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Welcome to Show #199!
Just about everyone was missing in action this episode, so it’s lucky that we had Edmund from Greenville and Gary from Jacksonville to fill in, and yes, we are risking damage to the time-space continuum by having Gary both answer his own voicemails and call in a voicemail in response to his response to his own voicemail.
The fabric of our universe may never be the same.
And don’t miss next week’s special “Men of Babylon 5” episode!
Listener Feedback: Summer, Edmund and Gary tackle the bulk of the remaining messages in the voicemail queue, and the fabric of our universe shudders.
Gary wonders if there might have been an IPX spinoff series based on how much “Thirdspace” focused on the IPX side of the story; Roger weighs in on “A Call to Arms” being a back-door pilot and wonders if “Legend of the Rangers” falls into that same category; Roger chastises Summer for saying that “All Along the Watchtower” was Hendrix’ rather than Dylan’s creation; Gary posits that Lyta had subsconscious knowledge of the machine that might have helped make sense of why she sent all the maintbots careening into it; Mike in Detroit comments on the “Day of the Dead” Smackdown and why Lennier/Morden was a good matchup;
Neil from Bowie talks about how JMS kept his “Sleeping in Light” cameo under wraps; Arkle wants to know if there have been any FarPoint Media shows that have never fallen into the Gilligan’s Island trap; Will in Miami implores us to keep the podcast alive long after we’ve run out of B5 episodes to talk about; Gary weighs in on the deus ex machina plotonium effect of the Thirdspace device.
Summer also asks for help in getting Lurker’s Guide 2.0 completed and finished, including missing collectibles, photos of magazine covers and toys, and all sorts of other B5 goodies that didn’t get included in the original guide during the years after Crusade.
More Parody/Filk Songs Wanted: If you know of any more B5-related fan songs out there, definitely let us know, so we can let other B5 fans know where to buy them! And if those CDs are out of print, let’s brainstorm on ways to get those songs back out there for fans!
Babylon Podcast Social Communities:
Twitter: @babylonpodcast
Babylon 5 Information Gathering: If you know of a dead or abandoned B5 related website that may be in need of a new home, let Summer know! Maybe we can mirror it here or house it on a sister site.
If you can, Please Donate to the show!
Promo: Friday Fables
I do have one minor correction to add: Edmund said that “Legend of the Rangers” was the only disc in his Movies Collection that he’s never watched. I went to check my copy, and LoTR isn’t in that set.
So I sighed with relief to know for sure that I still don’t own it 🙂
I’m very excited that you guys are doing Crusade and the books, and therefore the show will continue on for some time! And even though I’m not personally interested in comics or collectibles, I’ll still enjoy hearing about all of it. You guys are great! I look forward to each new show.
If you read the script book for Legend if the Rangers, and then watch the film, you do end up with a pretty good experience from the whole thing.
Am I the only one who thinks that “Legend of the Rangers” had its good points, and had potential as a series?
There was potential for a series about a specific group of Rangers, but given the strength of the stories that had come before to set up the universe, the end result was disappointing. And I cannot fairly and honestly evaulate the good points yet, because I have not seen it since that original airing. I believe I can still rent a copy from Netflix, so I’m gonna hurry and do that 🙂
I think what you saw, that you could not put your finger on, that made you dislike the movie beyond the dodgy acting and weak dialogue and cheesy VR weapons system, was what soured me on the movie the first and only time I ever saw it,: it’s Joe Straczynski continuing to water down his original concept and trying to call it “milk.”
Babylon 5 was conceived as a novel for television, with a structured beginning, middle and most definitely END. Therein lies the problem: anything that happens after the end is anticlimax. Once King Kong falls off the Empire State Building, do we really care what restaurant Faye Ray and Robert Armstrong go to for a late dinner? No; fade to black, roll credits, go home.
“Oh, an evil alien species carrying out a secret agenda on behalf of an yet another ancient uber-race. We’ve seen this before.” In fact, since all the First Ones had been supposedly gotten rid purposefully at the end of the Shadow War, having another “First One” species weakens the main story arc of the parent series…and who wants that?
Anyway, love the podcast. Be seeing you.
The only character from Legend of the Rangers who I really would’ve liked to see more of was the Drazi Ranger. “I lift things.” 🙂
CaptMurdock makes an interesting point. Would you say, then, that B5’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness?
However, I don’t entirely agree with you. I’d like to see the story of the Telepath War. I’d like to see more of the Monk Rangers working to rebuild Earth After The Burn. I’d definitely like to know more about the Vorlonish Ranger a million years hence.
I think the biggest problem with LotR is that JMS was just burnt. He has stated that in the aftermath of Crusade’s cancellation, someone close to him said that was the best thing for him at the time. Given that, is it any wonder that LotR is sub-par?
Interesting premise. And now I have to wonder… is it possible that because LotR wasn’t as well-received as it had been anticipated, maybe that influenced the executive decision to not go ahead with the feature film at that time? I don’t recall the timeline exactly, but I wonder, even though there were several years apart, if it’s possible that the “people with the money” who were being asked for financing were going strictly on numbers, and didn’t like what they saw for the ratings results for LotR and decided that they didn’t see any indication of enough profit for them to finance TMoS.
As for future stories I’d most want to see, I’d want to see a movie or miniseries about the Telepath War; I’d love to see a series of graphic novels about rebuilding Earth after the Great Burn, including one on the war that led up to the Burn; and most importantly, I’d love to see a series of movies or a miniseries that gives us a conclusion to Crusade.
Summer,
I don’t think LotR sinking like a stone, and the eventual failure of TMoS to get off the ground, were related. LotR aired in January, 2002. The 12 month window the producers had to launch TMoS was from early 2004 to early 2005, a pretty wide gap. Also, as JMS has mentioned during his recent career transformations, film folks look down their noses at TV folks. So, they wouldn’t necessarily see a TV failure as any reason to doubt their ability to make it work!
Also, a small clarification to your correction. LotR is the only unwatched disk in MY personal Movie Collection box. I’ve never liked the WB packaging of the DVDs, and reboxed all of mine with Ric Easton’s exceptional custom covers. He has redone the Movie Collection cover to include LotR. You can see his wonderful work (which includes many other genre favorites) @:
http://www.rixgrafix.com/index_259.htm (B5 page)
http://www.rixgrafix.com/index_064.htm (DVD home page)
Be seeing you,
Edmund
I enjoyed Legend of the Rangers when I first saw it. I think I actually watched it twice over the weekend. I also watched it again when the DVD came out. The VR weapons system was terrible, but I thought it had a lot of potential. What really, really hurt about it being canceled is that had it gone to series we would have gotten more G’Kar. As it is, that pilot (not backdoor pilot) was the last we got.