Babylon 5 can be rather cruel in its stories.

So I just went surfing on wikipedia a bit and found out that Lennier was in love in Delenn. Ya know, I always thought there was something going on in there with those two. But of course, this love is unrequited, since Delenn goes and marries Sheridan.

Ya know, that must've been really hard for Lennier, having to hide his feelings all those years while serving Delenn. I mean, super super hard and frustrating and hard and difficult and frustrating. Sexually frustrating too. It's just sad how that turned out, right? Here's this girl you've known and been close to all these years, but does she feel the same way as you do? No, she's just running off into the arms of this station captain/commander guy. Is Sheridan a captain or a commander? I dunno. Sisko was commander of DS9 before getting to captain, so I guess stations can be commanded by a commander instead of a captain. But Sheridan sounds kinda like he'd be a captain, doesn't he? Nevermind, the point is... Lennier got the short end of the stick, so to speak. Just stuck at "friend." How's he supposed to live like that? It must've been torture, pur tortue. Like, a hole burning through the back of his mind everytime he had to look at her, right? Cause she's just there, nonchalant, probably thinking about Sheridan, while he's wondering why he can't win her eye.

Cause seriously, if you've known someone for eight or more years and you still love them throughout that time, it's not gonna change or go away. He's not somehow going to "get over it." So he just keeps holding his hidden torch for her. Lennier, he just isn't able to see himself with any other woman. It's because he's put Delenn up on this Minbari pedestal and ya know, it's just possible for any other woman to measure up. It's this really deep and intense love and sometimes he just wants to curl up and die because, well... why not? Why not just curl up and die when Delenn will never ever return your feelings and enjoys the company of a guy named Sheridan? It's just so sad and unfortunate for Lennier.

I bet you Lennier grew up watching Hollywood movies. Er, I mean... Minbari movies. Perhaps action flicks. And of course, at the end of the film, the hero always gets the girl, right? Lennier probably absorbed all those films. He probably based his entire concept of love and romance around the dynamics of those relationships onscreen and how it always turned out well. Except real life, it just doesn't work that way. It isn't like a movie. In real life, a lot of love is unrequited, no matter how well you think you belong with someone else. No matter how well you get along with her as friends. In the movies, the other jock dude always lost in the end. Yet in this case, Sheridan being the jock... it doesn't follow the script. How bitter and unfair life is, Lennier must've thought.

He probably even thought, ya know what, I'll just send her an e-mail. Something short and sweet like "I <3 you." And instead of actually writing the word "love," he uses this emoticon that feels a little lighter and fluffier. So when she reacts poorly, he can just say that it's this uh, happy greeting that he gives to everyone on his email list. Ya know, just so he won't be completely humiliated when she rejects him? Or something like that.

And Lennier, he probably also had these moments where he'd be so frustrated and upset over pining for Delenn instead of being in an actual healthy romantic relationship with her that he'd mentally curse her as a bitch, or a whore or some other horrible thing. Of course, he's immediately regret it and take it back, because how could he actually say such awful things... he's in love with Delenn. It's a really frustrating and awful situation, but Delenn's not to blame. She's still awesome and intelligent and funny and great to be around. It's not her fault she doesn't feel that way for Lennier. It's nobody's fault but his, right? Cause he had to have these terrible feelings that're now ruining his life. So he starts mentally cursing himself. Of course, it's him and his warped sense of romance and all that.

Ultimately, he thinks... man, this is a really intolerable situation. And I'm gonna just hide my feelings inside and keep em in there until... I guess I'll somehow emotionally break down and reveal em? Maybe? It'd probably be pretty damn humiliating for me and solve nothing though. Cause she'll just say something that'll completely destroy me and drive me into further depths of depression. Perhaps I'll just jump off a bridge in the meantime. Or no, not a bridge. Cause there aren't any bridges over water bodies in outer space. How silly of me. I guess I'll think of something else. I'll think of something else.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x5 - The Long Dark

Well fuck me... it's Lt. Reginald Barclay going all crazy here. Probably suffering from holo-addiction again, hehe.

Isn't it strange how all blankets in the future look like they're made out of tin foil? Or a car sunshade, I guess? That's gotta be damn uncomfortable. Star Trek TNG had the same exact blankets.

Asian security guard: "Damn lurkers... we oughta space all of em!" <-this right here is possibly the worst line reading I've ever heard.

Wait wait... this guard... he just said he "missed" the war? How the fuck do you miss a war when it's aliens trying to annihilate humanity? That doesn't seem like the sort of draft you can dodge. And Garibaldi's about the same age as he is, near as I can tell.

