B5rewatch: Signs and Portents
Aug. 22nd, 2015 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthBy Valen that last review seemed to take forever to get through. Let’s see if I can be a little more focused on this one. Seems like a good episode to refocus on...which I only kind of did as this one should have been up a few days ago.
1x13: Signs and Portents
I’m going to give this promo a stamp of ‘interesting.’ It’s kind of bizarre, and weird, and strange. I can see it drawing people in, but it’s almost misleading as an action piece. The promo is a lot of action, some vaguely horror elements, and a ...bigness that could draw people in, but which isn’t really the episode. This episode is big in the run of B5, but that’s only partially evident at the time, and not quite for the reasons the promo hints at. Plus, it’s kind of spoilery in that it shows the destruction of the Raider ship by the Shadows (fortunately not showing the Shadow ship itself at least) and includes Ladira’s prophesy about the Shadows by name. I do think it’s a pretty good promo in a lot of ways, but I’m not sure it’s a correct promo...that makes sense in my head.
I would say I’ve used Ivanova’s “Sleeping isn’t the problem. Waking up, that’s the problem” but I’m usually not together enough in the morning to think of Ivanova quotes on the fly. But yeah, I hear that sentiment.
Wait, where did the Starfury pilot come from? Is that one of B5’s fighters that was out escorting the ship? If so, why did the pilot need to explain what he was doing? And why not identify himself by callsign? If it’s not one of B5’s fighters, what other Earth vessels in the area had Starfuries?
Also, that is a really short teaser, especially for this show. And this is where the promo makes me question it again; the promo hinted at great battles against impossible odds and some vastly superior force and what we get are Raiders. If you were coming at this without knowing what you were getting, but having seen the promo, this teaser could certainly make you think that there’s something bigger was going on; but it’s really just going to be Raiders.
Something I have sort of wondered about for a while; I think JMS has said that the opening narrations (at least up to s4) are supposed to be taken from the characters future comments on the historical significance of the era we’re watching. Well, Sinclair’s never really going to have a chance to write his memoirs, and even if he did as Valen and left them secreted away, he still wouldn’t really be able to know for sure that B5 was the last or anything.
So to nitpick (which is probably what a lot of my gripes this episode will amount to), if it would have taken the Raiders four hours to reach the jumpgate, how would B5 know they were gone in two? It should have taken them just as long to get from the jumpgate to the site of the attack (not even counting hyperspace travel to get to the right gate) as it would have taken the Raiders to go from site of attack to jumpgate. Maybe long range sensors played a part, but it’s a little awkward.
I can’t tell if it’s from knowing things already or if the framing of Morden is just that obviously sinister. Because, his entrance is shot and lit so ominously that by the time you get to his could-be-charming interaction with the customs guard one is already suspicious. And then when he’s watching Londo and the finder-of-things, the camera lingers on him a long time and just about lets him stare down the forth wall, as if daring us not to suspect him of nefarious intent. It’s all a little obvious, but maybe it wouldn’t be on first watch.
The scene between Londo and G’Kar at the elevator (but not in the elevator, that comes later) is one of those super iconic scenes between the two. And it’s one of those very JMS scenes; it’s funny but it’s also weighty, and giving quite of bit of exposition, and there’s just a ton going on between them that often hasn’t been there in others’ treatment of them.
Come to think of it, we haven’t really seen Sinclair and Delenn interact...maybe at all since ATSFOS. Surely they have off screen, but we don’t know if him learning about what happened on the Line has impacted anything between them.
Comparing Ladira to Morella, I suspect Ladira isn’t nearly as good a seer. Or maybe people listened to Morella a lot more so she didn’t become so showy about it. But in my headcanon, Ladira just gets visions occasionally and they come on suddenly and powerfully, as opposed to being able to call on foresight at will and take time to read what the visions say. That and maybe she’s getting bombarded with thoughts of all the different times the station could get destroyed. Also interesting, she’s of the ‘the future is always changing’ school where Morella is more of the ‘these things I know, though some things can be changed’ version of foresight.
