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Posted By: MerleZ Aug 29, 2001 - 11:29 am

With the SciFi channel running the series from the beginning Mon. - Thur. at 8:00, thought we might want to discuss the old eps here. For those like me, who didn't start watching until this season, these are all first run episodes.

Last night, the second episode, gave new insight into Moya as a living being. I didn't get to watch it as closely as I would have liked. The story with John, Aeryn and D'argo was an interesting twist on Xfiles. Some cool lines. John's "He knows mud" was classic. Also liked him saying the planet was like Dagoba. John demonstrates his cleverness repeatedly. Liked how he told Dargo that the contraption was "like a VCR." Really funny.

Posted By: Crowe Aug 29, 2001 - 11:55 am

Good idea starting this thread. I'm personally taking this chance to record every episode for my collection. Printed the EP list so I make sure I get them all!

One of the things that kills me about the show is that the others won't just come up and admit John's an equal. He's saved most of them so many times and is often the only one who comes up with a plan.

--crowe

Posted By: The Master Aug 29, 2001 - 04:22 pm

I actually liked the way they treated John as some kind of inferior species. I thought it was realistic. They all have superior physical traits (except Rygel, but he was a king so???), and it makes sense they would look at a weaker human as inferior.

Some general observations:

The costumes were even cheaper looking than I remembered. Thankfully, they've spent some bucks to fix them up. Aeryn's early costume was truly awful, and trashing that stupid NASA looking get up was a blessing (took too long for that one...but still glad its gone!) Lets face it, our heroes look best in leather!

IMHO John's pop references are more smooth these days. Some of them almost fly right by if you're not paying attention. Not that it detracts from the early ones mind you, just an observation.

I never noticed how much D'Argo's makeup has changed. Early on, his face wasn't nearly as defined as it is now.

I didn't remember Sparky expressing his feelings about Moya so early on. Him talking about how he'd always been taken care of, most recently by Moya, and didn't even know how to hold a tool made a lot of the things he's done make more sense.

Seeing Zhaan with them makes me miss her all over again. Viginia Hey was great, and Zhaan's unique "Zen like" approach to everything was a nice counter part to the rest of the crew. We miss you plant lady!

Anyone else really glad they made the shift from Crais to Scorpious as key bad guy? Crais just isn't anywhere near scary enough!

Posted By: Iznardi Aug 31, 2001 - 12:02 pm

Yeah, kudos to Merle for starting this thread.

First of all, some glitches, previously noted or previously missed.

I remember in discussions of Season One just about everyone called the writers on the trip to the Urp-like planet whose occupants had never encountered another species. Although Aeryn, John, and Dargo would have been able to communicate with the inhabitants, because of the translator microbes, the inhabitants shouldn't have been able to understand the crew.

Second glitch, which I missed the first time around--there's no real reason why Sebaceans should suffer heat death. Cold blooded animals adjust pretty well to extreme heat--its extreme cold that makes them go coma-like. Also, simple solution for Aeryn's over-heating--put her in her prowler (which had temperature control) and let her stay there for while,

Third glitch--not really a glitch--I just want to observe that in the episode where they rescue Rygel, Claudia Black looked fairly provocative wearing that uniform equipped with a cod piece!

Master--if they can't get Hey back, they should at least consider adding another Delvian. The current crew could really use a calm voice.

Seeing the episodes every day also gives me a new appreciation for the arc. They go from fleeing Crais (first episode) to deactivating a homing becon (second epsiode) to dealing with the PK marauder (third episode) and then to a stand-alone story. But coming up is their run-in with a planet enslaved by the PeaceKeepers and their discovery of a PK ship that's been blasted apart. I do think that Crais is far more interesting as an ally than as an adversary though. The change turned the character from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.

