<<It seems a bit pointless and irrelevant for *Edward* to repent for something that *Charlie* did.>>

Just an off thought, but it also seems a bit pointless and irrelevant for Christ to have had to repent for sins others committed....

hmmmm....interesting twist of thought

CW

jms' reply:

Carol: *exactly* the right point. In his earlier talk about Gethsemane, Edward mentioned that old JC had to go through all that to atone for the sins of others; when he sees Theo later, through the grate, he uses the same notion of atonement for the acts of another, in this case, *his* other. The logical parallel parses pretty closely.

jms

*****

Of course, your argument presumes that everyone is the same in value; who gets to make that determination? It's really made by the person who is under discussion. Someone who has murderd six nuns, raped schoolchildren, robbed the blind and torched orphanages is, in my view, and the view of any sensible person, I think, not the same person as a Mother Teresa or an Albert Einstein.

I know it's often perceived as elitism, but the truth is that we're not all equal, some of us are better than others, not for being born a certain color or a certain economic group, but because of what we *do* with our lives, whether it's in a profession, or being a parent, or helping the society or our family or our friends. I will never be as good a dancer as Astair; never paint as well as Picasso; never contribute as much to this society as Lech Walesa or Andrew Jackson; there is more value to what they have done in their lives in those areas than is in mine. I hope that I have contributed *something*, in other areas, maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, but the effort, and the intent is there.

A person who engages in a life of violence or crime has diminished his own life long before he ever walks into a courthouse or a prison. Sure, one can make the "well, he's a victim of society, or other social issues" argument, but there comes a point where the culture of victimization becomes excuse-making and rationalizations. It's not my fault, it's society's fault.

No. If I pulled the trigger, it's my fault. Period.

So there *is* a difference in people. And if, as you say, 2 lives do not balance out the loss of the one...what of the four people the one killer will murder once he's released? Is the life of the one of more value than the three more murdered?

My sense is that the penalty for murder isn't exactly a surprise, Doug. It isn't, "Well, you just killed granpa, and now you'll get the chair." "WHAT? Why wasn't I informed?"

We are responsible for our own choices, and our own actions. If I tell you, "If you put this bean up your nose you will turn blue and pass out," and you stick the bean up your nose, turn blue and pass out...is this my making a moral judgment, or is it you reaping the consequences of your decision? If I say, "If you murder a person, you sacrifice your own life as well," and the person commits murder, knowing full well the consequences, the action is really on the part of the criminal, not society.

But to go back to my original point...I would only favor the death penalty for as long as the life imprisonment penalty means only ten or twenty years. If life in prison meant LIFE behind bars...then I would happily help you throw out the electric chairs. But right now, the system is badly in need of adjustment.

jms
*****

On one level, I'm in favor of the death penalty. I think that if someone takes your life deliberately, they sacrifice their own in return. Some might say it's not a deterrent in general...but it sure as heck deters that specific person.

*On the other hand*...I take that position mainly because nowadays, when someone is sentenced to life, "life" means about 15 years at best. If life imprisonment MEANT life inprisonment, then I'd happily go for that option above the death penalty (and that certainly does leave room for verdict corrections).

jms

*****
The only problem with your message, as well thought out as it is, is that it proceeds from a false premise.

It stems from your assumption that I'm an atheist because there are "reasons to have little faith in people" (and generally, I do have a great deal of faith in people, more than you might think), and primarily that I thus "give little credence to religions that preach sweetness, light and Crusades...that there cannot be a god because there is abusive cruelty, loss and injustice...."

That ain't it, Rick. Cruelty, loss and injustice are human practices, visited by humans on humans.

I've read the Bible, cover to cover, *twice* (which is more than a lot of believers can say). How many producers can name offhand the Books of Moses, in order, and quote chapter and verse out of much of it? Not many. I've read nearly all the major religious works from most of the world's primary religions or philosophies.

And the fact (subjective fact, relative to perception) is that I've never yet encountered in these works a god that was of much higher moral caliber than the average decent person. In most cases, the gods presented to us seem to have even worse morals. They are invariably jealous, petty, arbitrary, schizophrenic and inconsistent, cobbled together from pieces of leftover myth and social taboos as the societal boogeyman...obey the rules, believe our way, do as we tell you, or you'll go to the Unhappy Place. (And yes, I know all about the notion that JC came to free mankind from the laws of the old testament...and then the rest of the new testament proceeds to give us all the NEW laws, about women not speaking in church, about how to behave...the letters from Paul are every bit as restrictive in their way as anything in the old testament.)

I look at the story of Adam and Eve, and allowing for the moment the conceit that it happened (which I feel it didn't)...it was a setup. Here you have two innocents, who had no familiarity with the very CONCEPT of untruth, who thus had no reason to doubt the word of the serpent because no one had ever lied to them before, and had no reason to think that a talking serpent wasn't sent by god...we have the tree they were told not to eat from or they would surely die, told to two people who had never SEEN death before, had no idea what the very word meant, they might've well been told "or you wil surely flabblegabble" for all the word meant to them; and finally, to the topic of disobedience, the tree was the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, meaning if you take the book literally, that before that moment, they didn't HAVE the knowledge of good and evil, didn't know right from wrong, they only had that knowledge after they took the fruit...NOT KNOWING IT WAS WRONG to disobey because that requires that very selfsame knowledge, and for this the entire human race was penalized to the last generation?

If a child, not knowing right from wrong, puts his hand on a hot stove, you punish but you don't execute him or his kids for it. If you *really* accept the literal word there, then you must accept that they had no knowledge of good and evil, thus no knowledge they were doing wrong, and thus should not be held accountable; they were children, less than children. Which makes the actions that follow those of a malevolent, half-crazed deity that created a trap they could never hope to avoid, a test they could never hope to pass.

Mark Twain described god as a malign thug on far less grounds than that.

I even have problems with the notion of the crucifixion, with a deity that got go angry with humanity that the only way to balance out was to have part of itself murdered...in an act which is really no nobler than the average soldier who dies on a battlefield, not for the whole world, but just for his platoon, or his buddy...and who does so not knowing, as JC did, that he will end up on the great white throne for all eternity, who jumps onto the grenade not knowing if his actions will land him in heaven or hell, no guarantees, or who may undergo a whole lifetime of suffering, as opposed to a few hours on the cross.

Again and again, I look around and I don't find a single deity that is *worth* the attention and favor of the human race, which in all its parts and pieces, flawed as it might be, seems nobler and braver than anything presented in any of its religious texts.

The only one I've found even moderately interesting is Zen Buddhism, mainly because it's the only one around that seems to have a real sense of humor about itself.

So you see, my problem isn't with humans, or our own inherent violence, but comes from expecting any god to have at least the virtues we require of our fellow humans...and not finding one. So it seems to me better and more logical that no such critter exists than to accept any of the described beta-test versions of Deity v1.0.

This isn't normally the kind of thing I talk about, or tend to discuss in public, because it tends to honk people off. I happen to feel very strongly about this, as you can tell. (And to anyone looking on; please don't send me missives on religion, or scriptural quotes, or your own personal experience with god; the latter is subjective, and the former I've seen a thousand times before. I've come to this position by a hard road, I've heard it before, and I'm not moving.)

I have no desire to convince anyone else of the rightness of my views, because I don't have any real views outside this. I don't put it in my show because then it's just propaganda. And I don't usually discuss it because there's nothing to be gained by doing so; you're not going to change your position, and I'm not going to change mine, and I have no desire to seem to disapprove or put down anyone else's attitudes, just as I don't want my own to be degraded. Neither of us needs the other to lecture us on this. If what you believe works for you, that's all that matters. If it makes you a better person, helps you contribute to society, gives you peace of mind, then I couldn't possibly be happier.

And I expect only the same in return.

jms

*****

"The themes of faith and forgiveness were worthy of a theologian. Are you sure there isn't something you'd like to tell us?"

Never shoot pool at a place called Pop's. Never eat food at a place called Mom's. The difference between horses and humans is that they're too smart to be on what *we'll* do.

And I have lost people. Too many people. Lost them to chance, violence, brutality beyond belief; I've seen all the senseless, ignoble acts of "god's noblest creature." And I am incapable of forgiving. My feelings are with G'Kar, hand sliced open, saying of the drops of blood flowing from that open wound, "How do you apologize to them?" "I can't." "Then I cannot forgive."

As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it's only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it's gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each.

So I cannot forgive. Which makes the notion of writing a character who CAN forgive momentarily attractive...because it allows me to explore in great detail something of which I am utterly incapable. I cannot fly, so I would write of birds and starships and kites; I cannot play an instrument, so I would write of composers and dancers; and I cannot forgive, so I would write of priests and monks and minbari....

jms
*****
One caveat here overall...it's been complimented and commented upon that I would expose a belief system in my show which I do not personally agree with (presenting the face of religion even though I'm an atheist). That I could be this tolerant is apparently praiseworthy.

I would just suggest that at some point, when and if I should offer a point of view from another perspective, which one watching might not personally agree with, the same tolerance is given, since the virtue of tolerating divergent attitudes has been deemed praiseworthy...and is something ever to strive for....

jms
*****
If all the things you describe were suddenly to happen, sure, I'd have to give my position serious thought, while turning down Stephen Hawking's invitations to dance and dodging the newly revived dead. Now, when is this supposed to happen? 'Cause it hasn't happened yet, and gives no indication of happening anytime soon. Which is, really, the point.

Let me try a different take on this whole agnostic/atheist thing, to see if I can better communicate my position. My agent calls and says, "Listen, the BBC called, and they're interested in signing you up for a two year documentary on the mating habits of clams." To which I respond, "Great, but I'll believe it when it happens."

I do not say that the contract may, or may not exist; it either is, or it isn't, and my actions proceed from those two options. Until I get the contract actually in my hand, it doesn't exist. Until someone puts the absolute proof out in front of me of a deity, it doesn't exist. That's the difference; the agnostic says, well, maybe there is, maybe there isn't, who knows? The atheist says, There is currently no proof whatsoever of this assertion, thus I choose not to believe it.

There are, really, any number of schools on what atheism is or isn't. Some have taken this to be the notion of anti-religion, which I think is unconstructive. I used to write a humor column for Madeline Murry O'Hare's publication American Atheist back in the 1970s (betcha didn't know that one, did you?). Even did some other writing, articles and the like...until one day I realized that this (American Atheist Organization) wasn't about just providing equal respect and treatment for atheists, it was about knocking down religion and attacking others' belief systems...at which time I resigned the magazine.

To get back on track...mine is the kind of atheism you saw most often around the turn of the century, basically accommodational of others, positive in outlook, stressing the basic worth of the individual, and the importance of the individual in building a better society.

Because of the more...rigorous atheists out there, atheism has, I think, gotten kind of a bad rap in some circles. And a lot of it is unfair, though I'd be foolish to say that the criticisms were entirely without merit. But when then-President Bush said, as he did in an interview in Chicago during the last election, that he "doesn't really consider atheists patriots, since after all the idea is one nation under god," it brings you up a little short. The founders of this country weren't just believers, they were deists and freethinkers and even the occasional atheist.

In any event...I hadn't meant to belabor the point. This is simply what I think. I don't usually get into it, but the question was raised, so I answered it. I don't expect much of anyone else to agree, or to convince anyone to think as I do. And that's fine, and as it should be.

jms

*****
Phil...I get this at the start of every season. Let me repeat what I've said, oh, about two dozen times already before.

At the start of every season, we have new people sampling the show. Do you want the show to continue? If you do, then you have to continue to add new viewers. If viewers tune in and they're lost in the overall arc, they're going to tune out again. So you give them some stand-alone episodes in the beginning, shows that are a little more accessible, but introduce them to the characters, the situations and the universe so that when the arc begins to move again, they know enough to get into what's going on.

Sure, I could've just kept going right with the strong arc episodes. Which the new viewers, 90% of whom sample shows in the first few weeks of a new season and not thereafter, wouldn't have been able to follow well. And they would've tuned out. And it would've been a very big nail in the cancellation coffin. You can bring in new viewers, or you can get canceled and never tell the whole story. Pick one.

Second, you cannot -- CANNOT -- sustain the kind of intensity you have in the final four over the course of a season. You need to have some lighter moments as contrast or people are going to start sticking their heads in ovens all across the country. So at the start of a season, I try to do some lighter stuff, to bring people back up a little, bracing for the next drop in the roller coaster. You need peaks and valleys to develop any kind of rhythm, or to appreciate the other side of it.

I got the same thing in season one, and season two..."Why these light episodes? What's happened to this arc?" Then by season's end, the chorus usually turns to "That was a GREAT season!" So my response is, Unless you think I've suddenly turned stupid, or I've decided to betray the series I've now worked 10 years of my life to produce...will you for chrissakes *trust* me once in a while? Show a little patience. When I introduced Vir, everybody on the planet jumped funky all over me. "He's just a comic character! It's Flounder! He's dumbing down the show! Space him! He stinks! Joe's losing it!" And now, of course, we see what Vir is, and in many surveys he's now one of the most popular characters.

You know what the #1 comment from the pilot was, on the nets and elsewhere? "LOSE the guy with the funny hair! He's just ridiculous." Londo. Every time I've done something a little different in the show, I've usually been jumped on, because they're not willing to trust that I know what I'm doing...until they've seen it for a while, then they Get It, and it's "Oh, now I see it." Great, thanks, now that you've been beating on my head for six months. Next time show a little patience. (And btw, ALL of the comments related above are real ones, many of them right here on Compuserve, from people still around here.)

Every story can't be an arc story at this point; you've got to see the characters outside the arc, in the way they live their lives, in other things that happen to them, or else you won't CARE what happens to them in the arc. No, the Purple/Green Drazi story didn't move the arc ahead, but it showed you a lot about Ivanova, didn't it? So now if and when something should happen to her in the arc, you care about her. It's the difference between just being chess pieces, and being *people*.

Okay, here's the breakdown. Season 3. You had arc episodes only a bit in the first batch. "Honor," "Voices" and now a little in "Dust." You've got one more stand-alone next week, "Exogenesis." That's the last one for a LONG time. Episodes 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21 and 22 are ALL arc stories, most of them heavy, none less than moderate.

I said, from the start, that each season would have stand-alones and arc stories. About 20% in year one, 35% in year two, 50% in year three, 70% in year four, and 100% in year five. And the stand-alones tend to get pushed toward the beginning of a season for the reasons stated. Is nobody paying attention when I say these things? Because if so, then why do I get gigged each season at the start by people saying "HEY! HOW COME THESE AREN'T ARC EPISODES?" (And as it looks now, year 3 has closer to 13-14 arc episodes, so we're ahead a bit.)

Before people start making sweeping generalizations about the season, it might behoove you to see the season first. If anything, my concern in looking at what's been done for year 3 is that we're too GRIM for the larger portion of it, and maybe a bit complex...so I'm working to clarify a few things here and there as I do these last few.

So that's my response to the generalizations. To the specifics....

The political officer: improbable dialogue? Most of it was taken direct from political statements, public ones, made by Goebbels, Hitler, Joseph McCarthy, Stalin, and other fanatics. The kind of Big Lie dialogue people continue to fall for today. Go to a Pat Buchanan rally sometime and tell me it's unlikely dialogue.

The chess maneuver: I mainly get this comment from people who don't play chess much. I used to be a decent (not great, but decent) player, and I fell for a move out of left field sometimes. (I'm a sucker for a fool's mate.) Sheridan isn't a chess master, he's still rough around the edges, and Theo's been doing this a lot longer. He got foxed. It happens.

"Marcus, the walking cliche." Heard this about Vir, Zack, Morden, Londo, and others. My prediction: by season's end, Marcus will be one of our more popular characters. Because you haven't seen all of what he is yet. Any more than you did Vir on his first two appearances.

(Y'know, there are days I hate the american culture of immediate gratification and kneejerk condemnation and stereotyping with insufficient information. So far there hasn't been an uninteresting character in the lot. Do you think suddenly I'm going to introduce a lox? Okay, Keffer wasn't all he could've been, but that was because that character was always doomed, and doomed to go fast, so I think I put a little distance between myself and him. That doesn't apply here. I said Vir was a great character, and some folks snorted and made fun. I was proven right. So trust me, Marcus is a great character.)

The two small story points...like I said, I went for a lighter touch in "Voices," because it was the last chance to have some light moments for a long, long, time.

The White Star was so named as a balance to the Black Star, which Sheridan destroyed. What here is a problem?

I don't mean to rag on you, Phil...I know your interests are only the best. But (expletive) it...y'know? I was real patient the first time I went through this at the top of season one, patient again at the top of season two...and it's just wearing a bit thin. If I knew what I was doing then, why should I suddenly not know what I'm doing now? How many times over do I have to prove myself, and this series? It seems like everything good I did in the season before gets forgotten because we just take a BREATH before moving on to the next stage. And then suddenly it's "The sky is falling! The show's falling apart! The arc is gone! Ohmygodohmygod!"

Patience, people. I've been faithful, and honest, and straight with all of you. I haven't let you down yet. And I don't intend to. Season three collectively represents the very best work we have done on this show to date. Starting with #8, "Messages From Earth," the arc and the story kicks into high gear, moving faster than ever before. MAJOR stuff happens.

And natch, I'll go through this all over again in year four, because they'll say it doesn't move as fast as year three did. You can't win. I appreciate the concern, Phil. Honest I do. But I've always had a problem with people judging the season on a sampling. Give it a chance.
jms

*****
Yes, the sign does indeed say warning. Look for another sign right behind somebody at the end of "Severed Dreams."

In defense of Phil...who I have spoken with before, and met once, and who asked his question in good faith and I kinda handed him his head...don't take my reaction necessarily as venue to jump on him. Some days, when I've been working 18 hours straight on the show, I come across a comment that puts me into Wet Cat mode. That was one. Which is why I made a point of trying to say that I understand the question(s), and whence they proceed.

