Season 5: List of grievances

[Republibot 3.0]

Most everyone hates Season 5, or simply feels it's a huge disappointment. And if you ask most people why, their answer is "Byron." I don't think that's really fair, because honestly, he's just the most consistent problem in a problematic season. He attracts the blame simply because he's, well, he's Jar Jar, really. Not the worst thing going on by a longshot, but he's become the icon for everything that did go wrong.

Here's my grievances, in no particular order.

1) The endless and boring Telepath/Lyta/Byron thing.
2) No Ivonova
3) No Marcus, either..
4) Barely any Lannier.
5) A preponderance of 2-part episodes that really shouldn't be 2-part episodes.
6) A preponderance of 'why bother?' stories that might have worked in the first season, but come on, man, it's a little late in the game to be pulling this crap.
7) The Drakh/Centauri plot feels really drawn out, partially because it is, but partially because it's annoying in this instance to know more than our heroes. When they finally figure it out, it's not "Holy crap!" as with mysteries in the past of the show, it's more like "FINALLY they got it. When did these people get so stupid?"
8) Make-work plots for Londo and G'kar in the first 2/3rds of the season. ("Oh, let's have them bicker like an old married couple again! And have them travel together because that isn't tedious or stupid at all!")
9) Too many dangling threads. (Telepath War, Drakh, Lannier Goes Bad, etc)
10) Generally inferior writing, and generally less structured writing.
11) Shortened production schedule.
12) A lack of JMS' undivided attention. He wasn't just working on the show, he was setting up Crusade and those useless movies.
13) Crappy sets. Seriously, was there a studio fire?

Basically 7 episodes revolve around the teeps to a greater or lesser extent, another 7 are utterly inconsequential. I do genuinely really like the last 7, though.

 

[JonFrain]

Too many to list them all.

Tracy Scoggins is a bad actress and played a boring character.

Byron and the telepaths was a HUGE mistake.

The arcs weren't particularly compelling except part of the Drakh/Centauri arc. It was like I was watching a show written by someone else.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Tracy Scoggins is a bad actress and played a boring character.

Mediocre actress playing a completely undefined, slapped-together character, but the end result is the same.

The arcs weren't particularly compelling except part of the Drakh/Centauri arc. It was like I was watching a show written by someone else.

Yeah, it was. It was like "THe Babylon 5 Poor Quality Fanfic Season."

 

[Jan]

Watch your quoting. I didn't say anything like what you've attached my name to above. Edit it, please.

Jan

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Watch your quoting. I didn't say anything like what you've attached my name to above. Edit it, please.

Jan

Sorry. Fixed. Insofar as I can tell. as some of you may recall, I don't really know how to drive this system all that well.

 

[KoshN]

Most everyone hates Season 5, or simply feels it's a huge disappointment.

What'd you do, take a poll? Before Byron and his freshly shampooed followers were gone, the season wasn't very good. After he went up in flames (Yay! :dancing: ), the season dramatically improved.

And if you ask most people why, their answer is "Byron." I don't think that's really fair, because honestly, he's just the most consistent problem in a problematic season. He attracts the blame simply because he's, well, he's Jar Jar, really. Not the worst thing going on by a longshot, but he's become the icon for everything that did go wrong.

No, he's the reason. After Byron was toast, Season 5 recovered to near Season 4 levels of quality. --> CENTAURI ARC.

Here's my grievances, in no particular order.

1) The endless and boring Telepath/Lyta/Byron thing.

The half season Telepath thing.

2) No Ivonova
3) No Marcus, either..

Well, you can thank CLAUDIA CHRISTIAN for that! That was the biggest monkeywrench thrown into the well oiled B5 mechanism. THAT resulted in back to square one re. scripts. THAT resulted in Tracy Scoggins being cast. CLAUDIA was the pebble that caused the avalanche that buried us all.

4) Barely any Lannier.

LENNIER. ...or he'll hit you upside the head with his Minbari fighting pike.

