15 thoughts on “Earhart’s: “The Coming of Shadows” Spoiler Space”
Has anyone else been having problems downloading these from iTunes?
Almost every fortnight these episodes come down extremely slowly, generally taking 20+ minutes to download. When they do finally come down about 50% of the time they fail to process and have to be downloaded again.
I download about a dozen podcasts, including three Incomparable ones, and no other podcast has these speed issues or these processing issues. This episode took two attempts and nearly an hour to download this morning.
Is there something different about the way these episodes are uploaded to iTunes?
The drink that G’Kar offers Londo is mentioned again in episode “Babylon 5 – s04e15 – No Surrender No Retreat”. In this episode, Londo goes to G’Kar’s quarters to talk to him. This is probably one of the best scenes in all of B5!
So **** good is pretty much absolutely correct. The Coming of Shadows was the moment when Babylon 5 went from a show that I watched to a show that I couldn’t miss. Still my favorite episode. Still one of my favorite episodes of anything.
(Can I steal London’s Dream as the title of the first in my series of urban fantasy novels?)
Apologies for the double post. I was going to put this in non-spoilers but then I realized that it was going to be more spoilerose than I’d thought.
I think Sheridan’s confrontation with G’Kar, on which the podcast expended a fair amount of time, is quite an important part of The Coming of Shadows. One can only assume that as originally conceived, the rapprochement between G’Kar and the commander of the station (begins here, culminates in The Long Twilight Struggle) was going to be informed by the fraught relations between Sinclair and G’Kar from the very beginning of the show.
Sheridan hasn’t had any of that, of course, and (I think sensibly, but YMMV) JMS didn’t try to shoehorn an equivalent antagonistic relationship into the first eight episodes. So something has to be done here to suggest that Sheridan and early-model G’Kar are not people who are naturally suited to get along. Otherwise a crucial scene in The Long Twilight Struggle will have the impact of confetti.
So yes: this isn’t a Sheridan episode, not really. But I think it’s more of a Sheridan episode than it seems, because it’s absolutely vital set-up for his moral revulsion at his own government’s behavior at the end of S2.
Great Babcast and comments peeps, entertaining and thoughtful as always.
I think it was Erika was talking about the setup of Londo as buffoon? Absolutely, it underscores the depth of his tragedy and all those he creates. How many other drunken Ferengi are on Centauri Prime (and Narn) that Londo, Refa and Morden have damned?
I admit I felt a bit underwhelmed with the direction where the focus on the dark path is suggested to begin here. Namely, because Quadrant 37 caused the loss of ten thousand lives. The point is taken though that we can reduce Londo to accessory there, because, perhaps he didn’t really believe Morden would do it. Here, he’s conscious of his role in genocide.
It seems to me Londo’s story is very much a predecessor to Breaking Bad’s Walter White. I’m a bit tired today, but if anyone want to mock up a visual of Mollari in his underwear in the desert with a shadow by his side, go right ahead. Alternately, we could have Vir in celebration: ‘Waving, bitch!’
Londo’s turn might be thought to start when he sets out to kill *one* Narn in Midnight on the Firing Line, really. I think it matters that all this starts in a sympathetic place.
Regarding the Hugo nomination:
[http://www.jmsnews.com/search.aspx?Start=1&query=hugo+nomination&sort=1]
A note from JMS on 4/20/1996 8:16:00 AM
Arwel Parry asks:
> I assume you withdrew TFON to avoid splitting the vote?
Thanks. Yes, since the last time we were in Hugo contention,
the splitting of votes cost us the award (combined votes would’ve been
enough going in to win), the folks gave us the option of withdrawing
one of the two, and since “The Coming of Shadows” seems the overall
favorite, that one was the one kept.
———————————————————–
From 9/3/1996 5:15:00 AM
ysOp Dupa T Parrot asks:
> How many nominations did FoN receive?
I don’t know offhand; my guess is that it was #5 in the overall
nominations list, because (I understand) they had to jump past #6 (The
Long, Twilight Struggle) to get to #7 (the DS9 episode) to find a
non-B5 candidate for the nominations list. So we had 3 out of the top
6, and apparently two more B5 episodes were high up on the list, I
think in the top 10.
Has anyone else been having problems downloading these from iTunes?
Almost every fortnight these episodes come down extremely slowly, generally taking 20+ minutes to download. When they do finally come down about 50% of the time they fail to process and have to be downloaded again.
I download about a dozen podcasts, including three Incomparable ones, and no other podcast has these speed issues or these processing issues. This episode took two attempts and nearly an hour to download this morning.
