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EpDis: Survivors

And The Sky Full Of Stars

  • A -- Excellent

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • D -- Poor

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • F -- Failure

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    4
I think "Survivors" is a decent enough episode.

We get an early blast of Garibaldi's alcoholism, which sets up plenty later on, which is something I like about the episode.

My favorite element of the episode is the political intrigue of it all. And the President, though we do not see him, is out and about; it's nice to know he's just not an assumed being but actually does have a place in the story universe.

The part I disliked most was the guest character Cutter. Well, more like the performance of the character; it just has too many moments that feel too melodramatic to me.
 
Great Garibaldi ep and a good insight into his past before B5 and sets up for later eps in the series so this gets an a .
 
I have mixed feelings about Survivors. On the one hand, it's a Garibaldi episode, and it has some decent scenes / dialogue involving him, his alcoholism, and his relations with the other characters. On the other hand, I think perhaps some of the acting is a little off (though not Jerry Doyle's) and some of the characterisation is maybe a little out (I'm still not convinced Londo would have set Garibaldi up and destroyed his life 'in a minute', given how sentimental Londo is about notions of honour). I also can't help sympathising with Major Kemmer, and thinking she was perfectly within her rights to behave as she did from the moment Garibaldi became the overwhelming prime suspect in an attempted presidential assassination and the others started obstructing her (though the script later makes her apologise for it and says she was on a witch hunt). Also I can't quite forgive the timer stopping at T minus 1 second. So I give it a C+.
 
some of the characterisation is maybe a little out (I'm still not convinced Londo would have set Garibaldi up and destroyed his life 'in a minute', given how sentimental Londo is about notions of honour)

I think that the question of whether he would in the "right" circumstances is open for debate. G'Kar once told Catherine Sakai, in explaining why he had saved her, that her death "would distress the Commander to no good effect" (possibly paraphrased). One implication of that was that if there was a good reason (for the Narn Regime in the current instellar political situation) to need Sinclair "distressed" he would be willing let her die. I think that this may also be true of Londo. If his mission as a representative of the Centauri Empire required him to remove Garibaldi through covert means, then he might very well do it. Of course, I'm not sure why Garibaldi would ever be the focus of such attention from the Empire, but .....

However, in deciding whether the characterisation was "off", the entire question of whether Londo would ever actually *do* what he said is quite beside the point. The real question is: Is it within his characterisation to *say* that he would do it? After all, that is all that they had him do during the episode. And Londo saying that, whether because he liked to believe that he would do whatever it took to help the Empire or just because he thought it would be useful to have others think that he was capable of anything, stikes me as being entirely within character.


On an unrelated bit of this episode:

In my opinion, the guest actor playing Kemmer overplayed, by a bit, the character's rigid stiffness during the majority of the episode (before she forgives Garibaldi).
 
In my opinion, the guest actor playing Kemmer overplayed, by a bit, the character's rigid stiffness during the majority of the episode (before she forgives Garibaldi).

The way I see it, she was a very young looking female in a very important position. I think her general demeanor and stance would be dour and rigid in an attempt to be taken seriously. Then throw in Garibaldi's past relationship with her and she is seriously tensed up for the remainder of the episode.
 
The way I see it, she was a very young looking female in a very important position. I think her general demeanor and stance would be dour and rigid in an attempt to be taken seriously. Then throw in Garibaldi's past relationship with her and she is seriously tensed up for the remainder of the episode.

Oh, I agree with that. It's just that she seemed to me to be overdoing that just a little bit.

Your milage may vary. :cool:
 
Yes, Londo would have allowed Garibaldi to be captured. If he could annihilate an entire civilisation, he could do that.

The episode itself doesn't make me feel strongly one way or another. It's just... there.
 
I gave it a D because I think Major Kemmer's a "---"itch.

:mad:

Uh, she's SUPPOSED to be unlikeable! She does it well :D.I like it better after seing it again(and again, and again :eek:) It sets up Garibaldi, past, present and future. It also sets the stage for future EarthGov politics.
 
I always wonder what happened to Major Kemmer. JMS indicated she wasn't on EarthForce One, probably being on Io to prep as she was on B5 ahead of Santiago's arrival. I rather suspect that Clark had her "dealt with," otherwise she probably would have gotten wise to the whole operation. But she might not have been killed. It would be interesting to see her and Garibaldi talking after the wars.
 
