Farscape 1-01: Premiere - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Farscape's first episode. It's not a double length story, pilots just give me a lot to write about. Click THIS LINK if you'd like to jump to part one instead.

It's not even really a pilot to be honest, as Farscape cost so much to set up that they needed a network to commit to at least 11 episodes before shooting a single one. Sets and animatronics aren't cheap, but once you've got them built you can keep using them and spread the cost out. For a while it seemed like Fox was going to be the one to greenlight the series, but the Sci Fi Channel was the one who finally came through for them. Which probably worked out better in the long run as sci-fi shows on Fox don't tend to last very long (just ask fans of Space: Above and Beyond or Firefly).

The creators are American but they decided to film and produce the series in Australia to get more on screen for their budget. They did hire one American for the cast though, star Ben Browder. This had a side-effect of dropping his character in a distant part of the universe where everyone either speaks with an Australian accent or like an Australian trying to put on a British accent.

Alright, I've already given you all the SPOILERS I can for the first half of the episode and now I'm going to go and spoil the second half too. With pictures! Enjoy.

Farscape 1-01: Premiere - Part 1

Episode:

1

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Writer:

Rockne S. O'Bannon

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Director:

Andrew Prowse

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Air Date:

19-Mar-1999

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Premiere, the first episode of cult 90s sci-fi series Farscape! That's 'late 90s' by the way, not 'early 90s'; late enough for them to have deliberately given it a unique name so that the series would be only thing that comes up if you do an internet search. It was originally going to be called Space Chase, but thankfully they swerved away from that at the last moment.

Farscape first aired in 1999, back when Deep Space Nine and Voyager were still defining space sci-fi, Stargate SG-1 was starting out and Babylon 5 had just finished. Trek was losing its shine at this point and there was a feeling that space opera fans were tired of well-trained military crews following orders on starship bridges and wanted a bit more... anarchy. And muppets I guess?

The series was produced by Hallmark and The Jim Henson Company, so it belongs to the same family as Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal. The puppeteered aliens actually put a few people off at the time, probably still does, even though everyone loves puppet Yoda in the Star Wars movies. I'm trying to dig into my memories to excavate my own first reaction to learning about the series, but I'm not getting much. I think I saw a review or a preview in a magazine next to a photo from a series about Vikings and assumed it was going to take place in a mead hall or something.

I do remember liking the series, but I only watched it the once and that was years ago, so who knows what I'll think about it now. Maybe it's horrifically dated now. Perhaps it's been utterly surpassed by its successor/clone Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm hyped to find out if it can still hold my attention.

There will be SPOILERS below for exactly half an episode, no others. I'll be going through Premiere scene by scene, recapping and sharing my thoughts along the way, so this will kind of be like a commentary track. Except you can't put it on in the background while you get other things done. All the screencaps will be from my PAL DVD, but you're not missing much as the Blu-rays aren't particularly HD either. Seems like the original 35mm footage was lost and they weren't keen on spending the cash to recreate all the CGI visual effects in a higher resolution anyway. It's a bit of a tragedy, considering that even Babylon 5 eventually got a HD release.

Babylon 5 5-06: Strange Relations

Episode:

94

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

John C. Flinn III

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Air Date:

25-Feb-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Babylon 5 season 5 episode 6, Strange Relations. Huh, that's weird, I can usually vaguely remember the names of each episode but Strange Relations doesn't ring any bells with me at all. If I was given one of those quizzes where you have to go through titles and choose whether they're from Babylon 5 or, I dunno, Magnum P.I., I would've totally failed this one. (I would've nailed The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari though.)

You can tell this episode's been around a few years now as a bit of the letter 'g' has gotten scratched off. That's apparently a unique feature of the Region 2 DVDs, so you can tell where all my screencaps are coming from.

This episode was written by J. Michael Straczynski, no big surprise there, and it was directed by the Director of Photography John C. Flinn III. Flinn had previously directed TKO and Grey 17 is Missing, contenders to be the worst episodes of their respective seasons, so he doesn't have a perfect track record, but he's done some good episode too. I'm not considering it to be a warning sign.

Okay I'll be writing about the entire episode one scene at a time so there will be massive SPOILERS here for this story and the series so far. I'll not spoil anything that comes afterwards though.

Doctor Who (2005): Series 13 - Flux Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the 13th series of the Doctor Who revival, which has been given the shiny golden title of Flux. It's pretty unusual for an entire season to have a name and it's also unusual for it to be one long continuing story like this. You'd have to dig pretty deep into Doctor Who history to find anything like it, to seasons like The Key to Time in the 70s and The Trial of a Time Lord in the 80s. Honestly, I'm in the mood for some proper cliffhangers so this works for me.

Incidentally, The Key to Time was also the last time we got a six-part serial like this, even though they'd been part of the Doctor Who format since series 1. They were around for 15 years, then disappeared for the next four decades, but showrunner Chris Chibnall has finally brought them back! Well he's brought one back anyway; what happens next is out of his hands as this is his and Jodie Whittaker's final series. It's not their last story, they've still got a year of specials after this, but it is their final full season. Jodie Whittaker decided not to try to beat Tom Baker's record as the Doctor who spent the most years on the show. Though her run will span from 2018 to 2022, five years, so technically she's in joint second place with Jon Pertwee!

