EpDis: The Gathering

I thought it might be kinda fun, should anyone feel like participating, to have a bit of a poll/thread discussion for each episode of Babylon 5 every few days or once a week or whatever.

Of course this could totally flop and few to no one be interested, but I thought I'd see if anyone else would like to chime in either with comments or with simply casting their vote in the poll.

I'm gonna do both a The Gathering poll and a Midnight On The Firing Line poll thread at the same time since The Gathering isn't technically an episode of the show.

So, how about it? What is your opinion of The Gathering?

Refresher Links:
Lurker's Guide Main Page for The Gathering
Lurker's Guide Extended Synopsis for The Gathering

I gave "The Gathering" an A. It wasn't perfect, by any means, but I've always found it to be excellent, especially for a pilot-movie.

The first time I saw it, though I didn't quite get it the way I get it now (I was only 13 years old when it was first broadcast), but I was blown away. To that point, the major points of exposure to science fiction that I had had were the original Star Trek, Star Trek The Next Generation, and Star Wars. In part, I would even go so far as to say that I grew up on ST:TNG.

But then I watched "The Gathering," and my mind just kind of had a barrier taken away in terms of what I thought possible with scifi shows/movies. I liked the darkness of the sets, the loads of different types of characters, and the CGI space effects.

With TNG, the interior of the ship is endlessly bright and bouncy, but the station in "The Gathering" was dark. I think it helped set me up for a different tonality to the show as a whole: the universe wasn't pristine in Babylon 5.

In B5, only a few of the main characters were a part of the same organization. That certainly set up all the characters to have different perspectives and gave incredible potential for some sizeable and resounding conflicts. With ST, the conflicts all too often came from outside the group of main characters, be it from a guest character or from some situation the group as a whole suddenly found themselves in.

And then there's the CGI space effects. I think seeing Kosh's ship the first time was one of the highest points in watching "The Gathering" the first time. I never even conceived that a ship could look as interesting and different and complex as his did. It wasn't a model, and that gave it life to me. And the major camera zooms from far out to close in on C&C and vice versa were another CGI element of "The Gathering" that I really latched onto when I first saw it. It felt so significantly different than anything I had seen before, and it amazed me.

It was completely successful in grabbing ahold of me and keeping me as a fan of the show from that first viewing and onward.

Gave it an A great set up to even greater story of Babylon 5.Interresting and well thought out for a pilot.

I gave it a B. When I watched the original Gathering, I thought it showed potential, but wasn't truly great. That came later.

I gave The Gathering a C. It was an adequate story. It's amazing what came after it. I'm glad I saw it when it first aired. It was just enough to get me to come back for more.

I wouldn't say The Gathering is great, and it's not one of my favorite B5 movies, but I like it well enough to grade it a B.

I gave it a B, Good. I enjoyed it a lot, one of the better sc-fi pilots i've seen.
Great idea by the way.

I've only seen the original version, and that was years ago... I'm not sure what to think of it now.

B. Lead to great things, but was "murky" I like dark ( anyone else like "Millenium"? but it didn't really "stand out". Sinclair also wasn't particularily "sympathetic". He did get better. I was still better than what was out there then!

For a scene that I found really good for Sinclair in "The Gathering," I turn to the longer 2.0 version of the scene where he tells Carolyn about the Battle of the Line.

B

Amazing amounts of bad acting (Laurel Takashima + Lyta + Carolyn = YIKES. And Michael O'Hare isn't at his best yet either), and not up to the level of the show all over, but ..

* the ambassadors are already awesome

* great groundwork laying

* beep beep!

Looks like that master list of all the EpDis threads did its job ...

I seem to remember voting this one as a B. Very hard to give it an A when we in the UK didn't see it until almost the end of season 1. There had already been several episodes much better than it, it suffered from having a different feel to the soundtrack (not worse per se, just different from what I was used to), and I thought that all the replacement main characters (Franklin, Talia, Ivanova) were better than their counterparts in the pilot.

The re-edit is much better, but it still suffers from my not having seen it as the very first "episode". Now if I could just erase my memory of the show, go back and re-watch from the start ...

GaribaldisHair said:

and I thought that all the replacement main characters (Franklin, Talia, Ivanova) were better than their counterparts in the pilot.

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Definitely true on Ivanova .. and also on Catherine. I think I could have grown to quite like Kyle, though, if he had stayed. Not that I'm objecting to the switch.

While Talia is infinitely better acted than Lyta, she's somehow also infinitely more annoying.

GaribaldisHair said:

Looks like that master list of all the EpDis threads did its job ...

