Believers is one of the best non-arc episodes for me.
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The Illusion of Truth - Worst Episode?
- Thread starter garak0410
- Start date
Believers is one of the best non-arc episodes for me.
Exactly...it made its point in the first minute of the broadcast...we didn't have to see ALL of the propaganda...oh well, just finished Atonement and loved it.
Jan
Regular
That's just it, though. From the start B5 has shown us the whole process of how and why things happen as they do and the manipulation of the media was a big part of that process.
Jan
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
It wasn't so much that we as the viewers knew that they'd twist it all beyond belief .. it's that Sheridan didn't. That he thought there was some hope for a "fair" story there. That just didn't make sense to me.
Aside from that though, I could actually enjoy it, seeing the twisting in action. And I guess one could say that Sheridan just assumed they had nothing to lose.
Aside from that though, I could actually enjoy it, seeing the twisting in action. And I guess one could say that Sheridan just assumed they had nothing to lose.
Jade Jaguar
Regular
The part I liked in Illusion of Truth was Lennier head-butting the flying videocam. 
KoshN
Super Moderator
No, I think Sheridan just didn't think they'd twist it completely beyond belief. He didn't think it'd be THAT bad.
BTW, further B5 Universe "worsts":
Worst B5 Universe Movie: "To Live and Die in Starlight" (B5:LotR pilot).
Worst B5 Novel: "Clark's Law" / "The Touch of Your Shadow, the Whisper of Your Name" (tie)
Worst Novelization: "A Call to Arms"
Bests? ....
Best TV Episode: Impossible to pick, because there are so many that are A++++.
Best TV Movie: "In the Beginning" / "A Call to Arms" (tie)
Best Novel: Centauri trilogy / Technomage trilogy (tie)
Best Novelization: "In the Beginning"
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
KoshN
Super Moderator
"Personal Agendas" was short and harmless. People make too much of a deal about the humor in it.
OTOH, "Clark's Law" and "The Touch of Your Shadow, the Whisper of Your Name" are like inoperable, malignant tumors that cause a long, painful death.
GKarsEye
Regular
Sheridan's naivety is what made Illusion work. It's that quality about him that makes him such a great hero- he's really an innocent soul.
By that episode, he was a master of military strategy, ethics, leadership, etc. But he was still a little naive about politics and very naive about propoganda, because he just had no experience with it. What ISN did was so completely outside of his way of thinking.
By that episode, he was a master of military strategy, ethics, leadership, etc. But he was still a little naive about politics and very naive about propoganda, because he just had no experience with it. What ISN did was so completely outside of his way of thinking.
crazyhorse
Anarchist
I thought it was a bit of a sly dig at Fox and found it quite amusing.I think the response is what the story was about it,it has a recurring theme with the voice of the resistance.
Not sure what my worse would be but never considered any as bad.
Not sure what my worse would be but never considered any as bad.
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
According to wikipedia, Illusion of Truth aired only four months after the initial air of Fox news. Especially considering how much time it takes from script penning to airing, and how Fox news would not have been big within a few days on the air, I really doubt there is a connection there, it's not like Fox news invented the concept of propaganda...
crazyhorse
Anarchist
Preminitons then
I did mean sort of news,for which America is famous
I did mean sort of news,for which America is famous
KoshN
Super Moderator
Fox News Channel (FNC), ....not to be confused with Fox Network (the quick canceler of quirky, smart shows).
GKarsEye
Regular
Ironic, isn't it- this is the one time where CH could've made an analogy to Nazi Germany (with their propoganda techniques) and it would actually have made some sense, and ruins it by connecting it to something that didn't exist yet when the episode was made.
And even if one did want to make that analogy, FNC doesn't do what IoT did. Fox is more like the earlier episode about journalists, where they had some real footage, presented it as filmed, and then had pundits oversimplify it to nonsense.
If you want to compare IoT to real life, you can point to some of the anti-semetic propoganda of the Russian empire, the catholic church, or for something more modern, extremist Muslim terrorist recruiting propoganda. For a taste of it in our own country, there was the Hearst papers.
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
I can't see that kind of propaganda going through in a country like the US at all. Where you do, actually, have freedom of press, no matter how much some American publications can be full of crap. If you were to publish this kind of complete fabricated rubbish in the US, everyone would be free to check your story, and debunk it within days. I don't for a second believe that Illusion of Truth was aimed at propaganda as encountered in democratic societies. It's propaganda in countries where the powers controll all media, such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
GKarsEye
Regular
Exactly.
That's why the criticism "they already had one episode about journalism" makes no sense. The first one was about how it works in a democratic society, the second is about how a fascist power abuses propoganda.
Sindatur
Regular
Yea, it's the otherside of the coin, and the payoff of the Journalism arc, like War Without End was to B-Squared