Alright I've already written enough about chapter one: The Halloween Apocalypse, so I'll give the other five episodes a bit of a review each and then wrap this up by assessing the season overall. There will be SPOILERS.

Babylon 5 5-05: Learning Curve

Episode:

93

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Director:

David J. Eagle

|

Air Date:

18-Feb-1998

---

Sci-Fi Adventures is finally back! This week I'm watching Babylon 5 season 5 episode 5. All the fives. It's a shame that Deep Space Nine didn't go to nine seasons, as it never got to complete the set. Also Odyssey 5 got cancelled in season 1 and Brooklyn Nine-Nine didn't even make it into double digits. I've still got hopes for Avenue 5 though.

I'm not going to be swayed into liking this episode, by the way. I remember it being a particularly bad episode from the mediocre half of a disappointing season, and I have no intention of allowing myself to inadvertently enjoy it. This isn't going to be a repeat of last time, when A View from the Gallery managed to win me over by the end. Sort of.

Though that being said, it was directed by David J. Eagle, who gave us episodes like Severed Dreams, And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, so maybe it'll turn out to be one of the better season 5 stories. I'll let you know.

There will be massive SPOILERS below for this episode and the story so far, as I'll be going through it scene by scene writing comments under screencaps. I'll not spoil a thing about what comes after it though.

Cowboy Bebop (2021) 1-01: Cowboy Gospel (Quick Review)

Episode:

1

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Writer:

Christopher Yost

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Director:

Alex Garcia Lopez

|

Air Date:

19-Nov-2021

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the first episode of Cowboy Bebop, again. Though this time it's the first episode of the long-awaited live-action version that finally debuted on Netflix a week ago. This would've actually been filmed at some point in 2019 I think, before John Cho's knee injury put the brakes on filming for 6 months. Still, the timing's not that bad, as it's only two months shy of coming out 20 years after the first English airing in 2001.

Look, they've given me an actual title card to use for the picture, just like the anime did! Though this time the background text is Japanese and the foreground text is English, which is a nice touch. They've also pretty much recreated the classic opening credits sequence and they've flipped the script on that as well. My ability to read katana hasn't improved any in the last few days but I'm fairly sure this says "Cowboy Gospel", as in gospel music. The original series featured music-related episode titles and they're carrying on the tradition here. That's one of the few things that Cowboy Bebop has in common with Castlevania games.

The original anime series lasted for just 26 episodes and a movie, mostly because the creator, Shinichirō Watanabe, didn't want the series to become something like Star Trek that just keeps going on and on forever. Now we're in 2021 and Star Trek and Cowboy Bebop are both airing new episodes this month, so I guess that plan failed. We're also getting new The Expanse, Lost in Space and Star Wars soon, plus there's a new Blade Runner anime, so it's a pretty great time to be a science fiction fan. Well, assuming any of them are any good.

There will be SPOILERS beyond this point, but not as many as you might expect. The entire season dropped on Netflix at once, so I'm sure most people who've seen episode 1 will have also seen episode 10 by now, but I'm watching through them slowly and I don't actually know where the season goes from here. Plus I've forgotten most of the original anime series, so I can't spoil much of that either.

Cowboy Bebop 01: Asteroid Blues

Episode:

1

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Writer:

Keiko Nobumoto

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Director:

Yoshiyuki Takei

|

Air Date:

24-Oct-1998

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Asteroid Blues, the first episode session of legendary anime series Cowboy Bebop. Look, they've given me an actual title card to use, it's awesome! My understanding of Japanese is fairly pathetic, but I recognise enough of that katakana to know that it's just saying the words "Asteroid Blues".

I've covered cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League and Duck Dodgers before, but this is the first time I've ever written about an anime. Well, unless you count Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was actually the first article ever published on Sci-Fi Adventures. I have a feeling this is going to be better.

A lot of anime series are based off a manga, like Sunrise's previous space series Outlaw Star, but this one was original. In fact creator Shinichirō Watanabe gave it the tagline "And the work which has become a genre unto itself shall be called: Cowboy Bebop" which would've been incredibly pretentious if the show hadn't then gone and backed it up. This is one of the most well-regarded and important series in anime history, but you don't need me to tell you how famous it is, because... well, it's famous.

The first episode first aired in Japan on 24th October 1998, which is kind of weird as the series started airing back in April. The initial run on TV Tokyo missed out the pilot and half the other episodes, and I have no idea why. The first English airing on Adult Swim missed out three episodes as well, but that was due to it airing during September 2001 and people being a bit cautious about the kinds of destruction they were showing on screen at the time.

The series only lasted 26 episodes and a movie (it was only ever meant to), and I've seen all of them. In fact I've seen this first episode twice! It's been a long while though, so I'm sure it'll have some surprises for me. There'll be no surprises left for you if you keeping reading past this point however, as I'm going to share SPOILERS for the entire episode scene by scene, with screencaps. I'll not say a word about anything that happens in later episodes though.