Is there something different about the way these episodes are uploaded to iTunes?
AFAIK iTunes doesn’t host the files, it just indexes the RSS feeds – so the speed issue would be likely related to whatever hosting B5AG uses.
I use PocketCasts on my iPhone and it automatically downloads eps for me when they come out – so I’ve never noticed.
I have the same drama on Downcast. It’s not iTunes related.
The drink that G’Kar offers Londo is mentioned again in episode “Babylon 5 – s04e15 – No Surrender No Retreat”. In this episode, Londo goes to G’Kar’s quarters to talk to him. This is probably one of the best scenes in all of B5!
All I can say is “SO F’n GOOD”. We finally see London’s dream and all of the foreshadowing there. Just.. Great… TV…
So **** good is pretty much absolutely correct. The Coming of Shadows was the moment when Babylon 5 went from a show that I watched to a show that I couldn’t miss. Still my favorite episode. Still one of my favorite episodes of anything.
(Can I steal London’s Dream as the title of the first in my series of urban fantasy novels?)
God damnit I blame autocorrect 😉 Steal away 😀
Apologies for the double post. I was going to put this in non-spoilers but then I realized that it was going to be more spoilerose than I’d thought.
I think Sheridan’s confrontation with G’Kar, on which the podcast expended a fair amount of time, is quite an important part of The Coming of Shadows. One can only assume that as originally conceived, the rapprochement between G’Kar and the commander of the station (begins here, culminates in The Long Twilight Struggle) was going to be informed by the fraught relations between Sinclair and G’Kar from the very beginning of the show.
Sheridan hasn’t had any of that, of course, and (I think sensibly, but YMMV) JMS didn’t try to shoehorn an equivalent antagonistic relationship into the first eight episodes. So something has to be done here to suggest that Sheridan and early-model G’Kar are not people who are naturally suited to get along. Otherwise a crucial scene in The Long Twilight Struggle will have the impact of confetti.
So yes: this isn’t a Sheridan episode, not really. But I think it’s more of a Sheridan episode than it seems, because it’s absolutely vital set-up for his moral revulsion at his own government’s behavior at the end of S2.
I can’t wait until we get to wave at Steve.
Like this…
Lol
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Londo deliberately doesn’t wear that jacket again to put off the events seen in the dream sequence.
Sounds right. And then when the events in the dream came true his other jacket was ‘at the dry cleaners’ so he had to wear the purple one again. IIRC
Great Babcast and comments peeps, entertaining and thoughtful as always.
I think it was Erika was talking about the setup of Londo as buffoon? Absolutely, it underscores the depth of his tragedy and all those he creates. How many other drunken Ferengi are on Centauri Prime (and Narn) that Londo, Refa and Morden have damned?
I admit I felt a bit underwhelmed with the direction where the focus on the dark path is suggested to begin here. Namely, because Quadrant 37 caused the loss of ten thousand lives. The point is taken though that we can reduce Londo to accessory there, because, perhaps he didn’t really believe Morden would do it. Here, he’s conscious of his role in genocide.
It seems to me Londo’s story is very much a predecessor to Breaking Bad’s Walter White. I’m a bit tired today, but if anyone want to mock up a visual of Mollari in his underwear in the desert with a shadow by his side, go right ahead. Alternately, we could have Vir in celebration: ‘Waving, bitch!’
Londo’s turn might be thought to start when he sets out to kill *one* Narn in Midnight on the Firing Line, really. I think it matters that all this starts in a sympathetic place.
Regarding the Hugo nomination:
[http://www.jmsnews.com/search.aspx?Start=1&query=hugo+nomination&sort=1]
A note from JMS on 4/20/1996 8:16:00 AM
Arwel Parry asks:
> I assume you withdrew TFON to avoid splitting the vote?
Thanks. Yes, since the last time we were in Hugo contention,
the splitting of votes cost us the award (combined votes would’ve been
enough going in to win), the folks gave us the option of withdrawing
one of the two, and since “The Coming of Shadows” seems the overall
favorite, that one was the one kept.
———————————————————–
From 9/3/1996 5:15:00 AM
ysOp Dupa T Parrot asks:
> How many nominations did FoN receive?
I don’t know offhand; my guess is that it was #5 in the overall
nominations list, because (I understand) they had to jump past #6 (The
Long, Twilight Struggle) to get to #7 (the DS9 episode) to find a
non-B5 candidate for the nominations list. So we had 3 out of the top
6, and apparently two more B5 episodes were high up on the list, I
think in the top 10.
jms