I had been enjoying B5 increasingly throughout season 2, but this was the stretch of episodes that finally got me really excited. Not that they're perfect, and I suspect that much of my particular affection (sort of a love-hate relationship, really) with "Divided Loyalties" has to do with the fact that Susan/Talia pinged hard for me, for some reason. But all these pieces of the puzzle have been put into place for two seasons, people have made their choices, and now suddenly everything is in motion, and there's no stopping it now. It's completely fascinating, and seasons 3 and 4 follow up on all of this setup really satisfyingly (I think, at least).
But no, subtlety is not among JMS's strengths. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of very many instances at all when this show has been subtle. I often think it's a shame that he didn't have a good writing parter or co-creator or someone who was better at the human aspects of a drama. I've said before that I think JMS is something of a misplaced Elizabethan dramatist: not so much Shakespeare as much as Beaumont or Fletcher, perhaps, or even Marlowe when he's on. He has a gift for the big, sweeping drama, for war and religion. He can make characters like Delenn, G'Kar, and Londo work because their alienness allows them to be a little larger than life. And he's funny, so funny characters also work well. But characters like Stephen fall flat, because Stephen's just a good, normal guy, not particularly funny, and JMS can't write him. John has his moments, but even he doesn't work as well as the lead of a show should work, and for much the same reason, I think. And JMS does a pretty miserable job with romance most of the time. It's a shame, really, that this show is so uneven, because the good parts are so very good, and it's easy enough to imagine how brilliant the same story in the hands of a more well-rounded writing staff and more capable actors might have been. But I suspect there's little chance of ever getting the re-imagined Babylon 5! (And I do have something of an affection even for its dreadfulness, I must admit.)
Oh G'Kar
Oh, G'Kar, indeed! It's something of a litany. He's easily my favorite character on the show (though I also have pretty mad love for Susan), and particularly from this arc forward.
I'm looking forward to reading your reactions to season 3!
But all these pieces of the puzzle have been put into place for two seasons, people have made their choices, and now suddenly everything is in motion, and there's no stopping it now.
I think that's one of the things that particularly hits the right spot for me with the show: the fact that for all of the grand political scope, these events are the direct results of characters' choices playing out over time.
It's a shame, really, that this show is so uneven, because the good parts are so very good, and it's easy enough to imagine how brilliant the same story in the hands of a more well-rounded writing staff and more capable actors might have been.
Yeah, subtlety is definitely not one of JMS's strong suits, and he never passes up the opportunity to use a cliche. (Watching with cofax7 is particularly hilarious because she calls out half the dialogue before the characters say it; she has an excellent nose for predictable cliche.) I've been mulling over why the non-human characters seem to work better than the human ones do, and part of that is definitely the acting, but I also think the characters work best when their place in the arc is unified with their personality traits. So Londo the conflicted Rasputin, G'Kar the noble rebel, and Delenn the peacemaker come across as relatively well-realized, while Sheridan is patchy (he doesn't quite click in either military leader or Leader of Light roles) and Stephen, who has to be Generic Technological Problem-Solving Guy but doesn't really have a place in that arc, doesn't work at all. Garibaldi and Ivanova don't have a huge place in the arc either, but they have extremely well-defined roles on the station to ground them; for all of Michael O'Hare's awful non-acting, Sinclair also had a very sharply defined part in the arc.
I'm looking forward to season 3 too! Especially because I'm hoping that the DVD menus don't feature the characters morphing into one another. That's deeply creepy.
But no, subtlety is not among JMS's strengths. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of very many instances at all when this show has been subtle. I often think it's a shame that he didn't have a good writing parter or co-creator or someone who was better at the human aspects of a drama. I've said before that I think JMS is something of a misplaced Elizabethan dramatist: not so much Shakespeare as much as Beaumont or Fletcher, perhaps, or even Marlowe when he's on. He has a gift for the big, sweeping drama, for war and religion. He can make characters like Delenn, G'Kar, and Londo work because their alienness allows them to be a little larger than life. And he's funny, so funny characters also work well. But characters like Stephen fall flat, because Stephen's just a good, normal guy, not particularly funny, and JMS can't write him. John has his moments, but even he doesn't work as well as the lead of a show should work, and for much the same reason, I think. And JMS does a pretty miserable job with romance most of the time. It's a shame, really, that this show is so uneven, because the good parts are so very good, and it's easy enough to imagine how brilliant the same story in the hands of a more well-rounded writing staff and more capable actors might have been. But I suspect there's little chance of ever getting the re-imagined Babylon 5! (And I do have something of an affection even for its dreadfulness, I must admit.)
Oh G'Kar
Oh, G'Kar, indeed! It's something of a litany. He's easily my favorite character on the show (though I also have pretty mad love for Susan), and particularly from this arc forward.
I'm looking forward to reading your reactions to season 3!
Reply
I think that's one of the things that particularly hits the right spot for me with the show: the fact that for all of the grand political scope, these events are the direct results of characters' choices playing out over time.
It's a shame, really, that this show is so uneven, because the good parts are so very good, and it's easy enough to imagine how brilliant the same story in the hands of a more well-rounded writing staff and more capable actors might have been.
Yeah, subtlety is definitely not one of JMS's strong suits, and he never passes up the opportunity to use a cliche. (Watching with cofax7 is particularly hilarious because she calls out half the dialogue before the characters say it; she has an excellent nose for predictable cliche.) I've been mulling over why the non-human characters seem to work better than the human ones do, and part of that is definitely the acting, but I also think the characters work best when their place in the arc is unified with their personality traits. So Londo the conflicted Rasputin, G'Kar the noble rebel, and Delenn the peacemaker come across as relatively well-realized, while Sheridan is patchy (he doesn't quite click in either military leader or Leader of Light roles) and Stephen, who has to be Generic Technological Problem-Solving Guy but doesn't really have a place in that arc, doesn't work at all. Garibaldi and Ivanova don't have a huge place in the arc either, but they have extremely well-defined roles on the station to ground them; for all of Michael O'Hare's awful non-acting, Sinclair also had a very sharply defined part in the arc.
I'm looking forward to season 3 too! Especially because I'm hoping that the DVD menus don't feature the characters morphing into one another. That's deeply creepy.
Reply
Leave a comment