Babylon 5 2-19: Divided Loyalties

Episode:

31

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

11-Oct-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I am once again writing about a second season Babylon 5 episode. Not many of them left now though. This one's called Divided Loyalties and it's episode 19 of 22.

Here, have some TV scheduling trivia to make everything else I write afterwards seem more interesting by comparison: in the US, seasons of B5 were split into four blocks, so you'd get five episodes, a month off, eight episodes, two months off, and so on. Meanwhile in the UK, we had to wait a while for the season to start, but once it was airing we didn't have so many huge gaps and we were able to catch up. So we actually got to watch up to the season two finale The Fall of Night during the four months that US fans were waiting between Confessions and Lamentations and Divided Loyalties. I can imagine VHS tapes were getting mailed across the Atlantic (they probably wouldn't have worked on an NTSC player but you never know unless you try).

Though American viewers soon got their revenge, as season two continued straight into season three without a break in the US, while British fans had to wait eight months for it. Man, could you imagine having to wait eight months between seasons of Westworld, Doctor Who or Game of Thrones?

I'll be screencapping and recapping the whole episode below, throwing in my own opinions and observations as I go, so there'll be SPOILERS for the whole of Divided Loyalties and episodes leading up to it. But if you're watching the series for the first time and you've only gotten this far, then you've got nothing to worry about as I won't spoil a thing about what happens afterwards.

Babylon 5 2-18: Confessions and Lamentations

Episode:

40

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

24-May-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Confessions and Lamentations, the 40th episode of cult 90s space opera Babylon 5.

Incidentally, if you add 40 to 90 you get 130, which is the total number of Babylon 5 stories ever filmed if you include the movies and the spin-offs (and count The Lost Tales as one thing). Why am I mentioning this? Because I feel like I should be writing something here to pad this introduction out a bit. Plus it also means that if I somehow end up owning a Crusade DVD box set in the future I'll have 90 stories left after this to review.

Beyond this point you'll find SPOILERS as I'm going to go through the entire episode in screencaps, and put my opinions and observations underneath, so I wouldn't recommend reading any further unless you've seen the episode already. I won't be spoiling anything that happens after this point in the series though, so it's entirely safe for people watching it for the first time.

Babylon 5 2-16: In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum

Episode:

38

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

10-May-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm putting the previous DVD back in to watch In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum.

Babylon 5 first aired with the occasional episode out of order, mostly due to the visual effects taking ages, and if you watch the episodes off disc or Amazon you get to experience the authentic continuity weirdness this causes (which is pretty minimal to be honest, it's not really a big deal). But I'm following the J. Michael Straczynski approved Lurker's Guide Master List order, which enhances the narrative by pulling Knives forwards and slotting this in before Confessions and Lamentations, leaving this block of episodes looking like this:

15 - And Now for a Word
17 - Knives
16 - In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
18 - Confessions and Lamentations
19 - Divided Loyalties

By the way, this is one of the few episodes to get a DVD commentary by producer jms and if you're watching B5 for the first time I'd recommend leaving it until you've seen the whole series. In fact all the special features seem to have been produced under the assumption that if you've bought the discs you're probably already a fan. Which is fine, but they could've at least included a spoiler warning. Like this:

WARNING, I'm about to write some massive SPOILERS all over this review! But only for this episode and the ones that precede it. Which includes Knives.

Babylon 5 2-17: Knives

Episode:

39

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Writer:

Larry DiTillio

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Air Date:

17-May-1995

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Welcome to Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures, which is now entering its fourth year! And yet I'm still not done with Babylon 5 season two. It's like I'm a showrunner on a modern TV series or something.

Obviously my plans have been terrible and something needs to be done, so I've got a new plan for 2019: I'm going to be writing just one review per week and I'll be switching my attention between Sci-Fi Adventures and Super Adventures in Gaming every two months. So that's 8 or 9 episode reviews here, then I switch over and write about 8 or 9 games, and so on. Unfortunately that only gives me 26 weeks a year to write about science fiction; just enough to cover a single season of one 90s TV series (or one episode each from 26 different series I suppose).

So I've decided to drop my weekly Doctor Who, Deep Space Nine, Discovery and The Orville reviews and focus on getting through Babylon 5... with something different thrown in every now and then so I don't have to rename the site to Ray Hardgrit's Babylon 5 Adventures. It's not that I don't like those other series, it's just that B5 is a serialised story that I'm already a third of the way through and I'd like to get it finished.

