Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
I just sat down to watch this episode on DVD once again, because a thread over at the Home Theater Forum mentioned the "blue lines" in one of the scenes set in Downbelow. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed them because I was distracted by the story. Nope, I hadn't. I don't see any lines whatsoever, horizontal or vertical, blue or any other color. That will have to remain a mystery, I suppose, since various posts I've seen around the 'net claim they both are and aren't there on the DVD, and both do and don't exist on off-the-air recordings of the episode from Sci-Fi, TNT and PTEN. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Be that as it may, I found myself appreciating the episode, which I always considered one of the "minor" S1 shows, a lot more. And catching little things, some of them mistakes. Some I'd seen before, but forgotten, others I noticed for the first time.
Plot points: It only got through my skull on this last viewing, but I finally understood Delenn's extreme reaction to the Soul Hunter early in act one. She isn't merely angry at the Soul Hunter for all the usual Minbari reasons - she's specifically afraid that he's there for the single most important soul on the station (in her estimation) - Sinclair's. She must spend the entire episode in an agony of suspense thinking that something is going to happen to him, as it once did to Dukhat. Who else, after all, would a Soul Hunter be stalking on B5?
After rewatching S1 can anyone really complain that Susan isn't sufficiently "Russian" in attitude, point of view and mode of expression? (Barring her accent, and there are plenty of Russians walking around today who speak better English than I do.)
BTW, at the beginning of Act III or Act IV did anyone else notice that Ivanova gives Epsilon 3 clearance to proceed to the jumpgate? Evidently nobody on the set or in editing did, either. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Unless there's a ship named after the planet, that jumpgate must be a lot bigger than it looks.
When the Soul Hunter is draining Delenn's blood he tells her that she'll feel as if she's falling, but that he'll catch her. This may be unintentional, but it foreshadows Delenn's words to Sheridan aboard the White Star, and Lorien's words to Sheridan on another occasion.
In that same scene, Delenn's blood runs backwards. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif There is a panning shot that goes from Delenn's face, past the flask he's collecting her blood in, to the Soul Hunter's body, but not his face. He speaks a line of dialogue over the shot. The original camera move for that piece of film went the other way, from the Soul Hunter to Delenn. Evidently they needed a visual to go with his line, and didn't have coverage, so they used the panning shot. But it went the wrong way to cut together with what followed, so they reversed the film to change the direction. And a drop of Delenn's blood jumps up from the flask to the tube. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
When Sinclair asks the computer to identify the word "Satai", he wonders aloud what a member of the Grey Council is doing playing ambassador. The computer asks him if he wants to run a further search and he says, "No. Not now. There's always time." All things considered, "there's always time" is an interesting thing for Jeffery Sinclair of all people to be saying. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Regards,
Joe
Be that as it may, I found myself appreciating the episode, which I always considered one of the "minor" S1 shows, a lot more. And catching little things, some of them mistakes. Some I'd seen before, but forgotten, others I noticed for the first time.
Plot points: It only got through my skull on this last viewing, but I finally understood Delenn's extreme reaction to the Soul Hunter early in act one. She isn't merely angry at the Soul Hunter for all the usual Minbari reasons - she's specifically afraid that he's there for the single most important soul on the station (in her estimation) - Sinclair's. She must spend the entire episode in an agony of suspense thinking that something is going to happen to him, as it once did to Dukhat. Who else, after all, would a Soul Hunter be stalking on B5?
After rewatching S1 can anyone really complain that Susan isn't sufficiently "Russian" in attitude, point of view and mode of expression? (Barring her accent, and there are plenty of Russians walking around today who speak better English than I do.)
BTW, at the beginning of Act III or Act IV did anyone else notice that Ivanova gives Epsilon 3 clearance to proceed to the jumpgate? Evidently nobody on the set or in editing did, either. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Unless there's a ship named after the planet, that jumpgate must be a lot bigger than it looks.
When the Soul Hunter is draining Delenn's blood he tells her that she'll feel as if she's falling, but that he'll catch her. This may be unintentional, but it foreshadows Delenn's words to Sheridan aboard the White Star, and Lorien's words to Sheridan on another occasion.
In that same scene, Delenn's blood runs backwards. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif There is a panning shot that goes from Delenn's face, past the flask he's collecting her blood in, to the Soul Hunter's body, but not his face. He speaks a line of dialogue over the shot. The original camera move for that piece of film went the other way, from the Soul Hunter to Delenn. Evidently they needed a visual to go with his line, and didn't have coverage, so they used the panning shot. But it went the wrong way to cut together with what followed, so they reversed the film to change the direction. And a drop of Delenn's blood jumps up from the flask to the tube. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
When Sinclair asks the computer to identify the word "Satai", he wonders aloud what a member of the Grey Council is doing playing ambassador. The computer asks him if he wants to run a further search and he says, "No. Not now. There's always time." All things considered, "there's always time" is an interesting thing for Jeffery Sinclair of all people to be saying. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Regards,
Joe