There are a very few flakes and idiots and dangerous loonies out there in net-land...but Phil isn't one of them. It's the consistent idiots you have to watch out for.

Re: the discussion group...this is one of the things that I've decided I'm very proud of, regarding B5. Delenn pointed out that humans form communities; it's what we do. And a B5 community has arisen. Fans of the show gather in pizza parlors to watch the show, set out open invitations for picnics and house parties to catch shows off the satellite, create discussion groups...form communities. People have formed lasting friendships, regular pub groups, even gotten married because of the show.

Others have gotten involved in social work, contributed or worked for charities, food kitchens, other causes. Decided that their fates are in their own hands, and been inspired to move across the country to form new lives and pursue what they *want* to do instead of what they felt they *had* to do. I hear from them frequently in email, and in public messages.

I'm very happy about that. If Star Trek's shining element was that it got people involved in the space program, perhaps B5's shining element is that it gets people involved in the human program.

jms

*****

oe:

I know you're not on Usenet anymore, but I thought you'd get a laugh out of this one:

>>Sunday I was clambering around in my attic. My foot
slipped off a beam, and I crashed through the ceiling,
just barely catching myself before hitting the floor
below.

And all I could think of, dangling there in the hallway,
was, of course...

You idiot, you can't die yet! There's still two
seasons left!

Dave Moore == djmoore@uh.edu == I speak for me.

Oh, a few scrapes, some sore muscles, thanks for asking.
I've even fixed the hole already.

Scared the sheet (rock) right out of me, though. --djm<<

Barbara

*****

Thanks. Emotion, for me, is the key to all drama. If it doesn't make you feel something, what's the point? The writer's job is to touch passion, not be burned by it, and come back to tell what it was like.

And what G'Kar said was, "Dear G'Quon, no more...."

jms

*****

Warners owns the copyright to B5, just as Paramount owns the copyright to ST. By contract, if there should be a spin off or sequel of any kind, I would have to be involved in it. The contract doesn't say that there cannot be any of these; you're correct, that can't be negotiated.

But there are a number of common-sense things at work here, as much as anything involving a studio can be described as common sense. Given that all our actors/service contracts are deliberately for 5 years not the more traditional 7, continuing B5 per se past year 5 becomes impossible, due to the hideous level of re-negotiation of contracts that would have to take place. The cost would skyrocket.

I've always said, from the start, that there's a side story that could go off after B5 is finished, but I just don't think it's likely for the time being. The numbers have been good enough to continue the show, but it's not a blockbuster, not a franchise...primarily due to the fact that we don't have a national, regular timeslot. (Where we *do* have that, in the overseas markets, the show is extremely successful.) There've been some small talks here and there touching on various feature film possibilities, from direct-to-video to something theatrical -- but, again, due to the corporate structure at the studio, which is straight out of the pre- Cambrian period, I doubt anything much will happen on that front for the time begin. It's nice that they've broached the subject, but to become a reality takes a bit more.

If I were to engage in predicting the future, here's what I think is most probable. The show will continue to go on, doing well enough in the ratings to continue for two more seasons. A comfortable level. In 1998, after we've finished our first run, we are contractually already sold to the TNT cable network, which is *extremely* excited about the show, plans to promote it, and sees it as a way of breaking into the SF genre. There, for the first time, we will have a regular, *daily* timeslot on a national network.

Then, I think, suddenly we're going to be "discovered," much the same way ST was discovered in syndication after it left the network. Give it about a year or two for WB to notice this (see pre-Cambrian comment above), then suddenly they're going to start running around seeing what they can do to capitalize on this.

At that point, I'm not sure which way the runes point. Certainly they'll start cranking out more merchandise stuff, which by contract I have to approve, to make sure it's quality stuff. If they want to do a feature, I'll have to be involved, and they'll have to negotiate with all the cast members, who by then will have moved on to other projects and may or may not be available. Ditto for any spinoffs.

So by the time they get their brains wrapped around the question, it'll already be the year 2000. By then, much of TV as we know it now will have changed considerably, as it has already changed considerably in just the last 10 years. A spinoff or sequel may no longer be financially viable in the new marketplace. Ditto for any features. Certainly nothing much could be done until 2002 or 2003 in terms of development, pre-production, production and post production.

So as you can see, one doesn't need a contract saying you can't do something...in TV, entropy tends to take care of the problem very nicely.

jms
*****

Thank you. Working on the show, and creating this universe, is a task that has, in sum, taken ten years of my life thus far, and it means a great deal. I appreciate the kind words. We do try.

jms

*****

Exactly. The goal would seem to be impossible. So how do we do it? Is there a vulnerability that's been laid out but not picked up yet? Is there an advantage we don't necessarily see yet?

We have to be smarter. Humans are at our best when against the wall. And we have to do it ourselves, in the final analysis, nobody else can do it for us.

jms
*****

It's Nightwatch.

The thread will diminish for a while, then return down the road in later seasons, after the story takes its third major turn.

By the last few episodes, pretty much all of my cards are on the table. But by the last episode of this season, we find that the game we've assumed we've been playing ain't necessarily the game at all. The show takes a fairly subversive direction, and of all the seasons so far, the one that follows, year four, represents the greatest writing challenge to make this actually work.

Which is another reason why it's important to get the B4 storyline and several other threads out in the open, and clear the decks, because this is gonna take every bit of whatever talent I've got to pull off.

Year four is the point in the novel when you're just past the halfway mark; you know the reader thinks he or she has got the story sussed out. The reader knows all your tricks by now, or thinks he/she does. You've been pulling doves out of your hat for 243 pages.

Now you'd damned well better be able to pull out an alligator.

jms

*****

If I can, let me address one aspect of this, for your consideration.

Back when I was working on MURDER, SHE WROTE, we'd sometimes get letters saying, "This wasn't a good episode because I figured out the ending. It wasn't a surprise." (Which is, to some extent, your point here.)

The problem we had with that particular letter was this: of COURSE you figured it out. Because you were paying attention to all the clues we had put out there in the episode.

There seems to be this notion that nobody should be able to jump ahead, or else something's wrong or bad about the episode. Absolutely not true. If you're going to play fair with the audience, whether it's B5 or M,SW, you've got to put enough bits of information out on the table so that the person who's really following it can figure it out...so that at the end, those who *didn't* figure it out can back up the tape, watch for the clues or leads, and see where it all came from. That's playing fair.

If NObody gets it, you haven't done your job right.

If EVERYbody gets it, you haven't done your job right.

The best case scenario is a bell-shaped curve. Some don't have a clue what's coming, some manage to figure it out, and the majority have a kind of vague sense where it's going, but there are still surprises along the way. If the bell-curve shifts one direction or the other, then you're in trouble.

So far, B5 seems to be hewing right to the bell-curve. For every person who says "okay, this was expected," there's been another saying, "I had no *idea* this was going to happen here, or so fast." (Many of these have been right on this forum, in fact.)

Finally, do bear in mind that you have an advantage here that 99% of all the viewers don't: the discussion here on CIS, and direct comments from me. For instance, I just noted elsewhere that we've got major turns at the end of this season, and one 2/3rds into year 4. Now, if at those points, somebody says, "Well, I knew this was coming, that's bad," I intend to whap them, because the reason they likely knew it was coming was because I *said so* right here.

But that same 99% doesn't have this advantage.

This is the main difference I've noted in the mail that's come in: the net-folks are constantly trying to figure out what's coming up next, treating it like a mystery story (which, really, it's not, any more than ANY novel is a mystery in that you don't necessarily know its turns and twists as you're reading it), whereas the non-netted folks tend to just take it as it comes.

See, that's the other part of this. People on the nets tend to treat it as though it's a mystery novel, and when it doesn't hit that aspect, say it's flawed as a result...when it was never INTENDED to function as a mystery novel. It's a novel period. A mystery novel depends absolutely on the riddle at the center of it. This is a saga, which uses a different structure. It isn't a mystery any more than Lord of the Rings is a mystery, even though when I first read it I was wondering what was going to happen next.

Also, a mystery novel is done when the mystery is finally unraveled. Not so the B5 story. By the end of this season, most of the mysteries will be unraveled, and the pieces laid on the table for all to see. It then becomes a matter of what the characters *do* about it thereafter.

If I'm doing my job right, and setting up things to come properly, and giving all the clues to it, then by definition a certain number of people HAVE to figure out what's coming. As long as it's the smaller portion, that's as it *should* be. So you'll understand why I tend to get in here for a moment when that's held up as something bad or poorly done. (And, again, even you note that the only reason you knew about the shadows on Mars was via reading it here, or others read it via the comics. Again, that's a very small portion of the audience; most I've heard from had NO idea about that aspect of it. If you hadn't read it here, you likely would have been surprised by it.)

Anyway, just something to consider in all of this....

jms

*****
Joe,

Not that I expect an answer, but it just occurred to me:

Could one of the "Side of Light" (Sheridan, Sinclair, Marcus, Ivanova, Delenn) be prepared to "pilot" a Battlecrab - and turning it to a powerful ship for the Good Guys?

Or is a Battlecrab alive and intrinsically "evil" enough to prevent this, just like the One Ring could not be used for Good in Lord of the Rings, no matter how good and powerful the user was?

Thanks to you I'm not even so sure about who is Good and Evil anymore, in the first place. *sigh* ;>

Mike

-Mike Hoffmann

jms' reply:
It's certainly a *very* good question.

jms

*****
Yes, the current mini-arc (8-10) is the second major turn in the storyline. The third starts with the last episode of this season, going into the fourth year. Then you've got one more big turn about the last quarter or one-third of year four, and then a bit of a flip at the end.

jms

*****

Well, it's done. I have today turned in the first draft of script #22 for year three, which I suppose could be called a cliffhanger episode. This marks the first time in the 50+ year history of American television that one person has singlehandedly written an entire season of a series. (The closest record is Terry Nation, who wrote the 13-episode first season of Blake's 7.)

(I have no plans to do this next season, btw; this was necessary because of the substantive changes in the B5 universe this season. Next season is a very different story...literally as well as figuratively.)

So far the film based on those 1,000+ pages represents some of our best work on Babylon 5. There's some nifty stuff coming.

We are currently filming episode #18. Four more after this, and we'll be finished shooting year three, as of April 9th. Not long after, we should get the word on year four, probably by late April/early May. But the writing is finished...and for the first time in 8 months, I will be able to go out, see a movie, play Wing Commander, find something that vaguely resembles a life. This is where I now also become a director's worst nightmare: a writer-producer who's finished writing and finally has time to hang out on the set and give lots and lots of helpful advice.

It was a hideous task; two-thirds through I began to understand that there was a *reason* nobody's ever done this before...you'd have to be outta your ever-loving mind to even try. But as with everything else on B5, if we don't know it's impossible, we just go ahead and do it.

The title, as stated elsewhere, is classified, though you may get a sense of what's coming in the two eps that precede it. Regardless, the writing on year three is now complete. Overall, I'm quite pleased, and I think by the time you hit this episode, you'll feel the same.

jms

*****

It's not always as simple as that. You also take a uniquely Western perspective. Look around at Russia, Cuba, 1930s Germany and the beer hall putsch, Iraq, Iran...a leader can survive all kinds of opposition if he has sufficient control of the armed forces. After the Gulf War, it was generally assumed that Saddam would be gone within a few months; now his position is stronger than ever.

Also, Clark didn't (ostensibly) declare martial law to protect himself, he did it because of an imminent alien threat which was detected long before these allegations came out, we just had Ganymede attacked and that's spitting distance from the primary Earth jump gate at Io...there is indication of collaboration and conspiracy among some in the Joint Chiefs (and in fact that's correct, from his point of view, given Hague's activities)...there's enough ammo there to justify martial law. Dissolve the Senate? Just happened a couple years ago in Russia, when we had tanks firing on the Senate building. Some might say that Yeltsin was in the same position as Clark in that his motives might be saving himself.

(The majorit of our posters, btw, are taken from genuine WW II propaganda and war-support posters that were actually in use. We make some slight modifications, but the gist is there. Yes, we do fall for these things, we do go for these things. We always have.)

As for the USA-western perspective...during WW II we saw Japanese civilians interned in camps along the West Coast...afterward we saw people prosecuted for being Reds, saw careers and lives destroyed by even the hint of "commie" influence. If you look at newsreels and documentary footage from the time, you see a populace, fresh out of a war, who survived by focusing on the Enemy, given a new enemy. Might they have gone along with some kind fo martial law if they thought that if they *didn't* cooperate, the nation might be vulnerable to Russian nukes or invasion? I think the climate was perfect for it.

Could it happen right here, right now? No, because the surrounding climate isn't right. Could it happen if the conditions *were* right? Of course it could. We're not genetically or evolutionarily different from the Germans or the Russians or the Cubans or the Iraquis. If we think we'd never fall for that, we place ourselves in *exactly* the position of guaranteeing that we *will* fall for it. Because we won't recognize it when it happens. We can justify and rationalize it as something else.

Yeah, people back on Earth still have guns. What of it? Right now, with martial law, the streets are quiet, the news is more positive than usual for a change, the quarrelsome jerks in the senate have been given a good kick in the butt, the president's getting things *done*, we've all still got our jobs, the muggers are hiding out, life goes on except for the lawbreakers. You gonna go out on your own and start shooting at Earthforce troops armed to the teeth with *vastly* more advanced weaponry? On whose behalf? The aliens? The troublemakers? What're we rallying for? Or against? This'll blow over soon, it always does. It never lasts. Right now, just ride it out, wait and see what happens. Who knows...maybe Clark's right? Who wants to be perceived as a traitor?

Those are the thoughts of any populace in this situation. Just as when Yeltsin declared martial law in Moscow, as when Mayor Daly sent in the shock troops in Chicago, on and on.

Here's the number one rule: a population will always stay passive for as long as they perceive that they stand to lose more by opposing the government than by staying quiet. It's when they have little or nothing left to lose that they rise up; the politicos first, then, more reluctantly, the general population.

jms

*****

{ Posted on behalf of Nortrup Kevin <NortrupK@rnd3.indy.tce.com> }

Hey, Joe, why can't *your* sci-fi show finagle a special tribute to itself on an awards show? Or arrange a sketch on late-night TV with Jay Leno on its set, being stupid with one of its characters? Or have two of its principles slum out of a camper in the boondocks, appear between sections of a movie (say, "The Four Seasons") on a Saturday afternoon and make insipid comments about the movie, and have pleas to watch B5 interspersed, disguised as network identification?

And how come you can't manage to produce even a single B5 episode with a tidy, formula plot and a preachy, politically correct moral that's about as subtle as a freight train?

C'mon, Joe, we're in the middle of the 90's -- and in the middle of an election year, to boot. Substance is "out" -- hype, hoopla and horse-hockey are "in". Creative, well-thought storylines; thought-provoking exploration of important issues that resist the urge for easy answers; intense drama and intelligent comedy; insight into individuals and societies; dynamite special effects; complex, three-dimensional yet believable characters, excellently portrayed by top-notch actors: just how far do you think that *these* will take you?

jms' reply:

I strongly suspect that one of us needs to lie down for a long, long time....

jms

*****
Yes, but equally dangerous, Phil, is blindness or self-delusion about real failings and real problems. Each population that marched off to annhilation under a dictatorship did so convinced that their values and their morals and their national fabric was supremely strong.

Pride has a tendency to goeth before a fall.

For additional reading check out "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg." Check out European history. We're not a different species over here on this side of the atlantic; we're just as capable of being foxed as the next guy in another country.

And your notion that the government wasn't responsible for what happened to people during the HUAC period doesn't jibe with the truth. It was the FBI which contacted networks and asked them for lists of anyone considered communist; the FBI who suggested there might be problems unless certain people were removed. It wasn't just people who'd attended Young Communist meetings who were targeted...it was anyone who *knew* anyone who'd been at these things, or had in fact NEVER been to anything like this. People were called before HUAC and asked to *name names*, and if you didn't, then you were hiding something, being uncooperative, facing contempt charges, so you named the names that had been named before, or made up new ones, gave up your buddies or your co workers, whatever was necessary to keep from being jailed or fired.

The problem was worse than just "inaccuracy." It was rooted in meanness and cynicism. I know someone who was asked during the second World War to make short films for the military and the newsreels, and to do radio shows, celebrating the US and the Soviet Union working together to defeat the Nazis. All well and good, right? Well, this same person, after the war, was grey-listed for having produced Communist propaganda MADE AT THE REQUEST OF OUR OWN GOVERNMENT at the time. Meanness. Cynicism.

To be named before HUAC was to instantly get a file at the FBI in your name. As soon as that happened, you could reliably depend on having your phone tapped, your business associates would be questioned, your mail would be intercepted...no, the government didn't say publicly, "don't hire this person," but when all this starts to happen, jobs and reputations disappear. People committed suicide over the destruction of their careers, their *lives* being torn apart. Did McCarthy pull the trigger? No, but the people he targeted are just as dead as if he did.

There's the common assumption that one measures the decline of a democracy in body counts and increasingly inconvenient laws and regulations. But this is symptom, not cause. Laws follow norms, and norms follow values in the political food chain. And the values of HUAC were the values of terror, and spying on your neighbor, and looking for the enemy beneath bedsheets. A democracy, ANY democracy, is based first and foremost on the notion of trust, however flawed, that the person beside you, however different his specific beliefs may be from your own, nonetheless hews to the same notions of liberty, and that when push comes to shove, you will be wiling to lay down your life to protect that person's rights. Take that away in a paroxysm of paranoia, distrust, conspiracies, hearings and vague accusations, and everything else falls apart. The center does not hold.

