Completed The Series

[garak0410]

Well, my wife and I completed the series. She was just crying and crying over the final series episode and I was moved by it.

SPOILER -

The sadness of Delenn, the empty Zocalo, the destruction of the station...it was all sad and moving. And when Sheridan passed, it was also very affecting.

We should have watched the last two movies first but we will next time we watch the series.

We also watched THE LOST TALES. It was better than expected...I didn't have a problem with the stories. Just the feeling that Babylon 5 was empty. That was the worst part...the effects were awesome and I was drawn into the stories but to see only hallways and the landing pad in B5, I never really felt like I was there. Maybe the budget will increase for the next one.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Hell of ending, wasn't it? My wife was crying. I had a big, oblong lump in my throat more than once. It was shockingly sad and beautiful at the same time. We had been waiting 5 years for the end of the story and it did not disappoint.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

Very interesting. I just started my fourth pass through the series this week. I saw it all the way through on the original broadcasts. Watched and taped it on a re-broadcast but was probably paying too much attention to the taping. Viewed the tapes from beginning to end about three years ago and am now watching the DVDs on a big screen HDTV. Since I am simply free to watch without worrying about the taping or trying to fast-forward through commercials, I am enjoying it a lot more, seeing and hearing subtleties never before discovered. I'm only 4 episodes into season 1; a long journey to follow.

 

[garak0410]

OK...I admit...I shed one tear...it was moving...more moving that Deep Space Nine's ending, which got me as well.

 

[Boxie]

I watched it again the other night. I honestly thought I was okay and was going to get through it without crying for the first time... but it just didn't happen!!

 

[Deleted]

The tears ran like a river the first time I watched the end...and I still get a tear or two no matter how many times I see it...

 

[hypatia]

It really was a sentimental moment. On several levels. Yea, it's very well done. I've never been able to see it without tearing up.

And it's one episode I've never heard a fan claim wasn't exciting enough.

It was a wonderful end to a truly unique series.

 

[RW7427]

I used to cry every time I watched Sleeping in Light but after seeing it more times than I could count, I just got goosebumps.

 

[Galahad]

There's something tantric about it... you try to hold back your emoition as the station gradually goes up... but when the obs dome goes up with the extra bang... thats it, it becomes an entire level harder to resist shedding a tear... or getting goosepbumps.

I believe that extra bang is deliberate and is designed to encourage the emotional response.

 

[mattikake]

I must be more emotionally detached that you lot. I didn't even come close to crying and too busy enjoying it. Sad more because it was the end of the whole story. :s

I was too busy counter-analysing what Sheridan had become - one interpretation that tracks is being slowly transformed by Lorien into that same sort of first-one being as him. Sheridan's 'prize' for seeing the big picture. Why else would Lorien come back? Why else would there be no physical body left behind? Then wondering if there is any B5-universe physics connection between him and what also happened to Ironheart.

So he didn't die at all, he's just went to a better place... if you want it that way.

One of the annoying inconsistencies of B5 was that some characters always tell truth, others always lie and others keep changing their minds. It's difficult to know when JMS is trying to tell you about the intricacies of the B5 universe, or wether it's characterised spin. Clearly by this ending Lorien was lying when told Sheridan and Delenn that he would simply 'stop', as that was a definite transformation into something more or into nothingness.

 

[Jan]

Clearly by this ending Lorien was lying when told Sheridan and Delenn that he would simply 'stop', as that was a definite transformation into something more or into nothingness.

How was Lorien lying? At the time he told Delenn that Sheridan would simply stop, the events at Coriana 6 hadn't happened so Lorien had no idea that he and the rest of the First Ones would be going 'beyond the rim.' Until that happened, there was no chance of coming back for Sheridan. How could he be lying about something he couldn't have known.

Jan

 

[babylon1122]

Sorry Jan, IMHO I think that Lorien knew exactly what was going to happen. He was the First One after all. Would he not be able to see the future?

