100 Reviews: 92
Okay, back to B5...for an episode that I really don’t care for.
Babylon 5: 1x10: Believers
I know I lot of people like this episode, I know a lot of people point to it as an early high quality ballsy episode, I know there are people who go so far as to consider it the high point of s1.
And I think it’s a strong contender for the worst episode of the series. I have since I was a teenager. And while it doesn’t seem quite as bad now as I thought it was then, I still put it pretty close to the bottom of the list.
While I think the main problem is with the writing I do want to single out one element of the production that I think is partially at fault. I wish the aliens looked less human, preferably more reptilian. They look far too fragile to believe they never have a skinned knee or a paper cut that pierces their skin...hell maybe that’s why Shon is an only child, most of them die from soul death by the age of six. I know you want them to be as expressive as possible, especially when considering a child actor and the limits that make heavy makeup impractical, but it’s stretching the suspension of disbelief.
On the flip side I would like to say that the acting does a fine job carrying this story. Even the kid is doing a fine job, I just don’t care for the story.
I can’t decide if the episode would be better without the B plot or not. It adds nothing to the story aside from a good Ivanova rant at the beginning, but I’m not sure the A story needed that much more time. A *better* B story would have been nice. I’m sure there were budget limits, but we get all those scenes of nothing happening and then cut away before there’s actual action. While I appreciate the implication of Ivanova’s badassery, it is better to see, better even to hear about than what we got.
Okay, so I do think part of the initial love for this episode came from its not-Trek-ness (TNG and early DS9 at least, by the end of DS9 they would have probably done the same thing). And on that level I...kind of appreciate it. It didn’t shy away from the issues being discussed or the bummer ending where Star Trek likely would have condemned it on the ground of being religious so obviously in the wrong. The episode makes no apologies for being what it is, and I think I appreciate that now more than I did when I was younger, having seen a lot more shows that take fewer risks, try to avoid pissing anyone off, or undercut their own message by hemming and hawing about things to avoid committing to anything.
And it’s not the bummer ending or the religiousness that bother me (okay, maybe the religious angle a little, plus I’m pretty sure it gets Franklin’s religious attitude wrong) it just doesn’t work for me and never has. It’s all very...forced. These people’s religious beliefs are explained to us just enough to make it really hard to buy that they have any space faring ability. Are these folks just religious extremists and other people on their planet are like ‘Yeah those guys are nuts, we like being able to have blood tests and take insulin shots and not die of cancer or be declared soulless because we were clumsy with a kitchen knife’? And while yes, Sinclair actually bothering to ask Shon what he wanted is commendable, why should it hold any more weight than girls raised in certain religious environments who’ve been told it’s perfectly normal to get married at twelve?
The thing is, there’s a lot of good material within this story. The medical ethics discussions, the consideration of personal and religious beliefs, and that there is no good ending to be had; all things that I should like a lot more than I actually do. This episode wants to be great, but it is so far from achieving that that it kind of pisses me off. I can’t even really nail down what exactly is wrong, it a lot of little things that even then I struggle to put words to that add up to me really disliking it.
And I do think Franklin’s attitude towards religion is completely off base for a Foundationist. I’m not saying his actions against the hard core religious people don’t track when his religious beliefs come into contact with his convictions as a doctor, but his behavior towards them regarding those beliefs seems really wrong.
Next time:
Surely an episode I like better than this one.
Here’s the suggestion box
Babylon 5: 1x10: Believers
I know I lot of people like this episode, I know a lot of people point to it as an early high quality ballsy episode, I know there are people who go so far as to consider it the high point of s1.
And I think it’s a strong contender for the worst episode of the series. I have since I was a teenager. And while it doesn’t seem quite as bad now as I thought it was then, I still put it pretty close to the bottom of the list.
While I think the main problem is with the writing I do want to single out one element of the production that I think is partially at fault. I wish the aliens looked less human, preferably more reptilian. They look far too fragile to believe they never have a skinned knee or a paper cut that pierces their skin...hell maybe that’s why Shon is an only child, most of them die from soul death by the age of six. I know you want them to be as expressive as possible, especially when considering a child actor and the limits that make heavy makeup impractical, but it’s stretching the suspension of disbelief.
On the flip side I would like to say that the acting does a fine job carrying this story. Even the kid is doing a fine job, I just don’t care for the story.
I can’t decide if the episode would be better without the B plot or not. It adds nothing to the story aside from a good Ivanova rant at the beginning, but I’m not sure the A story needed that much more time. A *better* B story would have been nice. I’m sure there were budget limits, but we get all those scenes of nothing happening and then cut away before there’s actual action. While I appreciate the implication of Ivanova’s badassery, it is better to see, better even to hear about than what we got.
Okay, so I do think part of the initial love for this episode came from its not-Trek-ness (TNG and early DS9 at least, by the end of DS9 they would have probably done the same thing). And on that level I...kind of appreciate it. It didn’t shy away from the issues being discussed or the bummer ending where Star Trek likely would have condemned it on the ground of being religious so obviously in the wrong. The episode makes no apologies for being what it is, and I think I appreciate that now more than I did when I was younger, having seen a lot more shows that take fewer risks, try to avoid pissing anyone off, or undercut their own message by hemming and hawing about things to avoid committing to anything.
And it’s not the bummer ending or the religiousness that bother me (okay, maybe the religious angle a little, plus I’m pretty sure it gets Franklin’s religious attitude wrong) it just doesn’t work for me and never has. It’s all very...forced. These people’s religious beliefs are explained to us just enough to make it really hard to buy that they have any space faring ability. Are these folks just religious extremists and other people on their planet are like ‘Yeah those guys are nuts, we like being able to have blood tests and take insulin shots and not die of cancer or be declared soulless because we were clumsy with a kitchen knife’? And while yes, Sinclair actually bothering to ask Shon what he wanted is commendable, why should it hold any more weight than girls raised in certain religious environments who’ve been told it’s perfectly normal to get married at twelve?
The thing is, there’s a lot of good material within this story. The medical ethics discussions, the consideration of personal and religious beliefs, and that there is no good ending to be had; all things that I should like a lot more than I actually do. This episode wants to be great, but it is so far from achieving that that it kind of pisses me off. I can’t even really nail down what exactly is wrong, it a lot of little things that even then I struggle to put words to that add up to me really disliking it.
And I do think Franklin’s attitude towards religion is completely off base for a Foundationist. I’m not saying his actions against the hard core religious people don’t track when his religious beliefs come into contact with his convictions as a doctor, but his behavior towards them regarding those beliefs seems really wrong.
Next time:
Surely an episode I like better than this one.
Here’s the suggestion box