But even with all that, Kiro’s still an idiot, just because her prediction is weird that isn’t the same as saying she’s been proven wrong. You’re not dead after all, you don’t yet know whether she was right about how you’d die. She could have been talking about cloaked figures like the Homeguard, they might have been vision-shadows. I could make an ASOIAF joke about shadow babies. Or she could mean Shadows obviously. For a Centauri, especially a noble, Kiro seems quite dismissive of prophesy. Perhaps hinting that not all of the Centauri people take these things as seriously as Londo does.
I also might run a speculation that Kiro’s family has a high level of nobility standing, but are kind of on the poor end currently, because his hair is really bad looking. I believe JMS observes in the commentary that he has hair that looks even worse than Londo, and that’s true. And we know Londo has difficulty getting his hair done right at this stage.
I think this is the first time when we actually get a full flight wing going out instead of a couple a furies. That’s a much smarter way to operate I feel, and it shows a step forward in the effects of the show (which the rest of the episode will continue to demonstrate, we’ve come so far from Believers).
Speaking of Believers (not that I like doing that) but the timelines here, while a lot better are still not quite worked out cleanly. Ivanova has been out on mission long enough that it should take her and Delta wing time to get back, more time than there will be until the big showdown. On the other hand, incidents within a couple hours or B5 make a lot more sense to be in their jurisdiction that whatever was going on the Believers.
BABY CORWIN!!!! That is all.
The fact that Kiro’s ultimate plan has about a million holes in it helps to internally handle questions like: ‘what was he planning to do with Ladira and Londo if they were all taken as hostages off station? How would they have ever gotten through customs as such obvious hostages? Did he plan for a couple of his house guards to end up dead? What if Sinclair had settled in for better hostage negotiation instead of giving in so quickly? How he intended to keep the Raiders quiet even if his plan had worked?’ Well, Kiro isn’t a planner exactly, except in broad strokes and even then with holes in his plots. The Raiders might have had plans for how to deal with certain things, most of them involving not really caring who lives and dies as long as they make it out with the Eye, but Kiro does not.
I’m not complaining that Zeta Squad wasn’t out in the battle, it wouldn’t make sense to have every fighter out in this skirmish, and Alpha Wing had just been launched so they probably couldn’t have another squad out there in the time presented. But, after making such a big deal about Zeta Squad introduction they probably should have been one of the wings out there in this battle. Would have made more sense than having Garibaldi out there.
The Raider guy standing behind Kiro looks totally stoned. I could come up with a complicated theory about that, and how losing so many of their fellows was effecting this young man who had somehow gotten himself involved in interstellar piracy, but he’s going to be dead in a few moments, so I’ll settle for being amused.
You would think an old politician like Londo would know to be suspicious of sleazy guys bringing gifts, even if ultimately he was too overjoyed at the return of the Eye to still not avoid being drawn in to Morden’s web.
I said most of what I thought of during the reaction section, but I have a few things left to say. For one, this is a pretty good episode, everyone seems to have stepped up their game a bit for this one, especially compared to the last few; and of course there’s the JMS factor that’s almost forgettable in later seasons because it’s a standard feature rather than in any way different from anything else. But everyone seems really in their groove and it shows.
But, the more I think of it, the less I like the promo. Something like 90% of this episode could be just a well done normal episode, it’s just a few moments where it brushes against stepping into the bigger pool. It hasn’t dived in fully yet, it makes substantial progress here, both in how well done this episode is and what’s in the episode pushing us toward the greater mytharc. The promo presents it as if this is a battle with cosmic forces, but for now the cosmic forces are just getting going.
If I’m not mistaken it has been retconned somewhere (maybe in the ITB novelization it’s been a while since I read it) that when Londo’s original opening narration for The Gathering (itself retconned in the revised cut) referred to a man who put the station in danger as never before, he meant Morden not Varner. And while that makes it weird as narration for The Gathering, it makes a lot of sense in terms of who Londo would warn people about. Because Morden’s arrival is what changes thigs for Londo, and he barely knows it at the time.
It also seems to me that while to old hands like me (and hopefully most people reading this as it’s full of spoilers if you’re not an experienced viewer) it’s obvious why Morden pals up with Londo and not G’Kar, I can’t say for myself how clear it is on a first experience. To me, it’s plain as Londo’s hair that G’Kar’s response just isn’t broad enough; while Londo’s is vague and has more potential to be exploited and manipulated. The Shadows could maybe have made use of G’Kar and the Narns’ destructive streak and hoped that destroying the Centauri would make the Narn decide they wanted to keep going, make them feel the need to keep conquering in order to fulfill the safety of the Narn aspect of what G’Kar wants; but then Londo’s response was just what they were looking for. But I don’t know for sure how clear the distinction between their responses is if you haven’t seen how the game is going to be played in the years to come.