Doctor Who (2005) 13-01: Flux - Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse

Episode:

863

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Writer:

Chris Chibnall

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Director:

Jamie Magnus Stone

|

Air Date:

31-Oct-2021

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Hi, Sci-Fi Adventures should still be on a break, but I felt the urge to write something about Doctor Who... because Russell T Davies is coming back! Can't say I saw that coming. I'm not sure his next run is going to be the second coming of the Eccleston/Tennant era of the show, and I'm not sure I even want it to be, but I do feel cautiously optimistic about it. More optimistic than I am about Chris Chibnall's final series anyway.

Though with this series the Doctor Who revival does finally pulls ahead of Red Dwarf, which aired its Series XII in 2017 (even though it's really only had 11 seasons). Even more importantly, this is the first season since Doctor Who began where the Doctor's number is the same as the season number! (Neither of these two facts are important).

Series 13 is going to be massively cut down compared to a normal Doctor Who season, as COVID meant they were only able to produce six episodes, but for the first time since Trial of a Time Lord in 1986 we're getting one story playing out over an entire series! This is also the first six-parter since the Fourth Doctor's The Armageddon Factor in 1979, though the episodes are double the length these days.

To be honest I was seriously considering skipping the rest of Chibnall's run and waiting for the RTD episodes, but when I learned how short it was going to be I figured I might as well stick with it. It's the best marketing they could've done! Though the Doctor Who team also tried a bunch of other clever tricks to get me to watch, like projecting a spaceship in the sky and deleting their social media accounts. Plus they've brought in a new companion from Liverpool! Tom Baker and Liz Sladen were both from Liverpool as well, so I'm considering this to be a good sign.

What am I expecting from series 13? Fewer people on screen, less location filming in South Africa, and a frustratingly reactive and ineffective Doctor. I'm not expecting a regeneration though as I know we've got three Jodie Whittaker specials to come after this. I'm not expecting to enjoy it much, but I wouldn't mind being surprised.

Okay I'll be screencapping the episode in its entirety and writing some commentary underneath so this review is going to be full of SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the final third of Enterprise's pilot episode, Broken Bow. It's kind of weird how the series was just called Enterprise, without the Star Trek in front of it. It's like they were trying to distance it a bit from the brand so that people who'd already written the franchise off and decided that they weren't Star Trek fans would give it a chance.

Did the plan actually work? I mean everyone knows that no one was watching Enterprise, but was anyone watching it? Seems that about 12.5 million people tuned in to the first episode when it aired in the US, which was about average for a Trek pilot. It dropped by 26% by the next episode, but the series was still pulling in bigger numbers than the season of Voyager it was following on from.

You've probably noticed that I called it Star Trek: Enterprise anyway in the title up there. That's because I'm a renegade who plays by my own rules. Also that's what it's called on my Season One box set.

You're currently reading part three of a three-part article, so if you want to go back to PART ONE or PART TWO you should click one the appropriate link.

SPOILER WARNING: This will be full of spoils for the episode and earlier Star Trek stories, but everything that came after is safe.

Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about the very first episode of the entire Star Trek franchise (chronologically speaking): Broken Bow. Sure there are episodes with events that take place before it, but this is 100% set in April 2151 from start to finish. That means it's actually a kind of sequel to the movie First Contact, revealing what happened next. By the same writer in fact!

Though First Contact wasn't just written by Brannon Braga and neither was this, as this time around he was joined by Trek overlord Rick Berman. It seems a bit strange to see Berman credited as a writer, as up until this point he'd mostly been the franchise's executive producer, succeeding Gene Roddenberry. But he had written the Next Gen episodes Brothers and A Matter of Time, and he'd been giving notes on all the Trek scripts scripted during his reign.

Broken Bow is a feature length episode with a lot to write about so I've split this article into three parts for the sake of everyone's sanity (especially my own). You're currently reading part two, but if you want to jump back to the first part you can click THIS LINK.

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be spoiling this episode and others that came before it, but everything that aired after it is safe.

Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 1

Episode:

1

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Writer:

Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

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Director:

James L. Conway

|

Air Date:

26-Sep-2001

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the 629th story in the Star Trek franchise, Broken Bow! I figured I might as well, seeing as it's its 20th anniversary today.

But unlike all those other episodes, this story doesn't push the timeline forward. Trek had spent 14 years in the Next Generation era, but this took a huge jump 227 years backwards from Star Trek: Voyager to tell a story about Starfleet's early days. Prequels were in at the time, with Star Wars returning to cinemas with The Phantom Menace, so I suppose it wasn't a surprise that Trek would want to jump on that bandwagon. This was a real turning point for the Star Trek franchise though, as after the final Next Gen movie, Nemesis, the franchise spent the next 17 years stuck in its own past.