Ah jeez... the Doctor's already hooking up with that woman? After she just found out her husband's dead? That's pretty messed up. With her being in stasis for over a hundred years, it's gotta be drier then the Sahara down there...

Wow... the final showdown with the beast. I think I'm gonna lay off the CGI of the actual thing, since it's not good, but not mindnumbingly bad. Just gotta accept it, I guess. But... uh, the muzzle flash of their advanced scifi guns, that was really poorly done. There's no other way to describe that CGI. It looked like they just cut out the muzzle flashes from guns in comic books and pasted them into the scene. No idea why they didn't just use actual guns with actual muzzle flash. That would've worked out fine.

Oh snap, it was heading for Za Ha Doom. That means the invisible killer must've been some sort of disembodied Shadow. Nice continuity thread.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x4 - A Distant Star

My impressions of the fourth episode of the second season:

Ya know, Garibaldi seems like such a nice affable guy. It's hard to believe he eventually turns into a bad egg. Wait... is it bad egg or bad apple? I think I meant to say bad apple. It's either bad apple or rotten egg, right? That sounds better.

Overall, no complaints about this episode. It was actually pretty good. I just thought everything pretty much worked. The friendship between Sheridan and the other captain seemed natural enough and not forced, we got some action (finally) with the Starfury rescue in hyperjump/hyperspace/subspace/Idon'tknowwhattheycallitinthisshow, and the humor with the main characters going on the food plan(diet) was pretty good, unlike the Drazi scenes from the other episode which I really did *not* like.

It's funny, the scene where Garibaldi was smuggling in ingredients for his traditional Italian dish really kinda reminded me of a SeaQuest DSV episode where a crewmember was smuggling in real beef for a hamburger, since meat had been outlawed in the future. But instead of getting caught and having the meal thrown out like in that show, it actually ended with him making the dish and sharing it with the Doctor in this really sorta... cozy and humorous scene.

And Delenn had some really poetic words about the universe at the end. Kinda fortune cookie-esque, but what can ya do... wise aliens always say stuff like that.

Only real flaws were the terrible acting from the panicked bridge crew on the Cortez, and the comm officer who had this really heavy Chinese accent for some reason. And uh, the CGI for the Cortez was pretty terrible, the texturing and geometry looked like something made in DoGA. I'd be really curious to see what Babylon 5 would look like if they'd used real models instead of CGI, like TNG and the first half of DS9.

Oh wow, I just found out D.C. Fontana wrote the 4th episode. That makes a lot of sense now.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x3 - The Geometry of Shadows

My impressions of the third episode of the second season:

A big WTF. Just WTF were you thinking, JMS? I am completely amazed at this episode. No, not because Kang was a techno mage. Yes, a techno mage, these things apparently exist. Not like the dude Teknoman from the UPN cartoon. A techno mage, sorta like a ripoff of a ComStar adept I guess? Whatever, that was fine...

What was not fine was the terrible CGI they used to create this.. big ogre-like creature in the techno mage's dwelling. That was uh, pretty fucking awful. I dunno why they didn't just keep it shrouded in the shadows, that would've given us an impression of a big threatening hulk instead of showing us this really poor CGI creation that looked like something from Poser. A really early edition of Poser.

The real meat of this episode was the Drazi. The motherfucking Drazi with their idiotic green and purple ribbons. This is what we're supposed to be entertained by? Fucking Drazi fighting over two colors? Wow... way to treat your audience like children, JMS. This is humor that 6 year olds might find funny in a cartoon show. But... from what I've read, Babylon 5 is supposed to be some sort of deep, adult drama that happens to be set in a scifi universe? Did I get that right? From the man himself:

"Once I had the locale, I began to populate it with characters, and sketch out directions that might be interesting. I dragged out my notes on religion, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, science (the ones that didn't make my head explode), and started stitching together a crazy quilt pattern that eventually formed a picture."

Really? So this gritty adult take on the human condition, cobbled together with your ponderings on weighty issues like religion, philosophy, sociology, and science... it's to give us scenes of idiot Drazi killing each other because of green or purple ribbons? Wow dude... just wow. I dunno what you're smoking, but it's something awful strong. This... this is just mindboggling. Why, why would you sabotage your own apparent magnum opus with this childish bullshit? Why subject us, the viewers, to this imbecilic display of vapid nonsense? Please... for the love of God, don't write anymore episodes like this. Drama is good, science and politics are good... aliens who wage war for colors and then follow the person who snatches a leader ribbon from the leader... that's fucking horrible and awful and BAD.

BTW, did anyone notice if those crutches Ivanova used were standard medical crutches, or were they made to look like futuristic scifi crutches?

