B5rewatch: TKO
So, we had a stand out pretty good episode, now we’ve got to deal with the other side of the coin.
1x14: TKO
Let’s talk about the promo before I go into depth on my choices regarding order of viewing. It’s not a great, or even very good, promo. It’s a little bit silly, even for this episode, how much they want us to think the Mutai is somehow important and we should totally care about Walker Smith fighting in it. And not that I’d expect any representation of the B plot as it wouldn’t make for anything like interesting advertising, but as it is the only somewhat good part of the episode I have to shake my head. And beyond the flaws that are really more about the episode than being promo specific, I can’t see it being at all effective convincing anyone to want to watch this episode. I may take issue with the S&P promo last time in how it presented the episode, but it was a pretty good promo for drawing attention into what might happen; this...well being an okay representation of a bad episode is always going to give you problems.
Now, I talked about this before I started the review process, but I think I should offer more details in the relevant reviews why I make the choices I do regarding the DVD/aired order vs. the “recommended” order. As I said before, season 1 is difficult for me to decide on because I do agree that the DVD order isn’t necessarily the best order, but I also don’t think the recommended order works much better. Season 1 being produced so out of order means it’s not much help to look into production codes, to do so would be to watch the obvious season finale Chrysalis mid-season. Nothing about TKO gives it a stamp of where it should go; it should probably go after Survivors and even that isn’t a hard and fast rule, and sometime before the end of s1 obviously. For itself those are the only half-solid markers, but in relation to episodes around it, I still think it needs to be on the earlier side of that. You want to jump it further on by a couple episodes, do what you want, but it does not deserve to be part of the closing run of the season. It doesn’t need to be there, it doesn’t deserve to be there; trying to put it there means you have to juggle other episodes around it IMO, and since there’s nothing wrong with where it is, who needs the trouble?
I’m not saying I don’t see a couple places where it could have been slightly better placed if moved later on; but nowhere near worth the hassle it makes trying to move this episode around. This episode is just not worth the trouble. Watch it when you feel like it, or don’t watch it at all, you’re not out much. Now let’s see how much I find to say about the particular not worth the effort episode...
Part of the reason I end up feeling this episode mostly works better mid-season is that in a lot of ways it has the early season touch to it (Grail will too). It just sort of randomly creates elements to the universe without any real care how they fit in (it’s another reason why the Ivanova plot at least kind of works, it is playing off established elements) and since it’s not a JMS script there’s no real mind to how the elements will come it to play later (or possibly more logically; he won’t decide to pick them up and flesh them out down the road). Again it’s largely the JMS string closing out the season that I support, and that by that point I feel it’s too late for this kind of random treatment of the world.
Also, in some lights Jerry Doyle’s eyes are strikingly blue. I’m bad at noticing eye color so it wasn’t until a couple years back that I started noticing how many of this cast are blue eyed (or at least I had not committed that observation to memory very often), and his are really striking.
It’s not that I don’t buy Garibaldi and Walker as friends, in fact this is pretty much exactly the type of friend Garibaldi probably makes all the time, but I can’t say I like it. Their dialog isn’t very natural, although their performances are okay, maybe even working to salvage it (though I did go and check to make sure ‘issues with Garibaldi’s behavior’ wasn’t a Compton sighting, but it wasn’t). Again there’s random bits of universe filling that don’t actually make a lot of sense in this universe (where do three-breasted bar maids come from and what was Garibaldi doing there?) and a weird bit of set up that feels out of place with what’s going on in the scene. For one I don’t really understand why Garibaldi had ordered anything besides maybe appetizers before Walker got to dinner, but especially ordering a beer for Walker seems presumptive considering Michael’s own change in drinking habits since they last saw each other.
And I’m now thinking there might have been a value in putting this pre Survivors, so we get a clear view of Garibaldi’s usual relationship with alcohol (he’s fine with other people drinking, ordering drinks for other people even, while happily drinking water himself). It wouldn’t have played well that early in most other respects, but it’s kind of my jam this episode to point out reasons why trying to place this episode in continuity is a bear so don’t bother trying to move it around.
