The Babylon 5 First-Timer's Watch Log.
Rising Star
So Sheridan has surrendered to legal authority (who might be mad to kill him at this point), and Marcus is apparently dead having (tried?) to save Ivanova.
And...okay. I'm puzzled by the sheer extent of Ivanova's reaction here. I mean I get that "this guy died to save your life" is of itself horrifying. But her reaction is coming off a bit more like a bereaved lover, and right up to the end she never seemed to react to Marcus that way. At best, flattered that he seemed to like her.
I'm going to give the actress full marks for making it look real, but honestly it feels very out of character. Everything she's saying about why she didn't reach out to Marcus during his life is true, is why. And thus...she's beating herself up for not reaching for a relationship she genuinely wasn't ready for and that doesn't ...it just doesn't seem like her to do that. Grieve, yes, but throw other doctors out of their own medlab temper tantrum? Not so much. It feels a lot more like the Friendzoned Guy's Prayer to me: "you won't return my love while I'm alive? HAH. I will die and THEN you'll be sorry!"
The line about 'should've boffed him at least' more or less clinches that impression for me.
And then we go to Londo making penis jokes at G'Kar. And he thinks this is an improvement on their relationship. *sigh* And Vir had to be really distracted to misinterpret Londo's gesture at his own genitalia. And Londo is going to be Emperor at last, and doesn't he look reluctant about it.
EVIL CHEKOV! SO GOOD TO SEE YOU!
Except this time...I mean I get why you had to make your statement of fact, but that was a stupid move for anyone, and triply so for a telepath of your caliber. If Sheridan were the sort to be intimidated he wouldn't be sitting where he's sitting in the situation that he's in. Use your brain, man.
(And also, is Bester aware that he's basically just said 'if you want to prosecute me call Lyta'? It's so hard to tell with this show.)
Not to mention that Sheridan of all people trying to hold Bester to account for the stuff regarding the anti-psi virus. Those are big rocks and thin glass houses man. One vigilante does not get to judge another vigilante. Sheridan killed hundreds, quite possibly thousands, to change a government. Bester killed...what, four or five? To prevent a genocide or at the very least lifelong enforced enslavement of an entire race. Apples and oranges. Sheridan has no room to judge or to condemn.
That Bester genuinely thinks Sheridan would choose to kill his, Bester's, lover in a tactical maneuver, knowing that Sheridan knew who she was and what she meant to Bester, pretty much fills out the other side of the mistrust equation to my mind. Sheridan is sure Bester wants to rule the world. Bester's sure Sheridan would kill any and all telepaths given half a chance of getting away with it. I honestly don't think either of them is right; Bester wants enough power to put his telepaths beyond risk. I honestly don't think he gives enough of a shit about society at large to actually want to rule it. What he wants is enough strength to not worry about things like, forex, people developing telepath-only viruses.
Garibaldi is an absolutely valid threat to any sane man, but Bester is something else entirely.
Holy crap. This new President is smart. The compromise she offers is also very, very smart. I respect that. It's a good deal for all concerned and it would calm things down really quickly. She's also right to say that he did the right thing in the wrong way - history is FULL of examples that attest to that - and that he needs to pay for that.
Oh, G'Kar. If only you knew how many people are terrified of 'a common authority'. I'm half certain Earth's response to this new Alliance will be to withdraw from it entirely. The show does after all seem to think only American history counts. And that is what we do; we create groups and then, when it looks like someone-not-us might actually try to hold any authority over us in any way (even if it's for an entirely logical or sane reason) we back away.
Oh my god. Delenn, Delenn, why did you do that? Why did you have the White Star Fleet scare the everloving crap out of a bunch of humans that don't even know about the Shadow War yet?
The background music agrees with me, oh my gods. They really don't get humans at all.
...And Sheridan is the President of the new Alliance. Of course. By rights this should just CLINCH that Earth won't join, but this show's story works in some damn weird ways.
Hn. So Earth joins but the senate has to ratify the freedom of colony worlds that want out? Again, I have doubts. This universe does NOT do happy and cooperative unless it's to set up something bugfuck nasty.
*laughs* G'Kar, you pervert. I'd be furious about the invasion of privacy if it were anyone else, but jeez. The amount of hell G'Kar's been through, he can peep for a few hours.
The Deconstruction of Falling Stars
"Once you know that it can't get any worse than this, you can relax and enjoy the marriage"? If that actually WORKED, Londo, you'd still have 3 wives.
So we're getting a 'show in review'? But there's a whole season after this. Hm.
Oh ffs. I really don't want a Sheridan biography. These things are only ever interesting to the writers, as backstory.
...I have to wonder if "Warren Ellis" is somebody's take that at Harlan Ellison, because wow is that a lot of belligerent talking-out-of-one's-ass.
"Control" the telepaths? And 'lack of control of the telepaths' leading to war? Again with the treating telepaths like a completely separate (and unfriendly) species.
Okay. Really, really bored with "deconstructing" Sheridan. There isn't a damn thing being said that surprises me. Or interests me. Their comments would have weight in a real world setting, but as this is a fictional show where one man and one woman can totally warp the universe around them, and did, the whole 'dissection' becomes a complete bore. It's the showrunners responding to what they THINK people would complain about. And these 'university professors' are making unfounded historical arguments that I could tear to shreds AND I AM NOT EVEN A HISTORY MAJOR. They're citing FUCKALL. This is not an academic discussion, it's ...Fox News again, talking heads pretending that because they're talking they must have something worth hearing.
That they then have Delenn appear, alive beyond her years, JUST TO TELL THEM TO SHUT UP, tells me a lot more about the showrunners than it does anything else. Because frankly, Delenn giving a shit about what people say about Sheridan, long after he's dead, makes as much sense as me personally storming over to a bunch of five year olds to correct their opinion of my grandmother. There's just some shit, as you get older, that isn't worth the effort or your time enough to worry about.
I am going to choose to believe that the academic who starts with "Of course we'd expect you to say that" and then looks away in shame, has just realized he's given lip to an aged and grieving woman on interstellar television and is ashamed of that, rather than his academic views. Such as they are. As I said, he cited fuckall. No studies, no papers, no evidence, fuckall. Don't you fucking dare to claim to be an academic unless you've done your homework.
...and apparently in 500 years we finally get to Orwell again? Really? It takes five hundred years? Hahahah for a cynical show you are so optimistic. Nice touch with Garibaldi though.
And in a thousand years we're apparently blown back to the middle ages? Witness the eyerolling. CAN THIS EPISODE BE OVER NOW.
In the words of Evil!Willow:
Oh thank gods it's over now. We can get on with whatever they did with Season 5 please let it not be more wankery like this.