Basically 7 episodes revolve around the teeps to a greater or lesser extent, another 7 are utterly inconsequential. I do genuinely really like the last 7, though.

No. Basically, once Byron and his annoying followers were gone, Season 5 was perfectly fine (except for Lyta mind-controlling everybody in the Zocolo and Lochley knocking her out.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Most everyone hates Season 5, or simply feels it's a huge disappointment.

What'd you do, take a poll? Before Byron and his freshly shampooed followers were gone, the season wasn't very good. After he went up in flames (Yay! :dancing: ), the season dramatically improved.

I kinda' lived the poll. THere were like 20 of us, fanatical about the show, had been for years, and when season 5 started, we started to drift away. Most stayed to the end, but by mid-season we'd mostly stopped caring. And if you ask any of my friends, it's always "Byron."

No, he's the reason. After Byron was toast, Season 5 recovered to near Season 4 levels of quality. --> CENTAURI ARC.

I do believe the season recovered, and I do believe it was in the final 7 when the Centauri arc hit full strength, but too little too late.

Well, you can thank CLAUDIA CHRISTIAN for that! That was the biggest monkeywrench thrown into the well oiled B5 mechanism. THAT resulted in back to square one re. scripts. THAT resulted in Tracy Scoggins being cast. CLAUDIA was the pebble that caused the avalanche that buried us all.

Yeah. No argument. Though asigning blame isn't the same as simply listing problems, which I'm more interested in at this exact moment. I totally agree that she screwed everything up, but at the same time, I have no faith S5 woulda' been all that great even if she'd been there.

No. Basically, once Byron and his annoying followers were gone, Season 5 was perfectly fine (except for Lyta mind-controlling everybody in the Zocolo and Lochley knocking her out.

I dunno. Mack N' Bo, the whole Hyach/Hyach Do thing, "Let's Rescue Na'Toth," Londo's heart attack, and YET ANOTHER mad bomber plot. That feels like running on fumes to me. And some feel like leftovers.

Did I ever tell you I thing the Hyach plot was originally intended fo rthe Centauri away back in season 1 or 2?

 

[Lyta's Shadow]

The biggest cringe moment for me was the cliche of having that mute boy suddenly finding his voice to shout out the danger. Wasn't that No Compromises?

 

[Republibot 3.0]

The biggest cringe moment for me was the cliche of having that mute boy suddenly finding his voice to shout out the danger. Wasn't that No Compromises?

Ugh. Yes. Horrible. The fact that they called him "Special Simon" made it even worse somehow.

 

[Jan]

Did I ever tell you I thing the Hyach plot was originally intended fo rthe Centauri away back in season 1 or 2?

Of course, there's no evidence of that at all, despite considerable notes discovered in JMS' storage units and published in the various script books. It's also not mentioned at all in the League on Non-Alligned Worlds document written by Larry DiTillio.

Jna

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Did I ever tell you I thing the Hyach plot was originally intended fo rthe Centauri away back in season 1 or 2?

Of course, there's no evidence of that at all, despite considerable notes discovered in JMS' storage units and published in the various script books. It's also not mentioned at all in the League on Non-Alligned Worlds document written by Larry DiTillio.

Jna

Oh, yeah, I know there's not a shard of proof. "Thing" was supposed to read "Think." Elsewhere on this site I've referred to it as a hunch.

JMS never throws anything out, storywise. I mean, do we know what "The Long Night of Susan Ivonova" was about? No, we do not. Do we know what the Telepath storyline would have been like, had Ivonova still been on the show, not Lochley? No, we do not. Has he given any but the most cursory of synopses of his Dr. Franklin movie? Apart from saying it involved Shadow tech and Dr. Franklin, not really. Has he told us anything about "The Hand"? He has not. Those are all beyond irrelevant by this point, but he's still hoarding his secrets. He does it for two reasons.

