B5 Rewatch: "The Geometry of Shadows"
Jun. 23rd, 2010 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieThe Geometry of Shadows
I'm not sure this is my favorite episode--"Severed Dreams" is, you know, up there, as is "Coming of Shadows"--but it's definitely in the top five. There's just the perfect combination of humor, foreboding/foreshadowing, Ivanova being awesome, Rule of Cool with the technomages, character development (Garibaldi), and connection to the arc. I adore this episode.
The Technomages, I fully admit, have absolutely no logical reason to exist. Unless they're going to get some kind of commission from doing children's parties or something, they have no reason to spend all that time and energy "making technology look like magic" (and, as Crusade demonstrates, making themselves into cyborgs). And yet the concept is so damn cool that I don't even care about how ridiculous it is. Likewise, Elric's extended speech about shapers and singers and dreamers and makers, not to mention the coming storm, has no place in actual dialogue, but I do not care, it is AWESOME. I just turn off the nitpicking center of my brain and sit back to enjoy the epicness.
Then the best thing is that Elric gets his revenge, but it's not all deep and serious--rather, it's hilarious. Poor, poor Londo and his 200,000 shares in a spoo ranch. I'm curious if he ever gets his destroyed files back.
Of course, we can't end the episode without a return to portentousness, so we have Elric not-really-warning Londo, telling him about the blackness spreading over him (perhaps where the title comes in?), and about the his great hand reaching out of the stars and millions of victims calling his name. Oh, Londo. I think what's most interesting is that Elric isn't even really claiming to be a prophet or fortune-teller--he's just noting what he sees in Londo now, and clinically telling him how this kind of situation has worked out in the past, and thus how it will work out for him. But Londo should remember Vir's statements about fate being currents and eddies (which of course ties into Ladira's words about the future always being rewritten), and see if he can't try to suss out which current is which.*
Sheridan's soliloquizing at the end about how "the part of [him] that believes in magic" isn't so sure that's the last they've seen of the technomages is ridiculous, and unlike Michael Ansara, he doesn't have the gravitas to make it cool anyway. However, it does do one nice thing.aria and I were talking a while back about how with the end of the Shadow War, there's a definite sense of loss, because so many ancient and wonderful things were leaving the galaxy, and now those who remain must find wonder on a smaller scale. There won't be any more experiences like the one Catherine had with the Walkers at Sigma 957 in "Mind War." (I can't resist linking to Shelley's "Ozymandias" here. The Vorlons and Shadows thought they would rule forever; in fact, all that remains of them are--well, okay, the Drakh, but are the Drakh nearly as cool? I don't think so. Anyway, the younger races control their destinies, but the universe is, somehow, still diminished, made more mundane--now a landscape of "lone and level sands" rather than something magical. Which I suppose is why JMS made such a big deal out of it being their moment to "grow up.")
As we see with Crusade, not all of the technomages leave, and those who do, Elric hints, may come back after the war is over. Since they have some Shadow heritage, they are, in part, related to the great, ancient powers of the galaxy, and because they're good enough at what they do to make it look like they're not entirely working within the realm of physics, they can at least give us a little bit of that wonder.
Anyway. The other plot about Susan and the Drazi is giggle-inducing and awesome-confirming, and I love it with every fiber of my being. Ivanova may not be orthodox in her solutions, but she certainly gets results. And with a broken foot, too! (Apparently Claudia Christian received her broken ankle from, as she states in the commentary to this episode, chasing after a bird in her yard. Heh. Sounds like something I'd do, though she doesn't mention if she was chasing it in order to photograph it, as I would be, or for some other reason.)
I really liked that, though technically she is caught by the Drazi and rescued by Garibaldi, she's anything but a damsel in distress. When she knocks the Drazi out--with both hands tied together and a broken foot!--she becomes as responsible for her rescue as Garibaldi is. Then she gets to solve the problem. I also enjoyed Garibaldi's obvious reference to his love of Looney Tunes with the "Acme Handy-Dandy Helper," and that it's the catalyst for sending him back to work. His doubts were certainly warranted, but he knows the station and the people on it better than anyone, and it saved his friend, so obviously he must not be too bad at his job.