Personally I would've preferred to find out what happened next in the 24th century... and now I've got Lower Decks, Prodigy and Picard for that, so I'm happy. At the time though the franchise wasn't really inspiring much enthusiasm in people. Deep Space Nine had been over for a few years, Insurrection had been a real disappointment, and Voyager had kind of rolled past the finish line on fumes. Plus even though Trek hadn't exactly been heavily serialised, it had built up enough mythology during its Next Generation era to be daunting to some viewers. Enterprise had a premise different and interesting enough to bring some hype back to Trek and it promised to provide a jumping on point for people who didn't know the difference between a Cardassian and a Kazon. It definitely got me to jump back on board after skipping the last few seasons of Voyager... though I may have jumped ship again a few months later. It's not my favourite of the spin-offs to be honest.

I'll be going through the entire episode writing comments under screencaps, so this will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS. There may also be spoilers for episodes and movies from earlier shows as well; anything before 2001 is fair game. Though unlike the commentary tracks on the disc, I'll not be spoiling anything that comes after it.

Star Trek: Voyager 1-01: Caretaker, Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the second and final part of my review of Caretaker. If you want to jump back 70,000 light years and read the first part, CLICK HERE.

I should probably put some trivia here to fill up the space. Uh... Star Trek: Voyager started in January, so that's kind of unusual. Trek series usually like to start around September.

Deep Space Nine was already 12 episodes deep into its third season at the point that Caretaker aired, but after Past Tense the series took a two week break so that Voyager could be the only new Trek on television for a fortnight. They really wanted as many eyes on this as possible, and it seems like they got around 12.4 million viewers in the US on that first airing. It's a bit of a step down from Emissary's 17.7 million, but it's still a really good number, not much lower than what the Original Series (13.1m), Next Gen (13.9m), and Enterprise (12.5m) got on their debut... possibly. To be honest I calculated these figures myself from numbers I found on the internet and I don't trust any of them.

SPOILER WARNING: Caretaker probably isn't the only episode that's going to be spoiled here, as I'm considering everything from TOS's The Man Trap to DS9's Past Tense to be fair game.

Star Trek: Voyager 1-01: Caretaker, Part 1

Episode:

1

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Writer:

Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor

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Director:

Winrich Kolbe

|

Air Date:

16-Jan-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the 343rd story in the Star Trek franchise, Caretaker! It also the first story of Star Trek: Voyager, the fourth live-action Trek series and the successor to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The episode gives a 'story by' credit to Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, who were also the show's three creators. Each of them apparently had an equal amount of input and control, so the series had three captains at this point. Berman had succeeded Gene Roddenberry as the executive producer of the entire franchise, and had worked with Piller to create Deep Space Nine. Piller had been the saviour of Next Gen, coming in as the new head writer during season 3 to fix it, and had been running DS9 for the last two and a half seasons. Taylor had also been a Next Gen showrunner, as she'd taken over from Piller for its final (disappointing) season. So they were definitely the three most obvious candidates to create a Trek series at this point.

With Next Gen over it made sense to make this another Trek show about a Starfleet crew flying around on a starship, but the three creators made things difficult for themselves by choosing to isolate it from almost everything established during the earlier shows. They couldn't fall back on the classic iconic villains, like the Romulans, Ferengi, and evil admirals. Plus their premise of a ship on long journey meant they had to give viewers something new every week. They also had to deliver an action-packed tale of survival in deep space, without being too bleak and dark for the studio. And they had a network looking over their shoulders now, as the series was airing on UPN, unlike Next Gen and DS9 which had been made for syndication. The potential was there for something great though.

Caretaker was filmed as a feature-length story, not a two-parter, but I'll be tackling it in two parts for the sake of my sanity. I'm going to be recapping and screencapping the whole story in addition to my commentary, so there's a lot here for me to cover. There's also going to be HUGE SPOILERS... but only up to January 16th 1995. I might spoil a episode like Where No One Has Gone Before or The First Duty, but I'll never say the words "Spore drive".

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my three-part Encounter at Farpoint review. If you want to jump to earlier parts you can click here: PART ONE or here PART TWO.

It's not really the most interesting looking title card I'm afraid, especially if you're seeing it three times in a row. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the only episode of all of Star Trek to just have a starfield in the background while its title is up and nothing else, but I could definitely be wrong about that. On the plus side at least it has a title for me to show. For later live-action spin-offs like Star Trek: Discovery all I can show up here is the series logo, though I'm crossing my fingers Strange New Worlds will bring them back.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to recap the entire episode and maybe even mention things from earlier episodes and movies. I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still going through Encounter at Farpoint, the very first episode of seminal syndicated sci-fi series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I feel like Star Trek: The Next Generation probably shouldn't work as a title, but it does for me. It helps that 'generation' is a sciency word and 'next' has an X in it. Plus it's arguably better than just naming the series after the setting like the next four series did (Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and Discovery). Though it was really only the next generation in real world terms, as it was made two decades after the original show but set eight decades after the last movie.

This is the second part of a three part review by the way, so if you're on the wrong part and you want to go back to the start you should click here: PART ONE.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to recap the entire episode and maybe even mention things from earlier episodes and movies. I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 1

Episode:

1

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Writer:

D. C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry

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Director:

Corey Allen

|

Air Date:

28-Sep-1987

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the 106th story in the Star Trek franchise: Encounter at Farpoint! That's such an old school sci-fi title; it sounds like it's from a tie-in novel.