To question ourselves is not to weaken our democracy, but to strengthen it, because we know precisely what we believe and why we believe it; we're not victims if we learn from our mistakes and thus fail to repeat them. If we *deny* our mistakes, or try to bury them, or rationalize them, then we create the potential for trouble. We are at our most vulnerable when we are the most self-congratulatory and assured. Because then we get blindsided.

"Fact is, the Red Scare tended to get two specific (and fairly small) groups of people, Hollywood actors, writers and executives, and people affiliated with Democratic institutions."

Yes, and the Nazis tended to get two specific (and fairly small) groups of people, jews and communists. So I guess that's okay too.

Any attempt at repression *always* starts by first targeting artists, writers, and intellectuals, the ones in a position to verbalize and explain why what's happening is *wrong*. You want to eliminate, neutralize or destroy their credibility. This is standard operating procedure. That's where it starts, but not always where it ends. To assume that because we've always caught it before means we always *will* is, again, to set yourself up for a fall.

The manipulators always go after an easily identifiable group first, one which they can easily tar with the brush of responsibility for society's problems. We're seeing it again today, writ smaller, in the constant and repeated assaults on Hollywood...attacking the *picture* of the problem rather than the problem itself.

Again, you demonstrate the problem. "Well, it's just these two small groups, really." Then it becomes three groups. Then four. Or you just stay with the two groups...and you harrass, chivvy, destroy, terrorize, humiliate, bankrupt and ultimately lead to the death of many of them. But as long as it's just a couple of small groups, it's not that bad, really.

"Every man's death diminishes me. So ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."

I'd also point out that when HUAC started, it was as the result of accusations that there were commies in the Military and the Pentagon; but when they found that they could get on TeeVee and the Newsreels by bringing in actors...that's what they did. What does it do to a nation starstruck by actors to see these same shining examples of the American dream standing before the cameras and naming names of other actors, business associates, others? You speak of the values of a nation...what effect does that have on our values? What *are* our values if we allow this to take place...or dismiss it after the fact as having hurt only a few people, really.

It did great harm to the fabric of the nation, not in fines or jail sentences, but in the *heart* of the nation, the way we look to one another. Its effects reverberated long after the HUAC hearings stopped. It bred a level of paranoia that when the youth culture of the 60s began to pop up, many of them were instantly categorized as commies; "Go back to russia where you came from" was a common cry to longhairs in that time. Because to dissent was unpatriotic; the only ones who attacked the government were the commies, end of discussion. The parents of kids who were teenagers in the 60s had come through McCarthy, had learned the wrong lessons of citizenship.

No executions? Perhaps Julies and Ethel Rosenberg had some part in spying, maybe they didn't, I don't know if we'll ever know for sure. But the Russians were working on a-bomb technology long before, and records show that they got it pretty much on their own. They were executed as part of the hysteria of the times, their trial a rush to judgment.

No, we're not so weak a nation that McCarthy himself can destroy it; WE destroy it, if we allow ourselves to be convinced to turn one another in, to have the heart and soul of the nation sold out to terror and paranoia. Every nation has within its breast the seeds of its own destruction, within its own population; what some individuals do is water that seed, and fertilize it. If it grows, it grows in us. They don't do it to us, we do it to ourselves. And given the right conditions, the right environment, the right soil...we could do it. Even here.

jms

*****
"Everybody involved in B5 is in it for the money."

Y'know, this with some of your other comments here -- using the old canard of dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as "worshipping" someone who creates or does a TV show -- amounts to some of the most cynical crap I've seen in a long time.

Here's a little revelation for you: Before doing B5, I was a writer producer on MURDER, SHE WROTE. A top-ten (sometimes even top 5) rated megahit for CBS, with extremely high visibility. I resigned M,SW to take on the reins of a syndicated series, which pays me HALF WHAT I EARNED WHEN I WAS ON M,SW. Not only is my producer's fee half what it was when I was at the network, the scripts fees are ALSO far less...about $15,000 as compared to $24,000 for a network script. The residuals are lower in syndication, the publicity budget is less, people pay less attention to you in town.

Now...why don't you just sit down and do the math, and poke your head out of your butt long enough to consider that maybe, MAYBE, some people do something because they're motivated by something other than just being in it "for the money." If I were "in it for the money," I would've stayed with a hit network series for major bucks. If I were "in it for the money" I'd be pushing for more merchandising, I'd *NEVER* have set a ceiling of 5 years on the show, and I'd certainly never want to get away from TV and go back to writing novels when this is all over, since books pay a fraction of TV.

It's truly sad to see the world through your eyes, in which no one does anything for reasons other than THE BUCKS...no story wanting to be told, no art, no music, no committment, nothing other than sheer, naked greed.

Do not mistake cynicism for open-mindedness. Yours is just another form of prejudice. One can be just as close-minded by assuming the worst of others as by (to use your term) "worshipping."

jms

*****
As with any character I create, I tend to peel off a small piece of myself to make the core of it. There are certain aspects of me scattered in all the B5 characters, Delenn in particular. Then you start adding elements that seem to shore up those traits. For Delenn I pulled in some aspects of Zen mysticism, Japanese culture, certain Moslem influences in government and culture (minbar is the name for the pulpit in a mosque)...next comes the layering of history, where she came from, who her parents were, what happened to them (which, btw, you'll hear this season)...where she was when the war started, what she felt about it, what she did at the time, what happened later....

Our personalities are formed in large measure by our history, what we have seen and done and learned. Once you have all those details, you're a long way toward building the character. A character is like a well-reared child, it has aspects of its parents, but is more than just a reflection, and forms its own life after a while.

The final element comes in when you have an actor in the role, and you look at the actor and the character and try to merge them, so the truth of the person behind the name becomes the truth of the character. For Mira, that meant hitting those aspects of Minbari culture which I knew would resonate with her background from the former Yugoslavia. I know that if I put her in the middle of a scene in which she has to deal with her government unraveling, what the actor felt when the real thing began to happen will seep out, whether it's wanted or not. Is it manipulative of the actor? Absolutely. Several of the actors have come to me and noted that the character is hitting something that's very close to them, and how did I know to hit them with this? Half of being a writer is observation.

It's the same reason I assigned David Gerrold to write "Believers," even though he couldn't at first figure out why he, mainly noted for his light comic work, would be given this heavy dramatic story...until he was well into it, and -- having just adopted a young boy -- had to go through the emotional turmoil I wanted those parents to go through.

You have to be part oracle, part counselor, part parent, part boss and partly mad to make this show work....

jms

*****
I think it's fair to say that the shadow war will drag on into at least a portion of the fourth season.

Bear in mind that in the first season, we didn't even know the shadows *existed* until it was almost over. This is more than just the story of this particular war.

jms

*****
Yes, if WB said there's no 5th season, period, end of discussion, the market has gotten too glutted, it won't sustain it...yes, the story could be collapsed into year four. It would just mean omitting some of the personal non-arc episodes, and some segues. There are basically three major movements or themes that occupy the last two years; best is to let them play out at a reasonable pace over two years, but it could be collapsed into one, if that were to ever become necessary.

But obviously that would not be my first choice.

jms

*****

START of the big thing with JMS. (4/20-21, 1996)

At this point, with the rethinking going on back home, he's bethrothed and promised, the marriage arranged, but not yet fully, *formally* married. There's still ritual to go through. The other family could still choose to withdraw the arrangement.

One of the patches is a Ranger patch; the other is the new B5 sword and shield logo.

(BTW, on your web site, could you possibly withhold the synopses -- which are provided to the stations, and not intended for general release -- until a little closer to the episode's airdate? A couple of those you've released have caused a fair amount of consternation, and destroyed some of the impact I'd wanted with those episodes. There's nothing I can do to stop you from posting the information -- though starting with "War" 2 I'm now personally editing the synopses to delete some stuff -- but if you could just hold back even a little, it would help me a lot.)

jms

*****
A Ranger patch? I knew it looked vaguely familiar.

I'm kind of surprised you know about my web site. However, I will honor your wishes and hold back till closer to air time.

You've done so much for TV and my personal enjoyment of it, it's the least I can do to pay you back in some small measure.

Barbara
(BTW, I'm looking forward to seeing you again at the Chgo Comicon in June.)

*****
*Know* about your website? You have no idea....

I had to fend off WB which wanted to come down hard because of the reprinting of material not authorized for distribution, verbatim, on the theory that it's copyright violation, the people at WB PR were *sure* that somehow *I'd* leaked it, there were meetings over this...the actors who found out about it and called, majorly upset, because stuff they'd worked hard on was being broadcast out of context....know about it? Oh, yeah. Definitely.

The problem with the nets, one of a few, is that information is the only real currency. So things get out. I've more or less reconciled myself to that. But believe me, any assistance to help take some of the edge off this is gratefully appreciated.

See you at comic con.

jms

*****
Joe:

First, let me say I had *no* idea I was causing you such trouble. I wish you had let me know sooner. I have the greatest respect for you personally and your dedication to the quality of Babylon 5. I definitely don't want to make your life any more difficult and busy than it already is.

Second, I have changed the web page. I will say, though, that I've received a lot of emails from fans who are amazed at what you have in store. I gave up trying to see the episodes unspoiled about a year ago, but you pack so much into each one, it's still wonderful (in the true sense of the word).

Lastly, >>the people at WB PR were *sure* that somehow *I'd* leaked it<< this is pretty funny. I had to spell check the releases. Babylon wasn't capitalized some of the time, Zathrus was misspelled, and until very recently, they showed Ambassadors Delonn (sic) and Mollad (sic) in the cast list. I know there's no way this would have gotten past you! WB PR needs a good proofreader.

Again, I am sorry if I caused you any problems. Please accept my apology.

Barbara

*****
You don't have to apologize. One reason why I didn't mention this to you before is simply because I try not to be intrusive, not to get in anyone's face about what they do. That people take time out of their lives to promote the show, to build web pages, all of that...is really quite extraordinary, and I would be a jerk if I sat here and criticized it or harangued someone about a part of it.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate your sensitivity in this, and thank you again for all you've done.

jms

*****
9) imbalance in the Grey Council

Will be dealt with this season.

10) the Underground Railroad

Will be elaborated upon and brought to the fore later this season.

11) Lady Morella's vision

C'mon..."unresolved?" It was only mentioned for the first time in the last new episode. Gimme some time here, I'm dancing as fast as I can.

(Some more on this later this season.)

12) What Kosh really looks like

More on this later this season, in an important way.

13) Sinclair not the One, but he will be

Dealt with this season.

14) Delenn's "cramps"

In the fullness of time.

15) Londo's prophetic dream

More this season, in detail.

16) Where Bester stands (to be decided in Ship of Tears, later this year!)

Yes, this season.

17) Minbari souls

Also this season.

See, this is the thing that I have to shake my head at when people use terms like "unresolved plot lines" or "dropped threads;" the story ain't done yet. You only use that term when you've finished the book, and stuff is left hanging. We're only midway through the book -- not even that yet in what's been broadcast -- it's a little premature to start announcing threads or plots as unresolved. There's an ebb and flow to the threads, they're brought in and out as needed.

You can't reference every single thread in the show in every episode, or you'd just have an hour of people sitting around and reciting updates on all the various positions.

I don't like leaving loose threads hanging around. And I don't. We will hear more about Na'Toth soon, because it's time to mention that again, as an important storyline element. (Somebody commented that it's being mentioned because folks have been asking...no, I don't work that way. It's been asked for ages now. People have been asking for n'grath, and I ain't moving on that one. The few who've tossed this my way, that because they asked they forced me to deal with it, are like the roosters who think their sounds at morning are directly responsible for the sunrise.)

In any event, to this issue...be patient. This isn't about immediate gratification. There's a certain pacing in the show in the ways in which story elements come and go, which would be more apparent if the show were being broadcast more steadily, without breaks. Yeah, there've been two months almost since Lady Morella's prophecy, but there *haven't even been any new episodes aired yet*, and it was only aired in the last new epsiode out of the blocks, so how can it be a dropped plotline?

At the beginning of year one, a lot of folks were saying, "Where's the arc? Huh? Where's this `overarching storyline' we've been led to expect? Huh? It ain't here." Then they saw it bigtime starting with "Sky," and eventually realized that some elements of what they were seeing had ALREADY STARTED the arc...they just hadn't realized it until they looked back. "Oh, yeah...THERE it was."

Others said, "What happened to that alien ship that blew up the Raiders in "Signs?" They were just thrown in there to shake things up, and then they dropped it, I hate it when shows do that. It's a cheat." Oh, you mean the SHADOW VESSEL that has now formed the main core of year three and a lot of year two?

In this list of "unresolved plot lines" I haven't yet seen one that we're not either dealing with, or planning to deal with shortly. I would suggest we perhaps table this approach until the work is done, since only at that time can you say, positively, "THIS is an unresolved plot line," since we've hit the resolution of the story then. Until then, it's an exercise in "who didn't cross the finish line?" halfway through the marathon.

jms

*****
Joe:

I've got you now, Great Maker! Bwah-ha-ha!

Let me explain... No, there is too much; let me sum up.

Myself and two friends (Tate and Kane, if'n anyone wishes to know...) got together to watch "Severed Dreams." We were all suitably impressed; please see this week's <Rage's Thots:SD> in [B5:Upcoming].

After a huge long discussion re: Bab5 in general, ItSoZ, DtD, and the triptych (MfE, PoNR, & SD] in particular, Kane mentioned the fact he had all of Season 2 on tape. So we watched "Geometry of Shadows," "Soul Mates," and the Dream Sequence from "All Alone in the Night."

Now, here's the rub: Pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place for me in regards to that strange little snippet. I think I have the answer.

SPOILER/SPECULATION SPACE

1
2

Johnny's Dream is a dialogue with Kosh, much like G'kar's in "Dust to Dust." All words not spoken by Johnny *are* spoken by Kosh. It's just that Johnny's brain, not being "quiet" enough to see/hear truly, adds "signal noise" to the communication, filling in and rounding out the discussion with impressions, suspicions, and memories, until his mind is indeed "quiet" enough to see Kosh qua Kosh.

The first thing said to him is "Shhh," an admonition to remain quiet, so as to maintain communication.

"Do you know who I am?" - Kosh asking if Sheridan knows it's Kosh, but at this point Johnny's thinking he really doesn't know much about Susan, a very private person, much like Kosh.

He sees himself, this possible being a question to himself along the lines of "Am I dreaming?"

"The man in-between is searching for you." He sees Garibaldi who has ties to someone/ something Johnny hasn't figured out yet, but Kosh is bluntly telling him someone specific (my money's on Sinclair) is looking for someone like him.

"You are the Hand." Kosh telling him his role. Somehow, this reminds Johnny of the situation of Ivanova's mother. Perhaps "You are the hand that killed her?" She's dressed in mourning, while Johnny is wearing a Psicop uniform. But only for that one snip...

Then his mind *is* quiet enough to see Kosh qua Kosh & the "I have always been here" schtick.

I think I gotcha on the ropes, Joe.

Rage
Ranger of Washingdome
"Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them." -- Montaigne, "Of Experience," _Essays_.

jms' reply:

Not bad....

jms

*****

I hate to sound like a "gushing fanboy," but having just seen SD, all I can say is -- You, sir, are one hell of a storyteller! I'm looking forward to rewinding the tape, watching SD again, and then watching all three parts in a row.

And my congrats to Bruce and Mira, too. While everyone was wonderful, Bruce did a fantastic job showing the pain behind the decisions he had to make, and the personal cost of those decisions.

And Mira? Well, let's just say that it's great to see the fire we suspected was inside Delenn all along finally come to the surface. Her delivery of the speeches to the Gray Council and the EA ships was just *perfect*. And the look in her eyes? All I can say is I'm glad she's on "our" side. <g>

Delenn made a serious understatement when she told G'Kar, "You've changed a lot in the 4 years I've known you" (or words to that effect). He's not the only one that's changed a lot...
*****

Thanks, and yes, there's definitely fire and steel in Delenn, which she calls upon when she needs it. And nobody crosses her when that happens.

jms

*****

Joe,
I've watched Severed Dreams several times now. What can I say? WOW! I add
my voice to the chorus of accolades you will be receiving over this episode.
Is this your best to date? It's becoming harder for me to tell. Definitely
one of, if not "the" best. So many episodes have been so good.

You and your entire crew (actors, special effects, casting - EVERYONE) must
be extremely proud of this masterpiece - as well as a little aprehensive -
how do you top this?? I have no idea but I have faith that you will find a
way. You always do. I don't know how, but you always do. Don't stop now (I
know you won't). Wow!!!

I could say this is a wonderful culmination of the events leading up to it,
and IT IS, but I sense it's just a stepping stone to whatever is coming.
I can't wait. The music that played in the final scene of the "Traitors
Can't Hide" poster was absolutely chilling. And, fortelling. But, who are
the traitors? Conventional wisdom would be the Major (I forgot his name,
Hague's successor), Sheridan, Ivanova, Garibaldi, etc. for breaking from
Earth Gov. But, what of the Grey Council members that broke from the council
to side with Delenn? Traitors to what had been their ruling body? What
about those who stayed behind, that turned their back on the other races; we
don't know enough about Minbari prophesy but it seems like the "stay behinds"
are traitors to it. What of Clark himself, a traitor to the Earth Alliance
constitution (add Night Watch and Psi Corp to that list). Lots of avenues to
hunt down the "traitors that can't hide" - even presuming that the poster
forshadowed (someones) tracking down (some traitors). Lots of potential for
future events - boggles my mind just to ponder it. (Cruddy analogy but...)
The sweater that holds together our B5 Universe is definitely unravelling!

