Our Last, Best Hope for Babylon 5 Fans
Deep Geeking: Tim and Summer discuss “Between The Darkness and The Light”, the episode which marks a significant turning point in the war to take back Earth from Clark’s forces.
The morale hit taken by Sheridan’s capture is turned around by them breaking him out and rescuing him, and by the White Star fleet’s destruction of Earth’s advanced, Shadow-tech cruisers.
Is this the first glimpse we see of Lyta’s steps towards her dark, angry side?
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.
Interview: It’s the interview almost everyone has been waiting for. Ed Wasser joins us this week, and he tells us how he thinks that the attraction to Morden comes from the undeniable allure of the mystery and the appeal of the bad guy. We also talk about how he came to Babylon 5, and how his asking for a more dangerous part led to him getting the role of Morden, his fan club and convention visits, and more.
The depth and reach of Morden’s plans definitely affects the entire series, even though he was only on screen for 13 episodes. It’s a testament to the writing and the performances that major characters that only appear from time to time can have such a large impact on the overall series story arc.
Here’s a 2008 Year in Review special… yeah, after the year end. What’s life without a few funny mixups?
This is an EPIC episode… you can thank Tim for such glorious attention to detail.
Deep Geeking: This week, Brad and Mike join Tim, Jeffrey and Summer to discuss “The Face of the Enemy”.
Summer comments on the Clark’s propaganda against The Army of Light. Tim talks about how the tension level is very high due to the compressing of the story arc for season four. The gang go on to talk about cult of personality and how Clark assumes Sheridan is the center of the organization, even though he has always made it about the goal, not the man. Jeffrey reminisces on the Harlan Ellison / Walter Koneig scene.
Deep Geeking: This week, Tim and Summer discuss “The Exercise of Vital Powers”, and Tim continues to exercise his right to vital puns.
Summer’s appreciation of this episode comes from the complete break from what had been the traditional storytelling style in the series, and diving into old school hard-boiled pulp detective thriller territory. From Garibaldi’s opening monologue, through his working for the power player who’s suspiciouly far beyond his usual clientele, to his having to resist the damsel in distress who almost always lures the private eye to his doom… this episode is all pulp, all the time.
Feedback: This week, Tim and Summer run the gamut of the rest of the voicemail and email feedback left over from last week, all alone in the night.
Summer is really jonesing for access to the Titan Magazines stash of Babylon 5 pics that they used in creating the now-defunct Babylon 5 Magazine. Yeah, those would be nice to have.
Feedback: This week, Tim, Summer and Brad handle the Feedbackapalooza! There’s so much feedback, we may were not able to contain it all in one show.
Interview: This week, Tim and Summer talk with Jaclyn and Jan from the Babylon 5 Scripts Project, and by a twist of fate, the date of this interview, October 29th, was the 3rd anniversary of the release of the first scriptbook!
Jaclyn and Jan give us as many details as they can about how this project came about, and the scope of putting something on this scale together, possible future volumes, and much much more!
Deep Geeking: This week, Tim and Summer delve into discussion about “No Surrender, No Retreat”. We talk about the decision to ask the League to stay on the sidelines until the fighting’s done; the timing of some of the events in the course of the episode; the difference between Sheridan choosing a philosophical solution to end the Shadow War versus resorting to a shooting fight to free the colonies that were under siege; and more.
