Come on, Grey 17 isn't all THAT bad, I mean it has a great Marcus line

I continue love the podcasts. The Babble On Project has the unique appeal over other B5 casts that it:

a) has an English accent;
b) appears unbothered by restrictions to running times anywhere up to around 3.5 hrs or so.

So about the "ace in the hole" Great Machine on Epsilon 3: Sheridan has seen how scary the Shadow ships are, much scarier than Earth Force Destroyers. I think he would want to keep Draal's weapons capability hidden from Earth to use against The Shadows if it came to it.

Note that when the 2nd wave of ships turn up and the extra jump points form "right on top of" B5, Sheridan appears conflicted. We interpret that as him thinking about a surrender but perhaps he is about to make the reluctant call to Draal.

Sheridan would not have been put off using the Great Machine by potential extra Earth Force casualties. Draal's resources are such that he should be able to target weapons and engines accurately. Sheridan's only reason for keeping Epsilon 3 in reserve is that he doesn't want The Shadows to know about it.

I think you are coming up to this soon but I will put this bit in Spoilers - it is OK once you have seen Ship of Tears. The number of times I've seen B5 must be in double figures but this is a first time spot for me....

Think I thought it may be keeping the machine hidden, but as Matt pointed out, Sherridan uses its holo-projectin system to address the whole station, earth force loyalists and all. Also the Captain of the Hyperion from voice in the wilderness definitely saw it unleash hot laser death on the alien ships. I woudl imagine he reported the presence of an alien weapons system on epsilon 3, along with Draals warning for everyone to stay away "or else" It is basically a plot hole and would have probably been worth introducing a reason it couldn't intervene, For example, when they get the Holo system Ivanova could tell Sherridan "bad news, The great machine's weapons are offline, Draal won't say why." He coudl be busy dusting, Playing Skyrim perhaps he already knew Delen was coming to the rescue.



In fairness, there aren't too many situations where the Great Machine is needed, but it being there is a pain for this particular episode.

Anyway, on to the episdoes

A Late Delivery from Avalon.

It has some redeeming features, we have Marcus and Franklyn banter and bonding, some top Marcus action in general. I do particularly like him assigning Knights to Everyone at the end, and I liked him pleading with Stephen to let Arthur continue believing he is an ancient knight, although it woudl have been a nicer twist if he'd just been a tax man and Marcus just though having King Arthur around was much cooler. Drunk G'Kar is also entertaining.

The Bad, the epsidoe seemed a bit of a jumble to me. The B-Plot with Sherridan and Ivanova feels like it should be the A-Plot and have more in it. Meanwhile the Arthur plot has the interesting ideas, effectively the guy who pulled the trigger on the guns that started the war suffering some serious Guilt and PTSD, but it jarrs with the general light tone of the rest of the plot. It also doesn't help that Michael York sounds like Arthur from "Holy Grail" when he says "I am Arthur, King of the Britons" Overall Agree with Sherridan, All very interesting but don't we have more important things to do.

Also, what is it with garibaldi getting dumped with the comedy plotlines, first Garibaldi vs. the Comedy computer AI, next Garibaldi vs. Comedy beurocratic postman.

Ship of Tears

Bester's here, always a good sign, and his character is further fleshed out. The character we see who is closest to an out and out baddy has a human side. Great to see Garibaldi not lumbered with a comic sub-plot. Instead his studies of the book of G'quan prove very worthwhile. Actually, its surprising how much happens in this episode, we also find out why Sherriden was reluctant to tell G'Kar about the shadows. Finally, we see a bit more of the Newer Starfuries (Thunderbolt for completists) a nice enough ship but rather too X-Wing (just about has S-Foils) Much prefer the classic Starfury.



Anyway, much more fun to come. I look forward to the next cast

PieMan70 wrote:

Looking at this, what do Earth Force/ people outside Sheridan's inner circle know?:

- he has access to a snazzy comms system (but not where it comes from);
- Epsilon 3 has weaponry that can easily chew up anything Earth Force have and is too scary to approach.

