B5 Rewatch: "Interludes and Examinations" and "War Without End Parts One and Two"

[icepixie]

Interludes and Examinations
In which Kosh continues to show no compunction about invading people's thoughts, the Vorlons step up, Londo loses a chance, Franklin finally accepts reality, and we meet one of my favorite extremely minor characters, Dr. Lilian Hobbes.

This isn't one of the chances to turn back that Lady Morella mentioned (at least, I don't think it is), but it's definitely a chance. Oh, Londo. Sometimes he sees the big picture (as when he recognizes that the Shadows are using the Centauri as "agents of chaos," which, by the way, OMG), and sometimes he's blinded to it by the details.

When he said that everyone around him he likes dies and everyone he hates lives on, I thought, "You and Susan should hang out." Awww.

Kosh impersonating Sheridan's dad in his dream makes me go "hmmm" a bit, but I guess it might have been the best way to get Sheridan to shut up and listen at that moment. And it does let Kosh communicate that he felt like a...spiritual father, or something, to Sheridan. Uh. So anyway, the ship grieving is pretty cool. (Has anyone written the cracky crossover where Moya and Kosh's ship meet and have sex? Given my reputation as purveyor of DRD porn [greatly exaggerated--it was all PG-13! ...Not that this negates the horror very much], I feel like it might be my responsibility to write that ficlet.)

It seems a little disingenuous to get the Vorlons to help out in this one battle, have everyone else sign on to the army, and then...the Vorlons stop fighting. (I think? It seem to recall we don't see much of them before they start blowing up planets in a rather counterproductive manner, and Kosh certainly sounded like he only had the influence for this one time.) It sounded to me like the Gaim ambassador wanted to see a permanent increase in force on the side of light in that talk with Sheridan and the Brakiri ambassador.

I really like Franklin's addiction arc. I especially like how it's not just "Oh, hey, the stims let me do more stuff and it got out of hand," but it's very tied into his perception of himself as a doctor and, I think, a perfectionist/superman. He needs to figure out who he is outside of that role before he can break the addiction. (Er, possibly this is common to addiction plotlines and I just have little experience with them?) I also like that Michael, of course Michael, is the one to finally get him to own up to it.

He also made me love him by not illicitly checking Franklin's blood samples. (Hobbes made me love her for refusing to do the same. Plus, she's snarky. Can't go wrong there.)

War Without End
I think I possibly, maybe, perhaps understand what actually happened in them now, since I've seen the rest of the show, but I'm not entirely sure. How did the White Star get back to S3? 'Cause the shuttles and whatnot were heading back to S1, and I didn't see anyone aboard the White Star do something that would shove them forward two years. Are we meant to infer it was Draal working his Great Machine magic in the background? Might not one of them have checked before heading out and letting the rift disappear? Some of my questions from last time around are still valid as well.

...You know, I still hate these episodes. It boils down to two things, one of which is my own problem and one of which is the show's.

1. I hate time travel paradox episodes of shows that aren't based around time travel.* I loathe them. I don't like trying to figure out all the moebius strip-like qualities of changed and fixed and fucked with time streams, I don't like that there are always loose ends that are never satisfactorily explained, I don't like that answers we do get are inevitably circular. (How did Sinclair know to turn himself into a Minbari? He wrote a letter to himself. How did he he write the letter? He went back and turned into a Minbari. And on and on and on. I HATE THAT.) I fully admit that this is my own personal idiosyncrasy, and has no bearing on the objective value of time travel stories.

2. I still don't like the flash forward to 16 years later or however long it is. If I'd been watching this completely unspoiled my first time through, I'd have been PISSED PISSED PISSED, because I totally wouldn't have been sure if they won the war, if Sheridan and Delenn survived, etc. etc., and this would've ruined the surprise. (Possibly I've been too influenced by BSG and lost my nineties-era trusting nature?) I figure, you do something like this, you'd damn well better be planning to subvert it when you actually get to it in the timeline. Like, we see G'Kar and Londo at each other's throats in "Midnight on the Firing Line," we think, "Aha, because they hate each other, yes?" And then here, we learn it's a mercy killing. Here, we see that Delenn and Sheridan won the war at a "terrible cost," left a few Shadow allies alive, got married, and had a kid. This...is pretty much what happens. Why give the game away unnecessarily?

On the good side, Marcus was certainly in fine form during these episodes. Well, when he was on screen, anyway. The boy has a definite deathwish, though.


* Doctor Who, I like, or at least I did until I couldn't stand the misogyny any more. Still enjoy some Old Skool Who. However, I think the reason I like(d) it was that they usually travel somewhere and freaking stay put during the episode, and the plots tend to take a fairly standard horror/sci-fi tack. Of course, this is when they even traveled in time at all, instead of staying in frigging twenty-first-century London. Anyway, it's another personal idiosyncrasy that time travel in pieces where the premise hinges on it doesn't bother me.

Comments

[bulleteyes.livejournal.com]

I am with you completely about the time travel paradoxes. Ever see the film, "Somewhere in Time?" I spent waaaay too long trying to figure out where the watch used from the beginning to the end originated.

Zathras. I enjoyed this character so very, very much.

[icepixie]

I haven't seen Somewhere in Time, but I don't think it's going to go on my list if it's about time paradoxes. :D

Zathras was fun, yes.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

To be fair, there is an attempt to subvert expectations again - in "Z'ha'dum", Sheridan goes to Z'ha'dum because he thinks that way he can prevent the future he saw, so the intention is to make you think "Ah, that was just a possible future, like the one where B5 is destroyed, and now they've been warned, they can prevent it" - and it's only later that it becomes clear that, no, it's another closed timeline like Valen.

[icepixie]

Yeah, I don't think it becomes clear until In the Beginning that the bit with him and Delenn in the cell on Centauri Prime actually occurs in the same universe as Sheridan going to Z'ha'dum.