Season 2 Retrospective
As with Season 1, it’s time to take a look back at Season 2 and talk about what I think.
What really stands out to me this season is that I really didn’t like the direction the show was going. Some of the early stuff is good, the last few are okay (with an excellent finale), but the middle section was just not my thing. And while I think it was objectively “better” than most of Season 1, it ended up bothering me more because it was harder to forgive its mistakes. Season 1 was a show trying to find itself, and trying to be something new in a market—and under studio management—that very much didn’t want something new. It was uneven and messy, but it was trying its hardest, and I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt because I wanted to see what it could become. Season 2 was a show that had, in many ways, already become what it had intended to become, and when we finally got there I realized that I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped to. Some of the episodes were very much “for” me, but a lot of them simply weren’t. And that’s not a commentary on the quality of the show or the writing, but on me realizing that I maybe just wasn’t a part of the audience. Which, 25 years later, shouldn’t make them sad in the least: they found their audience, that audience loved it, and my thoughts are a full two decades too late to matter either way.
On the other hand, the things that I like about the show are things that I really, really like. The main characters are, for the most part, fantastic. The way those characters change over time is wonderful, in a way that modern serials still aren’t doing very well. Consider Londo: he started Season 1, and to a lesser degree even Season 2, as a slapstick vaudevillian. He was the comic relief. But we could watch, step by step, as he made a series of entirely believable decisions and became a straight-up villain. It’s a classically tragic character arc, founded on a clear tragic flaw, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if he hadn’t started where he did. If Londo had been villainous or evil from the start, then becoming a slightly worse villain wouldn’t have a lot of impact—if Season 1 G’Kar, for example, had turned into Season 2 Londo, nobody would have cared, and in fact his character would be seen as pretty flat and cliche. Instead the duplicitous G’Kar became a tortured hero, and the bumbling fool Londo bumbled himself right into the role of a genocidal tyrant. And what makes it worse is that this is exactly the role he’d always wanted, he just didn’t realize what it would take to get there, and once he was halfway along the path he also realized that he didn’t have the will either to continue or to stop. Watching his spirit completely shatter under the weight of his own weakness (in the much-lauded window scene in THE LONG, TWILIGHT STRUGGLE) was the kind of moment that great novels can often provide for us, but TV and movies so rarely manage to pull off. Even today, when serialized TV is the norm, we don’t see this kind of pre-planned character arc, or this level of status-quo disruption. In Season 2 of Justified, Boyd Crowder flirts with being a good guy, but he started the series bad and he ended the series bad, and while it was fascinating to watch him be bad we never really got to watch him change. In one of my episode reviews I compared Londo to Walter White of Breaking Bad, which is the closest analogue, but Londo is still more layered and more tragic. Even in two seasons, compared to Breaking Bad’s five, we’ve gone on a longer journey with Londo, and we’ve seen more sides of his character. I’d like to see more of this in modern TV: characters that really change, and arcs that take us for a ride. “This guy learns to be a better person” is certainly more interesting than most of what we got before the days of serialized TV, but it’s very entry-level storytelling, and Babylon 5 proves that we can do more.
I want to talk about the captains really quick, too. Sheridan developed into a more complete character than Sinclair ever was, I think, and he has some qualities that I really love: he takes no crap from anyone, and hits back so much harder than whoever makes the mistake of crossing him. But I still find myself missing Sinclair. For all of Sheridan’s ferocity, Sinclair had a more commanding presence; he had a gravitas and an air of authority that Sheridan has yet to match. On the other hand, I don’t think Sinclair could have pulled off the nascent Delenn romance as well as Sheridan, and believe me when I say that I am as surprised as anybody by how well Sheridan is pulling that off. When it was first introduced in CONFESSIONS AND LAMENTATIONS I thought it was ridiculous, but they made it work, and they made it work really well. Huge props to Delenn and Sheridan both. I still miss Sinclair, though :(
Anyway. Let’s get to the lists!
My favorite episodes of Season 2 (from best to slightly-not-as-best):
1: THE FALL OF NIGHT
2: GROPOS
3: THE COMING OF SHADOWS
4: THE LONG DARK
5: DIVIDED LOYALTIES
A close runner up to this list would be the other good Talia episode, A SPIDER IN THE WEB, which missed the cut partly because it had some pretty stupid Garibaldi stuff, but mostly because DIVIDED LOYALTIES used Ivanova better, and this show consistently doesn't use Ivanova as much as it should. Another Honorable Mention goes to COMES THE INQUISITOR, which had an okay main plot but was elevated to all-star territory by the elevator scene between Vir and G'Kar. If I was giving awards for scenes instead of episodes, that would be right up there, arguably at the very top.
