Just a reminder that we will not be recording on December 27, so there will not be a live feed going out tonight.

See you all next week!

Welcome to Show #47!

Happy Holidays from The Babylon Podcast!

This week and next week, Tim, Summer and Jeff present some of the “Best Of” moments from 2006, and boy did we have a lot of highlights (and alcohol) to go through. Yes, we were drinking.

Honestly, I thought there’d be more B5 winter holiday parodies out there, but alas, my searches came up short. All I found was Troy’s Very Drazi Xmas. Seriously, why aren’t there any Koshy the Snowman images, or Father Londo-mas, or any other creatively humorous holiday interpretations of our favorite characters? I expect this to be resolved in time for next winter, people!

Vote for us! Let’s get this show’s rank into The Pickle’s Top 100!

Shameless related begging: Summer’s also really hoping to convince the publisher to eventually do a collection on Babylon 5. If you’d be interested in buying one if they did do a B5 collection, let Summer know, either here in comments, or over in the Babylon Podcast forums.

We are still considering doing a separate B5 Fan Tales segment in the future, so send us those favorite anecdotes of yours.

Your feedback does matter, and is welcome! You can call us at 206-338-2259, or email us and tell us what you think… and likely hear it played or read on the show. Please try to keep the voicemail comments as brief as possible.

Link: Babylon 5 Fans
Link: Smart Pop Books

 

 Babylon Podcast: Show #47 [54:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4757)

Welcome to Show #46!

Stream of Consciousness Chat: Robin Atkin Downes (”Byron”)

Jeffrey sends out his heartfelt thanks to all the fans who responded to our call for donations to Pat Tallman’s “Be A Santa” charity program. The successful fruits of that effort went to make Christmas a little happier for the children of Penny Lane.

Jeff also tells us what he can about “The Lost Tales” progress, relaying some of what Bruce Boxleitner could tell us about the filming and working with everyone again, and how completely impressed he was by the script and everything about his experience climbing back into the Babylon 5 universe. This DVD is so going to rock!

We present for your entertainment and edification a rather interesting and amusing chat with Robin Atkin Downes, during his and Pat Tallman’s meandering search for an Italian restaurant.

It’s an interactive slice of life in Los Angeles, and words truly cannot describe the experience. Don’t worry… we’ll get Robin back, later, when he’s less distracted.

Listener Feedback: Jarsto really calls in and wanted to hear more from Kim Holly about Peter Woodward’s leather pants in “Crusade”; Gary comments on Show #44 with a Keffer tidbit; Doug comments on Show #44 with some detail on one reason why The Cortez may have run afoul of a Shadow vessel.

Haiku: This week, Hilary’s haiku pays honor to Cmdr Susan Ivanova. But we still had to explain it to Michael before he remembered.

We so need a B5 holiday season collection of quotes and song variations.

Vote for us! Let’s get this show’s rank into The Pickle’s Top 100!

Shameless plug: Summer contributed an essay to the essay collection, So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica, now available at your local bookstore and at Amazon.com.

Shameless related begging: Summer’s also really hoping to convince the publisher to eventually do a collection on Babylon 5. If you’d be interested in buying one if they did do a B5 collection, let Summer know, either here in comments, or over in the Babylon Podcast forums.

We are still considering doing a separate B5 Fan Tales segment in the future, so send us those favorite anecdotes of yours.

Your feedback does matter, and is welcome! You can call us at 206-338-2259, or email us and tell us what you think… and likely hear it played or read on the show. Please try to keep the voicemail comments as brief as possible.

Promo: Chuck Chat Technorama
Promo: Chuck Chat: The Gmail Podcast
Link: Smart Pop Books

 

 Babylon Podcast: Show #46 [56:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4541)

Welcome to Show #45!

Interview: Kim Holly, Costume Supervisor

After relaying some updated “Lost Tales” news, Tim, Summer and Jeffrey welcome Kim Holly, costume supervisor for the entire series save “The Gathering”. Kim’s work was pivotal in making the look of the uniforms and costumes match up with the creative visions of JMS and Anne Bruice, as well as making them fit all the cast comfortably and colorfully.

Kim tells us about the creative process behind designing and piecing together the various costumes for the different races seen on the show, about the complaints about the original Earthforce uniforms, of the special designs for Michael York and Wayne Alexander, of the amusement from poking Jeff Conaway with a needle on camera, and more.

Listener Feedback: We revel in another B5 Haiku from Hilary; Trampas from The Signal chimes in with the suggestion that Jedi are telepathic enough, and that the Shadows wouldn’t get along with Darth Vader, which leads to a tangent on Huttese; Jarsto expounds on the quality and quantity of his voicemails, and one reason why the Shadow vessels didn’t bother destroying Keffer’s Starfury; Jarsto again, with a new B5 Haiku. In email, Gabriel disagrees with Tim on the myth vs tech argument; Miles adds to the comments on the inclusion of technomages in the B5 universe.

