Friday, July 23, 2010

Babylon 5 Season 1, Winning My Heart

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I’m currently watching the entire run of Babylon 5.  Today I’m going to review the first season, even though I’m currently on Season 4.  I want to first mention, I completely missed the Babylon 5 boat.  I mean COMPLETELY!  At the time, I lived in the country, didn’t have cable, and didn’t like that Babylon 5 seemed a lot like Deep Space Nine.  I loved Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, it was a fantastic show, but it did rip-off some key ideas of Babylon 5, mainly because the writer for Babylon 5 had presented Paramount with the idea for his show and I guess they just stole parts they thought was useful.
Another thing I must admit.  I irrationally hated Babylon 5 because of the character Londo Mollari (who I had no idea was the name of the character).  Why did I hate him so?  He had the most ridiculous hair of all time, like a sideways mohawk.  All the major sci-fi geeks loved the show and I couldn’t figure out why they did.  I figured it had to be because they loved that sideways mohawk to death and thought it was the most original idea ever.  Well, I was wrong.  What they loved was the great storytelling that I was missing out on.  And boy, does the writer J. Michael Stacyznski (hereby referred to as JMS) weave a great story for everyone!
The basic premise of the series is that Earth has built a 5th Babylon station after the other 4 all were destroyed or vanished.  The Babylon Station is to be a place for different races to gather and mediate their differences out in peace.  There is a grand storyline going on and one of the most unique things is that each episode can and often does have a noticeable affect on the next.  The idea that JMS had was to create a series that would go on for 5 seasons, have strong continuity and tell an ongoing story through-out.  He really accomplishes this like few others have or could.
We have several strong characters we meet right away.  For the background, I couldn’t do better than this following site. Season 1 Characters and Background
The acting is give or take at times, especially during this first season.  It gets stronger (for the most part) in later seasons.  The only issues I had was that we had the fat but lovable oaf Vir and the stiff as a board captain Jeff Sinclair.  Sinclair’s delivery is just so dry and he seems like a military type guy.  But with that comes a lot of inflexibility in his acting skills.  His voices doesn’t have a lot of different tones and inflections.  He’s just got a serious voice all the time, a bit too serious for my tastes, but he does have his moments.
The best acting in the series comes from the actor who plays G’Kar and Londo.  Londo seems to be a limited character at first, but I’m telling you, as the show goes on, he really shines and provides some of the best moments from a character in the series.  The actor who portrays G’Kar seems able to portray many emotions and tones quite well.  The security officer, Michael Girabaldi played by Jerry Doyle does an excellent job in the series as well.  Also watch for Walter Koenig appearances through-out the series for some of the best acting I’ve seen him do, you’ll love to hate him!
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I don’t want to give away spoilers.  I do want to say that season one sets the stage for the rest of the story.  We have a mystery with Sinclair about what happened to him at the Battle of the Line (during the Earth/Minbari War) going on.  We also find out about the sinister Psi-Corps, Earth’s issues with the Mars Resistance and some big mysteries which do eventually get explained!  Yeah folks, we aren’t talking Lost here!  Questions do get answered quite regularly.  Keep in mind, you will see a key actor from Lost, Mina Furlan in almost every episode of the series too.  Can’t be that bad right?
I just love the intrigue that goes on with political battles, moral issues, and a constantly in-motion plot that flows well from episode to episode even though it is sometimes a bit more hidden than other episodes.  If you like intrigue, drama, poltics, and sci-fi in an epic adventure, this is for you!  And boy, it gets better in Season 2!  More on that later!  All episodes are available right now to watch online free!  The WB - Babylon 5 Complete Series Online!

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