We also know that the Shadows do make friends in EarthGov, especially with Clark. It’s never quite clear if they had already started to make moves there or it they go there after this. There was already something going on there since the whole thing on Mars had happened years ago now and there were other factors in play when it came to the Icarus’ mission, but whether anyone had yet gone to ask the “What do you want?” question of them I can’t say. Morden (and his Shadows quad) was in Blue Sector when Kosh brought the hammer down on them, so he could have been going to try talking to the EarthForce representatives on station and after Kosh’s interference went over to Earth, but that’s by no means a sure thing. But as the Shadows already have Human agents, either way there are probably other factors than showing up at VP Clark’s office and asking what he wanted; even if his answer was broad and ambitious enough (and I’m sure he too wanted power both personal and for humanity, especially Earthers). Also interesting to think how differently things might have gone if they had based their perception of humanity’s potential role on Sinclair response, because he likely wouldn’t have given Morden anything to work with.
Speaking of (sort of), isn’t it a little weird that the Shadows are going around feeling out old enemies? The Narn may have been a minor annoyance in the last War and the Shadows able to suspect they don’t really remember much about those days (it is as much legend and myth as history at this point), but the Minbari? But it also makes sense why Delenn is the only one that Morden obeys when she tells him to get the hell out (baring the fight with Kosh); Londo and G’Kar try and dismiss him, sometimes angrily, but he keeps pushing them, while it doesn’t take him long to skedaddle from Delenn; because the Shadows must know that the Minbari could actually clue into what’s going on here. Morden’s mission may also have had something in common with the Earth rep in Matters on Honor, to find out what people out in the galaxy remember from the last War and what they may already know about what’s brewing now.
Next time: TKO. It was nice to have an episode I like, too bad we got to go into another lull from here.
As explained back in my planned order of viewing post I don’t think moving TKO later in the season is the right move. You are of course free to disagree, but this is my project.
1x13: Signs and Portents
I’m going to give this promo a stamp of ‘interesting.’ It’s kind of bizarre, and weird, and strange. I can see it drawing people in, but it’s almost misleading as an action piece. The promo is a lot of action, some vaguely horror elements, and a ...bigness that could draw people in, but which isn’t really the episode. This episode is big in the run of B5, but that’s only partially evident at the time, and not quite for the reasons the promo hints at. Plus, it’s kind of spoilery in that it shows the destruction of the Raider ship by the Shadows (fortunately not showing the Shadow ship itself at least) and includes Ladira’s prophesy about the Shadows by name. I do think it’s a pretty good promo in a lot of ways, but I’m not sure it’s a correct promo...that makes sense in my head.
I would say I’ve used Ivanova’s “Sleeping isn’t the problem. Waking up, that’s the problem” but I’m usually not together enough in the morning to think of Ivanova quotes on the fly. But yeah, I hear that sentiment.
Wait, where did the Starfury pilot come from? Is that one of B5’s fighters that was out escorting the ship? If so, why did the pilot need to explain what he was doing? And why not identify himself by callsign? If it’s not one of B5’s fighters, what other Earth vessels in the area had Starfuries?
Also, that is a really short teaser, especially for this show. And this is where the promo makes me question it again; the promo hinted at great battles against impossible odds and some vastly superior force and what we get are Raiders. If you were coming at this without knowing what you were getting, but having seen the promo, this teaser could certainly make you think that there’s something bigger was going on; but it’s really just going to be Raiders.
Something I have sort of wondered about for a while; I think JMS has said that the opening narrations (at least up to s4) are supposed to be taken from the characters future comments on the historical significance of the era we’re watching. Well, Sinclair’s never really going to have a chance to write his memoirs, and even if he did as Valen and left them secreted away, he still wouldn’t really be able to know for sure that B5 was the last or anything.