Joan

 

[mattikake]

How was Lorien lying? At the time he told Delenn that Sheridan would simply stop, the events at Coriana 6 hadn't happened so Lorien had no idea that he and the rest of the First Ones would be going 'beyond the rim.' Until that happened, there was no chance of coming back for Sheridan. How could he be lying about something he couldn't have known.

Jan

I don't see the relevance. If Lorien had 'seeded' Sheridan then wouldn't he have transformed regardless of the outcome of the final battle - whether the first ones went beyond the rim or not? The only difference is that Lorien had to come back for him, than hang around for 20 years waiting for Sheridan's metamorphosis to happen.

 

[Jan]

Sorry Jan, IMHO I think that Lorien knew exactly what was going to happen. He was the First One after all. Would he not be able to see the future?

I don't recall that we'd ever seen any indication that the First Ones could see the future. In fact, wasn't Kosh surprised to see Sinclair on B5 and recognize him as Valen (in the special edition of The Gathering)?

I don't see the relevance. If Lorien had 'seeded' Sheridan then wouldn't he have transformed regardless of the outcome of the final battle - whether the first ones went beyond the rim or not? The only difference is that Lorien had to come back for him, than hang around for 20 years waiting for Sheridan's metamorphosis to happen.

I don't know what 'seeded' means in this context, I'm afraid. It sounds like you're talking about the changes in Sheridan's biology that Lorien made at Z'ha'dum? If that were so, wouldn't Sheridan have transformed right after the fight with Kosh2?

Jan

 

[mattikake]

lol I dunno. I kinda mean seeded in a new lifeform kinda way... could be sexual. Who knows what first one sex is like? heh, Sheridan was talked into bed by a first one... Errrr!

Seriously, yeah changes to Sheridan's 'form'. Why should he have changed right after the fight with Kosh2? Are you thinking of the 'booster' Lorien gave him afterwards, so that he would become more 'pure' Lorien first-one and then transform at that moment? To me it was just a booster - a load of Lorien energy and Kosh1 energy and perhaps even some of Sheridan's own 'spiritual' energy made up the entity that fought Kosh2, so Lorien had to replenish the lost energies to keep Sheridan alive.

The only thing you know for certain is that Sheridan changed [into something non-human] at the end of Sleeping in Light. What I'm suggesting is that the 20 years, was just the jestation period for his eventual 'coming into bloom' moment and his transformation into an energy being like Lorien/Volons/Ironheart/1 million years+ humans etc. Lorien knew exactly what was going to happen to Sheridan from the start of his interference, which is why Lorien came back for him 20 years later... also by this time Sheridan had become wise to this, just as he had with the working out what the Shadow war was really all about - he knew, it was just a matter if he knew that he knew and he certainly didn't let on to anyone else. Is this why he took the trip out to nowhere in a White Star?

It would've been much easier for everyone to accept if they just thought he was going to die.

This is why I like to think that the Lorien-Sheridan conversation about tick and tock, life and death, was just a test of his worthyness, as an aside or side-effect to the main reason for Lorien to keep him alive.

I think too deep about this stuff, which is one of the many reason's why I love B5! A story that allows personal interpretations to out-live it's story telling.

 

[vacantlook]

The only thing you know for certain is that Sheridan changed [into something non-human] at the end of Sleeping in Light....

I don't think we can say that; we don't see the ending of what happens to Sheridan on the White Star in SiL. We see from outside the ship the inner cabin glowing bright and the light dissipating and are told by Ivanova that no body was ever found. That doesn't mean Sheridan became some body-less being; it's a possibility, but we don't *know* that it happened. The light could have been little more than the entropy of the energy Lorien previously used to keep Sheridan's body alive, and afterward Lorien himself transported Sheridan's lifeless body to a grave of some sort.

Is this why he took the trip out to nowhere in a White Star?

He didn't go out to nowhere; he went where Kosh (through Zoe, through Lochley) told him to go.

