Babylon 5, Season 5

[jack]

* It turns out I hadn't seen any of it before. However, I quite enjoyed it. It's not as dramatic as some of the middle seasons, but I've often liked "what happened after" stories if they're well done.

* I didn't really like the credits. Sorry, JMS :(

* I obviously miss Ivanova, because she was wonderful, but casting a new captain makes a lot of sense (even though it was an actor-availability issue really). Ivanova and Sheridan are too thick with each other, having gone through the whole war, having a real Earth representative shows the earth/alliance tension in person, not just over a console.

* And with people leaving, others get to expand. It's good to see Zack, etc, coming into their own.

* The issues with the telepaths were interesting. Once they admit you don't like the psycore way of doing things, they have the guts to break away, but boy does that take the lid off a can of worms. What laws *should* goven telepaths? You empathise with Leta, but boy is she creepy when she has the whole market tapping in sync.

A few episode specific comments

* Amnestising telepaths on B5 sounds like a great idea, but if you're going to do it, wasn't there any way to shield them legally? Cram them into Sheridan's quarters? Grant them Minbari citizenship? Before Bester came knocking.

* For that matter, you might see the legal quagmire of ditching psycore rules with nothing to replace them with in advance, though admittedly they were all very busy.

* So, they deflect the scouting force for an invasion. Yes, isn't this something they should be dealing with? It's not clear what proportion of inhabited planets in the galaxy are represented in the alliance? 1% 99%? But a wandering powerful invasion force seems like exactly the sort of thing the alliance is supposed to nip in the bud in advance.

Isn't that what they do with the Drahk, and the Drazi, and the Centuri? How big a deal was the shadow war to everyone else; don't the invaders think "White star fleet = defeated last remaining gods in galaxy = do not piss off?"

* The comedy maintenance guys are quite funny. And insightful. That kind of trick can turn facile, but it's done well.

OTOH, they do seem a little vacant. Is a contemporary destroyer ship likely to be crippled while the comedy navy janitors fix something on the bridge? I suppose it is.

* Leta scanning the dying ranger... Ooh, mysticism. Without coming out and saying anything contrary to common sense, it definitely hints that there may still be unexplored mysteries of death in B5verse.

* So wait, as part of a training assignment, the rangers have the authority to beat people up with no due process of law? Isn't that like the nightwatch, but worse? Imagine if the FBI actually had complete legal freedom to allowed to beat up anyone accused of killing an FBI agent?

G'Kar

G'Kar is as always wonderful. In fact, it's amazing that his religion seems so right, when it's based on a vision of Kosh. I don't know if you agree, but it resonated with me.

Kosh was a good guy. A cross between a god, being a representative of the destinty-laying Vorlons, and a messiah, giving up his life in defiance of the now-twisted Vorlon empire, twice, in order to give the young races their own chance to triumph.

But still just a being, you may choose to trust him, but not unreservedly. And yet you feel you could follow G'Kar, perhaps because G'Kar is mystical and insightful, and yet against blind faith.

I know it's unfair to compare to startrek, but when similarities happen to occur it can be interesting. In DS9, Sisko was in a somewhat parallel position. He was the representative of the enigmatic yet somewhat beneficial wormhole aliens, and a religious figure to the Bajorans.

But you never got any sense that he should be. It was just hoho, look at the feet of clay, we sympathise with the Bajorans because we're trained to be polite to religious beliefs, correct or not, but there's no feeling that they were right. Whereas the people following G'Kar, while you don't necessarily agree, you feel have a point.