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Apr. 6th, 2004 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tpau's watching the 4th season of Babylon 5, I am putting together some of what really annoyed me about its plot resolution.
The problems with reducing the Vorlons and the Shadows to squabbling children are twofold: the first is that, as was so often the case throughout the show's run, the writing and acting of individual scenes was far below what it should have been to make JMS's plots work well. Having a brief, stilted dialogue in which million-year-old enemies shuffle around awkwardly and get their motivations reduced to a toddler level is a poor way to wrap up a four-year-long plot. Adding a stereotypical, more-Kirk-than-Kirk cowboy performance by Sheridan enthusiastically rubs salt in the wound. But then, I was never a fan of Smilin' John Sheridan's one-dimensional approach to a complex universe of problems.
The second, and thornier, problem is that it betrays our fundamental understanding of what the Shadows and Vorlons are, with little (and weak) explanation, in contradiction to a moderate amount of corroborating evidence for the picture fairly consistently shown through the first three seasons. It's not a problem of the Vorlons being less than perfectly good, since we've seen that developed since the beginning. (Interestingly, however, we never see any convincing signs that the Shadows have any genuine good to them. It may be a lot easier to muddy your heroes than to brighten your villains, but is the easy way really what we want...?) It's not even that "our" Vorlon is The Good One, while all the others are bad. The major problem is that everything we know about the history of their conflict tells us that the Shadows are not First Ones on an even footing with the Vorlons, but an older race, even less similar to us than First Ones, almost without understandable motivations. (This in contrast to the First Ones that can be, for example, goaded by Ivanova using simple reverse-psychology.) The elder races that band together to fight the Shadows are explicitly peers of the Vorlons, which is strong evidence that these are not two balanced, opposite sides of an ancient experiment. The idea of disparate smaller groups working together against a more powerful, unified, nigh-unstoppable foe runs throughout the series, but is suddenly thrust in a different direction midway through season four.
Ultimately, this looks to me like perhaps the biggest place where JMS had a good idea originally, but wound up mangling it somewhere along the line. He always said there were many plots to the show, but this is in every regard the central one, and I my disappointment with the show's resolution stems in large part from what I see as its mishandling.
tpau's watching the 4th season of Babylon 5, I am putting together some of what really annoyed me about its plot resolution.The problems with reducing the Vorlons and the Shadows to squabbling children are twofold: the first is that, as was so often the case throughout the show's run, the writing and acting of individual scenes was far below what it should have been to make JMS's plots work well. Having a brief, stilted dialogue in which million-year-old enemies shuffle around awkwardly and get their motivations reduced to a toddler level is a poor way to wrap up a four-year-long plot. Adding a stereotypical, more-Kirk-than-Kirk cowboy performance by Sheridan enthusiastically rubs salt in the wound. But then, I was never a fan of Smilin' John Sheridan's one-dimensional approach to a complex universe of problems.
The second, and thornier, problem is that it betrays our fundamental understanding of what the Shadows and Vorlons are, with little (and weak) explanation, in contradiction to a moderate amount of corroborating evidence for the picture fairly consistently shown through the first three seasons. It's not a problem of the Vorlons being less than perfectly good, since we've seen that developed since the beginning. (Interestingly, however, we never see any convincing signs that the Shadows have any genuine good to them. It may be a lot easier to muddy your heroes than to brighten your villains, but is the easy way really what we want...?) It's not even that "our" Vorlon is The Good One, while all the others are bad. The major problem is that everything we know about the history of their conflict tells us that the Shadows are not First Ones on an even footing with the Vorlons, but an older race, even less similar to us than First Ones, almost without understandable motivations. (This in contrast to the First Ones that can be, for example, goaded by Ivanova using simple reverse-psychology.) The elder races that band together to fight the Shadows are explicitly peers of the Vorlons, which is strong evidence that these are not two balanced, opposite sides of an ancient experiment. The idea of disparate smaller groups working together against a more powerful, unified, nigh-unstoppable foe runs throughout the series, but is suddenly thrust in a different direction midway through season four.
Ultimately, this looks to me like perhaps the biggest place where JMS had a good idea originally, but wound up mangling it somewhere along the line. He always said there were many plots to the show, but this is in every regard the central one, and I my disappointment with the show's resolution stems in large part from what I see as its mishandling.
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Date: 2004-04-07 04:43 am (UTC)08-Feb-97 21:29:03
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Thanks. So far the general reaction has been, "But...but...what NOW?"
which is *exactly* the reaction I was hoping for.
Everybody keeps commenting, "This is the sort of episode you have at the
end, not 6 eps into your season." Yep.
We're funny that way....
Go to Google groups and search through the rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.* groups. You'll find a LOT of interesting stuff by JMS there.
The struggle to get a decision for season 5 was a very painful one. There's no question that it really hurt the end of the show.
I like the show, not the creator
Date: 2004-04-07 05:34 am (UTC)In this case, for instance, he heavily implies (but, and he would make a big point of this if pressed, never states) that it's all a cleverly planned surprise, rather than a rushed change of direction. I am skeptical.