Babylon 5 4-05: The Long Night

Episode:

71

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

John Lafia

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Air Date:

27-Jan-1997

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing words about Babylon 5 episode The Long Night, and if you're struggling to remember exactly which one that is, I think I have an idea why. Seems that showrunner Joe Straczynski had a fondness for combining the word 'long' with a word related to night in his titles. We've already had The Long Dark and The Long, Twilight Struggle and there's a Very Long Night yet to come in season 5. There's also The Long Road in the spin-off series Crusade, but that's only halfway there.

They got another new director for this one: John Lafia, who directed the movies Child's Play 2 and Man's Best Friend, and the live-action video game Corpse Killer. I can see why they thought 'this is the guy we need to direct our serious science fiction drama series'. He'd go on to direct just two more episodes of season four and then after that he was gone. The thing is though, they're both bloody good episodes, and maybe this will be too!

Oh by the way, this was the first Babylon 5 episode to air in 1997. The series had been up against two Star Trek shows for a while by this point, and by 1997 Deep Space Nine was halfway through its fifth season and Voyager was halfway through season three. Meanwhile The X-Files was starting season four and Red Dwarf had returned after a long absence for its disappointing series seven. Plus two massive cult sci-fi shows were about to start: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate: SG-1 (Buffy had a robot in its first season, it totally counts as sci-fi). There were a few other sci-fi series starting this year as well, such as Deepwater Black, Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict and the legendary Lexx. Oh, also two time travelling cop shows: Crime Traveller and Timecop... which both only lasted one season.

Warning: there will be SPOILERS beyond this point for this episode and earlier stories, but if you're watching the series for the first time you don't have to worry about me spoiling anything that happens later.

Babylon 5 4-04: Falling Toward Apotheosis

Episode:

70

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

David J. Eagle

|

Air Date:

25-Nov-1996

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Falling Toward Apotheosis, the 70th episode of cult 90s sci-fi epic Babylon 5.

Hang on, that's the same stock CGI establishing shot they used behind the title for the episode A Day in the Strife! Only this time there's a better title in front of it (in my opinion), and it's in lower case for whatever reason. The previous episode's title was upper case and the one before that was lower case so maybe they're alternating now.

'Apotheosis' sounds like it should be the title of an X-Files or Star Trek: Voyager episode, but it works here I reckon. It means 'the elevation of a person to the status of a divine being'. Here's some more trivia for you: this was the last episode of the series to air (in the US) during 1996. Also this is one of the few episodes to have a commentary track on the DVDs, and I don't think it really spoils anything for once. It's just a few of the actors joking around.

There'll be massive SPOILERS here in this review though, as I'll be going through the whole episode, recapping every scene and talking about relevant events from previous stories. You don't have to stop reading if you're a first-time viewer though. As long as you've watched up to this point you'll be fine.

Babylon 5 4-03: The Summoning

Episode:

69

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

John McPherson

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Air Date:

18-Nov-1996

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures it's Babylon 5 episode 69: THE SUMMONING. They've switched back to an upper case title after the last one went lower case and now it looks like they're shouting.

The Summoning was the first and only B5 episode to be directed by John McPherson, who I know absolutely nothing about. But IMDb tells me that he directed episodes of The Incredible Hulk, Alien Nation and Sliders before directing a full third of Seven Days (which he was co-executive producer on). He was also director of photography on *batteries not included, Short Circuit 2 and Jaws: The Revenge!

That's a nice shot of the station up there I reckon. We've seen it before actually, as it's one of the Foundation Imaging stock shots and it's been around since at least the start of season three. Though it would later go on to appear much earlier, as in 1998 it was retroactively edited into the pilot movie, The Gathering, for its Special Edition. There's some VFX stock footage trivia for you.

I'm full of pointless information about previous B5 stories and you can bet this recap/review is going to spoil the hell out of this episode, but there'll be no SPOILERS for anything that comes after it. This is a first-time viewer friendly website.

Babylon 5 4-02: Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?

Episode:

68

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Kevin James Dobson

|

Air Date:

11-Nov-1996

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures it's the second episode of Babylon 5's fourth season: Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?

WHtMG? is the second episode title so far to feature a character's name in it, after season three's Sic Transit Vir, and... hang on, why has the title text switched to lower case? None of the other episodes have had lower case titles so far. I wish I could check to see if it looked like this when it aired to find out if this feature's exclusive to the widescreen release.

It's the first of two episodes by Australian director Kevin James Dobson, who started directing in the 70s and worked on a ton of series I've never even heard of. Probably because they're mostly Australian. There doesn't seem to be a lot of science fiction on his resume though from what I can tell. Writer J. Michael Straczynski had done a bit of sci-fi by this point though; the previous episode was the 50th script he'd written for the series and by this point he'd written 30 stories in a row. He then went and did another 30 after this (including two movies) before Neil Gaiman turned up to give him the week off.

You should be aware that all my recaps and reviews are generally first-time viewer friendly, meaning there'll be SPOILERS for this episode and the ones leading up to it, but nothing for stories that come afterwards. I won't be ruining Babylon 5 for anyone if I can help it.

Babylon 5 4-01: The Hour of the Wolf

Episode:

67

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Director:

David J. Eagle

|

Air Date:

04-Nov-1996

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Sci-Fi Adventures is back for another two months of sci-fi recap reviews! Most of them are going to be of Babylon 5 episodes to be honest as I need to get through this series, but I'm fine with that. I can think of worse series to be stuck with.

I'm starting off with the first episode of season four, The Hour of the Wolf! Though I'm watching it on DVD without the adverts, so it's more like The 42 Minutes of the Wolf.

Here's an interesting fact about US science fiction TV shows during the last century: they didn't typically live long. At the time this episode aired The X-Files was starting its fourth season and Star Trek: The Next Generation had just finished an epic seven season run, but for other sci-fi, especially space sci-fi, three seasons was an exceptional run. Battlestar Galactica and Space: Above and Beyond managed one season, Buck Rogers reached two, and even titans Lost in Space and Star Trek were cancelled after year three. So for Babylon 5 to make it to year four was actually pretty unusual. And appreciated considering the cliffhanger the last season left us on.

Hey I just noticed that the title text has gone back to the season 1 font! Well, on the DVDs at least, it would've looked different on the original airing. The shadow didn't used to look so dark for one thing.

Anyway I should point out that this is a recap/review for people who've already seen the episode or don't care about SPOILERS. It's very first-time viewer friendly though, as I'll not be spoiling anything that happens after this point.