Babylon 5

I think the important thing to remember about Marcus is that, unlike Vir or Lennier, he is annoying as all hell. You can pair him with any other human character on the show (Marcus/Franklin, Marcus/Sheridan, Marcus/Ivanova, etc.) and the dynamic is consistently that the unfortunate military officer stuck with him that episode has to play straight man to his hijinks.

Which of course makes sense, since he's not military, and has a very Minbari outlook on life combined with a very typically human spazziness. Why would you expect him to mesh well with any of the other human characters? Except maybe Lyta, who I don't think they ever paired him with because they're about equally spazzy and the dynamic wouldn't work.

He's even managed to annoy G'Kar.

Seriously, though, G'Kar was carrying the Idiot Ball in The Search for SpockGaribaldi (by the way, what the hell is wrong with him?). I guess we had to get him delivered to the Emperor somehow. Is he still going to strangle Molari, someday in the future?

What's wrong with Garibaldi?

This is gonna take more than one thread. And that's before we get around to explaining what's wrong with him this season.

Thanks for the heads up on Babylon 5 boxsets, Andrew. Wow. I'm looking at the prices for the used ones now and they are cheap as heck.

Less than three quid for season one... That's amazing.

He's gone friggin' paranoid.

But I like his suit.

Heh, the man's got issues. We saw some of that in the first season and leading into the second, but they take back seat until... well, this season.

Did you notice the one-liner about the pope :D?

Talk about a weird and unlikely career. ಠ_ಠ

Absolutely nothing happened today in Sector 83 by 9 by 12.

And this, my friends, is how you pull off an Inception.

edited 30th Aug '14 9:47:22 AM by TheHandle

Yes, that was one of Sheridans diplomatic CMOA's.

That Big "YES!" he made in the elevator was so triumphantly evil...

Edit: So long, Space Warrior Caste Guy...

edited 30th Aug '14 10:50:45 AM by TheHandle

DAMN, BESTER IS AWESOME!

Yeah, Neroon was Too Cool to Live...or to show up more.

And Bester....evil CMOA.

I still quote his lines to this day.

"The Corps is mother, the Corps is father."

Really got on the tits of my fellow Royal Corps of Signals soldiers back when I was in green skin.

That and the quoting of lines from Aliens along a similar theme...

OMG the TORTURE EPISODE.

THAT'S TERRIBLE.

Poor Drazi guy.

Yes. It would.

I've always had a special place in my heart for "Intersections in Real Time". Other episodes may be better, or may lead up to greater things, but there was a lot of heart in that episode.

Earth Gov is surpisingly competent about this.

I've read stuff abut how Communists got tortured during the Cold War, and how nationalists were tortured by the French during their struggle for independence. Did you know, they say it was the French who taught the CIA how to torture?

Let's just say the process was much cruder, more frank, and far less interested in keeping up appearances. No "The only person keeping you here is you", more... well, verbal abuse... I won't attempt to translate.

So, finished the story.

That's one heck of a thorough ending.

I love it.

But I never took G'Kar for a Peeping Tom...

We are talking about pink-human-tanga-in-his-bedsheets G'Kar? ^^

Also, if you skip season 5, watch at least Sleeping In the Light? It was originally meant to be the Season 4 finale

edited 31st Aug '14 6:10:38 AM by 3of4

What of the movies?

But, yeah, great story. Great story indeed. I don't like this notion of religion being a good thing unto itself, though. But, otherwise, great story. Very humane.

You can watch those too. In The Beginning is the best (imo).

And I think its here important to distinguish between Faith and Religion.

edited 31st Aug '14 6:10:27 AM by 3of4

Enough insistence is placed on rituals, trappings, orders, and so on that I'm pretty sure religions are being glorified along with abstract faith.

I think it's better than a lot of science fiction which basically says religion is useless and should be removed ASAP. Which is an incredibly naive point of view.

You mean Star Trek, don't you? And what's naive isn't the idea, but the simplistic way in which it is implemented. B5 is brimming with naivete and idealism. There's very little ambiguity; everything's pretty clean-cut, for one. This ain't The Wire.

edited 31st Aug '14 7:55:08 AM by TheHandle