THE FALL OF NIGHT takes first place because it is obviously, clearly, the best episode of the series thus far. A lot of people would pick THE COMING OF SHADOWS--that's the one that won the Hugo, after all--but they are clearly wrong, and should feel bad. THE FALL OF NIGHT had stuff we saw coming, stuff we never saw coming, heart-wrenching character arcs, stunning effects, Big Idea SF, great acting, and probably the single best direction of any episode on the show. Props to Janet Greek for that, who I hope they use way more often in the future. Go back and rewatch the sequence where Sheridan is preparing to go to the garden meeting, starting with his speech to the mirror all the way through his feet finally touching down safely with Kosh. The acting and characterization is stellar, the pacing is perfect, the tension builds in a way you rarely see on TV, and of course the sequence with the angel Vorlon just blows everything else away. Even in the pretty-good episodes leading up to this one, I was still kind of wondering if maybe Babylon 5 just wasn't the show for me--that back half of the season is veeeeery weak--but this episode made me a fan. It made me a superfan. I want to invite this episode to my birthday party so we can be best friends.
And yes, THE COMING OF SHADOWS was also great, but I have to admit that I liked GROPOS more. And I'm as surprised as you are, though in hindsight I should have seen this coming. Babylon 5 tends to shine the brightest when it focuses on Big Events and Important Changes, but GROPOS slowed everything down and focused on characters. We got to know people--our stars and our guest stars--better in this episode than in almost anything else. Stories only matter when we care about the people in them, and GROPOS did this so well.
Speaking of guest stars, my picks for 4 and 5 are based largely on their guests: THE LONG DARK had a star turn from Dwight Shultz as a war vet wracked with PTSD, and DIVIDED LOYALTIES had the surprisingly-welcome return of Patricia Tallman as Lyta. DIVIDED LOYALTIES also gave us the best performance yet by Talia, and (as mentioned) a fantastic story for Ivanova. Ivanova got to deliver the closing voiceover monologue for Season 2, and apparently gives the opening credits voiceover for episodes in Season 3, so maybe they're finally going to start using her as much as she deserves.
My least favorite episodes of Season 2 (from not-as-bad to pretty bad):
5: HUNTER, PREY
4: IN THE SHADOW OF Z'HA'DUM
3: KNIVES
2: ACTS OF SACRIFICE
1: SOUL MATES
HUNTER, PREY is a boring story elevated by a parade of recognizable guest stars. IN THE SHADOW OF Z'HA'DUM and KNIVES are both part of that "I don't know if I care anymore" sequence in the back half of the season that almost convinced me the show had gone off the rails. ACTS OF SACRIFICE was only half bad, but the half that's bad includes Ivanova forced to pretend to have vocal sex with an alien Nazi, so screw you, ACTS OF SACRIFICE. And SOUL MATES was just pointless; it's not offensively terrible, but at the end of the day it's the one I'm least likely to want to watch again, so here we are.
Interesting note: In both seasons, my second-least-favorite episode has been one with one really good subplot and one really bad one. In Season 1, that was TKO, where Ivanova had the good plot, and here it's ACTS OF SACRIFICE, where Ivanova has the bad plot. I don't know if this means anything, except that Ivanova tends to get featured in a lot of uneven episodes. It's also worth nothing that so far both episodes to have the word "soul" in the title have ended up on my least favorite list. Stop putting "soul" in your titles, I guess, is the lesson here.
I want to be clear, though: none of these episodes are worse, I think, than any of my least favorite Season 1 episodes. And I think most of my favorite Season 2 eps I would rank higher than most of my favorite Season 1 eps. The show, on the whole, is stronger, or at least the average level of quality is higher. My complaints about this season is not that it's bad, just that its style of storytelling was not clicking with me.
My favorite characters:
1: G'Kar
2: Vir
3: Franklin
4: Kosh
5: Lennier
6: Ivanova
7: Sarah
8: Sheridan
9: Delenn
10: Guinevere
Sarah is the woman in HUNTER, PREY who shows up from the resistance movement to sass off at Sheridan while he tries to find the missing doctor. I want her to come baaaaaaack. Guinevere is the lawyer who pretends to defend Sheridan in the murder trial in THERE ALL HONOR LIES, and she doesn't do much but I love her. You'll note that Garibaldi and Londo still haven't made an appearance, and even if I expanded the list they wouldn't make it on there too quickly. Honorable mentions go to Lyta, Sebastian the Inquisitor, Morden, and that teddy bear with Sheridan's initials.