Encounter at Farpoint is also the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which itself was the first of the live-action Trek spin-offs. The Rick Berman-era of Trek started here. 15.7 million people tuned in for the episodes in the US, and 11.5 stuck around for episode two, The Naked Now. The series then hovered around that level for the rest of the run, with even season seven pulling in 11 million, so it's no bloody wonder they kept making more spin-offs.

I got that information from Wikipedia so you know it's all true. Though hang on, Wikipedia claims that The Naked Now is actually the third episode, not the second. The reason for this is that Encounter at Farpoint is a two-hour telefilm that can be split into two parts. Though I'm going to be splitting this review into three parts, because I've got a lot to talk about. It's a fairly important episode!

CBS spent a lot of money to go back to the original negatives and remaster the entire series, and it really looks fantastic now in HD. It's one of the best remasters I've seen, it's awesome. Though you can just go to TrekCore if all you're after is beautiful high resolution screencaps, you don't need me for that. So instead I've decided to show off the authentic fuzzy 1987 version of the episode...because I've spent money buying the ancient DVDs and I'm determined to get some use out of them. You should be grateful I'm not showing shots captured from a VHS tape recorded off BBC 2 really.

I should also give you a SPOILER WARNING as I'm going to give away absolutely everything that happens in this story. I might also spoil things from other Trek stories that came out before 1987 (so The Man Trap to Star Trek IV: The One with the Whales), but that's as far as my spoilers will go.

Star Trek: The Original Series 1-01: The Man Trap

Episode:

1

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Writer:

George Clayton Johnson

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Director:

Marc Daniels

|

Air Date:

08-Sep-1966

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It's Star Trek Day today, September 8th, so to celebrate I've decided to rewatch The Man Trap, the very first ever episode of Star Trek! Well... maybe. It's arguably not even the first with 'Man' in the title.

The Man Trap was the sixth episode of The Original Series to be filmed and it's at least the fourth chronologically (after The Cage, Where No Man Has Gone Before and The Corbomite Maneuver). But it's undisputedly the first Trek story to air on televisions and it aired exactly 55 years ago today, so that's why I'm writing about it. Well okay it aired two days earlier in Canada, but no one counts that for some reason.

There were a few reasons why this episode was chosen to get moved to the front of the line, such as: it has the characters down on a strange new world instead of being bottled up on the ship, it doesn't include any "space hookers", it's got a straightforward story, the visual effects could be completed on time, and it has a scary space monster. Uh, spoilers, sorry. Basically they wanted to put their best foot forward to maximise their chances that viewers would come back for a second story.

It was directed by Marc Daniels, who was credited on 14 episodes over three seasons, leaving him tied with Joseph Pevney as the series' most prolific director. On the other hand this was writer George Clayton Johnson's only Trek story. He wrote a bunch of Twilight Zone though and co-wrote the novel Logan's Run, so he wasn't the worst choice for the job! In fact the Star Trek producers made a habit of trying to get acclaimed science fiction authors to write for the series... and then heavily rewriting them afterwards to make their stories feel like Trek. The writers weren't always impressed.

Okay, I'm going to go through the whole episode one scene at a time, writing a recap under my screencaps and sharing my thoughts along the way. This means that there'll be SPOILERS for this episode and every single other Trek episode that aired before it. All zero of them.

Babylon 5 5-04: A View from the Gallery

Episode:

92

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Janet Greek

|

Air Date:

11-Feb-1998

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Babylon 5 season 5 episode 4, A View from the Gallery.

It's another Janet Greek episode, who's directed half the episodes so far this season after skipping the last few years entirely. She's got her name on some of the series' best stories so that's a good sign... though I remember not liking this one for whatever reason. This is also the first episode since Knives back in season 2 to have someone else's name in the writing credits: legendary author Harlan Ellison.

Ellison had been a credited as a conceptual consultant for Babylon 5's whole run, plus he also played the roles of a Psi Cop (in Face of the Enemy) and Sparky the Computer (in Ceremonies of Light and Dark). This makes him one of Garibaldi's greatest enemies. He was known for being a bit antagonistic in general, famously getting into a feud with Gene Roddenberry over the script for The City on the Edge of Tomorrow and suing James Cameron for The Terminator. But this trivia is all pretty much irrelevant as he apparently only gave writer jms the basic concept for the episode and didn't really do anything else on it. Though one of the main characters may have a bit of a resemblance...

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be screencapping, recapping and reviewing all of A View from the Gallery, and the episode builds on events from earlier stories, so a mountain of spoilers awaits you here. I won't spoil anything that comes after it though.

Babylon 5 5-03: The Paragon of Animals

Episode:

91

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Director:

Mike Vejar

|

Air Date:

04-Feb-1998

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still watching Babylon 5, and I've reached season 5, episode 3: The Paragon of Animals. The title's a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet and in context it basically means 'humans are the best'. Though the character saying the line in the play is being sarcastic, so what it really means is 'humans suck'.

It's always nice to get a B5 episode that's put something other than a CGI shot of the space station under its title for a change. I like seeing the station, but you've got to have a bit of variety. Sometimes what you want is a shot of Garibaldi putting his shoes all over a table in the council chamber.