1) He's a working writer, and if he's telling you a story, he's damn well gonna' get paid for it.
2) He can repurpose story ideas into other venues, which means he gets paid for a concept, even if the concept didn't get aired where he originally intended it.

Both of these are virtues, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, my ENTIRELY UNSUBSTANTIATED HUNCH is that the Hyach/Hyach Do storyline was originally intended for the Centauri. What's the point of mentioning the Xan, otherwise? And what's the point of having ONE other species who conveniently had to share their world with another closely-related species who they conveniently wiped out? And there's Kosh's "They are a dying people" thing, and the recurring theme of the Centauri falling from glory, receeding into irrelevance, even though obviously they fight against it. It adds up. It may not be what he had in mind, but it adds up.

As Harlan Ellison once told me of a completely unrelated question, "Well, that's a very smart interpretation. I don't think it's neccisarily the correct one, but it's very smart."

My HUNCH is that it was originally intended for the Centauri, but there was never a conveninet place to drop it in, and by the time he could, it kind of no longer fit them (The show evolved quite a bit on the fly), so he repurposed it.

It's also not mentioned at all in the League on Non-Alligned Worlds document written by Larry DiTillio.

Tell me of this "League of Non-Alligned Worlds" document. I'm not familiar with it, or at least not by that name.

 

[butlerd]

The Telepath arc and, really, roughly the first half of the season aside from some isolated eps (i.e. "Kingdom of the Blind", "Day of the Dead"), wasn't thought out and/or executed well. The Telepath arc might have been better in retrospect if they eventually showed the outcome (i.e. "Telepath War") at some point but standing alone as setup it was pretty bad. Not the worst episodes in TV history (just about any of the B5 eps are somewhat elevated over the worst eps of some other shows), mind you, but seemingly a let down from the high watermark set by the previous two seasons. Luckily, the Centauri War arc that starts in earnest in "Meditations on the Abyss" and culminates in "Fall of Centauri Prime", more than makes up for the lackluster beginning IMHO. The remaining episodes then tie in nicely with "Sleeping in Light" though I didn't like Lennier's sudden betrayal of Sheridan. It just felt kind of like it came out of nowhere. We know of Lennier's feelings for Delenn and "Morden's" prophecy that he would betray the Anla-Shok (though not Sheridan explicitly) but, seriously, feelings or no feelings, him momentarily withholding help from Sheridan just seemed drastically out of character for him. The scene itself felt like it was just tacked on- like something that JMS wanted to make sure was thrown in there but it just felt out of place at the end of the final (regular) episode of the show.

 

[vorlonlovechild]

If S5 began with the Centauri arc and carried it through to the end then it would have made much more sense imo. There was just too much filler. Good content but too much filler.

and lennier........I mean I can understand it in a way but just seemed out of place to me.

 

[Springer]

Regarding Lennier, although he felt unrequited love, even envy, he was always completely loyal to Delenn and never showed jealousy. What he did was not just betray Sheridan and the Rangers, he betrayed Delenn. I guess that is what jealousy can ultimately drive people to do, but it didn't grow organically out of the plot line – it was very much out of the blue. We saw Lennier in love with Delenn but he was always completely loyal, even when he found it difficult to be around her and Sheridan. The Lennier we know would have saved Sheridan in the first place as an act of love for Delenn. More interesting would have been to show Lennier's love for Delenn turning to obsession and jealousy, leading to an increasingly antagonistic relationship between him and Sheridan, with them clashing through season five, and culminating in Lennier leaving Sheridan to die, only for him then to realise what he has done to himself and Delenn. Maybe that way it would have felt like a natural plot point.

I read that Bill Mumy wasn't too happy with how it ended for Lennier, but that it was his idea that Lennier should be in love with Delenn in the first place. What is it that JMS would have said? Be careful what you wish for!

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Regarding Lennier, although he felt unrequited love, even envy, he was always completely loyal to Delenn and never showed jealousy. [...]. Maybe that way it would have felt like a natural plot point.