And if it having an explicit place in the timeline had been important, DiTillio wouldn’t have written Ivanova’s line as it being “several months” since Andre’s death. Later on JMS is going to get very big on giving the episodes dates (it shows up some this season, but more as it goes along), but definitely not in this case.
Plus, maybe Ivanova could have gone back for the unveiling a few more months from now, Koslov could have taken a different angle with her.
The actor playing Smith (also Walker Smith is a difficult name to know what best to call him, which I guess is why most people in episode call him Walker Smith) does a lot better job at playing bro-y with Garibaldi than he does trying to be serious. He’s never great, but he definitely has some weaknesses more pronounced than others.
When I’m feeling particularly critical I start thinking the entire Ivanova-Koslov dynamic is kind of patronizing and bordering on sexist; which feels out of place in this world. But with a bit more critical examination...well it is patronizing, but I don’t think Koslov is being particularly misogynist in that regard, I think he’d act much the same if it was Ganya he was dealing with. But I do think the writing (though the directing and acting likely push it further than the straight words on the page) of Ivanova is kind of sexist, she becomes much more a damaged little girl instead of being the Susan Ivanova we know. Susan is damaged, and has been since she was a girl, but that doesn’t mean she acts like a damaged little girl now. Nor am I saying she’s going to be a super badass about everything, she clearly did and still does have a complicated relationship with her father/his memory and having Koslov here is pushing her to think about that in a way she hasn’t been (it’s kind of the point) so she’s on edge, but her behavior and dialog still don’t feel quite right for the character.
Also, that is a super long shot once Ivanova had left the restaurant, episode must have been running a bit short.
Weirdly, I starting to think the Mutai plot (dumb as it is) could be useful in the hypothetical reboot (as a potential series, if it ends up being movies, no way). Because it could be used to illustrate Earth’s standing in the galaxy at this time. They have military might, but humans aren’t necessarily respected or wanted. They keep trying to wedge themselves in among races with long standing relationships and traditions because...well it’s kind a human thing to do. They get along with the Centauri who are an old colonial power that maybe some of the smaller League worlds aren’t real fond of either. And Smith’s racism could have been portrayed as a more complicated issue related to Earth’s attitude towards aliens right now (a more minor form of Homeguard’s attitude). That isn’t really what’s in this episode, but it could have been if this episode had been about something besides ripping off every fight movie ever made.
Related, but I never understand Caliban’s motivation in this. If this was a good episode that might niggle a little but it wouldn’t be a huge issue, one does accept certain levels of narrative economy if the story is mostly engaging. In a far subpar episode like this you may not notice because so much else isn’t working either. But once it leaps out at you that this guy has no motivation, it becomes a glaring flaw. Sure it’s related to the ripping off every fight movie ever aspect, but it’s still bad.
Has that high table ever been in Sinclair’s office before? If it was, it probably wasn’t positioned there specifically, I think I’d have noticed a table right there before.
I’m going to be glad for Ivanova’s sake when John gets here. Her ‘friendship’ with Sinclair doesn’t ever quite seem all that friendly to me. I can put 90% the words Sinclair is using here in Sheridan’s mouth and the scene plays so much...closer. Susan’s willing to discuss her emotional damage with John in a way she isn’t with Sinclair, and it makes sense in character, but also their chemistry lends itself to it better.
Damn it, cycles and their ill-defined measurement of time. Again, it’s something that makes this feel like an early episode, because I thought they did away with that long before this episode was produced. (I’m also pretty sure it makes the timescale of the rest of the episode make no sense, but I’ll try and keep an eye on that.)
Yeah, the timeframe here was clearly no one’s priority, because Ivanova says her dinner with Koslov was “the other night” which doesn’t seem natural if it was last night. Even that wouldn’t be great with the cycles measurement (because why would the Mutai get drug over that many days over a random challenge?) but it’s an awkward word choice.
