“Wait,” you ask. “How can there be spoilers if this is the last episode?”
Well, there are a few other bits like tie-in novels, comics, and a couple tries at new series in the B5 universe. So if you have anything to say about those things with roots in the original show and/or this episode, you are welcome to do so here.
Concerning Crusade, I distinctly remember reading somewhere that JMS more or less explicitly acknowledged the similarities between the Excalibur crew and a D&D party. Wish I could remember exactly where I read it.
I believe it’s somewhere in the DVD set. That’s what TV Tropes says, anyway — I haven’t checked.
Another way to look at that, of course, is that it takes the classic “small group of varied characters go on a Quest” set-up from fantasy literature and translates it to televisual SF. Except that it’s hardly a translation, given how common a similar set-up is in science-fiction, and thanks to Star Trek, is close to the default mode for American SFTV in particular. I think it’s basically that, but one of the characters is a Thief and another is a Wizard.
And damn good characters, too. I think that Crusade had the potential to be better than Babylon 5. That’s not saying much, really. Lots of things have had the *potential* to be better than Babylon 5; much fewer have realized that potential, and one can’t be sure that Crusade would have.
But there are encouraging signs (or discouraging, given what happened to the show). It’s worth remembering how little experience JMS had at the full range of things that Babylon 5 required him to do. One would expect that he learned a few things about what he would have done differently if he were starting B5 again.
(Admittedly, I’m not sure that JMS ever got all that good at the crucial part of being a showrunner that is ensuring that other writers’ contributions are solid. I’m basing this on Jeremiah, although I’ve only seen the first season and the beginning of the second. However, there the gulf in quality between the JMS-written arc episodes and the non-arc episodes, written by other people, is extraordinarily large. )
One area where that’s the case is the characters, where I think JMS put a little extra work into ensuring that they all were complex and interesting from the start. None of them rise to the level of Londo and G’Kar for me, but I find almost all of the main characters (the doctor is the only exception) more interesting than Sheridan, Franklin, Delenn, or Ivanova.
(One of our hosts commented that she didn’t like Gideon. It’s one of those cases where I’d say that I don’t care for him all that much as a person, but he’s a great character, who keeps you guessing about just how uncomfortable you should be with him. I really wish we’d gotten to see the rest of his arc play out.)
I mean, I hate Technomages. I think they’re goofy on screen, make no sense as a concept, and don’t compensate by being thematically interesting or raising interesting questions, or … anything, really. But Galen is one of my all-time favorite characters on televised SF. Some of that’s Peter Woodward’s performance, but not all.
Just a quick one.
Chip mentioned you could on occasion find info on Babylon 5 in an old magazine called Cinefantastique.
If anyone is interested, you can access most of the mags at the Internet Archive – https://archive.org/.
Just type Cinefantastique into the search function.
Enjoy!
PS: You can also read Starlog and a bunch of other magazines through here.
I joined the Podcast late (2 months ago) and I have been listening to a re-cap every evening for the duration of 73 episodes. I am truly enjoying every one of them.
About 10 episodes in, however, I began to see a terrifying parallel to the pathway of B5 in relationship to contemporary politics and the direction of the many bad turns being taken all over the world, but specifically the US. Having just finished 73, “The Illusion of Truth,” I felt the need to comment on the prescient qualities of the program, and how closely it resembles the degeneration of a political system in the throes of self-immolation.
Chip’s comments are chilling, but here at the end of 2018, it seems worse than that. Hopefully, by the time I reach 112, “Sleeping in the Light,” the system will have begun to pull itself out of the Hole.
BTW – We are getting ready for a colony on the Moon, here in the late part of 2018, just as JMS predicted…
I hope you folks see this. I have wanted to communicate this for 60 episodes. Thanks for a great listen.
Hello,
I found you guys just recently.
I’ve been burning through the episodes and am currently on 66. In Episode 65, there were comments about how you were more than halfway done. In that conversation there was mention of jokingly doing Crusade.
My question is: Why not do Crusade as well as the other movies that you have not yet covered (Legend of the Rangers & The Lost Tales). I can’t imagine that I’m in the minority of folks that would like to see you do those. I’ve loved what you’ve done so far!
Cheers for now.
That is the eventual plan, but we’re taking our time on it–we really do see Crusade et al as ancillary material, and we’ve got a lot on our plates these days. -Chip
As promised in another thread.
Elizabeth Lochley: You know what you are?
Gideon: Ruggedly handsome?
Elizabeth Lochley: A control freak.
Gideon: Can’t I be both?
Crusade Audioguide 2020!
Are you guys still planning on doing Crusade and the other B5 material? I found you guys a few months ago and now I’m getting near the end!