The episode was directed by Mike Vejar, which is generally a good sign as he was one of the series' best directors. Sadly he only returned for one more episode of B5 after this, but he did direct a couple of the TV movies and a third of Crusade.

That's the last thing I'm going to say here about future B5 stories, but this recap and review is definitely going to contain huge SPOILERS for this story and earlier ones. If you haven't seen the series up to Paragon of Animals then you might want to stop reading here.

Babylon 5 5-02: The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari

Episode:

90

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Director:

David J. Eagle

|

Air Date:

28-Jan-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the second episode of Babylon 5, season 5: The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari. More like the very long title of Londo Mollari...

The episode made history when it aired as it's the only episode of television to ever have the words "Londo" and "Mollari" in the title. Though it's not the first to have The Long Night in it, as B5 already did that last season. It's not the first to have a character's name in the title either, but unlike Vir and Garibaldi, Londo was blessed with having his full name immortalised on episode lists.

Here's some more title trivia for you: there was going to be an episode called The Very Long Night of Susan Ivanova in season 2. Creator jms dropped the idea in the end, but reused the name when this came around. They've also reused this shot of the station as I remember seeing it under the title of season 3's Exogenesis!

Alright I'm going to recap the whole episode and throw my opinions and observations in along the way. That means that there will be SPOILERS for anyone who hasn't watched the series up to this point. I won't say a thing about anything that happens afterwards though.

Babylon 5 5-01: No Compromises

Episode:

89

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Janet Greek

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Air Date:

21-Jan-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the first episode of Babylon 5's awkward final season: No Compromises.

I've mentioned already that the series lost its network and was rescued by TNT at the last minute, but things didn't entirely work out for the best. For one thing the budget stayed the same while the cast and crew got contractual raises, so were working with less money this season (and it was already a low budget series). They had to switch to six shooting days instead of seven to make up the difference. Plus they lost Claudia Christian and no one seems entirely sure who's to blame for that. She apparently wanted to come back, but she felt like they were rushing her into signing a contract that might prevent her from filming movies, and maybe didn't realise that production really was that pressed for time. All I know for certain is that this season will have far below the recommended amount of Ivanova.

This is the first episode of 1998, by the way, which wasn't a bad time for live-action sci-fi. Deep Space Nine was in its final years, Voyager was halfway through, and Stargate SG-1 was just getting started. It was a year of asteroid movies, with Armageddon and Deep Impact both hitting cinemas, and it was also a year of sci-fi TV shows getting movies. There was Lost in Space, Star Trek: Insurrection, The X-Files: Fight the Future... oh plus Babylon 5 got its own TV movie, In the Beginning, which aired a couple of weeks before this episode. I just wrote about that film actually, if you're trying to keep track of what order these reviews go in (and what stories I may end up spoiling).

Right, I'm going to get on with recapping, screencapping and sharing my thoughts on this episode, which means there'll be EXTREME SPOILERS for this and earlier episodes. Continue with caution.

Babylon 5: In the Beginning - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I've reached the end of In the Beginning, the Babylon 5 prequel movie that takes place years after the series ends.

This is the last of three parts, but if you'd rather read PART ONE or PART TWO, you can click one of those convenient links. Or maybe even click both of them; you can never have too many tabs open.

Once again I'll be sharing screencaps and SPOILERS as I go through the story writing my opinions and observations, so I'd recommend watching the movie first. In fact I'd recommend watching the first four years of the series first, as there'll be big spoilers for those as well. Blame writer jms for that, it's not my fault!

Babylon 5: In the Beginning - Part 2

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm in the middle of In the Beginning, which is either the first, second or third of the Babylon 5 TV movies depending on who you ask. It was definitely filmed after The Gathering and Thirdspace, but it was the first movie to air on TNT to promote the launch of the fifth season.

This is the second part of a three part review, so you should probably start with PART ONE if you haven't read it already.

You should probably also watch the movie yourself, though make sure you watch four years of the TV show as well. Some would make the argument that the movie is actually a good place for new viewers for start watching the series, but I'm going to be dropping SPOILERS for seasons 1 to 4 and I don't want to ruin anything for anyone.

Babylon 5: In the Beginning - Part 1

Written By:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Directed By:

Mike Vejar

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Release Date:

1998

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Great news! Sci-Fi Adventures is back for another two months and I'm getting right back into Babylon 5. I've finally reached the fifth and final season... though before I carry on to the end I have to first go back to the beginning.

Babylon 5 had been on shaky ground for its whole run, renewal was never guaranteed, and in its fourth year that ground collapsed entirely due to their network getting cancelled. Fortunately cable network TNT stepped in to give its first four seasons a new home and asked for a couple of new B5 TV movies (In the Beginning and Thirdspace) to stir up some interest. So the show went from losing its final year, to getting bonus content that creator jms had never planned for. In fact TNT decided they'd do one better than that and paid for a complete fifth season!

