Welcome to Show #142!
Sorry this is so late… Summer came down with a bad case of “too many projects”-itis, and completely forgot that she’d started to post this episode, but didn’t finish posting it. Yeesh.
JMS’ scheduled appearance at NY Comicon (Feb 6-8) may have to be canceled since the movie The Changeling has been nominated for several BAFTA Awards (the British equivalent of the Oscars).
Jarsto joins us this episode… proof positive that he was NOT captured by Vorlons for experimentation. He tells us about the upcoming new episodes of “Three-Edged Sword”, the audio drama over at Voices of Babylon, and their planning for new B5-based audio dramas, and the call for scripts and story ideas from other people.
Tim relates an anecdote from work that directly relates to our most recent episodes of Babylon 5, especially the topic of tonight’s discussion.
Deep Geeking: Tim, Summer and special guest Jarsto delve into “Intersections in Real Time”, definitely one of the most difficult episodes to watch the first time around.
The psychological abuse we see Sheridan being subjected to is also felt by the viewer because of the structure of the episode… there is no cut away to a B story, no time jumps in scene, and the relentless manipulation in pursuit of a truth they want to use for their own purposes.
It’s also another wonderful example of the use of a stage play composition, both in set design and writing/acting, to intensify the the emotional impact of the interactions and the reasons for them.
How much JMS’ background in psychology played in crafting this episode would be a fun thing to find out, and Summer wonders if JMS ever read Psychological Warfare by Col. Paul M. A. Linebarger (aka Cordwainer Smith).
And Summer was mistaken about a few details: Linebarger didn’t write the book for the Army… he was in the Army at the time, and it was published by Infantry Journal Press while he was with the Institute for Advanced International Studies, but the book was an examination of the topic from WWI and WWII. It’s also long long out of print, and copies run $500 and higher these days, but she’d love to read it someday.
Chat: Tim’s been geeking on the Apollo Moon Missions over at the Apollo Talks podcast, so check it out!
Link: Cordwainer Smith
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Promo: The British Invaders
Promo: What the Cast?
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The “previously on Babylon 5” start almost got me into uncontrollable laughter at work after listening to 141.
About a year ago I was able to buy a copy of “Psychological Warfare” for a decent price. The seller really didn’t know what he had, because not only was it in great shape, with the dustjacket–but it wasn’t a ex-library copy (the most common kind found) and IT WAS SIGNED BY LINEBARGER.
You all may have your geek moments on this podcast, but that was an ultra-SF-fanboi geek moment.
Wow… that’s something! I wouldn’t even have thought that something like that would go unnoticed these days… nice get!
I did not get his Japanese-to-English Army-issued phrasebook that showed up on eBay a few years ago. Lots of notes by him in it, and other personal stuff. Man, the bidding on that went crazy.