New Babylon 5 Podcast

[ThwippingBoys]

Hi all, first post, I'm Jon, hope nobody minds me doing this but I wanted to bring our Babylon 5 podcast to your attention just in case anyone fancied checking it out.

Long story short - I'm one half (sometimes a third) of a comics podcast, and I've spent 12 years trying to get my co-host to watch Babylon 5...but he has the usual misconceptions...basically he HATED it. Finally, I managed to convince him to watch it, and we're covering his reactions in quite a lot of depth as he watches everything, series, films, Crusade etc. (my reactions too as I'm watching for the first time in many years, but I'm getting a lot of joy by reliving a first run-through vicariously from him).

As you would guess his opinions of the show don't stay negative for long. We're now in the middle of Season 3 in our re-watch, with Seasons 1 and 2 available to listen to here:
http://thwippingboys.wordpress.com/tag/babylon-5/

Also I bear a gift, we've got a pretty funky B5 wallpaper available on that link if you'd like it

 

[Springer]

Thanks for the link. I'm just listening to your season 2 part 2 podcast right now, abut a third of the way through. I'm enjoying the discussion, although sometimes I feel you pass over some episodes too quickly, and I'm left wondering what you thought of some plot points that you don’t mention. It is interesting to get the perspective of someone who hasn't seen it before, 20 years on, and see how it holds up to new viewers today and whether certain aspects of the show that had relevance when it first aired still have relevance today. Like the Babylon 5 shop storyline in There All the Honour Lies – at the time that was a bit of a sly dig at Deep Space 9, and merchandising and franchising in general (JMS isn't a fan of merchandise, feeling that fans get taken advantage of), but new viewers might not be aware of that. I’m interested, what did you dislike about the show before

And yes, Paul Williams as Taq (the servitor, I think he was called?) is so Ronnie Corbett! Now if only the other fella had been like Ronnie Barker, I wonder what his response to Ivanova's dance would have been!

Nice shout out for Vince DiCola too. Are you guys Transformers fans by any chance?

I'm trying to remember, and someone might find the posting from JMS from back in the day, but I think he tried to justify the low death count of the Earth-Minbari war when people challenged him on it, by saying that there wasn’t that many people on the outlying colonies and the crews of the ships destroyed wouldn’t have numbered that many either. Most humans resided in the Solar System. There is a line from Franklin in the Long Twilight Struggle about the Minbari by-passing some of the major colonies because they were ready to attack Earth instead, but I’m not sure why they missed major colonies like Proxima III – unless of course Proxima was founded after the war. Earth had only had access to interstellar space for a 100 years and had really only begun to make inroads in terms of colonies and interstellar commerce and making our presence felt after the Dilgar War. So we were still fairly new to the Galaxy at the time of the Minbari War.

And yeah, the line from Delenn about Kosh being the last of the first ones is a bit ambiguous, but I think she is meaning that the Vorlons as a species are the last of the first ones, other than the Shadows. I’m not sure we ever got to the bottom of what “We are all Kosh” means but as later events show, the Vorlons are certainly not of one mind.

What I did find interesting was the comment about being surprised that they would find out about Morden so soon in the series. That episode for me is where things really start to get serious, and of course it sets us down the path towards a specific event in season 3 (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here for the benefit of the first time viewer). But what interests me is the comment that in other shows that this type of episode wouldn’t happen until near the end of the series. I think where B5 differs is how it is structured like a novel, and unlike TV shows that cram everything into their conclusion, novels spread their action and revelations throughout, which means that B5 might be paced a little differently to other shows, but I agree that it is cool that we get such an episode so early, relatively. I guess watching it every week rather than many episodes in one go from a boxset meant that it didn’t quite seem so early when it first aired – again, it highlights a different perspective on the show.

And I’m loving that picture you have of Londo with his hair as a Shadow vessel!

Will listen to the rest of the season 2 discussion and looking forward to hearing more podcasts in future!

 

[ThwippingBoys]

Hey there, thanks for the awesome feedback.

For a bit of backstory on what my co-host disliked about the show before and why, it's explained in more depth in the Season 1 show.

http://thwippingboys.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/babylon-5-signs-and-portents/

Partly it's just that Babylon 5 isn't easy to "get" and partly it's Simon Pegg's fault...

I agree that there's always more to say, but our Season 2 review is already three hours over two parts and what we're recording for S3 is already going longer!

I didn't know about that Deep Space 9 dig...I kind of had the impression the studio had asked JMS to do merch for B5 though! I personally don't like Deep Space 9...I sat through all seven seasons about five years ago, wondering when it was going to get good...nearly got there a few times but never really did in my eyes.

As awesome as the Rocky IV soundtrack undoubtedly is, I think most Vince DiCola fans are likely to be from his Transformers stuff! He released a new album recently by the way, very TF in style, it's great.

If you have any questions for us or points you want to make, emailing us at thwippingboys@gmail.com is an option as well, as we'll address it on the show that way (although to be honest I may just mention some of the stuff you've said next time we record anyway).

Thanks again.