Babylon 5 3-09: Point of No Return

Episode:

53

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

26-Feb-1996

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got some more Babylon 5 for you. It's episode 9 of season 3: Point of No Return.

Every season of Babylon 5 has its own title, named after one of its most important episodes and the name on the front of the season 3 DVD box is Point of No Return. So I'm going to consider it false advertising if this isn't at least as good as season 1 fan favourite Signs and Portents and season 2's Hugo Award winning The Coming of Shadows.

It wasn't the only title on creator J. Michael Straczynski's list though and for a while he may have been leaning more towards "I Am Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds," quoting Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita. I think he probably made the right choice by going with the title he did.

If you're watching through Babylon 5 for the first time, then I've got good news for you! I won't be spoiling or even hinting at events that take place in later episodes in this review. There will be massive SPOILERS for this episode however, and for episodes that lead up to it, as I'm going to basically recap the entire story.

Babylon 5 2-12: Acts of Sacrifice

Episode:

34

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

22-Feb-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've jumped back to Babylon 5 for season two's Acts of Sacrifice. I'm just past the midpoint of the season now with 11 episodes behind me and 11 still to go, which means I'm 4 episodes behind where I was at this point last year. I need to step up the pace.

Hang on, I recognise that ugly rubbish spiky spaceship... this is the episode with the Lumati in it! The title had me thinking it was the one where Londo's old friend shows up and then stuff happens, but nope it's this one. I guess I should start mentally preparing myself for how it ends then.

There's going to be SPOILERS beyond this point, by the way. Not just for this episode, but maybe earlier ones too. I'll not even hint at anything that comes in later episodes though, except for just then where I said that Londo's friend shows up and stuff happens.

Babylon 5 2-10: GROPOS

Episode:

32

|

Writer:

Lawrence DiTillio

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Air Date:

08-Feb-1995

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally returning to Babylon 5 with season two episode GROPOS.

You'd think that the biggest problem GROPOS has to live with would be its name, but it also suffers the misfortune of coming directly after The Coming of Shadows, the Hugo Award-winning mid-season game changer, so it was pretty much doomed to be a let down no matter how good it is.

Still, the episode that came after last year's mid-season game changer was TKO, and there's no way it can be that bad... though they do share the same writer. This was script editor Larry DiTillio's sixth episode for the series, and also his penultimate one, as he left at the end of the season. I guess there was no point in keeping a script editor around anymore when the executive producer took over writing all the episodes in season three.

Underneath this point the article's all SPOILERS and screencaps, so continue at your own risk. I'll not ruin anything that happens in the episodes that came after this though.

Babylon 5 2-08: A Race Through Dark Places

Episode:

30

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

25-Jan-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm back to Babylon 5 season two, writing about A Race Through Dark Places. My DVD's telling me I should be watching Soul Mates now, but I'm following the Lurker's Guide Master List which reorganises the stories into a more chronologically logical order, and it says that A Race Through Dark Places was always meant to come first.

What happened was the network, PTEN, planned to finish off 1994 with six new season two B5 episodes in a block (following straight on from the season one finale Chrysalis, which had been held back two months because... I don't even know why.) But then they decided to increase the block to seven episodes and Race Through Dark Places just wasn't going to be ready in time, so Soul Mates was aired in its place. They were aired in the correct order for me in the UK though... eventually.

Anyway the end result of this schedule shifting is that this is the first episode of Babylon 5 to air in 1995. It also means that there's another weird Babylon 5/Deep Space Nine coincidence for the ever-expanding list: both series aired exactly 29 episodes during their first year, which is a ridiculous number. Especially as one of DS9's episodes was feature length.

If you're wondering what else was going on in 1995, it was the year that Voyager, Sliders and Space: Above and Beyond started. Also they're not science fiction, but it says here on the internet that Hercules and its spin-off Xena both got a series this year and that's weird. Meanwhile in cinemas, sci-fi movie fans got to enjoy Johnny Mnemonic, Species and Sylvester Stallone's Judge Dredd. Yay.

Warning: I'll be sharing SPOILERS for this episode with my words and screencaps, and earlier episodes are fair game for spoilers too (aside from Soul Mates). I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

Babylon 5 2-04: A Distant Star

Episode:

26

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Writer:

D.C. Fontana

|

Air Date:

23-Nov-1994

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm continuing my descent into season 2 of Babylon 5 with the fourth episode: A Distant Star.

This is the first episode this season written by someone other than creator J. Michael Straczynski and the last B5 script from OG Star Trek veteran D.C. Fontana. There'll be a lot of 'last script's coming up over the next few months, as the series became too serialised for outside writers to produce standalone stories any more. That seems like a strange situation seeing as modern serialised TV series are written by multiple writers just fine, but I guess most of them haven't got an elaborate five year arc planned out in advance.

Okay what I'll be doing here is taking a few screencaps from the episode and then writing my commentary underneath, so this will include SPOILERS for the entire episode. I'll also be talking about the episodes leading up to it, so there'll be spoilers for them too. But as far as I'm concerned it's November 1994 right now so I can't say anything about what's coming next.

Babylon 5 2-02: Revelations

Episode:

24

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

09-Nov-1994

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I thought I'd go crazy and watch an episode of Babylon 5 for a change.

Revelations is the second episode of the second season, it's written by creator J. Michael Straczynski, uh... Jim Johnston's the director, he's done some decent episodes. Hmm, not sure what else to write here. I hope it's good!

I'll be going through the whole episode in DVD screencaps and writing my commentary as I go, so this is going to have massive SPOILERS for both this story and earlier ones. Anything that happens afterwards is off-limits though, I won't even hint at where things are going from here.