The last episode I reviewed (back in February 2018) was And Now for a Word, so if you go by the airdate, DVD and Amazon Prime episode order I should be watching In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum right now. But I'm following the Lurker's Guide Master List which puts Knives before it for continuity reasons, which makes this block of episodes look like this:

14 - There All the Honor Lies
15 - And Now for a Word
17 - Knives
16 - In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
18 - Confessions and Lamentations

All this really means is that I'll not be including any SPOILERS for In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, because that's what I'm watching next time, though I will be spoiling everything in this story and probably earlier episodes as well. Assuming I can still remember anything (it's been ages since I watched them).

Doctor Who (2005): Series 11 Review

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Doctor Who's 37th season, or series 11 if you're just counting the stories aired since it came back in 2005. Really they've could've drawn another line right here and called it Volume 3, Series 1 with how different the show is behind the scenes and on screen now. It's practically a spin-off of itself: the Star Trek: Discovery of Doctor Who, though I think this regeneration was necessary and the change didn't come a moment too soon.

This was the season that Jodie Whittaker took over from Peter Capaldi as the show's first madwoman in a box and Chris Chibnall took over as showrunner, so it was fairly monumental in that regards. But were the episodes anything spectacular themselves? If you've read my individual episode reviews you already know my answer to that, but I might as well say it again now.

I should also mention that I'm not going to shy away from dropping huge SPOILERS here, for everything from The Woman Who Fell to Earth to the season finale The Battle of Rancon Az Kolor Razkol Ab Kosor Ranschool As Kloplot... Resolution, and no doubt a few of the earlier episodes too.

Doctor Who (2005) - New Year's Day 2019: Resolution (Quick Review)

Episode:

851

|

Serial:

287

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

01-Jan-2019

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I hope you weren't looking forward to that Doctor Who series 11 review I promised, because this ain't that. I got distracted with other things and ran out of December to put it in. I believe I also mentioned that I might not be reviewing the New Year's special because I'd written about enough Doctor Who already, but that was before they revealed that this was going to be the only episode aired in all of 2019. How am I suppose to leave it out now? What sort of a monster would go from An Unearthly Child to the very latest season (skipping a year or ten along the way) and then stop exactly one episode before the end?

I kind of assumed that we were done with year-long breaks in between seasons now that the series has a different showrunner who's not trying to write Sherlock at the same time, but I guess that's just how the series is these days. The only difference is that in the Chris Chibnall era we get the one-off episode on New Year's Day instead of Christmas Day, because after thirteen consecutive Christmas specials they've used up every possible way of shoehorning Christmas into a Doctor Who story. Which means no more Christmasified opening titles! No opening titles at all in fact, for perhaps the third time ever in the series' history.

Resolution is also unique among Thirteenth Doctor stories as right now it's the first and only episode to allow anything major from an earlier season to return. Series 11 was very much about the new, with new actors, monsters, writers, a new visual effects house and a new composer, but this episode brings back director Wayne Yip! Also the antagonist might be a bit familiar too but I'll not spoil that here.

All my SPOILERS are safely contained below the next screencap, so continue at your own risk.

Doctor Who (2005) 11-10: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (Quick Review)

Episode:

850

|

Serial:

286

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

09-Dec-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I would've been writing about Doctor Who series 11's epic two-part finale, but they decided to end the season with a relatively low-key one-part story this year so I'm stuck writing about that instead.

I feel like I should be talking about how The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos is actually the first and only one-part finale in the revival series, as modern Doctor Who seasons always get ridiculous at the end, but I checked and it turns out that The Wedding of River Song and The Name of the Doctor both packed their absurdity into 45 minutes, so it ain't true.

But I can talk about its singularly awkward name, because Chris Chibnall's gone against 55 years of tradition here. You get one made up word per Doctor Who title, that's the rule, and unless I've overlooked something it's never been broken until now. Mostly because writers typically gravitate towards titles that people are able to remember, spell and say. They really tripped up a lot of podcasters with this one.

Anyway, I won't be going through the full episode scene by scene this time, I'm just sharing observations and opinions here, but if you continue reading past this point you'll find yourself knee deep in SPOILERS for this story and maybe earlier ones as well. The Pirate Planet jumps to mind. Castrovalva too, but ain't no one wants me to go off on a tangent ranting about Adric and block-transfer computation so I'm pretending I didn't think of it.