On This Day

These are really just random musings that struck me as noteworthy, but not enough to put them into the previous post.

• The non-recurring characters on the show represent a veritable “Who’s Who of Who’s That?”. Nearly every episode, we’d lock onto the principle minor character in the action and say “That person looks familiar.”, and then, looking it up on IMDB, found out they’d appeared in dozens of TV and Film roles, always in a supporting role, and never in a big part — and more interesting, rarely in anything we’d really seen. Sure, there’s a few “big name” guest stars, like David McCallum, David Warner, and June Lockhart, to name just a few, but by and large, they were just career bit parters. I think that’s kinda neat.
• The guy at the end of the credits has the most annoying voice I’ve ever heard. “Babylon 5 is a production of Babylonian Enterprises and is distributed by Warner Brothers.” How utterly perky. I’m glad they found someone to tone down that tagline for season 2.
• Am I the only person who, every time Sinclair gravely intoned “The year is 2258. The name of the place is…”, finished the sentence “I Like It Like That”?

  Anyone? No?

  Oh well.

Last Friday, we finished the first season of Babylon 5. While I said I wasn’t going to do Ohiesque episode-by-episode reactions, I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on the full season experience:

• The attention to detail is utterly amazing. Once you start getting sucked into the universe, you start to notice all these little touches. Background shots of newspaper headlines, bits of dialogue that seems innocuous in its original context that comes to be important several episodes later.
• While I admit that I was very down on Sinclair in the beginning, by the end of the season he’d really grown on me.
• So far, my favourite characters are, in no particular order, Ivanova, Garibaldi, and Londo. This is interesting, because as near as I can tel, these are the three characters who are most obviously broken.
  • Susan is utterly delightful. She has just the sort of acerbic wit and weary, i-don’t-have-time-for-this attitude that just makes fall a little bit in love with her every time she does something. (That she’s incredibly easy on the eyes does nothing to hinder this, really). We were terribly amused to find two of her signature lines (which everyone’s heard, even if they haven’t watched the show) came in first season. I admit, I found her following to the “No boom today.” line almost funnier than the line itself: “What?! Look, somebody’s got to have some damn perspective around here. Boom. Sooner or later … boom!” She seems to like saying “boom.”
  • Garibaldi very much seems like the guy who has been through the grinder and come out the other side. He has a wonderfully direct manner that suits his job well, but it’s very clear to see that he’s haunted by his past. I do Continue Reading →