Babylon 5 1-18: A Voice in the Wilderness, Part 1

Episode:

18

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

27-Jul-1994

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm rewatching the first half of A Voice in the Wilderness, Babylon 5's first two-parter! This is a rare event, as there's only two of these in the entire five year run. I guess after War Without End the series had gotten so serialised that labelling multi-part stories seemed redundant. That's another thing B5 has in common with DS9 if you're keeping count: no numbered two parters after season 3.

I remember this one being a highlight of the first season, but it's been ages since I've seen the series, so I could always be wrong. I was way off with Eyes the other day for instance, which was much better than I expected. Maybe I'm due for a let down.

You might be wondering why I skipped over episode 17, Legacies. I will get around to it, but I'm following the Lurker's Guide Master List instead of the order they aired in, so I plan to watch it right before the season finale.

18 - A Voice in the Wilderness, Part 1
19 - A Voice in the Wilderness, Part 2
20 - Babylon Squared
21 - The Quality of Mercy
14 - TKO
17 - Legacies

I'm going to be recapping the whole of AVitW,P1 with screencaps and SPOILERS so don't be surprised if I mention things that happened in earlier episodes. Everything that comes after will remain unspoiled though, including the second half of this two-parter.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1-15: Progress

Episode:

15

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Writer:

Peter Allan Fields

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Air Date:

09-May-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm digging through another episode of Deep Space Nine. A Kira episode in fact, which means more Bajoran problems.

Progress is Peter Allan Fields' second episode of DS9 after co-writing Dax with D.C. Fontana, and he'd have his name on eight more scripts before the end of its run. Stories like Necessary Evil, For the Uniform, In the Pale Moonlight, Duet... oh plus he also wrote The Inner Light for Next Gen. It's been a long while since I've seen either series, but I feel like they were some of the good ones. So you'd think that I'd be getting my hopes up right about now, but there's another piece of writing I need to take into account and that's the words "SEASON 1" on the box this episode came in. It's rarely a good omen for science fiction series, especially this one.

I'll be recapping the entire episode and sharing my opinions along the way, so you should expect SPOILERS for any episode (or movie) so far. Everything that comes after is safe though.

Babylon 5 1-16: Eyes

Episode:

16

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Writer:

Lawrence DiTillio

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Air Date:

13-Jul-1994

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm rewatching Eyes, the 16th episode aired in Babylon 5's first season, but the last one filmed. It's right where it needs to be though, continuity-wise.

I don't remember what I thought about this first time around, but the clues seem to be suggesting that it wasn't one of my favourites. It's not a J. Michael Straczynski episode, I don't think it has much impact on any of the story arcs, and I don't remember it. Plus it's by Jim Johnston, the director of Soul Hunter... though to be fair he also did Parliament of Dreams and By Any Means Necessary, both of which I liked.

I'm going to recap the whole story and there may be SPOILERS for earlier episodes as well, but I won't say a word about anything that comes after.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1-14: The Storyteller

Episode:

14

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Writer:

Kurt Michael Bensmiller and Ira Steven Behr

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Air Date:

02-May-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm going through another episode of Deep Space Nine season 1. Though I'm kind of tempted to just sit here and listen to the gentle hum of the DVD menu for a bit longer because I've been dreading this one. I've been dreading a lot of episodes actually, but my enthusiasm for this season drips away a little more each time.

The Storyteller actually started out as an old Star Trek: The Next Generation script, so it's a little slice of Next Gen season 7-style "Crap, we need a story, any story!" desperation in your Deep Space Nine. Plus I'm not superstitious, but if I was I'd probably make note of the fact that this may be the 14th 'hour' of DS9, but it's the 13th story.

As usual I'm going to recap the episode and share my thoughts along the way, so this will be filled with SPOILERS. But I'll only spoil episodes up to this point, nothing afterwards.

Babylon 5 1-15: Grail

Episode:

15

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Writer:

Christy Marx

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Air Date:

06-Jul-1994

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm going to rewatch Grail, the 15th episode of Babylon 5 season 1! Or maybe the 14th, if you're going off the Lurker's Guide Master List like I am.

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 has been around since ancient times collecting information on the series, such as posts made by creator JMS to Usenet, and analysing episodes as they aired. They also put together an alternate viewing order called the Master List to fix some continuity weirdness caused by delayed episodes that's been carried across to the DVD releases too. The changes seem to make sense to me and JMS has given the new ordering for the first couple of seasons his blessing, so I don't see any reason to stick with the airing order on my rewatch.

So here's where Grail fits in the list:

12 - By Any Means Necessary
13 - Signs and Portents
15 - Grail
16 - Eyes
18 - A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 1)

Basically the Master List has taken TKO out and kicked it down to later in the season. So this'll make absolutely no difference to the SPOILERS I'll be giving out in this particular episode recap... but things are going to get more complicated later in the series.

Star Trek: First Contact

Written by:

Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore

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Directed by:

Jonathan Frakes

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Release Date:

1996

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm going to go through the 8th Star Trek film: First Contact, aka The One with the Borg in it. Not to be confused with the episode First Contact, which doesn't have even the slightest bit of Borg in it. The movie was nearly called Star Trek: Resurrection, but Alien: Resurrection went and stole that title. Someone was apparently fond of the sound of it though, as the next Trek film was called Insurrection.

Here's another fact for you: First Contact just turned twenty today, as it was released in November 1996, during Trek's 30th anniversary. Deep Space Nine celebrated by compositing its crew into The Trouble with Tribbles, Voyager celebrated by putting Janeway into the 25th anniversary film The Undiscovered Country, and here Next Gen is celebrating by... sending the Enterprise back in time to meet a boring guest star from one of the most forgettable episodes of the Original Series. Seems like now would've been the time to have the epic crossover with Kirk's crew, but they tried that already and blew it.

1996 was when Star Trek began to reach its peak as a Marvel-style shared universe with Voyager reaching its third season, DS9 hitting season 5, and Next Gen shedding its TV sets to become a true movie series. It didn't shed its TV creators though, as writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore returned to provide the script. Also Riker actor Jonathan Frakes took the helm, beginning the Star Trek tradition of the ship's first officer getting to direct two of the movies.

Anyway my writing will contain SPOILERS for First Contact and the episodes and movies preceding it, including DS9 up to season 5 and a certain episode of the Original Series. I might even mention that this film led to the Borg showing up in Voyager, the uniform switch-over in DS9, and the premise of Enterprise, but other than that I'll keep quiet about what came after. This far, no further.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1-13: Battle Lines

Episode:

13

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Writer:

Richard Danus and Evan Carlos Somers

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Air Date:

25-Apr-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've reached episode one on the fourth DVD in the first season box of Deep Space Nine. I'm still tenaciously clawing my way through season one, chipping away at it one story at a time.

Battle Lines was written by Richard Danus and Evan Carlos Somers based on a story by Hilary J. Bader and I can't off the top of my head remember what other episodes they've done. But the Memory Alpha wiki tells me that Somers wrote just three DS9 stories in the end, and the other two are Melora and Meridian, contenders for the worst episode of season two and season three respectively. I don't know where people generally rank Battle Lines in season one though, somewhere in the middle maybe? I doubt it blew anyone away but this is the season where the senior staff have to play hopscotch and a leprechaun Rumpelstiltskin shows up to steal O'Brien's daughter so it'll have to do worse than 'mediocre' to earn a spot in the lower half.

As usual I'll give no SPOILERS for future episodes, except for just then when I spoiled Rumpelstiltskin, but I will be spoiling the hell out of this episode as I recap it and share my opinions.