I read that Bill Mumy wasn't too happy with how it ended for Lennier, but that it was his idea that Lennier should be in love with Delenn in the first place. What is it that JMS would have said? Be careful what you wish for!

What bothered me was what you're saying of course, but that it was an obvious tag for Crusade or The Telepath Wars or whatever, where we'd meet Lannier on the run, trying desparately to atone. But then evidently he was killed off in the first draft of the "Flashback" episode of Crusade (Title escapes me right now) so what was the freakin' point? I've often wondered if JMS and Mumy had a falling out or something.

In any event, that, coupled with Lanier's absence from about half the season....bad. And if it was simply there to provide closure for Lanier's character, well, it was pointless closure. I don't need to know what happened to Wedge Antilles after "Jedi" for the same reason I don't need to know what happened to Taffy Lewis after the end of "Blade Runner." We don't need a solid conclusion for EVERY character. Or a final twist. Or a betrayal.

Now, you know an ending I *WOULD* have liked for Lannier? When Incredibly-Aged-Delenn shows up a hundred years in the future in "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" I would have liked to have seen Lannier there, in the background, still taking care of her.

Now THAT would have been a nice farewell.

 

[Springer]

Now, you know an ending I *WOULD* have liked for Lannier? When Incredibly-Aged-Delenn shows up a hundred years in the future in "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" I would have liked to have seen Lannier there, in the background, still taking care of her.

Now THAT would have been a nice farewell.

I'm not sure I would have found that to be a satisfactory journey for his character. One of the things I liked about the various attaches to the ambassadors was that they became their own person by the end of the series. For Vir that obviously worked out, for Lennier it didn't. That's life. I suspect if Na'Toth had hung around, she would have stepped outside of G'Kar's shadow too. If Lennier had just remained at Delenn's side, where would his character progression have been? Besides, he'd probably have been dead by then anyway. Delenn's old age was surprising even for a Minbari, presumably something about her being half-human.

I don't think Bill Mumy and JMS had a falling out. I don't have a problem in principle with Lennier's arc being written to lead up to what he did, I just think that aside from Morden's vague prophecy, there was really no lead up to it. It never occurred to me that it would be a plot point for a sequel series shoehorned into the end of the series.

I think it's too easy to bash season five. Certainly there are aspects of it that do not work (mostly revolving around Byron) and other plots I would have liked to have seen in there, and I think the move away to a five day shooting schedule, not six, and a smaller budget was apparent on screen, but there were mitigating factors in the storyline (most of the arc plot completed by end of season four, Claudia Christian leaving, a cleaner at the hotel in Blackpool throwing out all JMS' notes so he had to start over again with barely any time). I do think season five has some very strong points too – Londo and G'Kar, more Bester, Garibaldi's descent into darkness, the Drazi homeworld, Day of the Dead, I even came to like Lochley – but in all honestly, at the end of the day it looked like B5 would end with season four, so I was happy to get the season five we did get rather than no more B5 at all.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

I'm not sure I would have found that to be a satisfactory journey for his character. One of the things I liked about the various attaches to the ambassadors was that they became their own person by the end of the series. For Vir that obviously worked out, for Lennier it didn't. That's life. I suspect if Na'Toth had hung around, she would have stepped outside of G'Kar's shadow too. If Lennier had just remained at Delenn's side, where would his character progression have been? Besides, he'd probably have been dead by then anyway. Delenn's old age was surprising even for a Minbari, presumably something about her being half-human.

So you're ok with it working out for Vir and you're ok with Lannier dying, but you're not ok with Lannier spending the rest of his life with the woman he loves?

I think he'd still be alive. He was a lot younger than her. Remember, he was an acolyte just out of temple on his first-ever asignment. In human terms, he was probably in his early 20s. Delenn was considerably older. They never really addressed it, but I got the frequent feeling that she was older than Sheridan, and they mentioned that Minbari live a good deal longer than humans anyway.