Being me, of course, I loved that his "intimate" knowledge of Ivanova is what allows him to figure out what's going on. *g* The moment where he tells her that at the dinner table is cute as it is, but it's even more entertaining if I think of Ivanova's mental response as being along the lines of "Dammit, I thought we'd agreed we weren't going to tell anyone that we're sleeping together! Crap, how do I salvage this?" (And then possibly they keep slipping up for a while until they finally decide to just tell people already, and, I dunno, Franklin or someone says, "Y'all realize you've been obvious for, like, months, right? We just thought it was funny watching you try and hide it, so we didn't say anything." 'Tis a dream I have.)
One last thing, and then I'll shut up, because this got freaking long: Londo would definitely not have been able to use Sinclair. He's too devious himself not to recognize deviousness in someone else, especially Londo. But at the same time, Sinclair probably wouldn't have threatened to expel Londo from the station. Interesting. I can see where this straightforward quality is going to be useful in the coming war, because sometimes you just need to take a step back from the machinations and nuke someone, and, well, Sheridan is real good at that. *g*
* Random grad school tangent: I wrote a paper this semester partially on Virginia Woolf's use of the language of unanimism in her first novel, The Voyage Out. This symbology relied heavily on water metaphors--currents eddying and swirling, waves moving back and forth--and she used it to describe music and dancing, and used the idea of "waves" of unity between people, these moments of connection coming and going because they aren't, in the end, sustainable at their full force. My head is suddenly exploding with the idea of writing about B5 and the description of fate/free will in water terms.
I'm not sure this is my favorite episode--"Severed Dreams" is, you know, up there, as is "Coming of Shadows"--but it's definitely in the top five. There's just the perfect combination of humor, foreboding/foreshadowing, Ivanova being awesome, Rule of Cool with the technomages, character development (Garibaldi), and connection to the arc. I adore this episode.
The Technomages, I fully admit, have absolutely no logical reason to exist. Unless they're going to get some kind of commission from doing children's parties or something, they have no reason to spend all that time and energy "making technology look like magic" (and, as Crusade demonstrates, making themselves into cyborgs). And yet the concept is so damn cool that I don't even care about how ridiculous it is. Likewise, Elric's extended speech about shapers and singers and dreamers and makers, not to mention the coming storm, has no place in actual dialogue, but I do not care, it is AWESOME. I just turn off the nitpicking center of my brain and sit back to enjoy the epicness.
Then the best thing is that Elric gets his revenge, but it's not all deep and serious--rather, it's hilarious. Poor, poor Londo and his 200,000 shares in a spoo ranch. I'm curious if he ever gets his destroyed files back.
Of course, we can't end the episode without a return to portentousness, so we have Elric not-really-warning Londo, telling him about the blackness spreading over him (perhaps where the title comes in?), and about the his great hand reaching out of the stars and millions of victims calling his name. Oh, Londo. I think what's most interesting is that Elric isn't even really claiming to be a prophet or fortune-teller--he's just noting what he sees in Londo now, and clinically telling him how this kind of situation has worked out in the past, and thus how it will work out for him. But Londo should remember Vir's statements about fate being currents and eddies (which of course ties into Ladira's words about the future always being rewritten), and see if he can't try to suss out which current is which.*
Sheridan's soliloquizing at the end about how "the part of [him] that believes in magic" isn't so sure that's the last they've seen of the technomages is ridiculous, and unlike Michael Ansara, he doesn't have the gravitas to make it cool anyway. However, it does do one nice thing.
aria and I were talking a while back about how with the end of the Shadow War, there's a definite sense of loss, because so many ancient and wonderful things were leaving the galaxy, and now those who remain must find wonder on a smaller scale. There won't be any more experiences like the one Catherine had with the Walkers at Sigma 957 in "Mind War." (I can't resist linking to Shelley's "Ozymandias" here. The Vorlons and Shadows thought they would rule forever; in fact, all that remains of them are--well, okay, the Drakh, but are the Drakh nearly as cool? I don't think so. Anyway, the younger races control their destinies, but the universe is, somehow, still diminished, made more mundane--now a landscape of "lone and level sands" rather than something magical. Which I suppose is why JMS made such a big deal out of it being their moment to "grow up.")As we see with Crusade, not all of the technomages leave, and those who do, Elric hints, may come back after the war is over. Since they have some Shadow heritage, they are, in part, related to the great, ancient powers of the galaxy, and because they're good enough at what they do to make it look like they're not entirely working within the realm of physics, they can at least give us a little bit of that wonder.