This was around the same time that Star Wars was gearing up to be a movie franchise again, with the original trilogy getting a theatrically released Special Edition in 1997 and the upcoming prequel (The Phantom Menace) generating huge amounts of hype, so I'm not surprised TNT wanted a bit of that for themselves. They decided to kick off their B5 run with a movie double-bill: the new prequel, In the Beginning, followed by a special edition re-edit of the original pilot The Gathering. This led straight into a season 1 rerun and, a couple of weeks later, the brand new season 5 stories.

Man this would've been confusing for new viewers.

In the Beginning can function as a new introduction to the series, but it's got pretty massive SPOILERS for all the way up to the end of season 4 and jms is happy leaving it to viewers to decide for themselves where it should be watched. Either way, I definitely wouldn't recommend reading this review until after season 4.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 4

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my Star Trek: Discovery season 3 reviews, covering the last three episodes:

• 3-11 - Su'Kal
  
• 3-12 - There is a Tide…
  
• 3-13 - That Hope is You, Part 2
  

Weirdly all three episodes were known by different titles at first, as we heard that they were going to be called The Citadel, The Good of the People and Outside. I don't know what happened there.

I wrote the first draft of these reviews mere moments after watching the episodes for the first time so you get to see me being authentically unaware of where the story's going to go. You'll also get to see BIG SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm continuing through Discovery's third season. This time I'm covering episodes 8 to 10:

• 3-08 - The Sanctuary
  
• 3-09 - Terra Firma, Part 1
  
• 3-10 - Terra Firma, Part 2
  

Have some more Disco trivia: the season was meant to be released before Lower Decks season one, but COVID-19 screwed up their schedule. They managed to finish filming days before the lockdown, but the post-production and soundtrack had to be completed remotely. That means all the visual effects this year were done from home and every instrument was recorded individually. It's amazing that the quality hasn't suffered at all, but it did take longer to finish.

These reviews were written back when I first watched the episodes so I'm not pretending that I don't know what happens next, I really didn't know at the time. There'll still be GIANT SPOILERS for the story so far though.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Discovery's third season. This time I'm covering episodes 5 to 7:

• 3-05 - Die Trying
  
• 3-06 - Scavengers
  
• 3-07 - Unification III
  

Here's some trivia for Discovery's third year: it's the first season of the series to be run by the same showrunner from start to finish, with limited writers' room drama. Season one was started by Bryan Fuller and finished by Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts. They stayed for season two but were fired after episode 5 and replaced by executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who handed the series over to Michelle Paradise this year. This is actually fairly normal for Trek, but the series tend to get much better when someone finally sticks around for a while.

Alright, I already said this before but these reviews are basically from right after I watched the episodes, so I genuinely didn't know where the story was going. Beware of MASSIVE SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 1

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing some words about the third season of Star Trek: Discovery. And by 'some' I mean 'lots'. In fact I'm going to have to split this up into four articles, with this first part covering the first four episodes:

• 3-01 - That Hope is You, Part 1
  
• 3-02 - Far From Home
  
• 3-03 - People of Earth
  
• 3-04 - Forget Me Not
  

Here's a fun fact about this season: they've changed the logo! Star Trek series do change their openings a bit sometimes, Enterprise even added the words 'Star Trek' to its title sequence a few episodes into the third year, but I can't think of a series ever changing its title font like this before. It's a good change I reckon and it fits the theme of this season being a fresh start, but then I like it when series have a different opening each season so of course I would say that.

This is one of those times where I already wrote these reviews right after watching the episodes, so was genuinely clueless about what was going to happen next, aside from the glimpses in the trailer after each episode. Well okay to be honest I wrote a first draft, these have been rewritten a bit since then, but I'm not exactly editing in correct guesses to make me seem like the best at Star Trek.

There will be HUGE SPOILERS for every episode this season, plus earlier episodes too. I mean I can't even mention the season's premise without spoiling the end of season 2.

Babylon 5: Season 4 - No Surrender, No Retreat Review

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'll be writing a bit about the fourth season of Babylon 5, titled No Surrender, No Retreat. TV seasons don't often get titles, but this one did.

You know what else the season got this year? A proper HD Remaster! That's one thing Deep Space Nine doesn't have. Unfortunately my reviews are missing out on all those beautiful high-resolution shots as my screencaps came from the old DVDs. No one's going to stumble across my reviews by clicking on one of my pictures in a Google image search ever again, it's a tragedy.

Anyway, this is going to contain giant SPOILERS for everything in season 4 from The Hour of the Wolf to The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, but I won't spoil anything about season 5 or the movies. Or Crusade. Or Legend of the Rangers. Or The Lost Tales.

Babylon 5 4-22: The Deconstruction of Falling Stars

Episode:

88

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Stephen Furst

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Air Date:

27-Oct-1997

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the Babylon 5 season 4 finale: The Deconstruction of Falling Stars! There's a proper pretentious title for you, it's great.

Babylon 5 was intended from the start to be a five year long novel for television, so it was a bit awkward when their network, PTEN, was set to be shut down after year four. Showrunner jms figured that the best they could do was to accelerate the major arcs so that we reached the original s4 finale, Intersections in Real Time, four episodes early. That way the series had time to reach some kind of closure before the episodes ran out, and they were able to film a replacement s4 finale called Sleeping in Light to wrap it all up properly. Babylon 5 was done. And then the producers made a deal with TNT to get their fifth season after all.