Although we've only known him for a minute or two, I'm also worried about
Sheridan's father - guilty by association (good casting, well acted; I'm
constantly amazed by the performances of supporting actors like him; in
acting terminology it may have been a small part, but he played it "big").
That man is no simple farmer. Somehow I suspect Clark, Nightwatch, etc.
would love to use him to get to John - providing events allow them to free up
the resources to pursue John's dad. Hopefully they'll be too busy with Mars,
B5, and the other rebels to turn their focus to Sheridan's dad. He/we
couldn't be so lucky. I truly hope Sheridan's Dad's neighbors do put up
quite a fight should that happen. Probably won't be enough, but at least
he'd go down fighting and it could help distract Clark's troops? (I hope
this does not tread too close to the dreaded "story line infringement", I do
NOT want to cause copyright problems for you).

I loved the ISN's tease - "there's a lot that's happened that we haven't been
allowed to tell you" - but then no time to do so. (Aaaaaargh!!!). I hope we
find out more of that in the episodes to come. "The Shadows are on the move"
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!). I guess their (Shadows) time of
quiet preparation is over? Does not bode well. "None of us is safe".
Chills running up and down my spine (whooooooooooh).

To say this was a "barn burner", a "gut wrencher" is a gross understatement.
Action yes (HELL YES!!!), but also awsome character development. Capt.
Hiroshi's last act of kamakazi heroism brought tears to my eyes -
especially since you'd taken the time to introduce her too us. Watching the
Narn sacrificing themselves against the incoming marines did the same. One
after another shot down like ... targets in a shooting gallery ... yet they
came right on coming - the marines could not shoot fast enough to take them
all out. And, to defend another race nonetheless. G'Kar truly appears to
have them on a religous mission - bigger than themselves. Delenn was "dead
on", this is not the G'Kar we met three years ago.

Corwin was a pleasant suprise. After Ivanova's initial assessment of him a
few episodes back (probably can't trust/rely on him), I thought he might "toe
the party line" coming from Earth Gov - "how can we disobey our president?".
I thought he (Corwin's actor) played the role well - nervous, tense, perhaps
not sure he's doing the right thing - or perhaps sure but just very
aprehensive over the consequences, or just plain uneasy over the whole
mess, likely all of the above. Definitely not comfortable but, who would
would be? I loved his response to Ivanova's asking whether he was ok. His
body language was not congruent - did not convey a lot of confidence in his
"yes" but, he did hang in there and did perform. When the "stuff" hit the
fan, he did not flinch, he rose to the occasion. His character grew some by
these events.

When the gang were conferring early in the episode (Major, Capt. Hiroshi,
Ivanova, Sheridan) - I loved the close in focus on Sheridan with the
background conversations. I could almost see/hear the wheels turning in
John's head ("this is it, no turning back, time for "the" decision, it's in
my hands, -my- decision" - replaying events up to that point, wrestling with
alternatives, "are there alternatives?" - just plain numb over the weight
of these events? in shock?). The weight of his decision, "not just us" - a
quarter of a million people. He may be only a Captain, but there's no doubt
he's in charge, a true leader. And the support of his team, round the table
all agreed to fight. Somber, committed, aware of the weight of their
decisions but pressing on regardless. Tough decisions made by tough people.
This is the fiction legends are made of.

The drama, the tension, the emotional roller coaster: Good thing the battle
ended when it did, B5 couldn't take much more of this, jump gates opening,
more Earth Gov. ships, situation hopeless - surrender or die? enter Delenn
with the Calvary. The ("pitbull"?) look in Delenn's eyes was priceless, and
her dialog (paraphrasing) "the ONLY earth captain to survive a battle with
the Minbari is behind me, you are in front of me, if you value your lives, be
somewhere else". Total congruence between her demeanor and words. Not a
shred of doubt she meant it. Not a shred of doubt she could and would back
up her threat. They knew it, turned tail and ran. (Yeesssss!!!!!). I don't
know how to say what follows without the words sounding offensive or sexist
but I can't think of better words. Being sexist or offensive is not my
intent, I thoroughly respect and admire the character of Delenn and these
words are a feeble intent to share that admiration. Anyway, here goes...
Delenn can be 100% hardened-steel cold fury bitch when the situation demands
it. It did, she was, it worked. I am in awe of her character and the acting
behind it. And, then, to turn around and be friendly & affectionate to
Sheridan. Well done Mira!! If I ever get in a fight with Delenn, remind me
to be on her side. I do not want to tangle with that wildcat. Well done!

I found the hand-to-hand combat scene, and the bodies afterwards troubling.
I don't mean that in a "don't put scenes like that in there" sense. The
scene belonged and was effective. Conflict is troubling. I mean troubling
in the sense that the scene worked so well. War between spaceships is one
thing, just pieces of technology shooting each other and breaking up. Easy
to forget there are people inside. But, seeing those people violently
bashing each other with guns, wrestling with each other, shooting each
other. Then, seeing the aftermath - dead bodies, broken bodies shaking and
moaning, our fallen heroes (Garabaldi). A side to war TV seldom shows.
Ugly. But, "up front and close" war is ugly. I thought you portrayed that
well. Not grusomely graphic (e.g. no broken bones poking out of skin) but
violent and graphic enough. I'm particulary dumbstruck (wrong word but I
can't find the right one) over the major's civil war-like comment of "this is
the first war where we've known the people we're killing" - having met the
other captain, his wife, his children, his cat. These are friends and
colleagues killing each other. "What do I tell his and Hague's wives?"
Tragic. Sad. Insane. You've done an effective job of showing us the
"people" side of war, the brutality, the casualties. (the first time I
wrote previous sentance I wrote "nice job" instead of "effective job" but -
this was definitely NOT nice and should not have been nice, it was
appropriately ... well ... er ... troubling).

I'm rambling, so much to talk about. So much story, action, and character
development crammed (and I do mean CRAMMED) into such a short time slice. I
marvel at your achievement. You have taken B5 so far above my expectations
for "other" TV, I am in your debt. I can only hope that "other TV" will
eventually rise to the new standards you are setting - moving target that
that is. Joe, you and your team are definitely definitely getting the hang
of this "TV Stuff" <biiig grin>.

One of the gentlemen I work with confided that after he first watched
Severed Dreams he could not get to sleep afterwards. Troubling and a tribute
to your storytelling.

My sincere congratulations, thanks and admiration to EVERYONE involved in
this episode, the episodes leading up to it, and the episodes that will
follow. You all are taking your craft to a higher plain.

-- Rick Sharon

*****

All I'll say here is that there were *so* many EFX here that we mixed the episode a few days before delivery, and got it down there 2 hours before the process for uplinking the episode to stations. It was the hardest thing we've ever done...but it was worth it.

jms

*****
I declined to answer this privately because I'm really and honestly leery of spreading, or trying to spread, or being perceived as trying to spread my own notions about. What works for me, works for me; your mileage may (and obviously does) vary. What I do or don't believe shouldn't enter into it. That's why I've deliberately left it *out* of the show. Otherwise you're not telling a story anymore, you're engaging in propagandxa. But if you're going to press the issue....

As a writer, I don't feel it's my obligation to be fair to every group on the planet. That way madness lies. But I do feel that it is my absolute obligation to be *honest* in my portrayal of any group, as well as I am able to perceive it. If I write about a Minbari, then I must be as honest I can in addressing who that character is, what he feels, what he believes, and so on.

So why should it seem such a leap that, as an atheist, I do the same when it comes to religion? I suppose the question itself is the truly astonishing thing...that it should seem strange or unusual to be even handed and at least *try* to be honest. Have we dropped so much as a culture that the absence of pushing one's own agenda, and giving an honest hearing of someone else's viewpoint, is considered extraordinary?

"The weaving of religion and scifi in your show is so well done. Where does it come from then?" It comes from the characters who believe in whichever religion is under consideration. If I am fairly rigorous in presenting the scientific or extrapolative aspects of the show, what then is odd about this other part?

As a writer, it's my obligation to put myself in the mind of my characters, and feel what they feel, and while I'm in their head, believe what they believe. If I do my job right, I offer those opinions and thoughts and feelings with conviction, sincerity and strength.

Also, bear in mind that the religious impulse is not that far removed from the sense of wonder of a scientist on unlocking a particularly thorny DNA code. (Note: science and religion are NOT the same thing, their methodologies are diametrically opposed, and creationism is NOT science, and evolution is NOT religion, however much some might wish to make it so by saying it is.) The emotion is the core truth of it all, what it *feels* like. We've all experienced the sense of wonder in one form or another; it's no major task to translate it to another venue.

The religious impulse, and the scientific impulse, both spring from the same source...the desire to answer the questions, Who am I? What am I doing here? and Where am I going? Those had to be the very first questions we began asking when we became sentient, and we're still asking them. The supernatural or religious approach to that question came first; the scientific approach much later. The scientific approach is, "How can I figure out the answer to the question?" The religious impulse leads you to, "Who can tell me the answer to the question?"

The one approach is not intrinsically better than the other; they feed very different needs. And the whole point of *asking* the question is to feed that particular emotional need for an answer. You find the venue that most matches the wellspring of your desire. They serve vastly different functions, are not comparable, but are no less valid experiences for those involved. The core feeling of a scientist on receiving the first images from the surface of Mars are not far removed from the feelings of the newly converted upon stepping forth at a revival meeting. Each gets what he *needs*. And each is an honorable pursuit within its own framework.

"What brought you to the conclusion that there is no god?" That I haven't yet seen one in any of our "holy books" that deserved the name; not one that wasn't afflicted by the same jealousies, pettinesses, irrationalities and meannesses of the average human. I've met many humans who were better and nobler than some so-called deities, who sacrified their limbs, their fortunes or their lives without the sure knowledge that they would end up on the great white throne of heaven for doing so.

"Do you believe that we are all here due to one happy (or unhappy) accident?" My belief doesn't enter into it. The best physical evidence indicates that we evolved ourselves up from the ground, pulling ourselves up by our genetic bootstraps across a million years of struggle, evolution and blood, surviving because we were smarter than anything that was stronger than us. This, to me, is something to be proud of; we did it ourselves, we weren't just created whole and complete, all the work pre-assembled at the factory. We walked on the moon because we *earned* it by growing smart, and learning -- in however inconsistent and fractured a way -- to live and work together more often than we fought with each other.

"From your perspective -- what is the meaning of life?" As an atheist, I believe that we get just one ride on the merry-go-round, one shot at the brass ring before they close the park. That's it. As a result, I view life as being *incredibly* precious, a resource rarer than any jewel. A resource that must be protected, nourished, put one step further along the road to a better road. What we leave behind, our only shot at immortality, is the work we leave, the accomplishments that hold their place in the record books long after we've turned to dust, so that our names have meaning. In 50 years, nobody will care much what religion Jonas Salk subscribed to; they will care only that he cured a terrible disease, and made the world a better place.

If we believe we are immortal, then we have wiggle-room to screw up, because we'll get another chance; to waste our lives on the theory that as long as we believe a certain way, it doesn't matter if we do anything of consequence, we're guaranteed an eternity of harp music. If we believe the world will be swallowed by armageddon in a few years, then there's no reason to protect the planet, plan for the future, find a comfortable balance between nature and industry, so that we can achieve the stars without destroying the planet.

I don't have that luxury, and a luxury it is. So I find my version of immortality in the words, and in the work, and in the memory of those I may touch, or help, or instruct, or entertain.

You may not operate that way. And that's fine. It's our differences that make us human, and our humanity that makes us endlessly interesting.

jms

*****
No, so far, I'd say your analysis was quite good. To some extent, you also have to go outside strict Greek storytelling structure in terms of saga and also go into classic Greek theater, especially the tragedies.

In that particular form, a character may have a destiny, or there's a prophecy, and the character does all he can to avoid that destiny, but everything he does only brings him closer to it. Certainly there's a lot of that in Londo, for instance.

There's also the thematic issues of hubris, of the descent into the underworld, the oracle, and other elements of Greek and general mythic storytelling.

jms

*****
Yes, I'm often intrigued -- don't know if I'd say astonished -- at how the story is sometimes interpreted. But that's the interactive part of the process, what the viewer takes away is sometimes only indirectly the result of what's actually *there*. Take modern art for a moment. You show me a white canvas broken only by a single red dot in the lower left hand corner, I see a single red dot in the lower left hand corner of a white canvas, nod and walk away...somebody else takes a look at it, and sees a telling commentary on isolationism and the Communist scare of the 50s and man's basic inhumanity to man.

Anything that passes for art reflects the work's creator, and the viewer; it's a mirror that works in two directions, and neither reflection holds the totality of the work individually. Art happens in the moments in-between.

jm(could I possibly sound more effete?)s

*****

Actually, Sebastian said that bit about dying alone to both Sheridan and Delenn. Who knows, he may have known something....

Yes, if Kosh had run, which wasn't in his character in the first place, someone else would've paid that price.

Londo still has chances, if he doesn't blow them. You'll see a bit more about this in the two-parter.

Yes, some Vorlons do appear to us as female versions.

jms
*****

"Here's a different kind of question for you: When you sit down to work, I know you're not entirely in charge - the characters are - but how do you participate? When I write fiction (admittedly not often), it either flows out onto the page as though someone else were using my hands on the keyboard, or nothing happens at all, no matter how long I sit there. You don't seem to have any "nothing" time. Did you *develop* a sustainable creative process, or were you just always this way? In short, can you train - or at least successfully invite - the Muse, and how do you do it?"

Hard to say...it's like any muscle, the more you use it, the easier it gets to use. I think a part of it stems from the fact that I have very little in the way of barriers between me and the writing. Too many people who want to be writers feel that when they sit behind the keyboard, they have to do something different or other...that somehow WRITING has an overlay of some sort, that it's different than talking. But in many ways, it ain't any different.

The best writing (IMO) is natural writing, where the words on the page flow very naturally, very smoothly. Every once in a while, you pull out all the stylistic tricks, you thunder and lightning all over the page, when needed for effect...but it's the writing free of artifice that seems, for me, to work well. If you hang out with writers long enough, the really *good* ones, you learn soon enough that most of them talk exactly the way they write.

Lemme give you a forinstance...when Asimov was first struggling as a writer, he had lunch with his agent one day. He was having a hard time describing things, using language to paint pictures. The agent said, "You know how Hemingway would describe the sun rising in the morning?" No, Asimov said, leaning in...how? "The sun rose in the morning."

There's virtually nothing between my brain and the keyboard; I'm hardwired that way, which is why I can't dictate scripts...I write through my fingers. I write pretty much the way I talk. A lot of folks hereabouts have seen me at conventions, and they've noted that the me you see here is pretty much the me they see there, and the me that's just *there* all the time.

If you stop thinking about *trying to write*, and just write...the way you have to stop thinking about the next step you make, and just *dance*...the way you have to forget about technique and just make love...it all comes together. You don't Try To Write. You just write.

As for story ideas...it's just nothing I've ever had a problem with. As long as your characters are all distinct personalities, the stories you write will be as distinct and different as they are. Find out who the character is, what he wants, how far he'll go to achieve it, and how far somebody else will go to stop him...and the rest takes care of itself.

jms

*****
That's the hard part, the doing. Lots of folks have ideas, but they flit, or they don't have the discipline to sit down behind a keyboard and just *do it* for the requisite number of hours per day. And that's the one thing neither I nor anyone else can help or advise with. It's what Marcus said: patience, determination, direction and strength.

And to quote somebody else, sometimes some people mistake a passion for reading for a desire to write. They're wholly different impulses.

Writers write. It's what they do. If you're struggling to do it, maybe it's part of your brain throwing roadblocks in front of you to try and tell you something. Maybe it's a lack of discipline, or attention span, or something deeper, a concern about finishing, or some other area.

I dunno...this is one area where I can't advise worth a damn, because I've never had this problem. It's Heinlein's (and Ellison's) rules of writing: you must write, you must finish what you write, you must put it on the marketplace, and you must keep it on the marketplace until sold. Sometimes we get caught by the *idea* of a story, but to actually finish writing it, the *execution* of that idea, takes a great deal of work, and if the basic idea is already down there, the impetus to write it, the steam feeding the machine, evaporates quickly. Only a conscious decision to finish the damned thing can carry you the rest of the way, a commitment to follow through on the craft of the STORYTELLING.

It's the difference between two kinds of people who talk about how they met their respective spouses. One says "at a party," the other says, "at Bob's part in Toluca Lake, and she was wearing a red dress, and I couldn't take my eyes off her until I got her alone for a minute." Idea vs. execution, telling the idea vs. telling the *story*.

jms

*****

Joe:

I thought you should see this. It's off Usenet, but not posted to the moderated group, so you wouldn't see it, normally. The author is Peronet Despeignes.

--------

...The important thing is this: at its best, B5 consistently exhibits an
attention to detail and a respect for the tragic elements of life that
ST,for all of its improvements over the last season, too often fails to
represent. I suspect B5, like TOS before it, will not only survive but
transcend its shortcomings and thrive in spite of them. Here's why...

At its best, B5 represents an uncertainty about how much worse things will
get rather than a comfortable belief in things eventually returning to
normal over smiles, quiet laughs and hot cocoa after the battle's over.
It's about slowly wading through the thick muck of ugly tensions instead
of backslaps and handshakes between the warring parties when an individual
episode comes to an end. It's something beyond antiseptic portrayals of
main characters visibly confident that they'll survive the season no matter
what happens.

B5 is not about
two-ships-passing-in-the-night-firing-slow-intermittent-glorified-cannonballs-at-one-another.
Its about several swarms of metallic worker bees degenerating from fixed
formations into chaotic interactions along three dimensions.