Anyway. The other plot about Susan and the Drazi is giggle-inducing and awesome-confirming, and I love it with every fiber of my being. Ivanova may not be orthodox in her solutions, but she certainly gets results. And with a broken foot, too! (Apparently Claudia Christian received her broken ankle from, as she states in the commentary to this episode, chasing after a bird in her yard. Heh. Sounds like something I'd do, though she doesn't mention if she was chasing it in order to photograph it, as I would be, or for some other reason.)
I really liked that, though technically she is caught by the Drazi and rescued by Garibaldi, she's anything but a damsel in distress. When she knocks the Drazi out--with both hands tied together and a broken foot!--she becomes as responsible for her rescue as Garibaldi is. Then she gets to solve the problem. I also enjoyed Garibaldi's obvious reference to his love of Looney Tunes with the "Acme Handy-Dandy Helper," and that it's the catalyst for sending him back to work. His doubts were certainly warranted, but he knows the station and the people on it better than anyone, and it saved his friend, so obviously he must not be too bad at his job.
Being me, of course, I loved that his "intimate" knowledge of Ivanova is what allows him to figure out what's going on. *g* The moment where he tells her that at the dinner table is cute as it is, but it's even more entertaining if I think of Ivanova's mental response as being along the lines of "Dammit, I thought we'd agreed we weren't going to tell anyone that we're sleeping together! Crap, how do I salvage this?" (And then possibly they keep slipping up for a while until they finally decide to just tell people already, and, I dunno, Franklin or someone says, "Y'all realize you've been obvious for, like, months, right? We just thought it was funny watching you try and hide it, so we didn't say anything." 'Tis a dream I have.)
One last thing, and then I'll shut up, because this got freaking long: Londo would definitely not have been able to use Sinclair. He's too devious himself not to recognize deviousness in someone else, especially Londo. But at the same time, Sinclair probably wouldn't have threatened to expel Londo from the station. Interesting. I can see where this straightforward quality is going to be useful in the coming war, because sometimes you just need to take a step back from the machinations and nuke someone, and, well, Sheridan is real good at that. *g*
* Random grad school tangent: I wrote a paper this semester partially on Virginia Woolf's use of the language of unanimism in her first novel, The Voyage Out. This symbology relied heavily on water metaphors--currents eddying and swirling, waves moving back and forth--and she used it to describe music and dancing, and used the idea of "waves" of unity between people, these moments of connection coming and going because they aren't, in the end, sustainable at their full force. My head is suddenly exploding with the idea of writing about B5 and the description of fate/free will in water terms.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 03:10 am (UTC)And no, the technomages never really get a reason for doing what they do, or at least I don't remember that they did. (Perhaps one was planned? I hear that the first season was supposed to end with Galen revealing that Clark's government had discovered their Shadow connections and wanted to create some kind of black ops unit out of them, and that was why Elric, et al, were heading for the Rim.) We do get to see the extent of Galen's cyborg modifications--let's just say there's a reason they all wear long sleeves and high necks--which are apparently excruciatingly painful to put in.
But yeah. Rule of Cool. Technomages are cool.
Indeed. And it's sort of amusing to see the fantasy novel that JMS obviously wanted to write poking through here.
Aww, Claudia Christian chasing a bird. <333
Have you listened to the commentary? It's hilarious. She, Jerry Doyle, and Bruce Boxleitner are all like, "It's been twelve years and we remember basically nothing, so we're just going to snark on the episode and tell you the funny stories we do remember." They all make a big deal about Sheridan's orange obsession, and one of them--I think BB--characterizes him as a big happy golden retriever puppy, which...seems accurate, really.
Tangentially, I am seriously impressed with your Franklin voice in that parenthetical aside. I could HEAR him. *thumbs*
Thanks! I adore hearing that from people.
I don't think we ever hear him say "y'all"--though of all of them, he does sound the most likely to do so. (Although now I have this image of G'Kar in my head going, "'Y'all'! What a wonderful word. Narnish has no second-person plural pronoun, so I must adopt this." And then the Humans start looking at each other all "WTF?")