Babylon 5 Remastered - G'Kar explains the vast, timeless things near Sigma 957 

Very underrated.

@@Riceball01Quite so.

100% correct. Sadly, the actress in this scene was not up to par, in this scene and others. That was B5's greatest weakness compared to Star Trek. I was never quite sure if the bit actors were just that bad (show couldn't afford better), the writing was bad for them, or if the good actors elevated the occasional bad writing/dialogue. Another of the universe's mysteries....

@@darkpatches she was good, just he was much much better. It was unbalanced in that way

@@Mxyzptlksac We'll just have to agree about the show and Andreas. I thought she was unconvincing nearly all the time. Like I said, the show was full of them. IMO. But take Michael O'Hare. He got lots of flak for being a lousy actor. And while I get that, I find that the more times I watch him, the better he seems, more powerful. Esp in contrast to Boxleitner, who was great, but a different style of acting.

Right. My old boss gave me the first season on DVD. This was the scene that fully hooked me. I still feel the performance, after all these years.

True the mystery and awe of those even older than the shadows and Vorlons blew my mind back then. Infact the whole B5 theme of older then older still was both magnificent and tangible.

This, one of my all time favourite B5 quotes, this and Delenn's speech about who is sent to battle in war, are the ones I remember most.

In a perfect world.

Or Peter Jurasik doing the highs and Andreas Katsulas doing the serious bits. I often hear Peter's "Stupidity and Arogance" in my head these days and struggle to not smile at the wrong time! I also hear Andreas's "I hear you" evertime someone says " can anyone hear me"

I think it was the first time I realized in the series you can't judge these characters as archetypes and only after the entire series do these early tells make you look back and smile in amazement.

I think it was the same episode when G'Kar says to Catherine Sakai: "No one here is entirely what he appears. If I surprised you, so much the better!"

@@saalkz.a.9715 I agree. This was that part where G'Kar reveals that maybe he's not going to be the villain of the show. He saved Cathrine's life for no profit or advantage to himself but just because it was the right thing to do even after all the problems he'd had with Sinclair. And it was immediately followed by this speech where you realise that there may be a lot more to him than even just that.

Very much so!

@@Karajorma The writers obviously also wanted to almost trick the viewer into thinking G'Kar was just a bad guy before this, also. So that his more complex personality would be all the more surprising. And that we see Lando is actually the one who could be more selfish and bad. Honestly, while a wildly different show, it reminds me of the same kind of thing done with Doctor Cox and Kelso in the first episode of Scrubs.

agreed. Made me a better human being;)

Never got into it.

@@CrashUK28 You have to get past season 1 which while ok, is not great. Still its worth watching the entire thing.

If I was to do a deep fake of Tomalak, I would most certainly "borrow" (ie plagarize) the lines from G'Kar and turn one of the most iconic Romulans into a complex warrior-philosopher.

Yup. First time through I felt sure he was going to do something dastardly to her rather than save her. Nobody here is as they seem.

. . . and absolutely riveting. The writing on Babylon 5 is truly wondrous, almost as much, perhaps, as what G'Kar is explaining to Miss Sakai . . .

Don't forget, there _was_ an animal actor.

Most scenes in TV are just two people talking, even today.

@@jcdenton5306 True, but is their conversation compelling, riveting, suspenseful - therein lies the rub . . .

A conversation, an attempt at explanation, that does not resort to belittling or rejecting each other's perspective. Rather subverts our expectation these days, does it not?

JMS had a habit of hiring typecast people. Some people thought it wouldn't be a good thing to have Walter Koenig on this very episode because he never seemed to display much range, mainly being used as comic relief when he played Checkov in Star Trek. So JMS cast him as Bester and gave us one of the villains of all time.

@@Karajorma Villain is a bit harsh. He's a man of principle who's mainly trying to take care of his people while protecting others from dangerous telepaths like Byron Hell, if they'd left Lyta behind on that expedition to Z'ha'dum, he'd have remained a loyal(ish) ally.

@@InfernosReaper A loyal ally who had already reprogrammed Garibaldi? He's absolutely a villain. He literally spaces a guy because he's not a telepath.

@@Karajorma Gotta read between the lines on that. His bosses were going to *completely erase* Garibaldi's personality for their own ends. Bester did save him from that fate and even restored him afterward he gave them something useful instead of keeping him under control as an agent.

@@InfernosReaper Or he could have claimed he'd done it and did nothing at all! And you still haven't explained why murdering someone doesn't make him a villain.

Indeed. It shows the potential dynamic Tomalak and the TNG crew could have had but was not utilized.

I'll often play just that speech and the "Why not" speech just before it. Both are brilliant.

They're all "starstuff" now.

Damn that makes me old!

The funny thing is that Babylon 5 had a variety of mysteries and questions that lingered through parts of the series. But none of them were mystery boxes. They were all part of the storyline and the events that were happening.

I'm watching through for the first time right now, and I missed the pilot. I need to go back and watch that and the first few episodes to get a better feel for the characters' early progression.