B5 is a relentless barrage of painful hesitations, difficult
judgements,terrible miscalculations, aborted detentes, paralyzing fears
and grudging resignation to the demands of necessity. It's a man biting
his lower lip as he pulls the trigger.

B5 is a long, drawn out camera pan over a landscape of battered carcasses
at the end of an undesired firefight; B5 is a confrontation between an
organized conspiracy of insecurity and a disorganized, insecure conspiracy
of competing interests; B5 is a council leader whose gesture of greeting
is welcomed with weapons fire; B5 is a dying emperor and a targeted
president entertaining wild and pretentious ambitions of a peace neither
will survive; B5 is a command staff in command of very little, anxious,
confused, bewildered, in mild disarray; B5 is a head of security unable
to protect himself; B5 is a medical officer suffering from an illness he
cannot treat; B5 is an ambassador and a people wildly chasing vague hopes
of an elusive grandeur to will fill the voids of moral decay; B5 is an
ambassador whose efforts at strengthening the ties that bind two species
are rewarded with the scorn of both; B5 is a war-hardened diplomat-soldier
cowering like a baby against the wall of a hallway, tears in his eyes,
fragile hopes betrayed, disheveled, demoralized...angry; B5 is a
submissive, hesitant and otherwise insignificant subordinate with a rare
courage to vainly declare the unspoken, mitigate the irreprable, and speak
to the face of an enemy the words "I'm sorry."

B5 is about the death of important characters; it's about the lingering
threat of impending death hovering over *all* of the main characters
*all*of the time; it's about people succumbing to petty selfishness; its
about consequences, repercussions, enduring tensions, irony, things going
bad just when characters thought they couldn't get any worse. It's about
quasi-protagonists who, more often than not, act as recalcitrant puppets
reluctantly dancing to the tune of forces beyond their control. It's about
the frayed-yet-sturdy conviction of an individual where institutions have
failed. It's about the universe as you once knew it going straight to
hell.

Its about the primacy of fear, prejudice and self-interest over
last-ditch, heartfelt appeals to reason, open-mindedness and sacrifice for
the greater good. Its the loud, united thunderclap of euphoria celebrating
a signed treaty contrasted with the quiet, lonely sobs signalling the
wake of its failure. Its about dealing with life as it is, not life as we
wish it could be or life as we may have once envisioned it. B5 is about
severed dreams-- the death of grandiose visions-- and the effort to adjust
and build new ones. B5 is about the turmoil of the human condition and
the struggle to transcend it- about a long twilight struggle against the
lesser angels of our nature.

Make no mistake. B5 is no "line drawn against the darkness;" it is no"line
in the sand" drawn against some dark and nefarious nemesis, some
well-defined and unabashedly evil enemy, some clear, present and external
danger.

B5 is a near-hopeless holding action against the bland and indifferent
avalanche of inevitability. B5 won't die. Babylonians, armed with weapons
of telecommunication that TOS viewers and Roddenberry himself could have
only dreamed of, simply wont let that happen. Any possibility of
cancellation would engender a viewer movement for reinstatement unseen in
the world of television since...say...the 1960s when the first ST series
was experiencing some of the same travails. B5's strength is beyond
numbers, beyond ratings, beyond pragmatic and jaundiced assessments of
its commercial viability.

It's bigger than you. It's bigger than all of us. Frankly, it's bigger
than JMS, himself.

This is about an immense yearning (however inchoate) heretofore untapped,
for a serious, organic, well-integrated, meaningful, realistic portrayal
of the struggle of life with sci-fi as the metaphor, vehicle and medium.
This is about the exploration of archetypes that have helped us to define
the human condition. This is about a sci-fi novel with moving pictures.
It's a deliberate focus on the painful duality of human nature and the
incredible darkness underlying it.

It is not about a mere agglomeration of television episodes or some
line-item on a ratings list or about a mere collection of aliases on an
internet newsgroup or about some staff stationed in Hollywood.This is a
leviathan, immensely bigger than the sum of its parts.

My fellow Lurkers, this...thing...is alive.

-------
*****

I wouldn't say Cabaret was my favorite movie of all time, but it's certainly one of my tops, and that one scene, "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" still scares the hell out of me.

If I had to delineate my favorite films overall, they'd be Seconds, They Might Be Giants, Forbidden Planet, The Stuntman, A Christmas Story, The Empire Strikes Back, Cabaret, Failsafe, Seven Days in May, Aliens, All That Jazz, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Glory, The Haunting of Hill House, Road Warrior, Terminator 1 and 2, The Natural, Network, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phantom of the Paradise, When Worlds Collide, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, The Shootist, War of the Worlds, Stalag 17, and The Time Machine.

Those are films I can watch again and again and never get bored with them. Lao is a particular favorite, it's just a beautiful film. I tend to love films that break your heart or make it soar, or both at the same time, like Glory, or Giants.

jms

*****

All I can say for now is that WB has asked us to make a presentation to them on a possible sequel; this has been done. They've now asked us to go to the next step of making a demo reel. In addition, there's some very exciting stuff going on with TNT that I can't talk about yet, but hope to be able to do so soon.

jms

*****

I don't think there's really a difference. (Also, philosophically, I think one can be experienced and still retain a certain measure of innocence, but that's another discussion for another time.) I think we all have that part of ourselves which wishes to believe, needs to believe in a cause or in other people , however many times experience slaps us in the face with the contrary position...and there is always the part which is tired and weary and burned out and refuses to trust again. We are all these things at different moments. The difference with writers is that we must be those different things on command, and articulate those feelings through the voices of our characters as they experience them in new contexts.

jms
*****

RESPONSIBILITY AND FORGIVENESS
An analysis of Babylon 5
by Brent Barrett
(bbarrett@speedlink.com)
http://www.speedlink.com/bbarrett/b5/

In this long summer re-run period, I've been re-watching all of Babylon 5, a couple of episodes every other day, from the pilot to "War Without End." As with anyone who views Babylon 5 episodes more than once, I've picked up new things here and there that weren't obvious on first viewing. In addition to that interesting outcome of the viewings, I've also come to appreciate some episodes more than ever.

In particular, "Passing Through Gethsemane" and "A Late Delivery from Avalon" have struck new chords with me. Upon first viewing, I took them at face-value; a definite mistake with a Straczynski script, I've come to learn.

When I watched "Passing Through Gethsemane" initially, I saw what most of us undoubtedly saw: The story of a man, his memories and personality wiped from his mind, tormented by his own memories and vengeful people intent on making him remember, making him suffer, making him pay for his crimes. I'm sure most of us caught the undertone of responsibility and forgiveness presented in that story.

Likewise, when I watched "A Late Delivery from Avalon" for the first time, I saw the story of a man, so caught up in self-blame and feeling so responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of humans (not to mention quite a few Minbari), that he wiped his own personality and memories and replaced them with those of a legend who lived almost two thousand years previously. Again, we were shown the issues of responsibility and forgiveness. Very common themes in the entirety of Babylon 5.

But, as I said, Joe never can leave well enough alone; he always gives us something more, just under the surface -- there, if we are just willing to see it. In this analysis, I hope to examine what I believe I see flowing in the undercurrents of these stories and others. Something which speaks of possible pain, forgiveness, and loss of innocence in the future for two very important characters in the story: Delenn and John Sheridan.

DELENN AND RESPONSIBILITY

My reviewing of Babylon 5 to date has shown me several important new things about the characters in this wonderful epic. In particular, I've been drawn to the number of clues we've been given about Delenn's hidden fears and, more specifically, her hidden past.

From the start, we've known that there is far more to Delenn than we were told in dialogue. In "Babylon Squared," we learn that she is so respected, so admired by her people that they decided to make her their leader. By virtue of dialogue in that episode, we learn that the level of potential power she possesses is so great that she can summon the Grey Council and reject their offer of leadership. This is amplified by the actions of her fellow Satai at the end of that same episode, when he trusts in her destiny such that he presents her with one of the three holiest of objects to the Minbari: A Triluminary.

Later, in "Points of Departure," we learn (via flashback) that Delenn had authority enough to pause the assault on Earth and request that a human be taken aboard the Grey Council cruiser for examination and interrogation. This evidence goes a long way toward showing us that Delenn has been held in high regard within the leadership structure of the Minbari for some time.

In "Severed Dreams," we learn, though Delenn's own words, that she was chosen of Dukhat to replace him. Her authority on that Grey Council cruiser just after the dying Minbari leader, a person extremely well respected by his people, named her his heir, must have been immeasurable.

In just the next episode, "Ceremonies of Light and Dark," we learn of the madness that filled the Minbari upon Dukhat's death. But, more importantly, we also learn that the Minbari follow one person and act as a whole. It's strange for Delenn to make reference to the Minbari people following one person when she describes their war against the humans. If one person were in a position to lead the Minbari people at that time, who would it have been? Delenn.

When Delenn spoke of her people going mad together, I believe she must've been speaking of her own madness at the time -- a madness brought on by the death of her mentor, her friend, her leader. When she spoke of waking from that madness, I got the impression that she, herself, awoke from her own madness at that time. Perhaps we witnessed that awakening in the flashback in "Points of Departure."

SHERIDAN AND FORGIVENESS

In "Passing Through Gethsemane", John is presented with a situation in which forgiveness plays an integral part. Brother Edward spoke of forgiving his murderers for doing what they had to do. In the tag of that episode, we hear John and Theo discuss forgiveness:

"Where does revenge end and justice begin? Forgiveness is a hard
thing, isn't it, Theo?"

"I don't think anything can ever be more difficult."

And later in that same scene, after seeing Edward's murderer in the guise of the new Brother Malcom, Theo reminds John of the pain of forgiveness:

"You must excuse the Captain, Malcom. You interrupted his train
of thought. I believe you were saying that forgiveness is a hard
thing, but something ever to strive for. Were you not, Captain?"

"Yes . . . yes, I was."

Sheridan is being taught a very important lesson about forgiveness: That while painful, it brings with it a new start and a new hope for something better. Life is terribly precious, and it's wrong to squander it on hatred and revenge.

Given what we know of John's reaction to his wife's apparent death at the hands of the Shadows -- his decision not to take out revenge on Morden or act rashly against the Shadows, but to let Morden go, to keep the secret, to do the right thing -- we know that he was already inclined not to follow the destructive path of revenge and hatred. He may well be faced, soon, with more than one situation in which he is forced to choose between hatred and forgiveness.

DELENN AND FORGIVENESS

In "Passing Through Gethsemane", we see Delenn and Michael Garibaldi discuss his beliefs about capital punishment. When he states that he's an "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth kinda guy," she equates it with a belief in a system that would leave everyone blind and toothless. She feels a bit smug in her analysis of what she believes to be the wrong attitude toward forgiveness, until Garibaldi returns the comment with, "Not everyone. Just the bad guys."

You can see the internal torment on her face as she tries to give a little smile in response to Garibaldi's come-back. She realizes that he may well consider her one of the "bad guys," if he were to ever discover her secrets. Both in regard to the Shadows and her role in the Earth Minbari War, in which he was a soldier.

And later in that episode, in the most dramatic and poignant moment of all to me, Delenn listens to Brother Edward explain the defining moment of his belief: Christ's night in the Garden at Gethsemane. As he describes Christ's anguish and ultimate self-sacrifice, look at Delenn's face. Look at her reactions. She's not so much thinking about Christ as she is about herself. When Edward says that he doesn't know if he would have had the courage to wait for his fate -- to accept his responsibility, you can see in Delenn's eyes that she's been wondering the same thing.

In a very short and touching scene in "A Late Delivery from Avalon", a scene in which not a word is spoken, but pages of dialogue are said, we see Delenn forgive the human who fired the shot that killed her mentor, her friend, her leader: Dukhat. It's clear from that act, and from all of Delenn's behavior to that point, that she understands the importance of forgiveness.

Later, in "Sic Transit Vir," we see a Delenn so crushed by the feeling of responsibility that she willingly faces G'Kar, alone and defenseless, and admits her part in the deception that cost G'Kar's people their world and millions of innocent lives. While she admits her responsibility, she desperately wants G'Kar to forgive her for her actions. He doesn't, and she's visibly shaken.

It's quite clear that Delenn will be forced, soon, to ask for forgiveness yet again. This time, for keeping secrets about the Shadows, secrets about the likelihood that Anna Sheridan is still alive, and secrets about her role in the Earth Minbari War. To whom will she look for forgiveness? We can only wait and see what Straczynski will present to us.

jms' reply:

That was really excellent. Let me explain to you how excellent it was: I was taking a break on CIS because I was trying to work through the heart of a scene between Delenn and Sheridan in script 403. It was a little fuzzy there in places, and I usually log off and putter around rather than trying to write it when it isn't all there yet in my head. Your analysis helped me clarify something in my own mind which was there in the first place but hadn't yet racked into focus yet. It would've done so eventually, it always does, but you may have saved me an hour or two of going back over their relationship in my head and pulling out the emotional and thematic undercurrents of what's been established over the last couple of seasons.

Good stuff.

jms

*****

I'm definitely looking forward to the reaction. Today, for instance, we did the final audio mix of "Z'ha'dum," our third season ending episode. All of the EFX were in place, the sound, the music...and after we did the piecemeal mix, layering in things in a stop-and-go fashion, we did our playback, watching it straight through. I don't think anyone was breathing for the fourth act. Everyone was just wog-boggled. The emotional impact of it all is quite strong.

When the lights came up, and I looked around to the stunned faces in the room, the only thing I could say was, "Welcome to history, gentlemen."

Looking forward to reactions? Oh, yeah, I suppose you could say that....

jms

*****

Actually, the progression of the B5 story has been almost exactly the same as the way I write my novels. I start off knowing where the story has to go, what benchmarks I need to hit en route to the end, what my repertory group of characters consists of, and then I start writing.

As someone said of a battle, an outline never survives contact with the enemy, which in this case is the actual writing. The outline, for me, is a safety net whose purpose is to keep me nominally on track while allowing me the freedom to bounce around the landscape, adding new threads, broadening out the storylines, fleshing out the characters, and reorganizing how the characters move in and out of the story. That makes the work organic. I still end up exactly where I wanted to end up, but the road there is much more interesting than if I'd just hewed to a very rigid structure.

It's like driving from LA to San Diego...you can just jump on the freeway, or knowing the freeway is there, jump off from time to time to grab lunch at Pea Soup Anderson's or a quick ride or two at Disneyland.

And yeah, sometimes I have to work to keep the characters in line. Londo's the worst. He's always going off and pulling me in one direction or the other, he's very peripatetic...and getting him talking for dialogue is never hard...getting him to shut the hell UP for two minutes so somebody else can get a word in, tha's hard.

Writing is a very schizophrenic business.

jms

*****

Thanks...and yeah, it happened again. I'm writing 405, "The Long Night," and there's something that one character was supposed to do in the script, that had been the plan all along, that was my intent even as near as 1 page from where it was going to happen...then just as I got to that scene, another character stepped up and said, "no, let me do it." I was kinda flummoxed. "You?! You're the LAST person anyone would think to do this." The character nodded. "Exactly." And the symmetry was perfect, the impact would be greater...so that's who did it.

On one level, it's always wonderful when this happens; on another, it scares the hell out of me....

It's at the bottom of act two, you'll figure it out when you get there.

jms

*****

It was a number of things. He looked like what I thought Sheridan would look like, and had the right attitude. He had a reputation for being an actor associated with lightweight dramas (though he was capable of much more), and I knew this would play in my favor in that people would be set up for one thing, and then I'd yank it in the other direction; even made sure that I gave him lightweight dialogue, had a jolly attitude, for most of his first few episodes on the show (exempting "Revelations").

So when the first eps aired, and people were going on about "smiling jack," I knew I had them set up for the whack-upside-the-head that was coming down the road at them, and the character.

(It's sometimes like an elaborate game of chess...I try to anticipate the viewer reaction so I can, well, turn this on them and use it to my own advantage. Look at folks' initial reactions to Londo and Vir as another example of this. I've said before that I'm not averse to taking aspects of the actor -- Mira's background in Yugoslavia -- and using them for the benefit of the story, so you can bet I'd be willing to do that with the audience as well. I say if people are going to apply their preconceptions to a character or an actor, then it's perfectly fair game for me to turn this around on them. So those who saw depth in Londo or Vir -- and were ploinked for it -- got to see their suspicions confirmed (good result) and those who thought they were just buffoons got to have their brains splattered when they saw the depths that emerged (also a good result). So why not do this with Bruce?)

Other reasons...Doug and John had worked with Bruce before, and knew him to be a stand-up guy, loyal and honest and hardworking, a team player, and a genuinely nice man who was far more talented than the roles given to him before had let him show, more range and more colors than he had previously had a chance to display. He's also a stone SF fan, both in media and literary SF, so I knew he'd have a great respect for the story.

I've been remembering some of the other choices we were considering for Sheridan...James Earl Jones, John Rhys Davies, Barry Bostwick, Michael York, Michael Moriarity, A. Martinez...but for me, Bruce *was* Sheridan, and when it came time to make a decision, it was him, hands-down.

jms
*****
It's *always* scary for me to go on...I'm always sure the day before that nobody's gonna show up, and then I go into panic when I hit the stage, and it's mainly a matter of burying that so I can get through it and perform. These people have been there, often, for a long time, waiting, and they deserve nothing less than a fun, interesting, and sometimes maybe even useful show. They deserve their money's worth, which is why I'm so adamant about nobody getting disappointed or cut off in line or ignored. The second panel was a last-minute addition when the first one got flooded out (as it werte), and after giving my all on the first one, I was just whipped...but I wasn't about to let anyone leave disappointed. (As it was, I think my energy level was still lower than I'd've liked during the second presentation, and a bit more rambling in structure, especially toward the end, 'cause I was running on fumes, though so far it seems to have come off okay from the other side of the room.)