Hm. I should try to figure out how old she was...

I have no doubt that, had Na'Toth stayed on the show, she would have taken on the role held by Ta'lon.

I don't think Bill Mumy and JMS had a falling out. I don't have a problem in principle with Lennier's arc being written to lead up to what he did, I just think that aside from Morden's vague prophecy, there was really no lead up to it. It never occurred to me that it would be a plot point for a sequel series shoehorned into the end of the series.

Well, I don't know that they had a falling out, I've just wondered about it given the way the character was treated that season. The idea that he was being 'spun off' seems pretty obvious, though. To paraphrase Checkov: If you're not going to fire a gun in the third act, don't draw attention to there even being a mantle in act 1.

I think it's too easy to bash season five. Certainly there are aspects of it that do not work (mostly revolving around Byron) and other plots I would have liked to have seen in there,[...]I do think season five has some very strong points too – Londo and G'Kar, more Bester, Garibaldi's descent into darkness, the Drazi homeworld, Day of the Dead, I even came to like Lochley – but in all honestly, at the end of the day it looked like B5 would end with season four, so I was happy to get the season five we did get rather than no more B5 at all.

It's easy to bash season 5 because season 5 isn't very good. There's plenty of justification for it, and I agree to all that. And there's 7 pretty solid episodes out of 22, but that's a much lower average than usual, and at the end of the day, it's not malice that moves me, it's just not a very good season.

 

[Springer]

So you're ok with it working out for Vir and you're ok with Lannier dying, but you're not ok with Lannier spending the rest of his life with the woman he loves?

Actually, yes. I'm not looking for happy endings for all the characters, and if Lennier just remained in Delenn's shadow, never revealing his feelings, never becoming his own person, then I think that would have just wasted his character. As it was I never felt his character really came alive until the fifth season.

I think he'd still be alive. He was a lot younger than her. Remember, he was an acolyte just out of temple on his first-ever asignment. In human terms, he was probably in his early 20s. Delenn was considerably older. They never really addressed it, but I got the frequent feeling that she was older than Sheridan, and they mentioned that Minbari live a good deal longer than humans anyway.

Remember Delenn was a young acolyte to Dukhat before she joined the Grey Council. In the Beginning or Atonement doesn't really say how much time passes between then and the start of the war that I recall, but one gets the impression it is not that long. I imagine there isn't be more than 20 years between Delenn and Lennier, and that Delenn and Sheridan are around the same age. I may be wrong though, of course, it's just the impression the show gives me.

Of course young for a Minbari might not be the same thing as young for a human. Lennier talks about what he did in his eleventy-seventh year (i.e. at 18 years old, Minbari use base-11) in the Quality of Mercy, but there is no context for how long ago that was.

I have no doubt that, had Na'Toth stayed on the show, she would have taken on the role held by Ta'lon.

Ta'Lon really didn't do that much. Sure he was a cool character but a bit of a cliche too with that sword of his. I would have hoped Na'Toth's plotline would have been much more involved.

It's easy to bash season 5 because season 5 isn't very good. There's plenty of justification for it, and I agree to all that. And there's 7 pretty solid episodes out of 22, but that's a much lower average than usual, and at the end of the day, it's not malice that moves me, it's just not a very good season.

It's not as good as the first four seasons, I agree, so if we are measuring it by their standard then sure. But I'd say more than 7 episodes were solid. The nadir was Learning Curve. I think everything from Day of the Dead onwards is fine and about half of the first ten episodes (admittedly sometimes it was parts of episodes) I was happy watching.

Season five's main problem is that the main story arc has already had its conclusion with season four. As a result it is anti-climactic because we are used to the big battles and defining moments coming right at the end of stories. So the pacing of the story over five seasons goes askew and instead season five became a season long coda, for reasons we all know. That said, I don't think it had to be. At the end of season four they created an empire, and JMS was always talking about empire building. We didn't get that with season five and that's what disappointed me the most. Had that been the driving plot behind the season, at the expense of Bryon and his telepath cult, I would have been totally happy. We could still have had a telepath plotline, involving Lyta and Bester and his shenanigans, and keep the Centauri stuff in obviously. But I don't by any means think that what we got was all terrible.