I honestly don't know what it's going to take for me to put Garibaldi on this list. He's not terrible, and I like him, and I like to see him do good things and be good at his job. His scene with G'Kar in COMES THE INQUISITOR was great, and his principled resignation in IN THE SHADOW OF Z'HA'DUM was awesome. But for the most part he's just kind of there, not really standing out or doing anything significant. And to be fair, this season kind of treated Ivanova the same way, but at least Ivanova has a distinct personality. Garibaldi's just an average Joe, and while he is very, very good at being a likeable average Joe that's not the kiond of thing that's going to get you on the list. I hope to see more of him in Season 3.
And Londo? You know my thing about Londo. His arc is great, but I've never felt a connection to him. I don't "like" him, either in his opening role as mockable buffoon or his final role as reluctant monster. I already talk about him as an example of a "great" character, but I don't know if I'll ever call him a "favorite" character. There's something going on here that I just can't put my finger on.
But all of this is pointless chattering, because THE FALL OF NIGHT has earned this show a hundred second chances. There is no way, having seen what I've seen here, that I'm not going to dive straight into Season 3. I am READY for this, Babylon 5. Show me what you've got.
What really stands out to me this season is that I really didn’t like the direction the show was going. Some of the early stuff is good, the last few are okay (with an excellent finale), but the middle section was just not my thing. And while I think it was objectively “better” than most of Season 1, it ended up bothering me more because it was harder to forgive its mistakes. Season 1 was a show trying to find itself, and trying to be something new in a market—and under studio management—that very much didn’t want something new. It was uneven and messy, but it was trying its hardest, and I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt because I wanted to see what it could become. Season 2 was a show that had, in many ways, already become what it had intended to become, and when we finally got there I realized that I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped to. Some of the episodes were very much “for” me, but a lot of them simply weren’t. And that’s not a commentary on the quality of the show or the writing, but on me realizing that I maybe just wasn’t a part of the audience. Which, 25 years later, shouldn’t make them sad in the least: they found their audience, that audience loved it, and my thoughts are a full two decades too late to matter either way.
On the other hand, the things that I like about the show are things that I really, really like. The main characters are, for the most part, fantastic. The way those characters change over time is wonderful, in a way that modern serials still aren’t doing very well. Consider Londo: he started Season 1, and to a lesser degree even Season 2, as a slapstick vaudevillian. He was the comic relief. But we could watch, step by step, as he made a series of entirely believable decisions and became a straight-up villain. It’s a classically tragic character arc, founded on a clear tragic flaw, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if he hadn’t started where he did. If Londo had been villainous or evil from the start, then becoming a slightly worse villain wouldn’t have a lot of impact—if Season 1 G’Kar, for example, had turned into Season 2 Londo, nobody would have cared, and in fact his character would be seen as pretty flat and cliche. Instead the duplicitous G’Kar became a tortured hero, and the bumbling fool Londo bumbled himself right into the role of a genocidal tyrant. And what makes it worse is that this is exactly the role he’d always wanted, he just didn’t realize what it would take to get there, and once he was halfway along the path he also realized that he didn’t have the will either to continue or to stop. Watching his spirit completely shatter under the weight of his own weakness (in the much-lauded window scene in THE LONG, TWILIGHT STRUGGLE) was the kind of moment that great novels can often provide for us, but TV and movies so rarely manage to pull off. Even today, when serialized TV is the norm, we don’t see this kind of pre-planned character arc, or this level of status-quo disruption. In Season 2 of Justified, Boyd Crowder flirts with being a good guy, but he started the series bad and he ended the series bad, and while it was fascinating to watch him be bad we never really got to watch him change. In one of my episode reviews I compared Londo to Walter White of Breaking Bad, which is the closest analogue, but Londo is still more layered and more tragic. Even in two seasons, compared to Breaking Bad’s five, we’ve gone on a longer journey with Londo, and we’ve seen more sides of his character. I’d like to see more of this in modern TV: characters that really change, and arcs that take us for a ride. “This guy learns to be a better person” is certainly more interesting than most of what we got before the days of serialized TV, but it’s very entry-level storytelling, and Babylon 5 proves that we can do more.