I think the day I ever *stop* being nervous about it, and get either complacent about it, or take it for granted, I should stop doing it. But that doesn't seem terribly likely....

jms

*****
Yes, I agree that there has been an increase in our visibility lately. I think it stems from a number of things. First, we've outlived the expectations for us. Everybody wrote us off, said we'd be gone in half a season (including Entertainment Weekly). We've been stomped on, panned, abandoned, derided and left for dead. But we keep on going, like some kind of deranged, phosphor-dot Energizer bunny. Look at the shows that, unlike B5, got lots of PR, had big names attached to them, were held up way above us by the fickle media...VR5, Earth 2, SeaQuest, Space Rangers, Space Above and Beyond, others...and they're all gone. And we're still here. We can't be ignored any longer.

A lot of folks are still asking, Can B5 succeed? But in whatever television terms you choose to apply, we *have* succeeded. We succeeded when we went three years, which is exceedingly rare in ANY SF series. Had we gone only 3 years, even though the story wouldn't have been finished, the series itself would've been a success from a purely TV perspective. Remember, the original Star Trek itself only went 3 seasons...and look where that led.

Second, I think more people have at least sampled the show, and from the ratings, more people have stayed with it, and seen what it is we're doing. The longer you're on the air, the more folks will run into you, even if just by accident. Where virtually every syndicated show has lost ratings, B5 has grown, slowly but surely.

There comes a point where a series, any series, reaches critical mass in terms of public recognition. I think we're finally on the cusp of that.

jms

*****

Whenever we step out on our own courage and dare to change our lives to make it more in line with what we want it to be, 9 times out of 10 it works out infinitely better than we (and others) expect. Of course, there's always that 10th time...but the lesson obtains. You can live a better life if you decide to do so and take action.

jms

*****

(Stuff from agent I saved approx 12/95 to 2/97, mainly 96 stuff)

SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 476 Mon Dec 18, 1995
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:17 EST

What y'all have to remember is that we produce 22 shows a year. There
are 52 weeks in a year. That means that no matter how you slice it, you've
got 30 weeks of reruns in there.

RE: Talia...look, you've kinda got to look at this the way I do. Stuff
happens. Yes, Talia was hoped for to be a key to the solution of the problem.
(Not the key, but a key.) But if you do that, every single time, you become
predictable. It means you, the audience, can relax. "Well, we know now that
Talia will always get through this because she's the one they're hoping for."
Suspense: gone. Story: suddenly predictable. There's no rule that every
person who is hoped to help solve the problem in real life is gonna make it to
the end or BE that solution. So if you delete that person, now it's "Oh,
hell, NOW what're they gonna do?" which is more intrinsically interesting to
me than the other option.

Generally speaking, about once a year, toward the end of the year, I
kinda look around at the characters with a loaded gun in my hand, and say,
"Hmmm...if I take out *that* person, what happens? Is there anyone here I can
afford to lose? Would it be more dramatically interesting to have this person
alive, or dead? What is the absolute bare minimum of characters I need to get
to the end of the story and achieve what I have to achieve?"

It helps to really remember that this is a *novel*, and uses the
structure of a novel. That means you have to have some real suprises as you
go. Anyone is fair game. To the question "Why did you get rid of Sinclair?
Why'd you get rid of Keffer? Why'd you get rid of Talia? Why'd you get rid
of....oh, er, that hasn't happened yet...." there is only one answer: 'cause I
felt like it, and 'cause I thought it'd make the story a lot more interesting.

The stories I like best are the ones that ratchet up the tension and the
uncertainty inch by inch until you're screaming. This could apply to any of
Stephen King's novels (and recall that a lot of my background is in horror
writing). Mother Abigail in THE STAND was supposed to be their hope for the
future. So in short order she's vulture-food, JUST when she's most needed.
*Because that's interesting*. It makes you say, "Oh, hell, NOW what?"
(Stephen actually does that a lot in his books, and it's a technique I've
learned as well.) Boromir in LoTR was a capable, skilled fighter, deemed
absolutely essential to the Company of the Ring...oops, there he is by the
tree, full of Orc arrows.

Stuff happens.

Same here.

jms

*****
SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 542 Thu Dec 21, 1995
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 05:30 EST

You want to know how much Joe has been writing lately? You want to know
the goofy side of it?

I write with keyboard in lap, leaning back, legs in a broken-4 position
(left ankle crossing right knee) to support it. Well, I've been writing so
much, so *long*, lately that I recently discovered that there is now an actual
indentation in my left leg, just above the ankle, where it's been abraded by
cloth, and the circulatoin's been hindered, and there's been constant pressure
placed on it. I've actually lost some sensitivity in that 5-inch section.
THAT'S how much I've been writing this year.

I need a vacation.

jms

*****

SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 315 Sun Dec 24, 1995
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 19:37 EST

I guess what amazed me most was either Berman or Pillar coming right out
and saying ST "is a formula." Just that simple. I about fell off my chair.

BTW, on the question of effects...here's one that's kinda interesting, in
that I've seen a few comments here and there about how we must've mapped the
CGI fireball into the hallway in "Convictions" where Londo jumps into the
transport tube. Some even offered you could tell the fire was CGI.

Nooooooop.

Here's how that shot was done: we built a miniature hallway (actually,
"miniature" ain't the right word; it was something like 30 feet long or more).
Painted it so that it looked exactly like the regular B5 hallways. On film
you absolutely can't tell the difference. Then we mounted the hallway
*vertically* alongside the outside of the main building here. Set the camer
at the top, pointing down into the hall. We built a firebomb and set it at
the far end of the hall (on the bottom, in other words). We then set off the
firebomb (with all the proper authorities present), so that it shot up the
length of the vertical hall. We overcranked the camera so it'd start in slow-
motion, then pulled the plug so that the camera slowed down to normal
speed...giving the sense of the fire swelling, then suddenly rushing forward
with a huge fireball. So when it looks like the "hallway" is on fire...it
is. Real fire.

Next we shot Londo (Peter) against a bluescreen, reacting to this, then
diving to his left. We then comp'd the bluescreen into the hallway, and used
CGI to build a transport tube door to Londo's left, which then closed just as
the fire reached it.

It was an utterly immense amount of work for, basically, a five second
shot...but it looks 'way cool.

jms

*****

Subj: Re:Instant Gratification
Date: 96-02-13 05:55:54 EST
From: Jms at B5

What's being lost here, though, is that this show operates on the level of
metaphor as much as it operates out in the open. The shadow war is also the
war within ourselves as much as it is Out There. So Nightwatch, the
political situation back home, are shadow wars of their own.

That said, however, there's shooting aplenty in the course of this season.

jms

*****

Date: 18-Feb-96 07:38:36
From: David Cerreta <72630.3433@compuserve.com>
To: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com>
Subject: <Messages from Earth>
Message-ID: <forum.sfmediaone.454221@compuserve.com>

And the dominoes began to fall, one after another.

Well, I think you'll be silencing those critics that thought
things were moving too slowly this season, Joe. Without a doubt,
a WHAM episode, arc-heavy and incredibly exciting.

Marcus must be a fun character to write, knowing you have an
actor that can do all the things you want the character to do.
All that wonderful action and fighting in the opening tease and
then all that humor in the second half. "Would you prefer 50
ferrets instead," indeed!!ROFL!! Again, some were unhappy with
him as a character. You said be patient. Another promise not
broken.

Compliments to Bruce Boxleitner on his performance in this
episode. He gave Sheridan that world-weary look, sitting in that
command chair of the White Star. You got the sense that he wishes
that the burden could be taken from his shoulders, that he had
really hoped that it would never come to confronting EarthForce
directly. Very Gethsemane like. But, although buoyed by their
small victory, by the end of this episode he knew that they
probably wouldn't be able to hide his actions forever. Someone
will find out.

And as the B plot supports, someone IS finding out. Zack's
dilemma is becoming more dire with each passing day. It's nice to
see that he's questioning Nightwatch, but he's clearly torn
because he's worried that there ARE traitors in his midst. The
hammer is about to fall on that one. Jeff Conway is doing a great
job as Zack.

And amid all the excitement, we get to see more development
between Susan and Marcus, and between Sheridan and Delenn.
Sometimes I swear that time slows down when I watch B5.
Seriously, the show seems to last much longer than the hour and I
mean that in every possible good way. You pack so much into that
single hour and you do it without making it feel cramped.
Wonderful work!

Onto some odds and sods: The music in this episode was fabulous.
Christopher Franke went all out. I liked the snare drum emphasis
adding that classic "Thus begins the military campaign" sort of a
feel. I even noticed it was used in the bumper music.

The long pans at the beginning and at the conference table were
used to great effect. Michael Vijar's direction was excellent.
The fight scene was staged well and seemed realistic. Between the
music and the direction you got the feeling that living on Babylon
5 wasn't as much fun as it might have been only a few short months
ago.

Special Effects: The shots on Mars were unbelievable. Loved the
reflected image in the doctor's face plate. The Jupiter shots,
the Shadow ship shots as it fired on the facility on Ganymede, the
destruction of the ship in the atmosphere, the jump within the
atmosphere, I could go on and on. These are incredible effects.
You're show has come such a long way in so short a time, in re:
the quality of the effects. I thought they were great in season
1. Season 3 is a quantum level higher.

The best for last: The Writing. The scene with G'Kar in jail
was poignant. It looks like he and Garibaldi are establishing an
interesting relationship. I've already mentioned the other
"pairings" in this episode. The recollection of Sheridan on the
White Star where he recalls his father spraying the water on the
roof to help his son sleep. Nice touch. Even though it might be
an event created out of total fiction (I never can tell with you,
Joe), it felt REAL. It showed us how tired the Captain was, how
in times of stress you often think of the oddest things, including
the people you miss.

Finally, it was neat to see the tie-in to the comic book series
last year. Hope we get to see the comics again soon. I also
wanted to say congratulations on getting the an original 8
episodes run in a row starting in April. Not only will it be
exciting to the fans, but I think the ratings will show that it's
the right move. To build until a ratings period is a wise idea.

Best, Dave

------------------------------

Date: 18-Feb-96 14:57:41
From: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com>
To: David Cerreta <72630.3433@compuserve.com>
Subject: <Messages from Earth>
Message-ID: <forum.sfmediaone.454391@compuserve.com>
References: <forum.sfmediaone.454221@compuserve.com>

Thanks. Bruce did an excellet job in this episode, I agree.
As did everyone else. This is, in my opinion, about as flawless an
episode as we have ever made. It's one of those cases where the sum is
even greater than the sum of its parts...and the sum of its parts ain't
bad.

From here on through the next batch, the intensity level
continues to crank up.

We definitely pushed the envelope in terms of EFX this time
out; mixing and matching, and in sheer amounts of shots, and their
complexity. But the result, I think, is eminently worth the effort.

jms

*****

Several have stated pretty clearly their belief that B5 is in
terminal condition. Its ratings suck. The dialogue remains purple and
the acting, frigid. I humbly disagree with the prognosis-- not on the
basis that "B5 is perfect" or that "DS9 sucks" or that "JMS rules."

On the contrary, B5's dialogue tends to be melodramatic, bordering on
campy at times. Sheridan's speech patterns are consistently
histrionic and patronizing. The stories are often riddled with
insconsistencies and the acting can be stilted, subdued and, yes,
mediocre. Above that, the more important elements of the arc were
unecessarily delayed toward the end of the season and too many of the
earlier episodes were lame cannon fodder.

The important thing is this: at its best, B5 consistently exhibits an
attention to detail and a respect for the tragic elements of life
that ST, for all of its improvements over the last season, too often
fails to represent. I suspect B5, like TOS before it, will not only
survive but transcend its creator's shortcomings and thrive in spite
of them. Here's why:

B5 is not about
two-ships-passing-in-the-night-firing-slow-intermittent-glorified-cann
onballs-at-one another. Its about several swarms of metallic worker
bees degenerating from fixed formations into chaotic interactions
along three dimensions.

It's an uncertainty about how much worse things will get rather than
a comfortable belief in things eventually returning to normal over
smiles, quiet laughs and cocoa after the battle's over. It's about
slowly wading through the muck of ugly tensions instead of backslaps
and handshakes between the warring parties when the episode is at its
end. Its something beyond antiseptic portrayals of main characters
visibly confident that they'll survive the season no matter what
happens.

B5 is about a relentless barrage of painful hesitations, difficult
judgements, terrible miscalculations, paralyizing fears and grudging
resignation to the demands of necessity. Its about a man biting his
lower lip as he pulls the trigger.

B5 is about drawn out camera pans over the carcasses left by an
intense firefight; its about the death of important characters; its
about the lingering threat of impending death hovering over *all* of
the main characters *all* of the time; its about people succumbing to
petty selfishness; its about consequences, reprecussions, enduring
tensions, irony, things going bad just when characters thought they
couldn't get any worse. It's about the universe as you once knew it
going straight to hell.

Its about the primacy of fear, prejudice and self-interest over
last-ditch, heartfelt appeals to reason, open-mindedness and
sacrifice for the greater good. Its about dealing with life as it is,
not life as we wish it could be or life as we may have once
envisioned it. B5 is about severed dreams-the death of grandiose
visions-and the effort to adjust and build new ones. B5 is about the
turmoil of the human condition and the struggle to transcend it-
about a long twilight struggle against the lesser angels of our
nature.

B5 won't die. Babylonians (armed with weapons of telecommunication
that TOS viewers and Roddenberry himself could have only dreamed of)
simply wont let that happen. Any possibility of cancellation would
engender a viewer movement for reinstatement unseen in the world of
television since...say...the 1960s when the first ST series was
experiencing some of the same travails. B5's strength is beyond
numbers, beyond ratings, beyond pragmatic and jaundiced assessments
about its commercial viability.

It's bigger than me.
It's bigger than you.
Frankly, it's bigger than JMS, himself.

This is about an immense yearning (however inchoate) hereterfore
untapped, for a serious, organic, well-integrated, meaningful,
realistic portrayal of the struggle of life with sci-fi as the
metaphor, vehicle and medium. This is about the exploration of
archetypes that have helped us define the human condition. This is
about a sci-fi novel with moving pictures. It's a deliberate focus on
the painful duality of human nature and the incredible darkness
underlying it.

It is not a mere agglomeration of television episodes or some
line-item on a ratings list or a mere collective of aliases on an
internet newgroup or some staff stationed in Hollywood. This is a
leviathan, immensely bigger than the sum of its parts.

My friends, this...thing...is alive.

Perry D.
--

____

"Insanity is part of the times. We must learn to embrace the madness"
-Ambassador Londo Molari, Babylon5

--
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.info <*> archive: http://ivory.ora.com/rastb5i/
another fine service submissions to: b5-info@callisto.pas.rochester.edu
of ISN mars bureau comments to: b5-info-request@callisto.pas.rochester.edu
******

Spoilers ahead!

Look for reviews of back episodes at my home page <http://www.slip.net/~terman>

Review of Babylon 5 Episode "Ceremonies of Light and Dark"

"Prophecy is a poor guide to the future." - Delenn

This episode marks the exact halfway point in the 5 year story arc of Babylon
5. It is episode 55 out of a projected 110 episodes (not including the
pilot). I think it is worth it to take stock of how much has changed. It
certainly makes one wonder where things will end up in episode 110.

In the first Babylon 5 episode, Sinclair was commander of Babylon 5, Santiago
was president of Earth alliance, Delenn was still fully Minbari, Londo was
washed-up drunk, G'Kar was pursuing his own agenda, Kosh was, well Kosh, Talia
had her original personality, and I do not believe that anyone would have the
slightest idea that events would take us to where we are today.

Londo is now the villain, although he may yet again be changing, and G'Kar
is now anxious to take actions that will further the forces of light. Delenn
in the first season was exotic and enigmatic, careful not to reveal all she
knows. Now she is fighting side by side with B5 crew as a fully committed
ally. And Kosh is revealed to be a lot more than an ambulatory fortune
cookie quote machine. That is not so much a surprise, but Kosh's agenda
involves the B5 crew a lot more than his first season study in aloofness
suggested. He has gone from looking like an Olympian observer of the
behavior of lesser life forms to looking instead like a very active, master
manipulator.

The break up of Earth Alliance is also an amazing development. I think we are
so conditioned by Star Trek to regard the local equivalent of Starfleet to
inviolate that even though there have been many hints of the fragility of the
Earth Alliance, it was still a shock to see it break apart. I had noticed
that even from the first season, they were hints of fracture in the Earth
Alliance with Mars being a notable example. The Earth Alliance started out as
a little to corrupt to be totally on the side of good (Psi Corp, tight control
of Mars colony, etc.), but not so bad that its passing can be regarded as a
good thing. That I think is a sign of how 3-dimensional a world Straczynski
has created with good and evil liberally spread out among the characters and
institutions.

Looking ahead to the rest of the third season, I see signs that we are going
to hear from characters we have not seen in awhile. Sinclair, of course, is
the most notable return who will get his own two parter. This will be the
long awaited look at the other side of "Babylon Squared" (that is not a spoiler,
it will be well promoted). I remember "Babylon Squared" as the episode that
convinced me that B5 would be more than your typical SF television series.
Bester is also supposed to return in the episode "Ship of Tears". I have a
feeling that while Bester is far from squeamish, he may find the new regime a
bit strong for even his tastes. It will be interesting to see how much he
knows, and how much he doesn't know about the Shadows. We are also supposed
to see more of Lyta.