I do actually like the reason Ivanova gives for what’s screwing with her head and heart about Andre. It’s a lot of family baggage she has to carry around and it’s all interconnected, and it’s all complicated even more by her own secret latent telepathy (I wouldn’t say she blames her father for what happened to Sofie, but it did probably make her think she couldn’t count on him if she was ever found out). However, and this is actually a lot more of a JMS problem, the timeline of the fall of the Ivanov family ends up with a lot of pieces that don’t fit together; this is a relatively minor example, but this doesn’t quite fit with what’s been said before and really doesn’t fit with what’s said later.
Didn’t Garibaldi say early in the episode that there weren’t rules in the Mutai? And even if we ignore the arcane rules for challenges as a separate matter, are there rules for crowd interference? If Garibaldi hadn’t stopped the angry...whatever race that guy was, would Walker have just lost the match or would there have been some rule about it being forfeited, or would they have to examine him to see if he lost fairly or not? Don’t say no rules if you don’t mean it.
Mostly they fight and they fight and they fight and they fight...
Other timeline weirdness, isn’t sitting Shiva supposed to take a while? Ivanova doesn’t seem to have spent very long on it at all...at which point I realize I should wonder how Sinclair knew when to show up.
On one hand, the present location of the episode makes just a nice reminder that Catherine exists and is still coming and going from the station, but I guess I can see a case made for it being good if this episode came later as it would be a small bit of set up for the finale. But at that point we’d have gone most of the season without even a mention so again I come out on the side that it’s better where it is.
I don’t have a lot of closing thoughts, and most of my thoughts up to now have been fairly random (and using a lot of parentheses), so that will probably continue. As I’ve said many times I don’t think where this episode ended up is really a problem; a little slice of life story following S&P makes some sense. And actually, this is a case where reviewing the episode blunted a lot of my feelings on it in a good way, because it’s not a good episode but thinking about it didn’t really make it worse (aside from making it obvious how much fail the timeline is).
I do think there are flaws in both the A and B plots. The A plot is...well it’s not something I was ever going to really like just because of what it’s about, and it doesn’t make use of those plot bones to seed in a deeper story that I could get into; and it doesn’t use those plot bones to tell a very interesting story with that plot either. It’s pretty boring and would be quite skippable if I wasn’t always a completest. The problem with the B plot is how much of a B plot it is; it’s especially slice-of-life-y. It’s far from pointless, but it needs to be paired with a better A plot...or maybe what this whole things needed was to really embrace it’s slice of life state and have a C maybe even D plot so it’s sort of a collection of B plots showing the characters living their lives between crisis and big events. It also has a slight Very Special Episode about Jewish tradition vibe in places, and I think it was...too happy with being that.
Okay, a few minor criticisms from the A plot: the costume designer really phoned this one in since everyone just seems to wear very Earth martial arts attire. Half-assing the fight and not giving any of the other races any special abilities or anything different in their fighting style, well it isn’t good but to a point I’m willing to brush it off as constraints of a TV show with a plot that someone should have realized wasn’t going to work before it got written; but for some reason the costuming is what I’m not willing to cut any of that slack.
Also...well, why is the Mutai taking place on B5 to start with? Are Mutai just any fight within this circuit of competitions and this is just one location having a Mutai and people just keep calling it -the- Mutai? How did they get approved to have a fight like this with potential death of the combatants on the station? What kind of wavers did they have to sign so that the station wouldn’t be sued (which to be fair the Mutari probably think is just a given for anyone who steps into the ring)? You know...the lead up to the Mutai happening here might have been a way more interesting (slice of life) story than the hack plot we got.
That’s about all I have to say, any other thoughts I had didn’t really get fully formed so I’m not going to try and explain them now.
