Babylon 5, episode 3x11 - Ceremonies of Light and Dark

[timepiececlock]

Aragorn Marcus: "It's like I've always said. You can get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than you can with just a kind word."

I...I think I'm crushing on a tv character from a show that aired more than a decade ago. ASKFHJSDKJW$*&%*(#! How is it that season 3 is so great? I can't stop watching it. I keep staying up way too late to watch this stuff! And that's not even commenting on episode 3x10, Severed Dreams, which was possibly the best and coolest episode of the show so far.

As I watch, I keep getting more and more blown away by how smooth the flow of story events is. It's all so woven together, and continuous, and I love it all. I love G'Kar becoming a true hero of the people, and Lando becoming an even more complicated combination of villain and ally. I love Lennier who has so much complicated anger beneath his beautiful courtly devotion. I love Marcus' crush on Susan and I love love love Delenn. I worry about Franklin and Garabaldi, and I'm so proud of Sheridan. I love that a certain race might be angels, except that they might not. I love whatever prop designer decided that the Shadows' ships would look like big scary black spiders that shoot lasers out of their belly buttons. I love that it's been just long enough since I saw most of this show that I can still be surprised.

EDIT: regarding Ivonova's confession of a secret-- I knew it! I thought I got a vibe there. I'm glad to see it touched on. I wasn't surprised by Franklin's confession, nor Garabaldi's, nor Sheridan's, though they were all wonderfully delivered by the actors. And now I have to sleep.

Comments

[vickiso.livejournal.com]

My bf got me into B5 when we first started dating. Third season is so wicked, but wait til you get to 4th....

There's also a really cool episode much later called Day of the Dead...fun times....

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Your bf has good taste!

[settiai]

Isn't Babylon 5 amazing? I rewatched it for the first time in years last spring, and it just blew me away. There's so much that I missed watching it as it aired, just because I was so young at the time.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

YES IT IS! And there's actually a fandom out there too, though not a big one, it's big enough for me to get a kick out of it. I was just chatting with my dad saying that instead of airing constant marathons of Stargate, the Sci-Fi channel should air Babylon 5 from the start. They could air a new episode every week as if they were just releasing it for the first time.

[serhenya.livejournal.com]

Hurray for Babylon 5! Marcus and Ivanova are my favorite characters with G'kar close behind. I finished watching the whole show a couple months ago, including movies and DVD special. Your last entry mentioned it was like LOTR and I've never thought of it like that before. If you get the chance, watch the commentaries made by the actors. They are hilarious.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I plan to indulge in all the DVDs and special episodes, most of which I haven't seen at all (except for The Gathering, which aired first I believe.)

Your last entry mentioned it was like LOTR and I've never thought of it like that before.

Once you see it, you can't not see it. I noticed it ages ago with the name Z'ha'dum because I read The Fellowship of the Ring back in 8th grade, around the same general period as the show was airing. I had thought the writer's just stole the name and the idea of falling+rebirth because they were fans, but since rewatching I've notice a lot stronger areas of similarity. I think it's different if you've read the book than if you've just seen the movies... names are a huge part of the book, but more easily ignored on film when you can visibly distinguish between all the important people. And I remember thinking from the start that Marcus was like Aragorn... in fact when the movies were being made my family was like, "They should cast that one guy... from that show... he looked exactly like Aragorn..." And the funny thing is that the actor for Marcus has very similar facial features to Viggo Mortenson. A bit more delicate and he's a bit slimmer, but the cheekbones and eye-to-nose line are quite close. I think it just means that everyone who ever read LOTR had the same hive-mind concept of how Aragorn *ought* to look. Though Marcus's character is much more light-spirited and talky, he's practically a crossover in and of himself.

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

I love that it's been just long enough since I saw most of this show that I can still be surprised.

That was the neatest thing for me, too. I watched (erratically at best) when the show was on, and only re-discovered it a couple of years ago, and finally watched start to finish. Once shows reach a point where I can predict what's going to happen from the first few minutes of an episode, or alternately if they never make any sense at all; they're over. B5 never got there; constant surprises and joyful discoveries.

I love Lennier who has so much complicated anger beneath his beautiful courtly devotion.

Lennier is my current particular obsession although I adore them all.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

That was the neatest thing for me, too. I watched (erratically at best) when the show was on, and only re-discovered it a couple of years ago, and finally watched start to finish

Exactly the case with me. I watched it fairly regularly, but I missed episodes from time to time, and I was much younger and, at the time, had not yet mentally trained myself to observe, analyze, parce, and dissect everything I watched. (*sigh* One good English teacher and a few years in fandom can decimate your ability to enjoy cheesy tv...) So I remember some stuff in great detail, and other stuff hardly at all. I don't even know if I've seen season 5, though I remember seeing the very last episode.

I have an odd question: how did you come across my journal? Is it because I friended you? I ask because about two days ago I read a fanfic called "Intimations of Mortality" by Laurie M, and left a review, and then asked her for advice in discovering good B5 fanfic. She pointed me to good site called JumpNow.de and also to the john/delenn LJ group, which I joined. She also said this of you:

It has all manner of links, including fanfic that isn't posted anywhere else especially from the poster known as 'vjs2259' I love her stuff.

From there I found your journal and have been browsing it since, though in a limited capacity since I'm focusing on season 2-3 fics right now. I don't remember ever commenting, though...

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

Yikes, thanks for passing along Laurie's comments. That quite made my day...if not my weekend.

I usually have a look at anyone who friends me, and I was just (fervently) discussing BSG and B5 with my husband, so your post on that caught my eye. I am still quite unsure of LJ etiquette about friending and commenting and don't usually say much.

Feel free to browse as much as you want. I post my fic open (well, there's one adult one that's locked cause there's arguably underage characters in it) and I try to remember to put in the season before the cut (probably ought to check that again. I'm still trying to figure out tags, and re-doing old stuff more accurately.)

If you don't mind I'll check back in as you review. I read a few people who are watching relatively de novo; it's always fun to compare reactions. I found I had totally different reactions to certain story arcs when I was younger than I do now. I think that's an interesting mark of 'standing the test of time'.

[abracax.livejournal.com]

*waves* It was a pleasure, darling, and wholly deserved!
Spreading the good J/D ficness is compulsory with me :D :D