"Ceremonies of Light and Dark" was very appropriate as a midpoint episode.
Delenn's emphasis on the rebirth ceremony served to emphasize how much has
changed in the past two and a half years. Weirdly enough, Delenn's kidnapping
by Boggs and his Nightwatch crew almost seemed a minor distraction to the
more important task of putting the past behind them so that they might go
on to the fight the real enemy, the Shadows.

And the B5 crew did put the past behind them. With the new uniforms,
Sheridan has formally put Earth Alliance behind them (it is interesting that
Ivanova did not agonize as much as Sheridan over this - maybe her life has
never let her feel the connection to Earth Alliance that Sheridan obviously
did). Londo seems to have seen the errors of his ways and is trying to put
things right again. Lady Morella implied that Londo might have to sacrifice
more than he is now willing to achieve that, but at least he is trying.
Ivanova has admitted to her feelings for Talia and Franklin seems to be ready
to admit that he cannot be a stim-fuelled superman. G'Kar several episodes
ago put the destruction of his homeworld behind him to fight against the
bigger enemy, and Delenn, of course, has been ahead of them all. Even
Babylon 5 has been reborn in its mission.

Only Marcus seems to lag behind. However, as a new character, I just cannot
get as worked up over Marcus's pain as the other characters. Maybe he is
just too good looking to be convincing to me as someone who has suffered in
life. :-)

As for the future, romance seemed to be in the air. Lennier seems to confirm
that Sheridan and Delenn are fated for one another (although first season
we are all as firmly convinced it was to be *Sinclair* and Delenn). His
unrequited love for Delenn was a surprise, but in retrospect does not seem
hard to believe. The way he described his feelings for Delenn reminded me of
the chaste love that was celebrated in the Middle ages. An indication that
Lennier is a knight-errant?

Sheridan has finally admitted to his feelings for Delenn. It was not quite as
long as "Moonlighting", but it sure felt long enough. Of course, Delenn did
not respond to his declaration of love. Just how human (or human female) is
she? And, now that Ivanova has admitted how she felt about Talia this may
help clear the way for Marcus. On the other hand, she is not likely to want
to jump into anything new too soon.

On a final note, Boggs hinted that Delenn was almost a messiah figure on the
Minbari (with the exception of the Warrior caste). It will be interesting to
see that developed. Certainly that will affect things when Sinclair comes
back from Minbar. If Delenn control two thirds of the Minbari forces and
only a few ships are protecting Babylon 5 what is the rest of the fleet doing?
Hmmmmm...

Episode Highlights:

- "Before this is over, we'll have our pound of flesh."

- "Is there anyone along our border we are not at war yet?... Only an idiot
fights a war on more than one front. Only the heir to the King of all
idiots fights a war on twelve fronts."

- "Oh, bugger. Now I'll have to wait for someone to wake up."

- "I know she is fated for another."

- "What's the matter? Haven't you seen anyone reborn before?"

| James L. Terman | Science may set limits to know- |
| terman@slip.net | ledge, but should not set limits |
| jlterman@aol.com | to imagination. |
| http://www.slip.net/~terman | - Bertrand Russell |

--
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.info <*> archive: http://ivory.ora.com/rastb5i/
another fine service submissions to: b5-info@callisto.pas.rochester.edu
of ISN mars bureau comments to: b5-info-request@callisto.pas.rochester.edu

*****

Subj: Re:question
Date: 96-04-25 03:46:44 EDT
From: Jms at B5

The cold, hard and rather ruthless answer is...if you're not sure, if it's
just something you're kinda thinking about...don't do it.

The only ones who have a chance of making it as writers are those who can't
*not* write.

"I am trying to find out what I can do with my life and writing sound like
fun." It's not fun, as you mean it. It's agony. It's the hardest thing I
do. It takes *years* of work, every single day, day in and day out, before
you get any good at it at all. It takes suffering and pain and paying your
dues and fighting every single day first to prove you have talen to yourself,
then to prove it to others, then to finally begin making a living at it.
It's not a case of, "Well, look over there, *that* looks interesting, maybe
I'll do that."

Either being a writer means everything to you, or it doesn't. If it doesn't,
you shouldn't do it. It's not a question of knowing "what you want to do."
You *know* it. It's just a matter of the will and strength required to *do*
it.

Unless that describes you...try something else.

jms

*****

Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From Watching Babylon 5

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The HTML version of this document is available at the following URL:

http://www.chem.ufl.edu/~northrup/dforms/b5everything.html

Suggestions for additions to this list can be made to northrup@pobox.com
or via the form at the above URL.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Don't argue with superior beings.
* Don't shoot people: The paperwork is a pain in the butt.
* Sometimes Money and Power don't matter.
* Know what you want in case somebody asks.
* There's enough guilt in the world to go around without grabbing for more.
* A hot jallah is better than Zima anyday!
* Know all the laws and read the fine print.
* No one is precisely what they appear to be.
* Sometimes you are destined to spend the rest of your life paying for
your mistakes.
* The only truth in war is that people die.
* If a GROPO tells you they're not scared they're either lying or dead.
* "Why not" is a perfectly good reason.
* Sometimes even Shadows can show us the way home.
* Governments deal with matters of convenience, not conviction.
* The future isn't what it used to be.
* Beware of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
* Go to the bathroom before you leave.
* Bend the rules, but don't break them.
* Sometimes the adventure comes to you.
* The power of one mind can change the universe.
* If you're making an encounter suit, design it so you can get into it
quickly.
* There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom.
* Share your second favorite thing in the universe with a friend.
* Look forward to the day when you have cleansed the universe of your
enemy and carved their bones into flutes for your children to play.
* Put the emphasis on Pleasure.
* Half a dream is better than none.
* The hunter and the hunted are not well defined.
* Diplomacy is not a real job.
* It'll take more than 100 years to evolve a better human.
* Ivonova is god.
* You can always get more with a kind word and a two-by-four that you can
with just a kind word.
* Love knows no borders.
* If you offer someone a body part to slit, make certain it doesn't have a
major artery.
* Never hand someone a gun unless you're sure where they'll point it.
* Sometimes "peace" is another word for surrender.
* If you have to have sex with an alien, make sure you do it YOUR way!
* Nothing beats a hot shower with real water.
* The best way to understand someone is to fight him, make him angry,
that's when you see the real person.
* Somebody should have labeled the future 'Some assembly required.'
* Of all things in life, females are the finest.
* Stay close to the Vorlon.
* Know all there is to know about your station.
* Find something worth living for instead of something worth dying for.
* Secrets have a way of getting out.
* Don't touch unless you mean it.
* Grab any chance you can get to take out a ship.
* Reading is not substitute for experience.
* Don't make promises life won't let you keep.
* When you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy.
* When the avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles
to vote.
* You cannot serve larger ideals by compromising smaller ones.
* Laughter is better than pills for what ails you.
* Retribution in inevitable.
* There's nothing wrong with getting a good head start.
* When watching someone, use both eyes. You'll need them.
* Nobody is pure.
* At the year's end, count how many people have survived and celebrate
your good fortune.
* Intelligence has nothing to do with politics.
* If your dinner crawls off your plate, put it back and tell it to stay
put.
* Some things we are not ready for.
* All beings are defined by their capacity and need for love.
* Always leave a little room for people to disappoint you.
* Say a prayer for the dying; say half a prayer for the agnostics.
* Ignore the propaganda, focus on what you see.
* Express your feelings.
* The third principle of sentient life (i.e. the capacity for
self-sacrifice the conscious ability to over-ride evolution and
self-preservation for a cause, a loved one, or a friend.
* It will all end in fire.
* Calling it a "food plan" doesn't help.
* Sure is for people with nothing on the line.
* Beware magic tricks involving bartops.
* Wear loose shoes and remember how to dance.
* Sometimes, the necessary thing isn't the right thing.
* Life is life, whether it's wrapped in skin, scales, or feathers.
* A herring is just a herring, but a good cigar is a Cuban.
* Trust individuals, not organizations.
* Stay away from airlocks.
* If you can't put a bag over his head, then just pull the wool over his
eyes.
* Don't argue if it's kosher, just eat it.
* Confess your love, now, while you still have a chance.
* Sometimes the act of searching is more important than what you're
searching for.
* Never fear answers; Fear running out of questions.
* Talk softly and carry a big stick.
* The future isn't what it used to be.
* A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from the bristles.
* Sooner or later . . . BOOM!
* The only good na'kaleen is a dead na'kaleen.
* Don't believe everything you see and hear, escpecially the promos for
next week.
* There is beauty in the dark.
* Properly used two meter long genitals can beat four aces.
* Don't assume anything is just decoration.
* If your food is still crawling you know you should cut down.
* Beware Shadows. They move when you're not looking.
* Some favours come at too high a price.
* The universe runs through the complex interweaving of energy, matter,
and enlightened self interest.
* The Universe knows what it's doing.
* Fasten, then zip.
* Make sure your enemies know pain and know fear before they die.
* Collect reflection, surprise, and terror for the future.
* Don't touch yourself.
* Never play poker with a Centauri.
* Faith manages.
* Some things one must do alone.
* The universe holds many wonders: Be terrified and relieved that we have
not explained everything yet.
* There are some matters on which one feels compelled to take a vow of
silence.
* Do it Human Style whenever possible.
* Understanding is a three edged sword.
* Make love, not treaties.
* Sometimes the impossible is possible.
* Always have your people watching their people.
* Always watch your back.
* The longer a terrible secret is held, the more painful it is to reveal
it.
* Wash your hands after going to the bathroom or playing cards.
* Sometimes, it's just not a good time to sing Kum-by-yah.
* The Hokey Pokey really doesn't mean anything.
* Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and one you should not
fall asleep during.
* Some things are better left buried.
* Beauty and the Beast are in the eye of the beholder.
* It is good to have friends, even if only for a little while.
* The currents that look like they will make us stronger, they are the
ones that will destroy us.
* The last thing you need is a corporate lawsuit.
* You can learn whatever you like.
* What we hold sacred gives our lives meaning.
* What makes us human is that we care, and because we care, we never stop
trying.
* One day they're shooting at you and the next they're taking you out to
dinner.
* Similarity is not required to express compassion
* Whatever it is, it can't be that bad.
* Don't take demands: consider requests.
* Have a nice day.
* We create the future with our words, with our thoughts, with our deeds,
and with our beliefs.
* Some changes can have unexpected consequences.
* If you don't understand the song, then listen to the music.
* Before waiting for an apology, be sure to check the temperature in hell.
* Crab Nebula.
* Enjoy your first hangover while you still remember it.
* I will listen to Ivanova's suggestions.
* Don't shake hands with strangers.
* Don't stay to watch a great old ship go down.
* The universe doesn't give you any points for doing things easily.
* Saying you did something can be more effective than actually doing it
(beep beep!).
* It is noble to strive for the perfection of one's soul and the salvation
of one's race.
* We are startstuff.
* Everybody lies, innocent or guilty. Each lies for their own reasons.
* Be wary of gifts from friends you don't know you have.
* We learn by doing, and in the process we fall on our faces occasionally.
* We all do what we do because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
* We shall be remembered in spite of ourselves.
* Even if your choices are limited to Pestilence, Famine, or Death, it is
always possible to make a wise decision.

And finally . . . .

* All of this is for nothing unless we go to the stars.

The original version of this document was posted to USENET by Thomas
Foote. This version was HTMLised by Dylan Northrup

--
Dylan Northrup <*> northrup@pobox.com <*> http://pobox.com/~northrup <*>
Ask me about e-mail P.O. Boxes <*> "I don't want the world, just your half"
---------------
Random B5 Quote
---------------
"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed.
In the year of the Shadow War it became something greater: Our last,
best hope for victory. The year is 2260. The place, Babylon 5."
-- Commander Susan Ivanova, Third Season opening narration

*****
I give full permission for this to be reproduced, by whomever and
wherever....

Spoiler space.....

I guess you are going to get a lot of reaction from this side of the
pond, but I wanted to give my two pennorth...

To begin; this one is well up there with Severed Dreams, CTI and Sky
Full of Stars, and maybe even beats them, which takes some doing.
That is, it is emotionally intense, beatifully directed and has some of
the best acting on TV I have ever seen. The writing goes without
saying.... :) :)

I think I read somewhere that you wanted Bruce as Sheridan
because he was known for light drama, and you knew he could do far
more. Oh boy, were you ever right. It's difficult to pick on any one
scene, but if I had to I'd pick two, just to be awkward! The expression
on his face of shock mingled with a kind of horror when he first
realises just *who* has walked in to his quarters is tied in my mind,
with the look of - distaste? terror? - don't know what to call it - in the
final showdown with Anna.

Mira Furlan was terrific. I keep running out of superlatives. The scene
where she watches Sheridan's final message is going to replay in
my head for a very long time. The sheer emotional resonance of that
image, after the corresponding scene in Revelations, was very clever
and enormously moving. This time, he got the chance to say
goodbye..... and goodbye to Garibaldi as well. Poor Ivanova, tho'!
Hell of a way to get a promotion.

I would count myself in the 2/3rds who don't agree with the Shadow
motives, which now make a kind of ghastly sense. Ghastly, in the
way that listening to Goebbels' speeches has a kind of hypnotic
attraction, until you realise exactly what is being said. Survival of the
fittest and the weak go to the wall and what does it matter if a few non
human races die along the way. My father fought in a war against that
kind of monstrosity; my uncle's family died in the death camps of
those who inflicted it. You are making us look at our history again. I
hope that we can learn from it.

And , besides, it's a specious argument. Conflict does not of itself
imply growth or evolution; there were as many technologies which
came as spin offs from Nasa as from the major wars this century or
in any other. And, if the weakest are destroyed, we could be
destroying the strongest; Stephen Hawking can't exactly defend
himself. I prefer the John Donne model - "each is a part of the whole".

I suspect you are going to get a few posts about the Vorlon motives
and actions too, from those who object to the humanities having a
parent figure. I hope that at some point in our evolution we won't need
them, but based on the current track record, I don't think we've got
there yet. Or, maybe, that's the third age, when we finally *do* take
responsibility for our own destiny? (And I apologise if that's undue
speculation.)

I hope that this makes some kind of sense, bearing in mind that I am
still shell shocked, and thanks for another superb episode. Now, what
do I do till November, please?

Ali

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

*****
"A number of people there had seen you at WorldCon, or had seen various
pictures of you with the Hugo, and a number of comments were made about
how much you had aged."

Yeah...it pretty much goes with the turf. I've noticed it too; the show
has aged me REAL fast. John's the same way. In just the last 4 years
he's gone from dark hair with a bit of grey to almost completely grey (or
to make Gharlane happy, gray).

Part of it is just that the job is very stressful under the best of
conditions. Add to that the fact that on most shows, you've got a huge
above-the-line staff of writers, story editors, producers, supervising
producers, and exec producers. On B5, there's Doug (business stuff
mainly), me (creative stuff), John (line producer) and George Johnsen
(post production). That's *it*. We could bring in more people, but that
would mean taking the money from somewhere else in the show, and we can't
do that, can't let the quality drop. So we all carry a larger weight than
usual.

So I can't deny you're right; I'm rather appalled at it myself. It's the
job, and too many nights of getting 3-4 hours sleep and running around
like a deranged thing the rest of the time. I was talking to someone the
other day, and he asked how old I was. "42," I said. He did a double
take. "Either you're a hell of a lot older than 42, or you've had a real
hard life."

Harlan, on the other hand, is amazing...there are days he looks younger
than I do. I resent the hell out of that, and have asked him to have a
word with nature about it.

But...bottom line..."all is vanity," and I'd do it all again in a hot
second if it meant getting this show on the air the way I want it to be.

jms

*****
"Do you think that you write at both the conscious and subconscious level
simultaneously."

I think any writer has to operate at both levels at the same time. You
learn to trust your instincts. There's a certain point when you're "in
the zone," to use a sports phrase, and the logical part of you is
structuring the plot, and the illogical, intuitive part of you is filling
in the corners. You have to be open to both voices for it to work.

jms

*****

"By "incident", I meant perhaps a Roddenberry-esque communication
breakdown between producer and writer"

No, I get along with me fairly well most days...someone has to. Of
course, there are some days I won't talk to me, stalk out of the room
whenever I walk in, and there was that time I locked me in the closet
until I forced me to finish a script, the embarrassing moment when we both
showed up for a meeting dressed in the same chiffon number and answering
to the name Dorothy...but other than that, no, no noteworthy incidents to
report.
\

jms

*****
"I'm the SF Marathon Director for the MIT Lecture Series Committee, and
was just wondering what you, Joe, would recommend... what are your
favorite SF movies of all time?"

For starters, I'd include "Seconds" on your list, the only marginally SF
film done by Rock Hudson which to this *day* scares the hell out of me.
John Frankenheimer was never better.

I'd also include "Fail Safe," "Dr. Strangelove," "Seven Days in May" and
"The Manchurian Candidate" which (for my money) do have some SF aspects to
them...if "Alas, Babylon" is SF, then "Fail Safe" and the others can be
included in that. It's also a grouping that gives newer audiences a sense
of where this country was at a very precarious point in its history.

Of films more definitely in the SF area...Forbidden Planet, The Day the
Earth Stood Still, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (stop staring at me like that,
it's got aliens and...and space ships...and...and mad scientists and stuff
like that, and it's got a beat and you can dance to it), Aliens, High
Plains Drifter (fantasy), Terminator 2, The Road Warrior, The Princess
Bride (fantasy), On the Beach, Night of the Living Dead, Brazil, Alien,
The Haunting of Hill House, Blade Runner, First Men in the Moon, When
Worlds Collide, Village of the Damned, Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers,
Phantom of the Paradise and Day of the Triffids.

jms

*****

Okay. That should be good. Your own damn fault if you read any
further.