This was great news, but the trouble they had now was that Sleeping in Light was an emotional and unambiguous conclusion to the entire saga, and not the ideal way to launch the story into a new chapter. Fortunately the series was blessed with a huge four month break between the airing of ep 18 (Intersections in Real Time) and ep 19 (Between the Darkness and the Light), giving the production crew the time they needed to film a replacement ep 22... which is the episode I'm writing about now.

tl;dr: Season four was originally intended to end with Intersections in Real Time, which got moved up four episodes and replaced with Sleeping in Light, then after filming they changed it again to Deconstruction of Falling Stars.

SPOILER WARNING: This review is for people who've been watching the series at least up to this episode, as it's going to spoil everything that happens in it, along with the events that led up to it. I won't spoil a thing about season 5 though... well, except for the things that the episode itself spoils.

Also if you've got the DVD commentary, you should maybe hang onto that until you've seen the whole series. It's a bit spoilery too.

Babylon 5 4-21: Rising Star

Episode:

87

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Tony Dow

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Air Date:

20-Oct-1997

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the penultimate episode of Babylon 5's fourth season: Rising Star. Hang on, I recognise this picture: that's the same CGI stock shot of a shuttle arriving they used for the start of No Surrender, No Retreat! I guess the VFX team needed a week off to recover after that last story.

Writer jms must have liked this title as he wrote a comic series a couple of years later called Rising Stars, about the lives of people born with superpowers due to a mysterious comet. I remember the comic being pretty good, though I don't remember much more than that I'm afraid. I'll have things to say about Rising Star though, with any luck.

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be writing about every scene that takes place in episode 87 of a heavily serialised TV show, so this isn't the best place to jump in if you're just curious about it. But anyone watching through the series for the first time will be safe here as I'll not be spoiling anything that happens after this story.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Season 2 Review

This week's Sci-Fi Adventures just happens to land on May the 4th so I figured I'd go with something Star Wars flavoured this time.

I wrote about The Mandalorian's first season last year and I generally liked it. There was one small issue I had with it though: I felt like I was missing pieces of the backstory because I hadn't seen The Clone Wars or Rebels and I knew they had a lot of Mandalorian drama in them. I did have a good reason for skipping them though: I was a big fan of the original Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon and I was kind of put off when it was replaced with ropey-looking CGI series apparently aimed at younger kids. Plus the reviews said that the movie was terrible and they'd given Anakin a teenage sidekick that calls him 'Skyguy'!

Anyway, I decided to try to make an effort to get through The Clone Wars to prepare for The Mandalorian season 2 and it turns out that I was an idiot for writing the series off so quickly. You just have to skip the episodes with Jar Jar Binks in them and it's great! It does a good job of rehabilitating the character of Anakin Skywalker, and his relationship with his apprentice Ahsoka Tano works really well. I'm not surprised she pulled a Harley Quinn and made the jump from making appearances in a cartoon to leading her own live-action series.

Though I'm not writing about The Clone Wars here, I'm writing about more The Mandalorian. Well, to be honest I actually wrote these reviews ages ago, right after watching the episodes. So if I sound like I don't know what's coming next, that's because I actually didn't at the time.

There'll be SPOILERS here for the whole series so far, and maybe a few of the movies and cartoons, so I recommend you stop reading here if that's going to be a problem.

Babylon 5 4-20: Endgame

Episode:

86

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

John Copeland

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Air Date:

13-Oct-1997

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Babylon 5's Endgame! Not to be confused with Star Trek: Voyager's Endgame, Avengers: Endgame, or Highlander: Endgame...

Other series with an episode titled 'Endgame' or 'End Game' include:

• Stargate SG-1
• Alias
• La Femme Nikita 
• CSI
  
• NCIS
• NCIS: Los Angeles
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent
• The Fugitive
  
• Painkiller Jane
• The Pretender
  
• Xena: Warrior Princess
• Holby City
• The Tomorrow People
  
• Transporter: The Series
• Melrose Place
  
• The Equalizer
• The Unit
  
• Homicide: Life on the Street
• The Legend of Korra
• Dallas
• Young Justice
• All Saints
  
• One Foot in the Grave
• Nash Bridges
• All Saints (again)
• The Last Ship
  
• Person of Interest
  

And so on. But not The X-Files surprisingly. Hang on, I'm wrong, there is an X-Files episode called End Game in season 2.

Babylon 5's Endgame was the first episode to be directed by producer John Copeland. Visual effects supervisor Tony Dow directed the next episode, Rising Star, then showrunner jms directed Sleeping in Light, so I guess the senior staff felt they should steer the ship directly for the last few stories. Then the series got a surprise renewal on a new network and these weren't the last few episodes anymore, so John Copeland went and directed the penultimate episode of season 5 as well.

SPOILER WARNING: If you're a first-time viewer who's seen the whole series up to this point, then you're in luck! There's nothing here that'll ruin later episodes. There's plenty here that'll ruin earlier episodes though, and I'm definitely going to spoil this one.