The only downside to the re-runs is that I don't think we get anything else for the rest of the year. I'm just hoping maybe I missed a couple of the early episodes (not).

iz

Posted By: ZimNova Aug 31, 2001 - 03:11 pm

Tonights (8/31) *Chain-Reaction* includes two of my favorite episodes.
*Durka Returns* Our first meeting with Chiana. I'll never forget my first impression, cool goth punk-rock chick. Love at first sight.
Plus 2 mysteries still unsolved which I won't spoil for any who have yet to see it.


*Through the Looking Glass*. This ep. is one of the vary best from S-1. They did something completely different and original with an old sci-fi theme of alternate dimensions.
Although I enjoy the current season the creators still have yet to equal some of the pure sci-fi we saw during that first season. Full of wonders and really far out creatures & stuff. The show, now that we are familiar with the setting and main players, is much more character driven these days.

Master, right. Seeing the beginnings of the characters and costumes is kind of funny now.
An even bigger laugh is re-watching the Babylon pilot *The Gathering*, whoa that was bad. One can only be thankful the series survived after that!

Posted By: Bmat Aug 31, 2001 - 03:14 pm

I agree about needing another Delvian, Jool is too close in temperment to Chiana. Crais is more brooding and so far less flamboyant than the others, but he doesn't add the dimension we saw in Zhaan.

I didn't get to see the reruns yet, I hope our VCR behaved and got them. Are they on again next week? Will they be shown regularly now?

Posted By: MerleZ Sep 04, 2001 - 05:26 am

Bmat, yup. For the foreseeable future, you should be able to watch B5 and Farscape back to back.

Posted By: Iznardi Sep 04, 2001 - 08:45 am

Zim--yeah, I also have a difficult time watching The Gathering, and wonder what would have happened if they hadn't made some cast changes (especially bringing in Claudia Christian). And at least someone had the sense to do some rhinoplasty on Mira Furlan's make-up. She couldn't have gotten a date with a Pak Mara in that original get up.

I think one of the best Chain Reactions was when John was tortured by the Scarran and we first learn about the Scorpius chip in his head. I had completely forgotten about that episode. Rygel as the cigar-chomping Big Boss was hysterical. Although I could have done without the Rygel as leather-clad Dominiatrix scene. In some ways the neural clone Scorpious is even more insidious and frightening than the real Scorpius. Always waiting an watching. And always trying to convince John that he is really an ally. Very creepy.

Posted By: Bmat Sep 04, 2001 - 11:22 am

Iz, I understand the original depiction of Delenn was gender neutral on purpose, they hadn't decided to make her male or female.

"We'd originally planned to go for a more vague sexuality for Delenn; a male physically and
primarily in the voice, on top of the natural female movements one gets from an actress. In
post-production, however, we couldn't get the voice to sound as good and male as we'd
wanted. In addition, a couple of convention showing of a rough cut saw people responding
VERY strongly to her voice as it was, so we finally decided to let it stand and change the one
reference to "he" to "she," and that was the end of it.

Delenn was originally going to be a fairly sexually-ambiguous character...a male character,
played by a female, with a computer altered voice...but we couldn't make the alteration sound
good enough to satisfy us, so we left her a her. "

http://www.oinc.net/B5/Enc/

Posted By: ZimNova Sep 04, 2001 - 07:42 pm

Oh, Bmat it was much more than that!
Sure I've heard that before from JMS's postings, and yes in the first season Delenn does look kind of *androgynous* but still better than in the pilot, then even better after *Chrysalis*.
Look at G'Kar's make-up or Londo's hair, both were improved for the first season then refined over the course of the series.
The whole cast seemed to be sleep walking through their parts in the pilot and as the series was ready to take off many of the pilot actors were replaced by those better able to *emote* as well as have an on-screen *presence*.
All I was saying is; trying to sell a series to a network based upon what we were seeing in *The Gathering* must have been a *hard sell*.
Thanks to the efforts of JMS, Netter Digital and Optic Nerve Studios we got to enjoy episodes like, *Severed Dreams*, *Z'Ha'Dum* or *Sleeping in Light*.
Thanks to everyone, cast, crew et al.