Next time: not much better with Grail, but I do have a theory I’ll get to talk about at least. Stay tuned for that.
1x14: TKO
Let’s talk about the promo before I go into depth on my choices regarding order of viewing. It’s not a great, or even very good, promo. It’s a little bit silly, even for this episode, how much they want us to think the Mutai is somehow important and we should totally care about Walker Smith fighting in it. And not that I’d expect any representation of the B plot as it wouldn’t make for anything like interesting advertising, but as it is the only somewhat good part of the episode I have to shake my head. And beyond the flaws that are really more about the episode than being promo specific, I can’t see it being at all effective convincing anyone to want to watch this episode. I may take issue with the S&P promo last time in how it presented the episode, but it was a pretty good promo for drawing attention into what might happen; this...well being an okay representation of a bad episode is always going to give you problems.
Now, I talked about this before I started the review process, but I think I should offer more details in the relevant reviews why I make the choices I do regarding the DVD/aired order vs. the “recommended” order. As I said before, season 1 is difficult for me to decide on because I do agree that the DVD order isn’t necessarily the best order, but I also don’t think the recommended order works much better. Season 1 being produced so out of order means it’s not much help to look into production codes, to do so would be to watch the obvious season finale Chrysalis mid-season. Nothing about TKO gives it a stamp of where it should go; it should probably go after Survivors and even that isn’t a hard and fast rule, and sometime before the end of s1 obviously. For itself those are the only half-solid markers, but in relation to episodes around it, I still think it needs to be on the earlier side of that. You want to jump it further on by a couple episodes, do what you want, but it does not deserve to be part of the closing run of the season. It doesn’t need to be there, it doesn’t deserve to be there; trying to put it there means you have to juggle other episodes around it IMO, and since there’s nothing wrong with where it is, who needs the trouble?
I’m not saying I don’t see a couple places where it could have been slightly better placed if moved later on; but nowhere near worth the hassle it makes trying to move this episode around. This episode is just not worth the trouble. Watch it when you feel like it, or don’t watch it at all, you’re not out much. Now let’s see how much I find to say about the particular not worth the effort episode...
Part of the reason I end up feeling this episode mostly works better mid-season is that in a lot of ways it has the early season touch to it (Grail will too). It just sort of randomly creates elements to the universe without any real care how they fit in (it’s another reason why the Ivanova plot at least kind of works, it is playing off established elements) and since it’s not a JMS script there’s no real mind to how the elements will come it to play later (or possibly more logically; he won’t decide to pick them up and flesh them out down the road). Again it’s largely the JMS string closing out the season that I support, and that by that point I feel it’s too late for this kind of random treatment of the world.
Also, in some lights Jerry Doyle’s eyes are strikingly blue. I’m bad at noticing eye color so it wasn’t until a couple years back that I started noticing how many of this cast are blue eyed (or at least I had not committed that observation to memory very often), and his are really striking.
It’s not that I don’t buy Garibaldi and Walker as friends, in fact this is pretty much exactly the type of friend Garibaldi probably makes all the time, but I can’t say I like it. Their dialog isn’t very natural, although their performances are okay, maybe even working to salvage it (though I did go and check to make sure ‘issues with Garibaldi’s behavior’ wasn’t a Compton sighting, but it wasn’t). Again there’s random bits of universe filling that don’t actually make a lot of sense in this universe (where do three-breasted bar maids come from and what was Garibaldi doing there?) and a weird bit of set up that feels out of place with what’s going on in the scene. For one I don’t really understand why Garibaldi had ordered anything besides maybe appetizers before Walker got to dinner, but especially ordering a beer for Walker seems presumptive considering Michael’s own change in drinking habits since they last saw each other.
And I’m now thinking there might have been a value in putting this pre Survivors, so we get a clear view of Garibaldi’s usual relationship with alcohol (he’s fine with other people drinking, ordering drinks for other people even, while happily drinking water himself). It wouldn’t have played well that early in most other respects, but it’s kind of my jam this episode to point out reasons why trying to place this episode in continuity is a bear so don’t bother trying to move it around.