 

[mattikake]

I don't think we can say that; we don't see the ending of what happens to Sheridan on the White Star in SiL. We see from outside the ship the inner cabin glowing bright and the light dissipating and are told by Ivanova that no body was ever found. That doesn't mean Sheridan became some body-less being; it's a possibility, but we don't *know* that it happened. The light could have been little more than the entropy of the energy Lorien previously used to keep Sheridan's body alive, and afterward Lorien himself transported Sheridan's lifeless body to a grave of some sort.

The implication is there. When humans 'expire' they leave behind a dead body. There was no body, ergo he wasn't human at the time of his expiration... Even if something is atomised or completely converted to energy, there is still a large amount of residual radiation left behind (quite a lot actually if Sheridan was 100% converted to energy in about a second), so the news reel wouldn't have said that there was no trace [at all]. If would've been something like 'President Sheridan exploded in a massive matter to energy conversion of several billion kilo-jules', which of course wouldn't have left much of the White Star either.

Anyway, while Lorien taking Sheridan's body is actually plausible, there is no hint to this in the writing, unlike the flash of light in a conversion to something unexplainable. JMS leaving it open-ended you feel is half the point I suppose. But yeah I guess it could be the remnants of Loriens energies. But if that was the case, why is Sheridan pleased to see Lorien return for him? What would be the point for the last few seconds of his life? There would have to be an afterlife of which there is also no official implication of this in the B5 universe.

He didn't go out to nowhere; he went where Kosh (through Zoe, through Lochley) told him to go.

Well I meant the 'middle of nowhere' as in immediately unreachable by other mortal B5 characters, not 'somewhere' in a B5 story-arc sense. Why be told to go to a certain place if only to meet a Lorien again for a few seconds, prearranged?

At this point, if the possibility of Sheridan's passing to another non-death form is not accepted it gets pedantic and undiscussable (at least humour me with some of it).

So is the general consensus that he did die in a flash of light, that Lorien returned all the way from the rim to say 'hi' then 'bye'?

 

[Jan]

I don't think we can say that; we don't see the ending of what happens to Sheridan on the White Star in SiL. We see from outside the ship the inner cabin glowing bright and the light dissipating and are told by Ivanova that no body was ever found. That doesn't mean Sheridan became some body-less being; it's a possibility, but we don't *know* that it happened. The light could have been little more than the entropy of the energy Lorien previously used to keep Sheridan's body alive, and afterward Lorien himself transported Sheridan's lifeless body to a grave of some sort.

I agree. I've always assumed that Sheridan was actually taken elsewhere in order to enhance the myth, like he said to Delenn. Now, whether he died or not, that's left somewhat open. I like to think that Lorien was able to sustain him for long enough to see 'beyond the rim' but I do think that Lorien was telling the truth that he wouldn't be able to give Sheridan life energy for a third time that would last any length of time.

Jan

 

[mattikake]

So the change in Sheridan's attitude to the universe - the whole Shadow war, his willingness to sacrifice people for the cause*, treating other races (such as the league) as civilisationally inferior etc. in general more daring and even less willing to 'take no sh!t' and seeing the big picture far more clearly - would you say is purely a philosphical change in knowledge of what the shadow war is about (essentially a petty BS squabble), or a physiological change by Lorien's 'energies'? As was pointed out by Garibaldi (arguably a story-arc reason for his abduction by Bester).

* as a military leader he probably does this anyway, but there is no evidence of it, possibly implying that this is a deliberately detailed change.

 

[Jan]

No, I don't think Lorien's contribution of life energy made any change in Sheridan. That said, I do think that Sheridan's experiences on Z'ha'dum *did* change him, but that was due to having died/returned, not due to Lorien. After talking to Justin and jumping into the pit, he knew that he was a 'nexus' and that he really could have a major effect on the universe. From that stems the new determination and willingness to do whatever it would take to achieve his objective.

Jan