Pacific time, and B-5 comes on for me at 4 PM PDT. Sindatur (good news about the upcoming job, bud!), I haven't been able to synch the VCR with our digital cable, so no tapes. Shoot!!

Season 2 is certainly as packed with layers of plots as an onion, and, unlike PC, I'm philosophical about Sinclair's departure. Given the realities of actors as employees, I can see how difficult it must be to try to work in any transitions.

Boy, Delenn's transformation... Pow! I assumed early on from what little I'd seen (pix, etc) that it was done because the makeup was getting tiresome, but seeing it happen and hearing the reasons why (WILL they test her for genetic changes??) was pretty amazing.

I did love the Drazi fight and Ivanova's futile efforts to try and stop it. Early on I was thinking she'd just take the sashes away from everyone, and when SHE became Green leader... ROFL!

The technomages certainly ARE intriguing. And Elric (I forget the actor who played him but he was excellent... both menacing and benevolent) discussing magic with Sheridan was so intriguing. There's something childlike about Sheridan's wonder, and I like it that he's a very different man from Sinclair; I think it would have been a mistake to try and replicate Sinclair character.

Elric's comments about the darkness in Londo were most chilling. From the beginning I was going to write Londo off as a buffoon, but he goes through as many changes as everyone else, from light to dark.

That's it for thoughts so far this morning; I'm still annoyed that I lost my wrapup of Season I last week...damn Hostboard anyhoo for eating my post!

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The Red Witch
True Names by Vernor Vinge
[email protected]

[ProfCrash]

Ery yeah it is nice that Sheridan is a totally different person then Sinclair. Trying to make a clone of Sinclair would have been a bad, bad idea.

I also like that Ivanova has a past with Sheridan. Since the two of them worked together before, it makes the transition a bit easier. Esentially it decreases the amount of time needed in order to show how the crew adjusts to Sheridan. the others look to Ivanova for cues about Sheridan and I am sure she smoothed over some ruffeled feathers there. It is interesting to see how comfortable she is with Sheridan, she never seemed as comfortable with Sinclair. (shrugs)

I also like the fact that the Minbari soooo despise him. we get to see a side of the Minbari that we just did not see when Sinclair was on the station. Granted Neroon was ready to start a war over Bremar's (sp) missing body but that was one person. From what we have seen so far, none of the Minbari seem to like Sheridan.

It is intersting to see how G'Kar and Londo react to Sheridan as well. Londo seems to be interested in trying to get on Sheridan's good side. OK, so he failed miserably when he bugged Sheridan's office but he was trying to manipulate the situation and Sheridan to his benefit.

You do get the feeling that Sheridan is a wee bit more naive when dealing with diplomats then Sinclair was. I mean, Sheridan barely tried to figure out why Londo was so willing to help with the Techno Mages.

ery if you want to knwo more about what happened to Sinclair, go to the Lurkes Guide and read the synopsis of the first four Comic Books. They deal with Sinclair's move to Minbar and how he was treated by the Minbari. The art was horrible but for those of us who could not get enough of Sinclair they were a nice temporary fix. (grins) No spoilers in the first four comic books either, they came out while the series was still airing and presented no problems for people.

[MerleZ]

I may be in the minority here, but I liked the Sheridan character. I think he is a bit naive, and ruled by his passions. He's a simple man, as well. He's takes a simple approach to most things. His universe has very little gray in it.

The look on his face when Delenn pulled off her hood was priceless. I'd assume he'd seens pictures of her from her file. Everyone else seems pretty dumbstruck too.

I missed the technomage ep last night, but remember it pretty well. Vir is pretty amusing in this one. And like everyone else, I loved how Sheridan reacted to the technomage.

And of course, Susan dealing with the Drazi is a great ep for her. Crash, yeah, it's a rather dumb method of governing, and I've always accepted it as amusing rather than realistic. One doubts that a race that governs itself this way could really reach the stars.

Londo's darkness. Yeah, he is really getting power hungry here. You begin to wonder where, if anywhere, he'll stop, don't you?

I'm anxiously awaiting tonight's ep, another of my favorites from this season. Enjoy, Ery, and any other first timers who may be lurking out there!

[MerleZ]

Crash said, "Might I suggest that comments about the books and what info they may hold might best be held in the books or Crusade topic. I am not sure that it is nice to be tempting Ery with info about the Mages and the like here." Yup, I agree. And we should all be careful about trying to point out the "important things for later" as no one could do that for us. We had the joy of arguing over minor points that we found out later on had no significance, and completely missing other stuff.

[Erythrina]

Hi Merley, I appreciate your circumspection regarding spoilers for me, I'm having lots of fun watching the second series unfold.

Vir's definitely developing either a stronger backbone or thicker skin -- I loved his response when Elric stated, "you don't frighten easily!" LOL!

Tonight was fun too, though heavens know I need to go on a diet, Dr. Franklin's sudden enthusiasm for menu planning's going over like a lead balloon.

Quite an interesting side plot tonight, juxtaposed against some good old fashioned adventure with the rescue of the Cortez. The Minbari don't know what to make of Delenn, do they, and it makes me wonder if they'll machinate to replace her as ambassador.

Merle, I like Sheridan too (ow! quit swatting me, PC!). I like his openness - when he's got the blues about his friend Jack's adventures, it's comparatively easy for Susan to get him to talk about it. I like the quotes he comes up with.

It'd be easy to write him off as a comparatively superficial character next to Sinclair's complex history, but he's got a different depth to him. It made me cry last night when he got a chance to say goodbye to his wife.

Still, shadows are definitely gathering... it seems that the shadow ships are seen or alluded to in every show now.

Brrr! There's a bad moon on the rise....

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The Red Witch
True Names by Vernor Vinge
[email protected]