Voices in the Dark
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales Voices in the Dark
So my DVD finally arrived (only took 3 weeks...) and I've just watched it through, just the once.
Here's my initial thoughts:
Overall - the DVD was both disappointing and satisfying. Disappointing as it wasn't nearly as epic as I had hoped, and there's been individual episodes of B5 that were more of an emotional and exciting rollercoaster. But also satisfying as these were nice, thoughtful stories, rather than heavy hitting action. They told their message and kept the plot simple, possibly an "easing" back in to the B5 universe, if there were to be more stories to come. My suspicion is that JMS also wrote these with the small budget in mind, so there's nothing terribly extravagant in the way of spaceship battles or practical effects, but there's still an awful lot of background CG that is very impressive. It looks very schmick. Acting was OK (very few characters!) but I think Peter Woodward was hamming it up a little too much. Galen seems a much nastier (and less snide) character than he was in Crusade, perhaps the intervening 5-10 years of story time have made him harder, or he's just a bastard.
Individually:
"Over Here"
This segment deals with Colonel Lochley and her invited guest Father Cassidy dealing with a security guard possibly possessed by demons. The story is rather short, and I do think JMS could have made this a full 42 minute episode without much trouble. Things aren't really brought to a climax, or a complete resolution, and the 'mystery' seems rather easily solved by Lochley without a lot of conflict. My thoughts are that this piece is just JMS waxing lyrical about his thoughts on faith... it's pretty much all dialogue between the three characters, and very little visually makes it interesting, apart from a little bit of CG here and there, and some rather discomforting camera movements and angles. If any more of these are made, JMS should definitely stick to writing and get someone else to direct whose camera movements don't resemble seasickness.
Overall, this segment is a "meh". Nothing too powerful or weak, nothing too good or bad.
"Over There"
Sheridan is heading back to B5 for the Interstellar Alliance's 10 year anniversary. They pick up Prince Vintari of the Centauri Republic on the way - Galen shows Sheridan visions of New York destroyed in the future and says Vintari will be responsible... and the way to avoid this is for Sheridan to kill Vintari. Can he kill one to save billions? This story was a lot more satisfying, but knowing the character of Sheridan well means that his actions were somewhat predictable and I just knew there wouldn't be a big shootout showdon. Nice cameo from Teryl Rothery (Dr Frasier on Stargate SG-1) as an ISN reporter talking to President Sheridan, although I think this scene was once again JMS using his characters to speechify some big thing he wanted to talk about. Nice nods to past characters, however, especially those that will never return[1]. Vintari is a fairly shallow character, but it's hard to develop him in the short time allowed. I think it's implied that he is Cartagia's son, which would make a fair bit of sense. Bruce Boxleitner slips back into Sheridan's role very easily, and he is quite convincing, and this story does have a more exciting tone than the first one, a greater sense of conflict although it was still inevitable (in my mind) that the shootout would be avoided in some clever way (which it is).
So... Was it worth it? Yes. Did we need it? Not really, it doesn't deepen the B5 universe too much more, but it is nice to see some familiar characters again. Should there be more B5 Lost Tales DVDs? Well, if there are, I'll get em, being a big fan (heck, I even bought Legends of the Rangers on DVD, and I'd seen it first...) but if there aren't, I'll live. It's 2007 now, let's get going with newer and better shows. I'm not sure anyone out in TV land is going to be as brave as JMS was to try and tell a five-year story worked out well in advance, but the 'skeins' (as Variety calls them, don't ask me why) that are around at the moment are filling the void of decent character drama/sci-fi, and some of them also have brilliant writing - sometimes :)
(BSG, Heroes, and cancelled shows like Veronica Mars, Day Break, Drive, Firefly...)
[1] G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs), both whom have passed away, although we know that their characters are "alive" at this point of story time, as we see them "later".
So my DVD finally arrived (only took 3 weeks...) and I've just watched it through, just the once.
Here's my initial thoughts:
Overall - the DVD was both disappointing and satisfying. Disappointing as it wasn't nearly as epic as I had hoped, and there's been individual episodes of B5 that were more of an emotional and exciting rollercoaster. But also satisfying as these were nice, thoughtful stories, rather than heavy hitting action. They told their message and kept the plot simple, possibly an "easing" back in to the B5 universe, if there were to be more stories to come. My suspicion is that JMS also wrote these with the small budget in mind, so there's nothing terribly extravagant in the way of spaceship battles or practical effects, but there's still an awful lot of background CG that is very impressive. It looks very schmick. Acting was OK (very few characters!) but I think Peter Woodward was hamming it up a little too much. Galen seems a much nastier (and less snide) character than he was in Crusade, perhaps the intervening 5-10 years of story time have made him harder, or he's just a bastard.
Individually:
"Over Here"
This segment deals with Colonel Lochley and her invited guest Father Cassidy dealing with a security guard possibly possessed by demons. The story is rather short, and I do think JMS could have made this a full 42 minute episode without much trouble. Things aren't really brought to a climax, or a complete resolution, and the 'mystery' seems rather easily solved by Lochley without a lot of conflict. My thoughts are that this piece is just JMS waxing lyrical about his thoughts on faith... it's pretty much all dialogue between the three characters, and very little visually makes it interesting, apart from a little bit of CG here and there, and some rather discomforting camera movements and angles. If any more of these are made, JMS should definitely stick to writing and get someone else to direct whose camera movements don't resemble seasickness.
Overall, this segment is a "meh". Nothing too powerful or weak, nothing too good or bad.
"Over There"
Sheridan is heading back to B5 for the Interstellar Alliance's 10 year anniversary. They pick up Prince Vintari of the Centauri Republic on the way - Galen shows Sheridan visions of New York destroyed in the future and says Vintari will be responsible... and the way to avoid this is for Sheridan to kill Vintari. Can he kill one to save billions? This story was a lot more satisfying, but knowing the character of Sheridan well means that his actions were somewhat predictable and I just knew there wouldn't be a big shootout showdon. Nice cameo from Teryl Rothery (Dr Frasier on Stargate SG-1) as an ISN reporter talking to President Sheridan, although I think this scene was once again JMS using his characters to speechify some big thing he wanted to talk about. Nice nods to past characters, however, especially those that will never return[1]. Vintari is a fairly shallow character, but it's hard to develop him in the short time allowed. I think it's implied that he is Cartagia's son, which would make a fair bit of sense. Bruce Boxleitner slips back into Sheridan's role very easily, and he is quite convincing, and this story does have a more exciting tone than the first one, a greater sense of conflict although it was still inevitable (in my mind) that the shootout would be avoided in some clever way (which it is).
So... Was it worth it? Yes. Did we need it? Not really, it doesn't deepen the B5 universe too much more, but it is nice to see some familiar characters again. Should there be more B5 Lost Tales DVDs? Well, if there are, I'll get em, being a big fan (heck, I even bought Legends of the Rangers on DVD, and I'd seen it first...) but if there aren't, I'll live. It's 2007 now, let's get going with newer and better shows. I'm not sure anyone out in TV land is going to be as brave as JMS was to try and tell a five-year story worked out well in advance, but the 'skeins' (as Variety calls them, don't ask me why) that are around at the moment are filling the void of decent character drama/sci-fi, and some of them also have brilliant writing - sometimes :)
(BSG, Heroes, and cancelled shows like Veronica Mars, Day Break, Drive, Firefly...)
[1] G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs), both whom have passed away, although we know that their characters are "alive" at this point of story time, as we see them "later".