I want to talk about the captains really quick, too. Sheridan developed into a more complete character than Sinclair ever was, I think, and he has some qualities that I really love: he takes no crap from anyone, and hits back so much harder than whoever makes the mistake of crossing him. But I still find myself missing Sinclair. For all of Sheridan’s ferocity, Sinclair had a more commanding presence; he had a gravitas and an air of authority that Sheridan has yet to match. On the other hand, I don’t think Sinclair could have pulled off the nascent Delenn romance as well as Sheridan, and believe me when I say that I am as surprised as anybody by how well Sheridan is pulling that off. When it was first introduced in CONFESSIONS AND LAMENTATIONS I thought it was ridiculous, but they made it work, and they made it work really well. Huge props to Delenn and Sheridan both. I still miss Sinclair, though :(
Anyway. Let’s get to the lists!
My favorite episodes of Season 2 (from best to slightly-not-as-best):
1: THE FALL OF NIGHT
2: GROPOS
3: THE COMING OF SHADOWS
4: THE LONG DARK
5: DIVIDED LOYALTIES
A close runner up to this list would be the other good Talia episode, A SPIDER IN THE WEB, which missed the cut partly because it had some pretty stupid Garibaldi stuff, but mostly because DIVIDED LOYALTIES used Ivanova better, and this show consistently doesn't use Ivanova as much as it should. Another Honorable Mention goes to COMES THE INQUISITOR, which had an okay main plot but was elevated to all-star territory by the elevator scene between Vir and G'Kar. If I was giving awards for scenes instead of episodes, that would be right up there, arguably at the very top.
THE FALL OF NIGHT takes first place because it is obviously, clearly, the best episode of the series thus far. A lot of people would pick THE COMING OF SHADOWS--that's the one that won the Hugo, after all--but they are clearly wrong, and should feel bad. THE FALL OF NIGHT had stuff we saw coming, stuff we never saw coming, heart-wrenching character arcs, stunning effects, Big Idea SF, great acting, and probably the single best direction of any episode on the show. Props to Janet Greek for that, who I hope they use way more often in the future. Go back and rewatch the sequence where Sheridan is preparing to go to the garden meeting, starting with his speech to the mirror all the way through his feet finally touching down safely with Kosh. The acting and characterization is stellar, the pacing is perfect, the tension builds in a way you rarely see on TV, and of course the sequence with the angel Vorlon just blows everything else away. Even in the pretty-good episodes leading up to this one, I was still kind of wondering if maybe Babylon 5 just wasn't the show for me--that back half of the season is veeeeery weak--but this episode made me a fan. It made me a superfan. I want to invite this episode to my birthday party so we can be best friends.
And yes, THE COMING OF SHADOWS was also great, but I have to admit that I liked GROPOS more. And I'm as surprised as you are, though in hindsight I should have seen this coming. Babylon 5 tends to shine the brightest when it focuses on Big Events and Important Changes, but GROPOS slowed everything down and focused on characters. We got to know people--our stars and our guest stars--better in this episode than in almost anything else. Stories only matter when we care about the people in them, and GROPOS did this so well.
Speaking of guest stars, my picks for 4 and 5 are based largely on their guests: THE LONG DARK had a star turn from Dwight Shultz as a war vet wracked with PTSD, and DIVIDED LOYALTIES had the surprisingly-welcome return of Patricia Tallman as Lyta. DIVIDED LOYALTIES also gave us the best performance yet by Talia, and (as mentioned) a fantastic story for Ivanova. Ivanova got to deliver the closing voiceover monologue for Season 2, and apparently gives the opening credits voiceover for episodes in Season 3, so maybe they're finally going to start using her as much as she deserves.
My least favorite episodes of Season 2 (from not-as-bad to pretty bad):
5: HUNTER, PREY
4: IN THE SHADOW OF Z'HA'DUM
3: KNIVES
2: ACTS OF SACRIFICE
1: SOUL MATES
HUNTER, PREY is a boring story elevated by a parade of recognizable guest stars. IN THE SHADOW OF Z'HA'DUM and KNIVES are both part of that "I don't know if I care anymore" sequence in the back half of the season that almost convinced me the show had gone off the rails. ACTS OF SACRIFICE was only half bad, but the half that's bad includes Ivanova forced to pretend to have vocal sex with an alien Nazi, so screw you, ACTS OF SACRIFICE. And SOUL MATES was just pointless; it's not offensively terrible, but at the end of the day it's the one I'm least likely to want to watch again, so here we are.
Interesting note: In both seasons, my second-least-favorite episode has been one with one really good subplot and one really bad one. In Season 1, that was TKO, where Ivanova had the good plot, and here it's ACTS OF SACRIFICE, where Ivanova has the bad plot. I don't know if this means anything, except that Ivanova tends to get featured in a lot of uneven episodes. It's also worth nothing that so far both episodes to have the word "soul" in the title have ended up on my least favorite list. Stop putting "soul" in your titles, I guess, is the lesson here.