 

[Jan]

While I was sorry to see Lennier's momentary betrayal, I wasn't surprised at all and didn't feel that it came out of the blue, either. When you see Sheridan appear on the catwalk in 'The Summoning', there's a clear shot of Lennier and he's *not* happy to see Sheridan alive at all. All the emphasis later on about how you have to do things for the right reasons or it becomes corrupted is a signpost that Lennier joining the Rangers wasn't at all the 'calling of his heart' but running away from having to see Delenn and Sheridan together.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Actually, yes. I'm not looking for happy endings for all the characters, and if Lennier just remained in Delenn's shadow, never revealing his feelings, never becoming his own person, then I think that would have just wasted his character. As it was I never felt his character really came alive until the fifth season.

I didn't articulate that well. What I was trying to humorously say is that you wanted him to have an unhappy ending, just not one of several possible unhappy endings.

Remember Delenn was a young acolyte to Dukhat before she joined the Grey Council. In the Beginning or Atonement doesn't really say how much time passes between then and the start of the war that I recall, but one gets the impression it is not that long. I imagine there isn't be more than 20 years between Delenn and Lennier, and that Delenn and Sheridan are around the same age. I may be wrong though, of course, it's just the impression the show gives me.

I don't know how young she was. I doubt you graduate from Cub Souts to Webelos and then they give you Grey Council duty. I'd figure she'd have had to at least go through all the Eagle Scount stuff first, if you get my meaning. It's a dumb metaphor, I know. Conversely, Lannier himself says he's never done anything of any interest to anyone, and the strong implication is that he's very young. (They back off this some in the second season)

Ta'Lon really didn't do that much. Sure he was a cool character but a bit of a cliche too with that sword of his. I would have hoped Na'Toth's plotline would have been much more involved.

No real argument. Ta'Lon was a character of necessity: Occasionally G'Karn needed to interact with a badass Narn for the plot. As his normal Badass had been gone for quite some time, Ta'Lon took her place, but ONLY when they specifically needed him to do a specific thing. He wasn't just always hanging around being a prickly pear like Na'Toth. So he remains a bit of a cipher simply because we dont' see as much of him.

Presumably had Na'Toth stayed on the show, she would have hit many of those same points, but we would also have seen the lines that connected them, and that would have made things better over all.

Season five's main problem is that the main story arc has already had its conclusion with season four. [...] That said, I don't think it had to be. At the end of season four they created an empire, and JMS was always talking about empire building. We didn't get that with season five and that's what disappointed me the most..

Again we agree: the story they chose to tell was rather dull, off balance, and out of focus. Thing is: the "Civil War" arc would have ended 6 or 7 eps into S5, had that worked out. That leaves 14/16 eps for other stuff, and I think structurally JMS probably always intended half that to be the Teeps and half that to be the Centauri/Drakh thing, as each takes up about half that. The 6 or 7 episodes that got freed up became standalones which were on the whole pretty terrible. So I don't have a ton of hope that it would have been vastly better even if PTEN had survived, and it had all gone according to plan.

As I've said elsewhere, the Teep arc was junk. It shouldn't be about someone teaching Lyta to be a leader, she should have already figured it out on her own by then. The 'colony' thing was ridiculous - obviously they should have been given a wrold. Hell,, they could have fit the entire Teep war in 7 episodes if they'd wanted to. So: bad call there.

The Drakh/Centauri thing works better, and I genuinely enjoy most of it, but I found it rather annoying that WE knew more than the cast did. Generally we and the cast were figuring things out at the same time. Us being given the answer, and them taking FOREVER to catch up made them look tediously slow on the uptake.