So to nitpick (which is probably what a lot of my gripes this episode will amount to), if it would have taken the Raiders four hours to reach the jumpgate, how would B5 know they were gone in two? It should have taken them just as long to get from the jumpgate to the site of the attack (not even counting hyperspace travel to get to the right gate) as it would have taken the Raiders to go from site of attack to jumpgate. Maybe long range sensors played a part, but it’s a little awkward.
I can’t tell if it’s from knowing things already or if the framing of Morden is just that obviously sinister. Because, his entrance is shot and lit so ominously that by the time you get to his could-be-charming interaction with the customs guard one is already suspicious. And then when he’s watching Londo and the finder-of-things, the camera lingers on him a long time and just about lets him stare down the forth wall, as if daring us not to suspect him of nefarious intent. It’s all a little obvious, but maybe it wouldn’t be on first watch.
The scene between Londo and G’Kar at the elevator (but not in the elevator, that comes later) is one of those super iconic scenes between the two. And it’s one of those very JMS scenes; it’s funny but it’s also weighty, and giving quite of bit of exposition, and there’s just a ton going on between them that often hasn’t been there in others’ treatment of them.
Come to think of it, we haven’t really seen Sinclair and Delenn interact...maybe at all since ATSFOS. Surely they have off screen, but we don’t know if him learning about what happened on the Line has impacted anything between them.
Comparing Ladira to Morella, I suspect Ladira isn’t nearly as good a seer. Or maybe people listened to Morella a lot more so she didn’t become so showy about it. But in my headcanon, Ladira just gets visions occasionally and they come on suddenly and powerfully, as opposed to being able to call on foresight at will and take time to read what the visions say. That and maybe she’s getting bombarded with thoughts of all the different times the station could get destroyed. Also interesting, she’s of the ‘the future is always changing’ school where Morella is more of the ‘these things I know, though some things can be changed’ version of foresight.
But even with all that, Kiro’s still an idiot, just because her prediction is weird that isn’t the same as saying she’s been proven wrong. You’re not dead after all, you don’t yet know whether she was right about how you’d die. She could have been talking about cloaked figures like the Homeguard, they might have been vision-shadows. I could make an ASOIAF joke about shadow babies. Or she could mean Shadows obviously. For a Centauri, especially a noble, Kiro seems quite dismissive of prophesy. Perhaps hinting that not all of the Centauri people take these things as seriously as Londo does.
I also might run a speculation that Kiro’s family has a high level of nobility standing, but are kind of on the poor end currently, because his hair is really bad looking. I believe JMS observes in the commentary that he has hair that looks even worse than Londo, and that’s true. And we know Londo has difficulty getting his hair done right at this stage.
I think this is the first time when we actually get a full flight wing going out instead of a couple a furies. That’s a much smarter way to operate I feel, and it shows a step forward in the effects of the show (which the rest of the episode will continue to demonstrate, we’ve come so far from Believers).
Speaking of Believers (not that I like doing that) but the timelines here, while a lot better are still not quite worked out cleanly. Ivanova has been out on mission long enough that it should take her and Delta wing time to get back, more time than there will be until the big showdown. On the other hand, incidents within a couple hours or B5 make a lot more sense to be in their jurisdiction that whatever was going on the Believers.
BABY CORWIN!!!! That is all.
The fact that Kiro’s ultimate plan has about a million holes in it helps to internally handle questions like: ‘what was he planning to do with Ladira and Londo if they were all taken as hostages off station? How would they have ever gotten through customs as such obvious hostages? Did he plan for a couple of his house guards to end up dead? What if Sinclair had settled in for better hostage negotiation instead of giving in so quickly? How he intended to keep the Raiders quiet even if his plan had worked?’ Well, Kiro isn’t a planner exactly, except in broad strokes and even then with holes in his plots. The Raiders might have had plans for how to deal with certain things, most of them involving not really caring who lives and dies as long as they make it out with the Eye, but Kiro does not.
I’m not complaining that Zeta Squad wasn’t out in the battle, it wouldn’t make sense to have every fighter out in this skirmish, and Alpha Wing had just been launched so they probably couldn’t have another squad out there in the time presented. But, after making such a big deal about Zeta Squad introduction they probably should have been one of the wings out there in this battle. Would have made more sense than having Garibaldi out there.