I want to be clear, though: none of these episodes are worse, I think, than any of my least favorite Season 1 episodes. And I think most of my favorite Season 2 eps I would rank higher than most of my favorite Season 1 eps. The show, on the whole, is stronger, or at least the average level of quality is higher. My complaints about this season is not that it's bad, just that its style of storytelling was not clicking with me.
My favorite characters:
1: G'Kar
2: Vir
3: Franklin
4: Kosh
5: Lennier
6: Ivanova
7: Sarah
8: Sheridan
9: Delenn
10: Guinevere
Sarah is the woman in HUNTER, PREY who shows up from the resistance movement to sass off at Sheridan while he tries to find the missing doctor. I want her to come baaaaaaack. Guinevere is the lawyer who pretends to defend Sheridan in the murder trial in THERE ALL HONOR LIES, and she doesn't do much but I love her. You'll note that Garibaldi and Londo still haven't made an appearance, and even if I expanded the list they wouldn't make it on there too quickly. Honorable mentions go to Lyta, Sebastian the Inquisitor, Morden, and that teddy bear with Sheridan's initials.
I honestly don't know what it's going to take for me to put Garibaldi on this list. He's not terrible, and I like him, and I like to see him do good things and be good at his job. His scene with G'Kar in COMES THE INQUISITOR was great, and his principled resignation in IN THE SHADOW OF Z'HA'DUM was awesome. But for the most part he's just kind of there, not really standing out or doing anything significant. And to be fair, this season kind of treated Ivanova the same way, but at least Ivanova has a distinct personality. Garibaldi's just an average Joe, and while he is very, very good at being a likeable average Joe that's not the kiond of thing that's going to get you on the list. I hope to see more of him in Season 3.
And Londo? You know my thing about Londo. His arc is great, but I've never felt a connection to him. I don't "like" him, either in his opening role as mockable buffoon or his final role as reluctant monster. I already talk about him as an example of a "great" character, but I don't know if I'll ever call him a "favorite" character. There's something going on here that I just can't put my finger on.
But all of this is pointless chattering, because THE FALL OF NIGHT has earned this show a hundred second chances. There is no way, having seen what I've seen here, that I'm not going to dive straight into Season 3. I am READY for this, Babylon 5. Show me what you've got.
And in a fun little juxtaposition... Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad has a brief but critical role in Season 4 of B5. :)
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of the "mixed" episodes: When you are done watching "Gray 17 is Missing" next season, you will want to read some of the comments by JMS from the time on the Lurker's Guide. I think it's the only time he actually admitted failure on an episode, and offered something of an apology. However, the "B" plot of that one is actually pretty solid, with a great performance by one of your favorite recurring actors / characters.
It's really hard to judge these episodes. On a recent re-watch, I remembered "Knives" by the kinda meh plot of Sheridan getting possessed by the temporal energy monster, and of course I remember "Acts of Sacrifice" by that abysmal scene with Ivanova at the end. (And I can just imagine JMS rolling in the aisles thinking it was the funniest thing ever). I hesitated, thinking, "Do I really want to watch these again?" On rewatch, I found the other stories were really solid. It makes me wonder if those performances and stories only SEEM so brilliant in contrast to the A-story (or B-story).
G'kar's scene in the hall at the end of Acts of Sacrifice is just... amazing. He's tried to get all of his people on B5 to behave in an act of... well, really, "deathbed repentance" more than sacrifice. He's just seen his last hope crumble, he knows his entire civilization is pretty well screwed, and he's had two people stick out their necks personally and secretly for him to offer all they can out of friendship. I don't know many actors who could portray that range of emotions, but Katsulas NAILS it. Yet it's offset by that ridiculous little dance by Ivanova.
Anyway, I'm fascinated as usual by your choices as favorite and least favorite. It's interesting to see where things resonated with you that did almost nothing for me, and vice versa, as well as where we're both in agreement. I guess the fact that it does resonate with people differently partly explains the show's rabid fan base. :)
Fun fact: in the remaining three seasons and five TV movies, there's a grand total of 44 minutes not written by JMS. That shows in negative ways at times ("Gray 17 Is Missing" is mentioned above, and... yeah, that's rough), but it's also fascinating to watch a show that's so completely marching to one man's beat.
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember that a couple of the movies make Gray 17 is Missing look good by comparison.
DeleteThat Gray 17 episode just came out of nowhere. It was just … huh?
Delete