Responding to your year a ago post-- It was the story lines that spanned multiple seasons that made the show so epic. The little things that did not seem relevant at the time only to be immensely relevant or "Oh my god" moments in later seasons. The way characters grew and changed. The show was amazing and I do not think it could be made today. Today they try to "modernize" our fantasy and Science Fiction and this removes the timeless aspect of it. Cheapens it to sell a point relevant only for this moment. But we have this to watch again and again, I am thankful for that.

also: "either God doesn't exist, or exists but is beyond the understanding of our limited human capabilities"

Good point! It was Ivanova though, you don't mess with her.

Well She's the (bloody) angel of death (and part russian), you don't "F" with Ivanova (or any russian woman for that matter) she F's You! Remember when she had to have "intercourse" (I think it was) with the representative of the Lumati? That was priceless! 😂

To be fair they might have squashed the White Star hadLorien not been aboard.

@@TheRelay learn the Babylon 5 mantra: 'Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God.

It helped that Marcus was willing to put a bucket on his head in order to contact them.

And it shows you how much more Tomalak could have been as an antagonist to the TNG crew had Rick Berman not been such as stick in the mud.

We'll get there :) What are your favorite scenes?

Very wise move. Babylon 5 features some of the best story arcs you can find for a scifi show. Its one of few where the story seems to be constantly growing from the first prequel movie to the final minutes of the last movie. In between are moments of pure genius that will startle you with its creativity. It truly was one of the greatest shows to ever be done.

Season 1 is rough. But then, by season 3, you realize there were no filler episodes. And then, season 1 get’s a lot better. Stick with it until season 2 at least. The campiness gets overwhelmed by the superb acting and dialogue. It’s worth a watch and a rewatch for all of the foreshadowing and character development.

@@AnonDecided, I’ve rewatched it half a dozen times. The last season is a struggle at times but that last episode…? You’ll cry like crazy.

@@dparky1627 Some people say that about the last season, but its alot better then what we got today by a long shot. I think think it set up the Alliance, T. War and the Fall of C. Prime very well.

@@dparky1627 Part of the problem with the last season was that the network kind of screwed the pooch. They told the staff not to expect the series to go on beyond the fourth, and when it did get approved, the staff had already effectively wrapped up the major story arcs.

Just googled her to see what she looks like now. Still stunning. Pity we didn't see more of her in other shows.

Don't forget Fredrick Sykes from The Fugitive.

@@mnomadvfx Oh, yeah, the "One-Armed Man" totally forgot that!

"Never underestimate the eloquence of brevity," -Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator and politician, 45BC.

B5 should have won tons of Emmys every season.

There was actually only one ship for each of the other First Ones. I always took this to mean that unlike the Vorlons and Shadows the others that remained were the more stubborn members of their own races who like Lorien found themselves unwilling to leave for one reason or another.

Because he would do it with flair and gravitas.

A few quick comments about this… First, Catherine Sakai was already a trap door of sorts for Carolyn Sikes, who was Sinclair’s girlfriend in the pilot and originally would have fulfilled a role similar to the one later slated for Catherine and Anna Sheridan. But there is some question about exactly how similar Catherine’s and Anna’s fates would have been had the former stuck around. In his original “plot synopsis” for the show (included in the 15th Babylon 5 script book), JMS described Catherine as being mind-wiped, similar to what happened to Karl Mueller in “The Quality of Mercy” and Charles Dexter/Brother Edward and “Brother Malcolm” in “Passing Through Gethsemane.” Whether this would have been as a result of Shadow interference or something else is something JMS has never been specified, but this, coupled with what (very) little we know about what would have gone down with Carolyn had that character remained in the show, gives us at least some reason to believe that all the COs’ SOs would not have met identical fates. Finally, Talia herself was a trap door for Lyta Alexander! Patricia Tallman didn’t move from the pilot to the main series for what sounds like a series of miscommunications and problems behind the scenes, so the telepath role was reconfigured somewhat so Talia could get to the same place JMS needed her to be. (Note, too, that if you switch up the vowel sounds a little, “Tlya” and “Lyta” are more or less anagrams of each other.) So when Andrea Thompson left and Tallman came back, JMS had to re-pull some of the original strings and, I suspect, change a few things to get Lyta back where she always should have been.

Yep the scene in the elevator in season 3. Both sad, dark and hilarious all at the same time.

I love his quote at the end of Zha'ha'dum where he says the struggle is not against principalities but against dispair.

Now if more "scientists" would acknowledge that, people would be less apt to distrust them when they pretend to know all the answers.

@@davidford3115 yep

Fascinating.

More like warrior-poet-philosopher in the mold of the Samurai or Irish Celts.

Indeed. I wish that Tomalak had even half the lines that G'Kar spoke. Would have made him quite the adversary for the TNG crew. And would have taken the Romulans back to their TOS roots as Romans in Space.

Not with the people currently running Hollywood.

They came marching two by two