The Raider guy standing behind Kiro looks totally stoned. I could come up with a complicated theory about that, and how losing so many of their fellows was effecting this young man who had somehow gotten himself involved in interstellar piracy, but he’s going to be dead in a few moments, so I’ll settle for being amused.
You would think an old politician like Londo would know to be suspicious of sleazy guys bringing gifts, even if ultimately he was too overjoyed at the return of the Eye to still not avoid being drawn in to Morden’s web.
I said most of what I thought of during the reaction section, but I have a few things left to say. For one, this is a pretty good episode, everyone seems to have stepped up their game a bit for this one, especially compared to the last few; and of course there’s the JMS factor that’s almost forgettable in later seasons because it’s a standard feature rather than in any way different from anything else. But everyone seems really in their groove and it shows.
But, the more I think of it, the less I like the promo. Something like 90% of this episode could be just a well done normal episode, it’s just a few moments where it brushes against stepping into the bigger pool. It hasn’t dived in fully yet, it makes substantial progress here, both in how well done this episode is and what’s in the episode pushing us toward the greater mytharc. The promo presents it as if this is a battle with cosmic forces, but for now the cosmic forces are just getting going.
If I’m not mistaken it has been retconned somewhere (maybe in the ITB novelization it’s been a while since I read it) that when Londo’s original opening narration for The Gathering (itself retconned in the revised cut) referred to a man who put the station in danger as never before, he meant Morden not Varner. And while that makes it weird as narration for The Gathering, it makes a lot of sense in terms of who Londo would warn people about. Because Morden’s arrival is what changes thigs for Londo, and he barely knows it at the time.
It also seems to me that while to old hands like me (and hopefully most people reading this as it’s full of spoilers if you’re not an experienced viewer) it’s obvious why Morden pals up with Londo and not G’Kar, I can’t say for myself how clear it is on a first experience. To me, it’s plain as Londo’s hair that G’Kar’s response just isn’t broad enough; while Londo’s is vague and has more potential to be exploited and manipulated. The Shadows could maybe have made use of G’Kar and the Narns’ destructive streak and hoped that destroying the Centauri would make the Narn decide they wanted to keep going, make them feel the need to keep conquering in order to fulfill the safety of the Narn aspect of what G’Kar wants; but then Londo’s response was just what they were looking for. But I don’t know for sure how clear the distinction between their responses is if you haven’t seen how the game is going to be played in the years to come.
We also know that the Shadows do make friends in EarthGov, especially with Clark. It’s never quite clear if they had already started to make moves there or it they go there after this. There was already something going on there since the whole thing on Mars had happened years ago now and there were other factors in play when it came to the Icarus’ mission, but whether anyone had yet gone to ask the “What do you want?” question of them I can’t say. Morden (and his Shadows quad) was in Blue Sector when Kosh brought the hammer down on them, so he could have been going to try talking to the EarthForce representatives on station and after Kosh’s interference went over to Earth, but that’s by no means a sure thing. But as the Shadows already have Human agents, either way there are probably other factors than showing up at VP Clark’s office and asking what he wanted; even if his answer was broad and ambitious enough (and I’m sure he too wanted power both personal and for humanity, especially Earthers). Also interesting to think how differently things might have gone if they had based their perception of humanity’s potential role on Sinclair response, because he likely wouldn’t have given Morden anything to work with.
Speaking of (sort of), isn’t it a little weird that the Shadows are going around feeling out old enemies? The Narn may have been a minor annoyance in the last War and the Shadows able to suspect they don’t really remember much about those days (it is as much legend and myth as history at this point), but the Minbari? But it also makes sense why Delenn is the only one that Morden obeys when she tells him to get the hell out (baring the fight with Kosh); Londo and G’Kar try and dismiss him, sometimes angrily, but he keeps pushing them, while it doesn’t take him long to skedaddle from Delenn; because the Shadows must know that the Minbari could actually clue into what’s going on here. Morden’s mission may also have had something in common with the Earth rep in Matters on Honor, to find out what people out in the galaxy remember from the last War and what they may already know about what’s brewing now.
Next time: TKO. It was nice to have an episode I like, too bad we got to go into another lull from here.
As explained back in my planned order of viewing post I don’t think moving TKO later in the season is the right move. You are of course free to disagree, but this is my project.