The key thing they don't know is that there is an alliance between Epsilon 3 and Babylon 5. If The Great Machine is used to defend Babylon 5 then this is out in the open. At the moment the Shadows may think that if they attack B5 they might be up against the Station and a few Minbari War Cruisers (or Winbari More Cruisers as I can't help thinking of them as). As Sheridan says, Draal is still their "ace in the hole".

Ooo yes - just remembered the other thing I wanted to mention: Garibaldi's vision and the idea that it might be the Severed Dreams breaching pod battle.

I think this is something else. For a start there are no Narns in the vision. Over to Spoiler-land:

Greeting from Warm and Very Sunny Tucson,
Just finished your last podcast, and for the first time I noticed that I had a three hour tour of Babylon 5, a three hour tour. That’s right “little buddy”.

This puts the Babble on Project podcast into my Sergio Leone category. I love Sergio Leone movies. Most know The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and please, I am not suggesting for a moment which of us are which. I do challenge listeners however to view the first 15 minutes of Once Upon the Time in the West for a “taste” of Sergio Leone goodness, but I digress. (Oh I also challenge listeners to view the first 15 minutes of Raising Arizona, perhaps the funniest first 15 minutes in all film, but I digress.)

Back to the Future. The two episodes after Severed Dreams provided a nice respite, even some wonderful comedic moments.

This brings us to Vir’s relationship with Lyndisty in Sic Transit Vir. Truly he was quite smitten with her beauty and affections, while repulsed by those “crazy eyes” and actions. How would he resolve this dilemma? Well I was searching the imdb.com database and found this unremembered tidbit. Time to go Down Below.



So I appreciate traveling on this journey reviewing of Babylon5 with you.
All the Best
Andrew from Tucson

I was sent a link to an interesting forum post regarding the series arc as it stood after the gathering as season 1 was going into production. As it is probably still pretty spoilerific I'll put it all in spoiler tabs thingys

A good couple of low key episodes that give us some breathing space away from the war and Earthgov plotlines.

It appears to be non-uniform day, first of all. Wonder if they all had to give a couple of quid to a Narn charity. I'm still warming to bad-ass Marcus although he still looks like he's wandered in from a shampoo ad *hides from Gillian*. Normally when I'm watching an episode I see how many of the cast named in the credits are actually in the episode and this one nearly made it apart from Zach Allen and Vir. Some great lines too and I especially love G'kar's about being born once has worked out sufficient. The computer's new personality was funny at first but then got a bit tiring so I'm glad it wasn't featured that much.

After Gillian mentioned the ships being more nautical than aerial in the last episode I have to say I'm really notice that now. When the ships appear through the jump gates they look like navel vessels rather than any kind of rocket or plane. The Minbari ships remind me a bit of angel fish. Even now in this episode the dead bodies are "committed to the deep".

It was good to see Vir have his own episode and one that really highlighted his compassion and strength. Why did the Narns lock him in the room at the beginning though? Were they the ones he was helping? What happened? Carmen Thomas was brilliant as Lindistry in a cheery Eva Braun kind of way. It was nice to see them split on good terms, each hoping to change the other.

Andrew wrote:

I would have to do more research on that. IMDB is edited by users and has none of the fact checkers and reference links that Wiki has.

I really do not like this episode.

I think it get spoilt by the awfully written, panto quality bad guys. I mean, Garribaldi recruited these nutters into his security force. Does not seem like the thing hew would do, seeing of how paranoid he is after being shot in the back. I think it would have been more interesting if the bad guys were not arseholes or nutcases. That was one of the more interesting questions of the show. Just because there are some who disagree with Sheridans position, or are loyal, does that make them psychopathic? It would have been nice to see a voice of reason on the bad guys side.

Also I find JMS comedy very hit and miss. And when its bad he makes it worse by labouring it.

But when Markus said "bugger", that was very funny.