Coyote Cinema: Babylon 5 S5

[cyrano]

Last night, at the end of the B5 Death March, we watched Sleeping in Light. It was a long trudge. I found a lot of the first half of the season frustrating in its plot stupids and character frustrations. (Case in point: Garibaldi's descent into alcoholism was at least not stupid, but it was mawkish and patronizing and very After School Special.) I keep trying to pretend that Sheridan and Delenn have any chemistry, and I keep failing. And I have never seen a more prodigious Return of the King phenomenon than the last three or four episodes of tender loving farewells for each individual character on the show. At least SiL was watchable and vaguely interesting, and it was nice to see Ivanova again. And dang the aging f/x were good. Not even the Neil Gaiman episode was worth the time I spent watching it. Meh. Anyway, If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention a point of glee. Londo's birthday gift to the lovely couple's unborn child. That was a nice bit of plotting, even if we never get a pay off.

Comments

[alix]

I have never made it through B5 S5...and I think your post here supports this ongoing decision not to. :)

[julian]

I slogged through the Overacting Telepaths Making War grimly, and then stopped for awhile once they died off. Because oy, fuck that.

I was then able to enjoy the Very Long Goodbyes in the last 1/3 of the season as things unto themselves. They were OK. Some of them produced actual emotion in me!

I vaguely recall enjoying The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, too. Really, everything with Londo. (But nothing with Lennier, because feh.)

Garibaldi's thing felt attenuated and annoying at the time, but I haven't gone back to look at it again. (You convince me my opinion won't have changed much, though.)

The Neil Gaiman episode was ... very Neil Gaimanish, which is to say, overhyped and portentous, while attempting to be lightly meaningful and failing.

It was nice to see Ivanova. Otherwise, SiL was, also, overhyped.

[merlinofchaos]

Interestingly the S5 opener was my favorite and I did enjoy the Londo and G'kar bits. I found the season more tolerable after Byron but yes the overly long goodbyes got dull.

I actually ended up liking Lochley and some of her stuff was more interesting in rewatch than I'd thought the first time through.

[merlinofchaos]

OH! In terms of pay-off in that birthday gift, I think if you work through the logic and timing, that birthday give precipitates the events that leads to the Centauri Prime prison sequence from War Without End. Remember how Delenn is ecstatic that David is safe? Yeah.

I'm not sure more payoff is even needed.