Gwnewch y pethau bychain

Day: July 1, 2009

Babylon 5: Back on the Roller Coaster

Long time readers may recall that a couple of years ago, kitanzi and had undertaken the project of watching Babylon 5 for more-or-less the first time. We were moving along at a pretty good pace, and then…we moved. And the DVDs disappeared into a pile of boxes, and didn’t turn up again for quite some time. At which point we were bogged down in other things, and….well, we just didn’t get back to it.

Recently, as we were wrapping up the current TV season, I said “We really should get back to that”, so we popped the appropriate DVD in, figured out where we’d left off, and dove back into things.

I don’t have as many fresh insights on Season 2 as I did on Season 1, because of the rather disjointed way we experienced it, but…

  • I like Sheridan. I like him a lot. And it looks like something more than a professional relationship is developing between him and Delenn, which will be interesting to keep an eye on. (I’m actually spoiled on this, but there’s a difference between “knowing where it goes” and “knowing how it got there”)
  • We get a lot more of Kosh without actually getting to know much more about him. Kosh is fascinating because he’s one of the most successful alien characters I’ve seen at being really alien. The big reveal on him at the end of the season was quite a surprise, and we’re still not entirely sure of all the ramifications. yet.
  • The Londo/G’Kar storyline is masterful. Londo becomes more tragic by the hour, and by the end even he has realised that he’s gone down a road he does not want to be on, yet cannot find his way to turn from the path. I’m wondering if Londo will be fully redeemed in the end, and what sacrifices he will have to make to achieve that.

    G’Kar has his world fall, and is left stranded, stripped of all but his honour and his desire for revenge. The scene between G’Kar and Vir in the elevator, where Vir tries to apologise was a stunning bit of acting on both actors parts.

  • “Comes the Inquisitor” may be my favourite single episode of Season 2. At the end of it, kitanzi and I both let out a breath and went “Whoa.” (I find it interesting, and someone in the comments of the Lurker’s guide also pointed it out, that in the finale, Kosh risks all his efforts to remain hidden, in order to save a single life, which echoed strongly against the themes of this episode.)
  • The whole political situation on Earth seems eerily prescient, looking back on it from 2009 and in light of the previous Administration and their attitudes towards the war effort. We never quite got so bad as to have a Night Watch, but there’s definately some resonance.
  • Really didn’t see the thing with Talia coming. That’s a whole giant can of worms, and I have a feeling that’s not the last we see of her.

We’re already nearly halfway into Season 3, because once we crested the top of the hill about episode 9 or 10 of Season 2, it’s been really hard to stop. But I’ll save my reflections on that for another time.

World of Warcraft: It was a very very good night.

This is really just a random squee post. I had such a good night last night and I wanted to share.

First up was our Tuesday night raid, on which I am the Raid Leader. We got our group together neatly by first pull time, with only a couple of people to cut. (Tuesday is usually the hardest night to form, because we’ll get 32-35 people showing up. On Thursday and Sunday, when we’re wiping on stuff, suddenly people don’t turn out. Funny that. I keep lists.) We took a while to get started because we had to sort out some folks for a new strategy we were trying on Flame Leviathan, but once we got rolling it was easy city. We downed FL+2 in one with only a couple of deaths, so it was a marked improvement over the previous week. We then proceeded to knock off XT-002, which finally dropped Twisted Visage for our guild leader, Kologarn and Iron Council, each of which dropped wishlist items for folks….including me! I got the Iron-bound Mantle to replace my last piece of T7.5, and next week I’ll have the badges to get the helm and complete my 4pc bonus on T8.5.

As we were heading into IC, we got the news that the Alliance had managed to capture Lake Wintergrasp, so we downed the big trio and proceeded portal out to Dalaran to get our weekly guild clear of VoA done. The other hunter in the raid grabbed his T8.5 gloves as a result.

Though it was only 11:30, there really wasn’t time to do anything else, so we called it there. I went and got my new shoulders properly enchanted by the Son of Hodir, and checked to see what my guildies were up to. Seeing several folks in Slave Pens, I volunteered my daily Ahune summon to anyone who wanted it, and ended up duoing it with our chief ret paladin for just my one attempt (He’d just wrapped up about 4-5 attempts with someone else, who was going to bed.) We knocked him down easily and….the pet dropped, I won the roll, and I now has a Scorchling! *happy dance*

I’ve promised the pally I’ll keep going back with him in the hopes it will drop for him too. But what a great night of WoW!

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