I seem to remember voting this one as a B. Very hard to give it an A when we in the UK didn't see it until almost the end of season 1. There had already been several episodes much better than it, it suffered from having a different feel to the soundtrack (not worse per se, just different from what I was used to), and I thought that all the replacement main characters (Franklin, Talia, Ivanova) were better than their counterparts in the pilot.

The re-edit is much better, but it still suffers from my not having seen it as the very first "episode". Now if I could just erase my memory of the show, go back and re-watch from the start ...

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I don't know how it worked for you but I saw it on a taped video I borrowed of a hippy chick months before the series started and always felt that it had promise.

My initial reaction to the series was a "Star Trek meets Star Wars".

When reading through the Lurker's guide - in particular through JMS' quotes on this one - I ran into this quote:

Here's the one thing that amazes me, speaking of seeing the pilot for the gadzillionth time...there is one great big huge gaping visual anomaly/inconsistency in the pilot that so far no one has noticed. It's so massive that when I first saw it, I just about fell out of my chair. But the director said "No one's ever gonna see it, no one's ever gonna notice it, *trust* me on this." I was absolutely convinced that he was wrong. Apparently he was right. At some point in the future I'll tell you what it is...and when you see it, you're going to wonder how the hell you avoided seeing it before, it's *that* big. But not for a while yet. (And the few smaller things mentioned here ...ain't it.)

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Does anyone have ANY clue what he is talking about?

And this Poll is titled "Keep Chapel" ???

All the old poll titles are messed up. See here.

KoshN said:

And this Poll is titled "Keep Chapel" ???

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Ah yes ... the lost episode.

I gave it a C. The Gathering never really grabbed a hold of me, initially. The story was a little convoluted and I've only ever understood the Del Varner plot thread upon repeated watchings.

I'm glad that they changed many aspects when they went to the show. The characters people have touched on were much better casted in the show--especially Talia. Though admittedly I thought Andrea was much more attractive than Pat Tallman. That woman still amazes me. I could have grown to really like Dr. Ben Kyle, though. The dark, alien atmosphere was nice, but they overdid it a little in the pilot, the show hit the sweetspot. The prothetic hairpiece for Londo was much better than the Bald/Crazy Crest he had in the pilot.

On first view of the Vorlon ship/fleet, and of course Kosh himself, I was very impressed and instantly fell in love with the Vorlons forever. I love it when aliens are imagined as truly alien, rather than the endless parade of forehead appliques you'd see in most sci-fi (also one of the reason's I'm one of the 6 people who think Starship Troopers is brilliant).

Over time and repeated viewings, I must say I've grown to really enjoy the movie, though. The Minbari guy's line, "You have a hole in your mind" is pretty far reaching actually. Obviously the humor/candor of Londo was in full swing and "The Gathering" placed him ahead in the running for my favorite character while "Midnight on the Firing Line" nailed it down for good.

Skander said:

I gave it a C. The Gathering never really grabbed a hold of me, initially. The story was a little convoluted and I've only ever understood the Del Varner plot thread upon repeated watchings.

I'm glad that they changed many aspects when they went to the show. The characters people have touched on were much better casted in the show--especially Talia. Though admittedly I thought Andrea was much more attractive than Pat Tallman. That woman still amazes me. I could have grown to really like Dr. Ben Kyle, though. The dark, alien atmosphere was nice, but they overdid it a little in the pilot, the show hit the sweetspot. The prothetic hairpiece for Londo was much better than the Bald/Crazy Crest he had in the pilot.

On first view of the Vorlon ship/fleet, and of course Kosh himself, I was very impressed and instantly fell in love with the Vorlons forever. I love it when aliens are imagined as truly alien, rather than the endless parade of forehead appliques you'd see in most sci-fi (also one of the reason's I'm one of the 6 people who think Starship Troopers is brilliant).

Over time and repeated viewings, I must say I've grown to really enjoy the movie, though. The Minbari guy's line, "You have a hole in your mind" is pretty far reaching actually. Obviously the humor/candor of Londo was in full swing and "The Gathering" placed him ahead in the running for my favorite character while "Midnight on the Firing Line" nailed it down for good.

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I actually disliked Talia myself, and was very happy to see pat Tallman return. I actually don't think Andrea is all that god looking, she's just your average bleached blonde with a pointy nose, IMHO. I like Susan alot and am glad she played Susan, but, I think Laurel could've grabbed me as well (although she wouldn't have been around for very long, as she was originally the traitor who betrayed Garibaldi.

I must be one of the other 6 who likes Starship Troopers, I love the movie, and think it's a great satire.