And if it having an explicit place in the timeline had been important, DiTillio wouldn’t have written Ivanova’s line as it being “several months” since Andre’s death. Later on JMS is going to get very big on giving the episodes dates (it shows up some this season, but more as it goes along), but definitely not in this case.
Plus, maybe Ivanova could have gone back for the unveiling a few more months from now, Koslov could have taken a different angle with her.
The actor playing Smith (also Walker Smith is a difficult name to know what best to call him, which I guess is why most people in episode call him Walker Smith) does a lot better job at playing bro-y with Garibaldi than he does trying to be serious. He’s never great, but he definitely has some weaknesses more pronounced than others.
When I’m feeling particularly critical I start thinking the entire Ivanova-Koslov dynamic is kind of patronizing and bordering on sexist; which feels out of place in this world. But with a bit more critical examination...well it is patronizing, but I don’t think Koslov is being particularly misogynist in that regard, I think he’d act much the same if it was Ganya he was dealing with. But I do think the writing (though the directing and acting likely push it further than the straight words on the page) of Ivanova is kind of sexist, she becomes much more a damaged little girl instead of being the Susan Ivanova we know. Susan is damaged, and has been since she was a girl, but that doesn’t mean she acts like a damaged little girl now. Nor am I saying she’s going to be a super badass about everything, she clearly did and still does have a complicated relationship with her father/his memory and having Koslov here is pushing her to think about that in a way she hasn’t been (it’s kind of the point) so she’s on edge, but her behavior and dialog still don’t feel quite right for the character.
Also, that is a super long shot once Ivanova had left the restaurant, episode must have been running a bit short.
Weirdly, I starting to think the Mutai plot (dumb as it is) could be useful in the hypothetical reboot (as a potential series, if it ends up being movies, no way). Because it could be used to illustrate Earth’s standing in the galaxy at this time. They have military might, but humans aren’t necessarily respected or wanted. They keep trying to wedge themselves in among races with long standing relationships and traditions because...well it’s kind a human thing to do. They get along with the Centauri who are an old colonial power that maybe some of the smaller League worlds aren’t real fond of either. And Smith’s racism could have been portrayed as a more complicated issue related to Earth’s attitude towards aliens right now (a more minor form of Homeguard’s attitude). That isn’t really what’s in this episode, but it could have been if this episode had been about something besides ripping off every fight movie ever made.
Related, but I never understand Caliban’s motivation in this. If this was a good episode that might niggle a little but it wouldn’t be a huge issue, one does accept certain levels of narrative economy if the story is mostly engaging. In a far subpar episode like this you may not notice because so much else isn’t working either. But once it leaps out at you that this guy has no motivation, it becomes a glaring flaw. Sure it’s related to the ripping off every fight movie ever aspect, but it’s still bad.
Has that high table ever been in Sinclair’s office before? If it was, it probably wasn’t positioned there specifically, I think I’d have noticed a table right there before.
I’m going to be glad for Ivanova’s sake when John gets here. Her ‘friendship’ with Sinclair doesn’t ever quite seem all that friendly to me. I can put 90% the words Sinclair is using here in Sheridan’s mouth and the scene plays so much...closer. Susan’s willing to discuss her emotional damage with John in a way she isn’t with Sinclair, and it makes sense in character, but also their chemistry lends itself to it better.
Damn it, cycles and their ill-defined measurement of time. Again, it’s something that makes this feel like an early episode, because I thought they did away with that long before this episode was produced. (I’m also pretty sure it makes the timescale of the rest of the episode make no sense, but I’ll try and keep an eye on that.)
Yeah, the timeframe here was clearly no one’s priority, because Ivanova says her dinner with Koslov was “the other night” which doesn’t seem natural if it was last night. Even that wouldn’t be great with the cycles measurement (because why would the Mutai get drug over that many days over a random challenge?) but it’s an awkward word choice.
