Mac Breck wrote:

>Jack Bohn wrote:

>>>> 1999
>>>>  *Farscape (2003)
>>> Really liked it.
>>
>> Coming in late to this, and Stargate, I never started watching
>> either.  Totally my fault for missing them.
>
>There's always the DVD route (e.g. via NETFLIX).  I bought Stargate SG-1
>on DVD, but not Farscape (except for the finale, Peacekeeper Wars).

I've been meaning to join Netflix.  When I do, I'll post an
announcement, and if anybody has problems with shows not coming
back in stock, ya can drop me an e-mail to send them back in.  :)


>>>> 2001
>>>>  *The Chronicle (2002)
>>> I could watch it. (Never saw all of the eps.)
>>
>> Somehow missed it, but I'm a big fan of Weird Al's song about
>> such a paper, "Midnight Star." DVD set?
>
>Not on DVD yet.  Check at tvshowsondvd.com
>
>http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/shows/Chronicle/4975
>(You have to be logged in.)

I figure if there's a DVD release, they'll replay the series to
advertise it, like they did with the original Battlestar and the
Cylon Head Box Set.

>>>>  *Crusade
>>> I could see loving this
>>> show as much as Babylon 5.
>>
>> To me, this was one step to sf/fantasy conventions and away from
>> the "reality" of Babylon 5: the "guild" of thieves,
>
>JMS explains some of this on the Crusade DVD set.

Now that's a reason to find a way to buy or rent this set.
(This seems the place to mention visiting my brother while he was
in the middle of Netflixing his way through B5.  He was watching
all the extras, because, you know, they're _there_; but he was
suffering through the cast commentaries by late fourth season
when they had degenerated to a bad-joke fest and the only time
anyone paid attention to the screen was to do a Mistie riff.)

>> the easy acceptance of the Technomage,
>
>Technomages have been around in the Babylon 5 universe for over a
>thousand years.

As a powerful, mysterious, rare, and slightly ominous presence,
not as the captain's sidekick.  I don't know what to compare it
too.  Maybe the way Mr. T went from a vicious, dangerous boxer in
Rocky III to just a big palooka in The A Team.

>Londo talks about them in "The Geomerty of Shadows" as
>being around in the time of the first Centauri emperor.  Elric, one of
>the mages in TGoS, was Galen's teacher.  This part is really fleshed out
>in "The Passing of the Techno-mages" trilogy.  Technomages are also in
>the Centauri trilogy.

I read and enjoyed the Centauri trilogy.  I have a vague memory
of having bought the Psi Corps trilogy for the promised _Fate of
Alfred Bester_, although if I read it I couldn't tell you said
fate now.  I'll have to look if I own the Techno-mage trilogy.

>> the Excalibur main gun.
>
>You can't have the ship be TOO powerful, because otherwise there's no
>dramatic tension.  A weakness has to be built in.  All of this is
>explained in the bonus materials in the Crusade DVD set.

I just could never understand how it could work that way.  Loss
of power before firing as they divert it to charging the gun I
can see.  But after it fires, what is keeping the generators from
making power?  Or, if they are making power, where is it going?
It just _feels_ to me like a dramatic device, not an actual
device, and a sad realization that JMS does not have enough of an
understanding of how things work to even fake it.

>>>> 2002
>>>>  -start of Sci Fi original films
>>>>  -Legend of the Rangers
>>
>> The next step away.
>
>Nooo, many steps away from both B5 and Crusade.  Crusade is a lot closer
>to B5 than this is to either B5 or Crusade.  Didn't even feel like it
>was in the same universe as B5 & Crusade.  It was almost as if it had
>been written by somebody else, not JMS, but using the characters and
>races of the B5 and Crusade universe.

And -correct me if I'm wrong- introducing a big bad race that the
Shadows were afraid of.


>> From the way your adverse reactions or "Never watched it"
>> responses accumulate post 2004, I can see where it fell into near
>> uselessness for you.
>
>Well, Sci-Fi moved to "Digital Cable" here in late December
2003 or very
>early 2004, and I didn't follow, because I was getting fed-up with the
>channel in 2003, and because I was getting fed-up with the cost of
>cable.

...

>A lot of my past viewing is a blur, mainly because I was working so
>much.  For example, when Brimstone first aired (on FOX) from October
>1998 to February 1999, I never even knew it existed.  I only caught it
>because of Peter Woodward being in Crusade, and somebody recommended
>Brimstone on Sci-Fi to me because they knew I liked him in Crusade.
>Peter Woodward was in the Brimstone pilot.  You miss a lot when all you
>have time to do is work, commute, eat and sleep, and sometimes not much
>of the latter two.

>Thinking back now, the only show I watched regularly (religiously), was
>Babylon 5 starting around Sept. 1996.  Since then, I've gotten more
>serious about watching shows regularly, timer record all of my favorite
>shows (to not miss 'em and be able to FF past the commercials), and now
>watch 9.5 hrs/week (19.5 with late night).  I don't watch *anything*
>live.

Ah, good times, good times.  I remember catching every episode of
B5 (and its twin brother from another mother, DS9).  I remember
racing home one Saturday I'd had to work, in order to change the
VCR to the "Babylon 5" tape.

I missed a few episodes of the last season of DS9, I don't know
if it was the lack of B5 causing me to lose focus, or the
existence of Voyager causing me to lose interest in life in
general.

-- 
-Jack
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