We so need a B5 holiday season collection of quotes and song variations.

Vote for us! Let’s get this show’s rank into The Pickle’s Top 100!

Shameless plug: Summer contributed an essay to the essay collection, So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica, now available at your local bookstore and at Amazon.com.

Shameless related begging: Summer’s also really hoping to convince the publisher to eventually do a collection on Babylon 5. If you’d be interested in buying one if they did do a B5 collection, let Summer know, either here in comments, or over in the Babylon Podcast forums.

We are still considering doing a separate B5 Fan Tales segment in the future, so send us those favorite anecdotes of yours.

Your feedback does matter, and is welcome! You can call us at 206-338-2259, or email us and tell us what you think… and likely hear it played or read on the show. Please try to keep the voicemail comments as brief as possible.

Promo: Chuck Chat Technorama
Link: Smart Pop Books
Link: JMS’s “Lost Tales” photographs

 

 Babylon Podcast: Show #45 [1:01:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4328)

Welcome to Show #44!

The holiday season is upon us all, and Santa Kosh has begun checking his lists to see who’s naughty, who’s nice, and who’s really really nice. The chatroom chimes in with a cornucopia of Santa Kosh and B5 related Christmas jokes.

Listener Feedback: In voicemail, Iron Eagle comments on “Geometry of Shadows”, and responds to Jarsto; Jason in KC comments on character theme music possibilities; Mark from Lowell on Show #34 and what the Grey Council learned when about Valen/Sinclair; comment on Tim’s complaints about technomages; Thomas from Flagstaff welcomes Jarsto as a show addition; Jarsto likes hearing project updates from B5 alumni; Jarsto comments on “Geometry of Shadows” and highlights a rift between fans for and against technomages, and how the Drazi method of leadership selection might work on current-day Earth; Edmund from Greeneville on the possible improvements for any future All Boys geeking shows; CA in Phoenix enjoys the show so far, and wants more fun interviews. Tim reads an email from Edmund about the escalation of the Drazi fights in “Geometry of Shadows”, and wonders if the Shadows might have influenced the escalation of violence in the Drazi Purple/Green conflict.

Deep Geeking: Tim and Summer continue episode analysis with “A Distant Star”, and given that Russ Tamblyn was featured, Tim and Summer ask Jeff what it was like to work with some high profile guest stars over the years in the show.

In talking about an episode that they both consider to be one of the weakest of Season 2, despite the fact that D. C. Fontana is credited with writing it, the dialogue seemed to be less than optimal in flow between characters and seemingly incongruent confluence of unlikely events.

Would the Shadows have left the Starfuries alone, or would it really have gone back and made sure that they hadn’t survived to talk about their existence? Or were there just too many little things that needed to be setup in this episode that the weight caused the structure of the actual episode to collapse? The technobabble runs fast and deep here, and having all that happen just to give Keffer a search for truth and meaning this season seems a little weak.

How did this episode influence JMS in his resulting feat of writing all of the episodes of Seasons 3 and 4, or was it even an influence at all? We may never know.

images courtesy italway.it and babylon5.ru

Vote for us! Let’s get this show’s rank into The Pickle’s Top 100!

Shameless plug: Summer contributed an essay to the essay collection, So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica, now available at your local bookstore and at Amazon.com.

Shameless related begging: Summer’s also really hoping to convince the publisher to eventually do a collection on Babylon 5. If you’d be interested in buying one if they did do a B5 collection, let Summer know, either here in comments, or over in the Babylon Podcast forums.

We are still considering doing a separate B5 Fan Tales segment in the future, so send us those favorite anecdotes of yours.

Your feedback does matter, and is welcome! You can call us at 206-338-2259, or email us and tell us what you think… and likely hear it played or read on the show. Please try to keep the voicemail comments as brief as possible.

Buy “A Distant Star” via iTunes

Promo: Mur Lafferty’s Geek Fu Action Grip
Promo: Chuck Chat Technorama
Link: Smart Pop Books

 

 Babylon Podcast: Show #44 [1:01:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4380)

Just FYI, the IRC channel #babylonpodcast will be dropped this week, if not later tonight.

New chatroom: #farpointmedia (same network, irc.freenode.net)

We had too many shows with their own channels. This way, it’s easier for people to all just float in and out of the one channel, no matter which show they favor.

There’s now also a separate nav link for instructions to use the forums and chatroom, in addition to the one for the live feed.