I do actually like the reason Ivanova gives for what’s screwing with her head and heart about Andre. It’s a lot of family baggage she has to carry around and it’s all interconnected, and it’s all complicated even more by her own secret latent telepathy (I wouldn’t say she blames her father for what happened to Sofie, but it did probably make her think she couldn’t count on him if she was ever found out). However, and this is actually a lot more of a JMS problem, the timeline of the fall of the Ivanov family ends up with a lot of pieces that don’t fit together; this is a relatively minor example, but this doesn’t quite fit with what’s been said before and really doesn’t fit with what’s said later.
Didn’t Garibaldi say early in the episode that there weren’t rules in the Mutai? And even if we ignore the arcane rules for challenges as a separate matter, are there rules for crowd interference? If Garibaldi hadn’t stopped the angry...whatever race that guy was, would Walker have just lost the match or would there have been some rule about it being forfeited, or would they have to examine him to see if he lost fairly or not? Don’t say no rules if you don’t mean it.
Mostly they fight and they fight and they fight and they fight...
Other timeline weirdness, isn’t sitting Shiva supposed to take a while? Ivanova doesn’t seem to have spent very long on it at all...at which point I realize I should wonder how Sinclair knew when to show up.
On one hand, the present location of the episode makes just a nice reminder that Catherine exists and is still coming and going from the station, but I guess I can see a case made for it being good if this episode came later as it would be a small bit of set up for the finale. But at that point we’d have gone most of the season without even a mention so again I come out on the side that it’s better where it is.
I don’t have a lot of closing thoughts, and most of my thoughts up to now have been fairly random (and using a lot of parentheses), so that will probably continue. As I’ve said many times I don’t think where this episode ended up is really a problem; a little slice of life story following S&P makes some sense. And actually, this is a case where reviewing the episode blunted a lot of my feelings on it in a good way, because it’s not a good episode but thinking about it didn’t really make it worse (aside from making it obvious how much fail the timeline is).
I do think there are flaws in both the A and B plots. The A plot is...well it’s not something I was ever going to really like just because of what it’s about, and it doesn’t make use of those plot bones to seed in a deeper story that I could get into; and it doesn’t use those plot bones to tell a very interesting story with that plot either. It’s pretty boring and would be quite skippable if I wasn’t always a completest. The problem with the B plot is how much of a B plot it is; it’s especially slice-of-life-y. It’s far from pointless, but it needs to be paired with a better A plot...or maybe what this whole things needed was to really embrace it’s slice of life state and have a C maybe even D plot so it’s sort of a collection of B plots showing the characters living their lives between crisis and big events. It also has a slight Very Special Episode about Jewish tradition vibe in places, and I think it was...too happy with being that.
Okay, a few minor criticisms from the A plot: the costume designer really phoned this one in since everyone just seems to wear very Earth martial arts attire. Half-assing the fight and not giving any of the other races any special abilities or anything different in their fighting style, well it isn’t good but to a point I’m willing to brush it off as constraints of a TV show with a plot that someone should have realized wasn’t going to work before it got written; but for some reason the costuming is what I’m not willing to cut any of that slack.
Also...well, why is the Mutai taking place on B5 to start with? Are Mutai just any fight within this circuit of competitions and this is just one location having a Mutai and people just keep calling it -the- Mutai? How did they get approved to have a fight like this with potential death of the combatants on the station? What kind of wavers did they have to sign so that the station wouldn’t be sued (which to be fair the Mutari probably think is just a given for anyone who steps into the ring)? You know...the lead up to the Mutai happening here might have been a way more interesting (slice of life) story than the hack plot we got.
That’s about all I have to say, any other thoughts I had didn’t really get fully formed so I’m not going to try and explain them now.
Next time: not much better with Grail, but I do have a theory I’ll get to talk about at least. Stay tuned for that.