Anyway, howdy folks. I've been meaning to start posting regular
reviews of each new episode, and the start of season 4 seems like a
good place to start.

(Lord... I just finished writing this, and through the magic of word
procesing I can insert this little advisory... this is a long one
folks. Hopefully it'll be wroth your while; I'll try to keep the
"Shadow vs. Borg" and plot speculations to a minimum.)

Who am I? Just a fan of the show, but a critical fan, a fan who read
the "Hair in the Soup" thread here recently and found that I actually
reluctantly had to agree with a lot of what "J." had to say,
troll-bait or not. I'm no Trekkie; I'm not out to slam B5. I, like
many of you, came to B5 because I was looking for something better
than Trek. And as many of us slam Trek because we want to see it get
better, I'm going to slam B5 in hopes that it'll get better.

All with the obvoius mea culpa, of course, that this is just my
opinion, opinion I hope to be able to back up with examples from the
show whenever possible.

Because, overall, season three has been a disappointment to me.
There's no question that there's been some good stuff-- some excellent
stuff, in fact. "Interludes and Examinations" was wonderful, the
"Messages From Earth--Point of No Return--Severed Dreams" mini-arc was
series-standout, and there were numerous other quite enjoyable
episodes as well-- "Convictions", "And the Rock Cried Out..." and
"Ceremonies of Light and Dark" spring to mind.

Nonetheless, Season Three represents for me a drop from Season Two,
and not just because of the execrable "Sic Transit Vir", my nominee
for all-time worst episode and the Episode You'd Be Most Ashamed To
Watch With Other People In The Room award (see below for why). No, my
problem with Season Three is that Season Three is, simply, too simple.

Sure, there are fistfulls of races and characters, and lots of plot
threads and mysteries and surprises and so on. But ultimately, this is
all supposed to be about something, and there, that's where B5 has too
often failed this past year.

What is B5 about? On a grand scale, it's about the fight between Good
and Evil. But of course, that's not a theme at all. Good is good and
Evil is evil. There's nothing to say there. The real guts of the
question is in teasing out the complexities, making it real, and at
its deepest level, asking the questions "Why is there evil? What is
evil?" and most importantly, "How am *I* evil?" Only when we see an
evil act done as *we* would have done it, for the reasons we would
have done it, do we learn. And don't kid yourself; we're all evil,
every one.

So while the Severed Earth plotline (as I like to call it) was
enjoyable, and managed to deliver some of the goods, it failed on the
most crucial point. JMS's depiction of incipient fascism was one of
historical hindsight. He tried; I'll give him that. He tried to show
how people might fall under fascism's influence. But it was all
"they." We witnessed this from the point of view of people who
implicitly know better. The only character who had a moral crisis was
Zack, and only because he got into it without thinking the
consequences through. When asked to make the right choice, Zack made
it. Fine. But frankly, that's just not good enough.

Because to have truly succeeded, *we*, the audience, would have
believed in the fascism. Because it wouldn't have seemed like fascism
at all. It would have seemed like responsible, courageous leadership
in a crisis. It would have been understandable. It would have been the
*right* choice.

There was a hint of this, early on, in "The Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum" (a
second-season episode). I'm not talking about the
Brownshirts/Nightwatch, obvious proto-fascists with a thin veneer of
respectablility. I'm talking about Sheridan, for the first time, for
good, understandable reasons, blithely tossing away someone's civil
rights and effortlessly using someone for his own needs against her
express wish. Remember? It seemed like the right thing to do. He was
driven by grief over his wife, and he wasn't going to let stupid rules
or bruised feelings get in the way of something he *needed to do*. And
best of all, he only stopped because he had to, not because he wanted
to, or because he thought he'd done anything wrong. I'd hoped this
would portend greater things in the future for Sheridan, who'd
demonstrated an all-too-human susceptibility to the roots of genuine
evil. This was, in my mind, the genuine Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum-- not the
creepy space monsters, but his easy willingness to slip into fascism,
and the way he drew the audience in with him.

Sadly, this was not to be. The only character in Season Three with
hard choices was Zack, and he was fighting a far more obvious
ideological foe. There was never any doubt where he'd jump. And as for
the rest of the characters, they despised the Nightwatch on sight. As
they should have. As we did, as we would, looking back at 1930's
Germany. And by so doing, we don't learn a damn thing, because the
fact is that lots of people, *millions* of people, did go for it, and
they weren't monsters. What were they? Who knows? But every day you
and I do things that would lead us down the fascist path, and we never
know what, because things never look that simple when they're
happening. But we still do them.

Trade with China? Of course. Take dividends in companies that profit
from laying off thousands of workers? Sure. Invest in Indonesian
mutual funds? So what if they've murdered tens of thousands of people
in the last couple of decades. Hand 'em over.

A lot of you probably would disagree with my politics, which are
pretty radically lefty, even here in Canada. But that's the point.
You'd say there are damn good reasons why what I'm talking about isn't
the same as fascism. And mabye it's not. *But maybe it is*. The fact
is, whatever it is, we're in it, and it's complicated, complicated
enough that people who would ostensibly loathe fascism might be
complicit. And the left isn't immune either; if any of you watched
PICKET FENCES for the last couple of years, then you saw an amazing
season-long progression which had good, liberal, right-thinking
parents making good choices for their family and community, right up
to the point where the father was pointing a shotgun at a bus full of
black kids.

I'm not trying to get overly partisan here. I'm just trying to get to
the point that this stuff is complicated. And try as he might, JMS
didn't even get close.

And, of course, this was all during a storyline that was still
reasonably strong. Although none of the characters had hard choices it
was still Earth, it was still humans. All this flew completely out the
window once the Shadows started attacking.

I mean, come on. The moral issues and complications should be getting
*more* difficult, not less, as the series progresses. But how is a
move from Earthly fascists to Evil Space-Spiders a move up? At this
point, it's not even a question of whether it's politically
interesting. When the choices are this black and white, it becomes a
question if it's even *dramatically* interesting any more.

Which brings us, at last, to "Z'Ha'Dum." Here we had Sheridan going to
Z'Ha'Dum (in a bit of the lamest time-travel logic I think I've ever
seen). Of course we know his life is in danger. But as David Gerrold
wrote in THE WORLD OF STAR TREK, it's easy to put a hero in physical
danger. It's called adventure. If you want drama, you have to threaten
his identity.

What threat to Sheridan's identity was there here? Lingering love for
his wife? That doesn't make him any more likely to be won over to the
Shadow's side-- in fact, it's more likely to enrage him. The totally
absurd and biologically illogical arguments of the Shadows?
Ridiculous. Is there *anything* in that episode that makes us think
for one second that Sheridan's beliefs or attitudes or morality is
going to be challenged? Do we really think that he's making any
choices here?

Compare the final scene to one it strongly resembles: the climax of
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, when Luke confronts Vader. We know all along
that there's going to be a physical confrontation. We wonder if Luke
really is going to be tough enough to handle Vader. All that's there.
But who remembers the tension of the clash of Jedi abilities? Nobody,
because the core of the scene was in the true conflict, the
devastating blow to Luke's personality when Vader reveals he's
(spoiler) Luke's father. Luke thought he was ready for anything Vader
could throw at him, and he was, except for one thing: the truth.

And in Z'Ha'Dum? Sheridan's gotten the "truth", and it's pretty much
as expected: some nonsensical blather about growth through conflict, a
misunderstanding of evolutionary theory that's already been thoroughly
rebutted elsewhere (and if there's more to it, that still doesn't
excuse the pap they shoveled to Sheridan hoping to convince him.) And
at the end, Sheridan chooses to die ten seconds from now instead of
five seconds. Thrilling, perhaps, but it falls short of what it should
be. Point-blank, it's still just adventure. Not drama.

It won't be drama until these characters stop scrapping over cosmic
forces of good and evil, or at least until they start taking
surprising sides on the battle. Londo's fall is one of the strongest
dramatic elements of the series. It's time for the main characters,
the human characters-- Sheridan, Garibaldi and Ivanova-- to make hard
choices that pit them not against the Shadows, but against each other.

Anyway, that's all past. The third season is over. Straczynski is no
longer (we hope) going to handle all the scriptwriting chores, and I
think that was the problem. Not that he's burning out, but that as
someone else here pointed out a while ago, we're getting a season full
of first drafts. Subtleties and complexities aren't showing up.
Necessary edits aren't happening. The characters were all starting to
sound the same, and if you read JMS's Internet postings, you'll
recognize the authorial voice. JMS's pet phrases were popping up in
different characters' dialogue. And, in the case of "Sic Transit Vir,"
JMS's unrestrained, unedited tendency to inappropriately indulge his
sense of humor leapt forth and tore the poor episode to shreds.

Again, mea culpa. It's only my opinion, and I'll also add that of
course as JMS was responsible for this season's failings, he's also
responsible for its many triumphs, as well as the fundamental strength
of the show that keeps me coming back week after week.

So now, it's Season Four. For the first time in a long time, we don't
know where things are headed. The big bad black guys seem to be fading
in importance, and we know that some trouble is on the way for the
main characters. I'm hoping this'll be a new year, a rebirth, and
JMS's statement that "The Hour of the Wolf" is by far the mature sork
the've done gives me hope. I'm going to do my damndest to keep up, and
I hope a few of you will join me for the ride.

Stephen Notley
I also draw a funny cartoon at www.compusmart.ab.ca/snotley/bob.htm

*****
I didn't think you could top Comes the Inquisitor, then Coming of
Shadows, then Severed Dreams, then And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding
Place, then Z'Ha'Dum, and now comes Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi? A
magnificent episode. So frightening at times, so liquid and insidious like
"black water seeping into reality" (not my phrase), then so bright with
human and alien hope, and so warm and so heartbreaking and so
transcendent.
I could only give it a 9.9 though, because I am not qualified to judge
perfection. But somewhere out there someone such as The First One may be
so qualified.
I was emotionally spent after one viewing, then several hours later
watched it again and was equally spent. My list of highlights would run
from the opening with Doc Franklin setting the table to the closing
fade-out in the depths of Z'Ha'Dum. IOW, every damn scene! Not a false
note, not a bad line, not bad shadow (l.c. 's'), not a teetery joke, not a
creaky continuity, not a misplaced emotion, not a vague CGI.
My interests always lie with the processes of things. I wonder, if you
can remember, whether the script naturally fell into place because you've
spent so much time thinking of the series arc? It felt so right to me and
seem to penetrate me so deeply. Or did the script take a lot of mental
rewrites?
Last but by no means least, my sincere thanks to the outstanding
ensemble you have brought together to present this drama. Peter Jurasik,
Andreas Katsulas, Bruce Boxleitner and Wayne Alexander deserve special
credit in this episode, and Jerry Doyle for his brief but outstanding
display of fireworks. Oh, heck, like I said, this was a special episode
and everyone needs to be congratulated.

rich

*****

Whew! Talk about your hum-dingers! My brain is totally
and utterly fried after watching WHtMG twice in a row last
night, and I am completely drained emotionally, as well.
Wow! No summary or synopsis, not even the complete
script itself, could possibly do justice to the finished
product. I have been thrown into a wierd funk like I haven't
been since WWE. Wow! Whew!

Somewhere between last night and this morning, my brain
kicked in, and I am now finally able to put together a little
bit of coherent analysis. First of all, on the subject of
questions - so far we have had two of what I guess you could
call "thematic questions" - Who are you? What do you want?
After John's interlude with Lorien, I suppose we can add a
few more:

*Why* are you? - John's question to Lorien in HotW ("Why am
I here?") and Lorien's answer ("You were born."); also, Lorien
telling John at the end of WHtMG that he needs to figure out
who he is and *why* he is.

What do you consider worth dying for? - Lorien's comment to John
that there are lots of things he (John) would die for, but:

What do you have that's worth living for? - and John's tear-
your-heart-out answer.

I know that JMS likes to raise issues so that the viewers
can debate and decide for themselves what they personally
believe, but I don't think I'm quite ready to turn those
questions on myself yet. Whew! Heavy stuff!

OK, now for the part about "choices." This has been a recurrent
theme on the show, and it seemed to be especially important in
WHtMG. Delenn's speech about how she denied Sheridan the
information he needed to make his own choices until it was too
late and the choices chose him was especially moving and poignant.
Everything just came out in one huge rush, and then Delenn jumped
up like she'd been burned when she realized that she was baring
her soul to someone she hardly knew. She seemed so desperate
to get that burden off her chest. Makes me wonder if she's been
confiding in Lennier at all - I kind of get the impression that
he's been acting in the "silent but steady" support capacity.

As for John's choices at Z'ha'dum, the replay of the leap into
the chasm at the end of WHtMG seemed subtly different to me
than what occurred in the season 3 finale. In WHtMG, John gives
in to Lorien's urging and his vision goes dark, then there is a
scene of John staggering along a passageway as he did in Z, but
this time there is a faint smile on his face. It's as if he's
being given the opportunity to go back and relive those last
few moments, but this time he does have a choice. He can stay
on the balcony and accept the death he thought was inevitable,
or he can leap into the chasm and grasp at the slim chance at
life that Lorien promised. He can hold onto hope, or he can
give in to despair. At the end of Z, his leap was more of a
denial of Anna and the Shadows and a last, desperate surge
of survival instinct. Interesting contrast (or maybe I'm just
imagining things...)

Well, that's about all I have to say for now - the whirling
confusion in my brain is still in the process of settling...

- Ellen Caldera

*****
So, after watching 'Whatever Happened to Mr. Garabaldi' I was
struck by something.

SPOILER SPACE

Hope that's enough.

Okay, the most obvious character to have descended into a 'Hell'
or 'Cave' is Sheridan. I mean, the place is red, has a flame or
two, and is way underground. Sheridan is dead or dying, and has
to make a choice to live, rather than die. Further, he has a
father-figure in Lorien, pushing him towards understanding.

Then it occured to me ...

Delenn also descends into a Hell, one of her own guilt and sorrow.
She risks her own death (through fasting). Sheridan's log recording
takes the role of a mentor for her, pushing her to an under-
standing that she has to choose whether to go on or die.

Franklin descended into another form of Hell, in Downbelow and
from the stims. He nearly dies, but is guided by his ego (id,
superego? I can never get them straight) towards an under-
standing of himself, and has to choose to live or die.

G'Kar also descends from safety (Babylon 5) into the muck of
the universe and ends up in a Hell, in the Centauri dungeons.
He faces almost certain death, but Londo acts as a mentor,
offering G'Kar a choice about life or death.

Garabaldi is also in a hell, imprisoned in a small cell who
knows where. He faces a death of sorts -- the death of sanity,
and there is a mentor in the PsiCorps, pushing him to choose
one way or the other.

And Ivanova is in a Hell of sorts, herself. One of sorrow and
impotence. She too had to choose between 'dying' or acting,
and chose to act.

All the Main Characters are being pushed to the edge, plunged
into the depths of their darkest moments, and being asked:

Who are you?
What do you want?

They are being made to choose between life and death, action
and inaction, hope and despair. They are in the position of
having to either lose faith, or keep it.

Nothing really to add, except: Wow. And keep it up.

jms replies:

"They are being made to choose between life and death, action and
inaction, hope and despair. They are in the position of having to either
lose faith, or keep it."

Yup. Got it in one....

jms

******
"Are you *still* dealing with this, in Sheridan's situation on Z'ha'dum,
and the decision he has to make? Is this where you get your strength of
will, that you've faced this decision yourself?.....You've been dealing
with the whole issue of finding something worth living for, rather than
something worth dying for, since when, "Infection"? "

In retrospect, that was something I probably should not have mentioned,
and would not have, had the thing not just utterly blindsided me in the
middle of the conference. What got me through the attack, and its
aftermath, those years ago, was sheer unadulterated rage...that I would
not allow them to take my life because I had stories left in me to tell.
And no matter what, I'd tell those stories. At first, I'd made my peace
with myself...I'd never gone out of my way to hurt anyone, had helped
where I could, had done some good work...I had a few things on the shelf,
not a lot, but a start...but then I just started to get mad about it, and
pulled myself back from the edge.

So yeah, in a sense, I've faced that black, implacable wall...and it does
drive you, after a while. And I do think, to a large degree, I'm still
trying to define myself, to find what it is that's at the center for me,
beyond the work. But then, I don't think that's terribly special...it
seems to be the standard dilemma in an industrial society.

jms

*****

"JMS leaves us to find our own answers and that looks like, to me, his
message in Babylon 5. You can't just have someone give you all the
answers. At some point you have to break away and find your own answers
to your own questions. This seems to be the idea in a lot of his
scriptwriting and his posts. In fact, the essence of B5 revolves around
it. You don't know what other people are thinking, the good guys arent
always what they appear to be, and life is NOT black and white. Relying
on others for answers makes you a slave to them because you believe
whatever they tell you."

DING!

Give that man a ceegar.

jms

*****
"And yet, these women can also be women. Delenn in her black dressturning
heads, giggling at John's jokes, and teasing him. Then to turn around and
destroy the Grey Council, save B5 from the Earth Alliance, and become
Ranger One. The depth, the honesty, the reality of her. It is wonderful to
see such a character, to know that there are role models for a feminine
woman who can be hard as nails."

I wish I could take more credit for this..."Oh, sure, I did this to create
strong role models, it was all conscious"...but the truth is, those are
the kind of women I've always found attractive: sharp, smart, funny,
strong, sexually assertive, credible...*women*. Those are always the ones
I dated, the ones I hung out with as friends (on the theory that men and
women *can* be friends, it doesn't have to turn into dating)...so it's
just really a case of writing what I find appealing.

jms

*****