Watching Babylon 5: 2x2 - Revelations

Holy God, the cocoon's leaking some nasty liquid. Now I'm posivitely certain the Minbari aren't gonna get their security deposit back, that is just unsanitary...

Londo doesn't seem to like G'Kar's people. There seems to be shenanigans afoot. Ya know, it kinda reminds me of a similar relationship, between the Cardassians and the Bajorans. That was another show that took place aboard a space station. Fancy that, what a coincidence.

And the actor who plays Morden... he's really really good at being smug. Smugness, it must've been one of the qualities listed on his resume. It's sort of a smarmy smugness. Smug mixed with smarmness? Anyways, he's amazing at it.

Wow, Delenn's now a cross between Palpatine and the Elephant Man. And gained the rare skin condition of Killer Croc. That's not an attractive feature.

Hmmmm, transferring one's life-force energy to another? How the hell do these actors keep a straight face while delivering these lines? I certainly can't, I've just been laughing along.

Wow, they sure like keeping a close up shot on Garibaldi's nostrils.

Fuck, I can't believe half of this episode is about Sheridan talking to his goddamn sister, who's played by this terribly wooden actress. And what do they talk about? His dead wife. This is exhilarating stuff, guys. Keep up the good work!

This actress playing the sister truly is horrible though. Not all that attractive either. This episode is the pits so far.

Is that a nicotrol patch on Sheridan's hand?

"I just didn't want her to go without telling her I loved her... one last time." Wow... could you be anymore cliched? Who wrote this fucking dialogue?

Wow Doctor, haven't you ever heard you're not supposed to pick at scabs? Delenn really needs some moisturizer... in a 5 gallon container. What are you? Well, right now you're pretty butt ugly, that's what you are. But don't worry, I'm sure there's some sort of parable about an ugly duckling that's lurking around somewhere in this script.

Why that wacky Londo, so sneaky and treacherous. Of course it's a good idea to tell Morden about the ship going to Za Ha Doom, it's not like Morden works for the Shadows or anything. And G'Kar... what a trusting guy to inform Londo. You seriously didn't have to tell him the exact time the scout ship was jumping in, that's just stupid.

Woot, it's that hot CNN anchorwoman, only here she's some psychic.

Wow, that was actually a nice scene. Found out about the unknown assassin and caught him with the hijinks of Butterfly Delenn.

Hmmmm... President Clark just happens to want the suspected assassin and all the evidence turned over to him at once. This isn't suspicious in the least.

"It's a trap!" Wow, those Shivan lasers are pretty powerful. Or the Narn ship is really fucking weak.

Jeez, Delenn... could you be anymore dramatic? Who walks around with a hood completely covering their face? What, did she just walk to the council chamber by looking at the floor?

So she has hair now? Really? That's the big transformation? Some hair on her head? Someone should've just gotten her a membership to The Hair Club for Men, and saved the whole being-inside-an-icky-cocoon.

Huh. Apparently... Sheridan's wife was Tasha Yar's sister. Small world. And uh, what's with the poor quality of Babylon 5's monitors? They're all fuzzy and the color looks bad.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x1 - Points of Departure

Well, started watching the second season of Babylon 5. Friend of mine said it was really good, so I said whatever, I'll give it a try. Started with the first episode "Points of Departure." That was the name of a custom FreeSpace 2 mission, now that I think about it. Pretty good one too, full of dogfights. Hopefully this isn't too bad.

Great... I start watching Season 2 and already Delenn's in a weird-looking cocoon. I wonder if you lose the security deposit on your apartment if you construct a cocoon inside?

The CGI's just how I remembered it, shit-tastic.

That's kinda humiliating... winning a war because the other side surrendered, even though they won every battle.

So... his brilliant strategy that led to the only victory in the war was... a minefield? Really? Wow. Do they call it the Sheridan Maneuver? It's just so innovative and daring. *rolls eyes*

So the Minbari are way ahead of the humans in technology, but their sensors can't detect a minefield? I think I'm trying pretty hard to like this show. But when something like that comes out, it's hard to suspend one's disbelief.

I would suspect that a race advanced enough to possess interstellar travel would have some sort of sensors to detect crude human fusion mines. Specially since they have a lot of other nifty tech like stealth fields.

And of course, it's not just that. If all you need to do is lay some minefields, why was this the only time a Minbari ship suffered a defeat? What were all the other earth ships doing during the way? Was the Lexington the only one that had fusion mines? Considering this is the single human victory in a war of total extermination, the actual Sheridan Maneuver is just wholly underwhelming.

Oh God, the CGI of that restaurant is fucking terrible. What the hell were they smoking when they came up with that?

It ends with him reading that boring speech in front of nobody? Fuck. Facepalm x100.