Conference hips::babylon5

    Round 1
    
    
    
    spoiler
    
    
    It looks like the first round has gone to Clark (sp).
    It looked like a setup all the way and I guess we now know that someone
    is controlling Garibaldi but who, when he hears the voice it says "You
    work only for us".
    
    
    joan
    
    
    

Spoiler
























It certainly brings us back to the point that the end of the war isn't the
end of either the story or the conflict.  This show's obvious reference to
the witch hunts of the 50s reminds me that this sort of thing can and does
happen when people aren't ready to let go of an "at-war" mentality.

On top of that, it would have been unreasonable to assume that with his
shadowy support system gone, Clark would just up and resign.

I really enjoy the parallels between this show and real life.  What's
happening now strikes me as about the same thing that might have happened
if during the 60s or 70s, both major super powers (intent on doing war with
each other by proxy) had suddenly disappeared.

I really liked how this episode was filmed.  It had lots of humor and
reminders.  (The list of names, including "Mostel" was sort of a shiver
from the past.)  I kind of liked "She should have said you'd be stripped
naked, then..."

I particularly liked how they ran the second half of the episode as a
straight ISN broadcast, starting with Sheridan's hitting the remote, saying
"With my luck, it'll be a commercial."

    spoiler
    
    
    I also liked the way our local station ran it"s comercials along with
    the ones on the broadcast, it gave a very "happening now" feeling to
    the show. The humour too was good at the beggining and the fact one of
    those bits was shown to give the impression that he was following his
    alien masters makes you realise just how far they will go.
    One thing I thought rather cold blooded was the way Fielding mentioned
    that, part of the strain could be caused by the fact that the family
    farm had burnt down and his mother was still missing, we know that he
    had not heard from his family, did fielding know this too?
    
    
    
    
    joan 

    
    I saw this, then caught a bit of Maury Provich(sp) doing a show on the
    investigation of the JonBonnet Ramsey murder in Boulder, Co.  The
    parallels (right down to the "psycologist") made my blood run cold.
    
    Also during the show, images of Food Lion kept running through my mind.
    
    fred();

    
    
       The last half of this episode was akin to watching paint dry.
    It was so dry and boring, I nearly fell asleep. That entire news
    supplot coulda been wrapped up in 5 minutes.
    
    -john

    Spoiler:
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Either things are very much not what they appear or this was by far
    the most lame episode of the series.
    
    Given current computer image manipulation technology and extrapolating
    a decade or two it will be possible to create entire "news" scenes from
    file shots of the characters.  It will be fast enough that a story can
    be re-enacted (or created) in time for the daily news.  This will have
    impact on our society, as people learn that pictures cannot be trusted.
    
    By the time of Babylon 5 this would all be old news, and people would
    have lived their whole lives knowing that video cannot be trusted. 
    
    There was no reason to go to Babylon 5 to do that story.  There was no
    reason the reporter's chair and acoustics didn't match during the
    interview with Sheridan and Delenn - this would be easy to fix, even
    today.
    
    So the reporters were there for another reason.  Perhaps something to
    subvert the station?
    
    Sheridan should be aware of all of this.  He grew up with those
    technologies available and is the son of a diplomat.  Why did he allow
    them on the station?
    
    				Paul

This was a quiet episode, and though I learned some things, I found it
too slow for my tastes.

      Carol

I kinda liked the humor and look of this ep.  The content, on the other
hand, I was indifferent to.

        spoilers:
























    The episode shows, in a rather blatant and extreme example, just how
    "news" gets "slanted", a.k.a. propaganda.

    The episode is significant in that it shows, as Bester pointed out,
    "the first step".  The first step in suppressing a given group is
    the "propaganda campaign" to vilify that group to the point that 
    the public will accept, even assist, the suppression of that group.  
    The Jews did not just wake up one day and find themselves in 
    concentration camps.  The episode shows the intent of Earthdome and 
    just how far they are willing to go.  There can be parallels drawn in 
    _many_ areas of today's society.

    fred();

Re: .6

	It's quite easy to lie outrageously in print, but that doesn't prevent
most people from believing what's presented as news in newspapers.  Also, the
best way to lie is to include as much of the truth as possible.  That's why it
was in the interests of the propagandists to have real, recent, footage of B5.

	As to the obvious change of accoustics and background during the
interview with Sheridan and Delenn, yes, we could do better, even today.  That
they didn't, I take as the reporter keeping his word to Sheridan and Ivanova. 
The report was so over the top, that few would believe it anyway, and just in
case they did, here's an obvious edit to make them catch on.

