Babylon 5

[lesbiassparrow]

God, I hate Tracy Scoggins. I hate her more than Byron. And the worst thing? Clearly I am supposed to like her or at least admire her spunkiness. Does she last the entire season? Is she in the films?

ETA: My hate for her is a pure and glorious thing. Refined, almost. Everything about her just...just..fills me with rage. And she seems to give more speeches than Sheridan.

ETA 2: Now I hate both her and Byron equally. Why are they on my screen so much? Why do the writers feel these are people I should be seeing and hearing all the time? Where are Londo and G'Kar? Sheridan? Delenn? The show works when I see them, but these newcomers make me want to do random acts of violence.

Now I have seen the telepath singalong. I think I might be traumatized for life. Actually, that is a lie: I know I am traumatized for life. My eyes! My eyes! You know how sometimes you see scenes and you wonder who on earth thought that up and how drunk or high they were when they thought that would work? This was the Platonic ideal of that scene.



Still like Gwen. Still think the rest are wankers a bit. If they're nothing else, they're horribly smug most of the time.

Also...why would you put a human being possessed by an alien that can move about in gas-based form in a cell with holes in it? And I got the horrible feeling that they would have left that poor girl in there forever if Gwen hadn't intervened. However, I don't worry too much about the fact that they have broken all privacy and civil liberty laws because they're too incompetent to really make much use of any information about anyone. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised when they make it back to their base.

Though the show works in that you feel a bit superior all of the time, as the characters are so thick.

Comments

[sucrelefey.livejournal.com]

Spoiler!

Bad news luv, we get rid of Byron half way through the season but she's with us to the end and onward to 2 of the films.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

she's with us to the end and onward to 2 of the films.

I was afraid of that.

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

Tracy Scoggins? That's what women are named In The Future?

Huh.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Sadly and tragically Tracy Scoggins is the actress' name. For rather obvious reasons it has stuck in my mind more than the character's name.

I'm sorry about the whole horrid v-gift thing.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Now I hate both her and Byron equally

It's the only rational way. I also developed an hatred for how all the telepaths have long, shiny hair. Aren't they on the run? Aren't they partially fugitives? When do they have time to do all this washing and hair curing?

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

I know! They can't afford medicine, but they have hair products.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Yes! Is it a telepath rebel thing because all the official ones have short hair?

In that one scene where they are all hugging Lyta (which is beyond creepy) I kept thinking 'does Byron as cult leader insist that they all have long, shiny hair like him? Does he kick you out if you chop it off? Or are have they spent all of their money on shampoo and thus can't afford scissors?

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

JMS tried SO HARD to get us to like Lochley; it was over the top. I don't mind her as much as you, but I was tired of hearing how amazingly wonderful she is.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

JMS tried SO HARD to get us to like Lochley; it was over the top.

I understand why they thought they needed to: they were, after all, giving us a new character in place of someone who was much beloved (by me at any rate and that is surely all that matters. :p)

But it's having the opposite effect on me. It seems like everytime she says anything someone goes 'oh that Lochley, she's so gutsy and competent.' I imagine a scene soon where she will buy coffee and a random character will say 'Wow! Look at how she orders coffee! You can tell she's a great officer.' Also she seems to have huge amounts of screen time because they're trying to push the character and it just doesn't seem that natural. Does the woman ever sleep? Is her constant wakefulness the reason for her unreasonable crankiness?

[jenavira.livejournal.com]

I giggle at your trauma about the Telepath Singalong because it's been so long since I've seen it that I can't remember the tune anymore. But I can still remember Byron's awful "you are my willow" speech. *shudder*

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Oh god, the willow speech... How Lyta didn't kick him after he said that is beyond me. I wonder if my reactions are so strong because I rather like her and Zach together? They're awkward and funny around each other and it works as something I can imagine being an interesting relationship.

[chelseagirl47.livejournal.com]

Ewww, yes. That's why I'm dreading M.'s Inevitable Next Babylon 5 rewatch -- the telepaths! (I'm safe for the first four seasons, at least.)

I feel kinda bad for Ms. Scoggins because she always seems to come into shows as The Replacement Girl and she's never as wonderful as whoever she replaced. (Except Lois and Clark where she was on the first season and then got written out instead of the last one.) But yeah, Lochley never interested me in the slightest; it was always, excuse me, where's G'Kar, then?

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

With Lochley I think I'm a bit resentful of two things:
a) how clumsily they handle her being wonderful. I keep wanting to shout 'show, don't tell.' She gets some terrible writing and it isn't really helped by Scoggins' acting skills which I think are of the limited variety. Mind you, I think she's saddled with a dreadful role so it's a bit hard to tell
b) How much time is devoted to her instead of the people I've spent 4 seasons investing in. At this stage it's a bit late to get me to care as much about a new character.

The telepaths are just awful. The idea is interesting which is why Lyta works and she is someone I just feel for - especially when she had to go back to PsiCorps. But Byron, well he's just dreadful. And the rest of his shiny haired crew aren't much worse.

I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion or not, but with this show I think the ideas are an awful lot better than the writing. I think they get away with a lot because they have a set of interesting characters and a great overall plot, but sometimes the writing is so awfully clunky and obvious that I think they should give up and just stick up big posters that go 'See this person? They're great. You ought to like them' and get it over with.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

And the rest of his shiny haired crew aren't much worse.

should be

And the rest of his shiny haired crew aren't much better.