I like this episode because I thought it dealt with Garibaldi's alchoholism rather seriously. Perhaps it "sings" to me a bit more because my wife had her own bout with alcoholism, and has had to come to terms with addictive/self-destructive behaviors (she's been getting much better over the last year).

I found it very realistic that all it took was some extreme stress and some free booze and Garabaldi was back in the bottle.

In a lot of shows, Garabaldi would have went undercover, gotten his fake identicard, and figured out the conspiracy by himself, proving that it was really a frame job. We've all seen this story line in numerous TV shows and movies.

Instead, he ends up a drunk mo-fo and gets captured. :D Kudos for an atypical (and more realistic) character storyline.

Yes, the whole "stop the bomb at 1 second" thing is overdone, and that is definitely a sour note. But the character story is good, and breaks with tradition. B.
 
Also, the countdown's a bit unrealistic, as we never hear it for a Starfury launch again. Admittedly they were going for a precision launch, but if so why's it blaring in C and C?

It might have been slightly better if the countdown had stopped at 5, a la the countdown in Goldfinger stopping at .007 seconds.
 
A great ep for Baldi. I just love that moment when he's sitting staring at the bottle in the bar. If "Survivors" was a cartoon, there would be an angel and a devil on his shoulders, arguing over his insticts. The conflict on his face is a picture, knowing how hard he had worked to get sober but still thinking how all he had to do was take one little drink and a the stress and pain of the last couple days would vanish...a sensitive and striking portrayal by Jerry Doyle and the Great JMS. :)
 
This is an uncomfortable episode, and I'm not sure how much of that is deliberate, belonging to the story, and how much is because certain aspects just don't quite jell for me. I find Lianna too young for the position she holds, and the fact that she holds a grudge as more important than her objective reasons for fulfilling her duties does not make her suitable for such a position. There are some good quotes (G'Kar's "enlightened self-interest" is great!), the insight into Garibaldi's alcoholism does foreshadow future events, and I enjoyed seeing the President's ship, but I don't think I'll be watching this one again soon. The arc elements are minimal.

Thsi episode was not written by JMS (except for a couple of bits and pieces, including the above-mentioned quote) - perhaps that's part of the reason it doesn't quite work?
 
The thing about Lianna is that until she ran across Garibaldi again, she'd locked her emotions away completely and focused only on her job which explains her rapid rise. Emotions being what they are, though, they came bursting through when she was reunited with her 'Uncle Mike' which clouded her judgment.

Jan
 
This episode is more of a background episode, laying down groundwork for things to come.

The damaged ones always get to me, so I wish we'd seen more of Kemmer. Especially with her hair down.
 
This is an OK episode .. Far from the highlight of the season, but certainly not terrible. I don't hate the Kemmer character, like quite a few people seem to do (not on this thread so much, but I seem to remember seeing her named as a least favorite bit character elsewhere). Both the character and the performance are fine, imho. The main things I like about the episode are the Garibaldi background stuff and the politics involving President Santiago, alien trade and immigration policies, Homeguard, and all that. My least favorite thing about this episode is the incredibly cheesy dialog that pops up here and there "Seventeen years ago we both died inside .. something something ... forget how much it hurts to be human sometimes" Ew.

Like KoshFan upthread, I too have wondered what happened to Major Kemmer during/after the events that take place at the end of Season 1. Does the character ever appear again in any books or anything like that?

Some random comments from this viewing:
  • This is one of those episodes with the green screen (was it blue screen back then?) scenes that make the blue Earth Force uniforms look green. Bright, bright green.
  • Those tattoos on that alien whose name I can't remember are great!
  • I love Lou Welch! I'm not being facetious, I think that's a great character. I'm glad he reappears in later episodes, but I would have loved to have seen even more of him.
  • Those chains that those drazi rappel down from are pretty amusing
  • Why is everyone inside Happy Daze turning to look at Garibaldi before he's even in the door?
  • Also, why are all the customers in Happy Daze wearing hats? I know hats are in style in the Babylon 5 universe mid-23rd century (and I love that!), but these aren't style hats, they're warmth hats.
  • Dude, Ivanova, abort the drop! There is really no reason for her to wait until the last second and waste time on "where are you?" and other questions. Your security chief tells you to abort the drop, you abort the drop.
 

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