Me

    There's something else that bothers me, and I don't think it is
    really a spoiler for this episode:
    
    These days there seem to be more and more television channels every
    week.  Every city, town, whatever seems to have their own cable
    channel.  And if Internet video becomes practical in the next hundred
    or two years everyone who wants will have their own channel.
    
    So how come, before Clark became President, was there only one ISN
    channel instead of thousands/millions/billions?
    
    				Paul

    The Mars signal is probably being jammed...er, spoiled:
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Regarding the reporter's promise to Sheridan, he *did* leave in the part
    about the bodies stuck in cryo(?,I forget).  While on the surface it
    appeared to be a B5 anti-human conspiracy, some of the name tags on the
    storage units were readable, so might be recognizeable (Hey!, there's a
    bunch of mindreadersin there!).   Will JMS use this?  Probably not...
    
    							Don

Thar be spoilers ahead, matey!

>    Regarding the reporter's promise to Sheridan, he *did* leave in the part
>    about the bodies stuck in cryo(?,I forget).  While on the surface it
>    appeared to be a B5 anti-human conspiracy, some of the name tags on the
>    storage units were readable, so might be recognizeable (Hey!, there's a
>    bunch of mindreadersin there!).   Will JMS use this?  Probably not...

At least one of them was readable, and I let out a little whoop
when I saw it...

	Flinn, John C. III

	:-)

Spoilers
    
    
    
    
    
>>At least one of them was readable, and I let out a little whoop
>>when I saw it...
>>
>>	Flinn, John C. III
>>
    And the other was Bester's lover.
    
    I expect Mr Bester won't be too happy about that becoming public
    knowledge.
    
    Rik

    
    
    I guess I must be a bit dense.  Who is >>      Flinn, John C. III?
    
    fred();

John Flinn, III   Babylon 5, Directory of Photography
and he's directed a number of episodes
and, if you remember some specific scenes

a) back in 1st season, the episode "Grail" I believe, there 
was a little scene in the opening teaser where a human was 
complaining to the Omsbudman that his great-great grandfather 
had been abducted by the great-great grandfather of the
alien (who looked a lot like the "Strieb") he was suing
for damages.  When the Omsbud asked the alien to reply to 
the charges, he held up a picture of what looked like a
crop circle.  The human pressing the charge was John Flinn.

b) Lennier is waiting, probably for Delenn, in the arrivals
area.  While waiting he is "befriended" by a drunk human 
who is telling him the tale of his life, and just hanging on
to Lennier as a drunk will sometimes do.  Lennier responds
by telling him that he is going home to get his affairs
in order since he has contracted Netter's syndrome, and has
only six days to live.  After the human replies that he
has never heard of Netter's syndrome, Lennier responds
that he had not either, until he contracted it, and apparently
it is spread by personal contact.  At which point the 
human, played by John Flinn, as you may have guessed, 
excuses himself.  This might be the episode where Lennier
gets blown up, Convictions?

PeterT

oh yeah, and Netter's syndrome is named after Doug Netter, the other 
producer of B5.

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No one can hear you scream!



My guess about the erroneous edit (wrong background behind the reporter on the
one shot) was so that the report would look like it was the message that Clark
wants, but anyone with more than half a brain will know what's been going on
and take the editting flub as a clue that the whole report was faked up.

	:Karl.

    Exactly my thoughts.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    The background / different audio mix would make if obvious to the
    viewer that this was just an illusion and thus not the truth.
    
    Rik

But...





























They were careful enough never to show the reporter in the same frame as
Sheridan and Delenn, and never in the original chair that we know he
was in.  So yes, someone may have figured out based on general clues
that there was an abberration, but the casual viewer would have no 
cause for suspicion.  Different background?  He was facing a different 
direction, and when the camera showed him, it was a different wall, with 
no need that it be made to look like the rest of the room.  Any audio 
edits were not as obvious to me as to those who have mentioned it here.
With the camera focused on Randall in the studio, he asked or stated
things we know he did not phrase in the original interview.  Then we get
Delenn's or Sheridan's answer, to another question entirely, start while
still focused on Randall, and then finish up as they cut to the others
finishing that statement.  I'm not saying it was entirely flawless, but
view the segment just from the point of view of someone watching it
cold, without our knowledge of what the real interview was, and I'd say
it works better than you give it credit for.

Nasty piece of work.

PeterT