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Conversion Report

Its quite easy 'cos B5 just uses a space setting to tell a grand epic. It's not sci-fi the way people have come to know Trek, Star Wars and the Alien movies.
I usually start people off with In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, all that ancient enemy stuff gets them interested. Then its
Coming of Shadows, The Long Twilight Struggle and The Fall of Night. IF they're not hooked by then I give up. Any other mix I've tried doesn't seem to work e.g. Signs and Portents and chrysalis.
And everyone who watches the second season first seems to like G'kar better than Londo! WTF (hides from Kribu)
 
To Jomar: I wonder if your friend was so hooked by the end of the first tape that he managed to crawl to the VCR to change the tapes?
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An update: my convert doesn't yet like Kosh. (Naturally I'm appalled.) She calls him "biohazard suit guy." Of course, she has yet to see the lighter side of Kosh, and I'm hoping that will sway her. On the other hand, she's really good at noticing things; I'm afraid she'll pick up on the fact that Kosh is not truly a good guy in season one and two. Oh, he's anti-Shadow; but he does things in a kind of nasty way sometimes. IMO, Kosh isn't truly trustworthy until "Interludes and Examinations." But he is fun to watch, at pretty much all times.
 
I've converted quite a few - I got my whole house in college watching the show during the original airing religiously (about 20-25 people)... 2 girlfriends... one of my employees... my 2 old roommates... I watch the whole series about once a year so whoever is hanging with me when I start watching naturally gets hooked!

-Tim
 
Hah! Nailed another one.

Sarah and I backtracked to show our buddy Derek "Sky Full of Stars," then went on to "Deathwalker." Derek's in the fold, and another guy might be hooked too. I think I caught Derek's attention when I told him about the Hugos. He really enjoyed it tonight, and is looking forward to more. Yet another fan, boys and girls.

Another funny thing, though -- just carrying the DVDs around caught the attention of another fan. I had no idea that he was interested (I only know him vaguely) but he says he loves the show. Then he mentioned that he hadn't seen much of S1, and mentioned Sheridan.

"The others don't know about Sheridan yet," I said conspiratorily.

And I can't wait for them to meet him.
 
I don't know if anyone cares, but I do enjoy the reactions of my recent converts.

Sarah is so good at picking up on things that she's being very annoying with her questions. As I'm not terribly good at keeping secrets this leads to some problems. I don't say anything, but she can still detect what's going on from my facial expression.

Some of her questions/ideas are good, for example:

Is Talia stronger now that she's got Ironheart's gift? (Yes.)

PsiCorps is going to kill the president. (She got this from Ironheart's talk of assassination and from the newspaper report that PsiCorps endorsed Clark. Almost right!)

Kosh is a telepath. (Got it in one...)

And some of her ideas are way off:

Ivanova and Garibaldi are going to hook up. (Ah. . . no.)

Sinclair's married to Delenn. (Hah. JMS's red herring racks up another victim.)

And some of her questions are just plain strange:

Is Kosh sentient? (I think we can safely say "Yes" to that.)

Anyhow, the conversion progresses.
 
Where was it said that Kosh, and the Vorlons, were telepaths?

I guess it would seem odd that they go ahead and MAKE all these telepaths in other races, if they didnt have the ability themselves. But it was never stated anywhere that I remember that they were telepathic. If they were, wouldnt they have had no trouble whipping the Shadows asses?
 
The are telepathic

as to wiping out the Shadows, both the Vorlons and the Shodows follow the 'rules of engagement', of some kind, they don't attack each other directly (until sheridan makes them do so lol)
 
I've read speculation that the Vorlons were telepathic. But where is it actually stated? In the series or in the books?
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Kosh was able to place a vision in Sheridan's head as he was being killed by the Shadows. That is at least one way telepathy, but I think there was enough of an exchange between them to qualify for two way.
 
Hah! Got another soon to be Ex-Trekkie! Well I wouldn't go so far to that he's a trekkie, he hasn't even seen First Contact. Same procedure as I outlined above. It 'll be so easy for the rest of you to nab new converts when S2 DVD's come out.

Speaking of S2 which episode are you most looking forward to seeing on DVD?

For me its Comes the Inquisitor. Not only is it one of my favourite episodes, but its almost devoid of CGI. I can just imagine how the touching Sheridan/Turhan scene in the observatory in Coming of Shadows is going to be butchered, not to mention the cutting back and forth between the fuzziness of the Battle of Gorash and the crystal clarity of G'kar praying in The Long, Twilight Struggle.
 
Kosh II says to Lyta "open your mind to me". So yes, they are telepathic.

Speaking of S2 which episode are you most looking forward to seeing on DVD?
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mmm... hard choice. Coming of The Shadows & Fall of The Night, I think. its been years since i watched s2 of Babylon 5, and i was a kid back then. Im going to enjoy season two a lot more, i don´t think i understood much when i was like, what was it, 12?
 
Speaking of S2 which episode are you most looking forward to seeing on DVD?
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'Comes the Inquisitor' and 'The Geomerty of Shadows' from a purely director point of view. Mike Vejar was just incredible with those episodes.

And 'In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum' since the video release sound was off slightly in the UK
 
Season 2 on DVD... Soul Mates!
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DVD quality screencaps of G'Kar in an open robe! Come on, can anything beat that?
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Somewhat more seriously though, I really want to see Coming of Shadows and The Long, Twilight Struggle again. I don't have any of S2 on tape and these are both among my top 5 favourite episodes of the series, so it will be great to see them. And both having a commentary as well ... should be great.
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I showed Derek Mind War last night. When the First Ones appeared he, most appropriately, said "What the hell is that?"

I did not enlighten him, of course.

The next episode is Survivors. We've got a long weekend coming up, and I'm hoping we can plow through to Signs and Portents then.

Also I realized how interesting it was that we see the First Ones in the same episode as Jason Ironheart, who could arguably be the first human to reach the level the first ones were at. And G'Kar's closing speech was as lovely as ever; hearing it this time made me realize that he was always gifted with words, but it didn't come out very much until season three.

And one final thing, a mildly frightening thought; I realized last night that I can now name all the season one episodes in order from memory.
 
When he asked "What the Hell Was That?" you could have told him its a ship made from an x-ray of a foot bone. If you look at the Walkers ship, its actually an x-ray of one of the visual effects guys feet mirrored 8 times around the ship!

-Tim
 
Yeah, I could have told Derek about the footbone... but I preferred dead silence to add to the mystery.

And I'm not so sure about Sarah liking Kosh. She's EXTREMELY observant, and she notices the discrepancies JMS built in Kosh -- he is not a terribly favorable character in S1, when you look at him closely. He becomes much better in S2 and S3 because of his attachment to Sheridan.

Sheridan didn't have the wool pulled over his eyes, and I doubt Sarah will either. But Kosh's true appearance will definitely throw her for a loop.
 
Got through Survivors yesterday, and then had a chat with Sarah about the show later in the evening. She's not quite as enthusiastic about it as I am (unsurprisingly), but her main problems are a few letdowns in the graphics and some bad dialogue. I told her that both would improve with time, but she still has reservations about becoming as total a fan as I am. She doesn't think anyone should get into a TV show so much.

My response was that B5, especially in later seasons, could support it, was worthy of it. She reserved judgement.

Survivors did not go down quite as well as I thought it would. I'm tempted to skip By Any Means Necessary and go straight to Signs and Portents.
 
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