Group Watch: Midnight On The Firing Line

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Alright..time to get into the actual series itself. This one has huge implications for the future of the show with Londo's foretelling his own death, and I was very impressed with the overall quality jump between the pilot and the series just in terms of production, which I know solidifies more over the season. I believe JMS wrote in the script books that this was actually the third filmed because it was a little bigger than the next two episodes and they wanted to make sure they worked out some kinks before jumping into something like this.

We get it all here. Narn/Centauri relations...Human/Minbari relations, politics screwing up millitary action (hmm..), and of course...babylon 5's favorite canned villans....RAIDERS!

Probably the most memorable part of the episode though is Garibaldi flirting with Talia the entire time and the big sexual innuendo with his "second favorite thing in the universe."

The Londo/G'Kar scenes from this are just priceless, and set the tone to build upon this relationship as they bring such a tug of war between respect and loathing for each other...which at this point the respect's not there.

And Kosh is very Kosh in this ep, which the following sequence makes me laugh every time I watch this:
Kosh: they Are Alone. they are a dying people. We should let them pass.
Sinclair: Who, the Narn or the Centauri?
Kosh: Yes.

One more thing...SPOO! haha. And it's quite fresh

Well that's a nice cursory overview...a lot to cover. Wow...these episodes are so in depth, complicated yet well written into a cohesive story that it amazes me every time I watch it as I can view it on a more in depth level. Your thoughts?

[Dipper]

In my opinion this episodes does not set the tone between Londo and G'Kar. This is the starting point from which the tone starts to develop. I think they are too much alike at a glance, that they can't stand each other, and they have to get to know one another more to find out the differences between them, and furthermore to respect them.

But, a great episode nonetheless. Garibaldi just shines through this one.

-Dip

[Babylon5fan07]

Being that I'm new to the group I'm a little behind. My wife and I just watched In The Beginning last weekend and being that I have to work a lot and stuff I may not be able to get to Midnight on the Firing Line until Sunday..at the latest. She and I still need to watch The Gathering. But stay tuned I will be there soon.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

In my opinion this episodes does not set the tone between Londo and G'Kar. This is the starting point from which the tone starts to develop. I think they are too much alike at a glance, that they can't stand each other, and they have to get to know one another more to find out the differences between them, and furthermore to respect them.

But, a great episode nonetheless. Garibaldi just shines through this one.

-Dip

Garibaldi makes the episode tick, that's true, especially in terms of comic relief. I did mention that the characters develop a lot, but this really does set their bickering tone that escalates in various directions as the show goes on, sometimes serious, sometimes humorous. If it was static, B5 would have been terrible...it would have been star trek haha.

Being that I'm new to the group I'm a little behind. My wife and I just watched In The Beginning last weekend and being that I have to work a lot and stuff I may not be able to get to Midnight on the Firing Line until Sunday..at the latest. She and I still need to watch The Gathering. But stay tuned I will be there soon.

No worries. This is all for fun anyway in anticipation of TLT Watch what you want..and in the time youw ant. I'm just trying to put new ones up every few days so we can kinda roll on toward the end when TLT comes out and try to get a discussion going for those who want to watch through at the same time. I'm gonna have to start going a little faster though if we're gonna make it. I'm considering skippping non-JMS eps.

[Babylon5fan07]

Just watched Midnight on the Firing Line again for the 4th time in my life once again and I think personally it's much better than The Gathering. The more I watch The Gathering I'm just really glad that they replaced Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima and Dr. Benjamin Kyle overall Ivanova and Franklin really make a difference on the tone of the series. The Gathering isn't horrible but the best part of the movie are the introductions to Londo, G'Kar and Kosh. Seeing Londo and Garibaldi joke about Ramoras and him saying Nice Shark..Pretty Shark is memorable. But overall, Midnight on the Firing Line is truely the great tone setter for the show. Seeing G'Kar and Londo go at it after the Ragash 3 attack and seeing Londo put the gun together is very memorable.

Almost forgot the best part in The Gathering though is when Sinclair fakes putting the chip in G'Kar and as he walks by Garibaldi and Londo and the beep beep just cracks me up..

BTW, my wife Dawn hasn't really made any comments yet she likes the show so far. I guess she's just naturally quiet...but I'm going to try to get her to comment on the show as it continues..I'm quite sure that by the time we get to Signs and Portents she will be quite shocked and perhaps scared of the Shadows.

Overall an A episode..not A+ but not A- either.

Alex

[vacantlook]

...The more I watch The Gathering I'm just really glad that they replaced Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima and Dr. Benjamin Kyle overall Ivanova and Franklin really make a difference on the tone of the series....

I still would have loved to have been able to see Takashima's character go as originally planned. It would have been so much more monumental, I think, seeing it be her to shoot Garibaldi in the back and eventually be revealed to have the Control personality that jms used to take Talia out of the show.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

The more I watch The Gathering I'm just really glad that they replaced Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima and Dr. Benjamin Kyle overall Ivanova and Franklin really make a difference on the tone of the series.

But Franklin and Ivanova have the advantage of you seeing them in 100-odd and 80-odd episodes respectively, rather than the one (or the equivalent of two going by screentime) in which you saw Takashima and Kyle.

I am with vacantlook on the whole betrayal storyline, which was even seeded in The Gathering itself if you look hard enough, and feel that it would have had so much more power if it had been Takashima rather than a recurring character from half a dozen episodes.

There was also the opportunity there for JMS to build up that storyline more clearly and subtley over 22 eps of Takashima rather than 6 of Jack.

Don't get me wrong, I love what we got ... we just don't know enough about what would have happened without the changes to say that it is necessarily better that way. Or worse. We just know it would have been different if Takashima, Kyle and Lyta had stayed

[moreorless]

But Franklin and Ivanova have the advantage of you seeing them in 100-odd and 80-odd episodes respectively, rather than the one (or the equivalent of two going by screentime) in which you saw Takashima and Kyle.

I am with vacantlook on the whole betrayal storyline, which was even seeded in The Gathering itself if you look hard enough, and feel that it would have had so much more power if it had been Takashima rather than a recurring character from half a dozen episodes.

There was also the opportunity there for JMS to build up that storyline more clearly and subtley over 22 eps of Takashima rather than 6 of Jack.

Don't get me wrong, I love what we got ... we just don't know enough about what would have happened without the changes to say that it is necessarily better that way. Or worse. We just know it would have been different if Takashima, Kyle and Lyta had stayed

True Franklin and Ivanova did have alot longer to devolp but I think alot of what made them good characters was evident from the beginning. You could argue that they signaled a bit of a change in direction for the whole series aswell with more opportunities for drama and humour.

Its been literally years since I'v watched the gathering but as I remember it Londo and Garabali were pretty much the only overtly comic characters. Takashima and Kyle could have moved in that direction I spose but to me they seemed more like characters designed to further external stories.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

True Franklin and Ivanova did have alot longer to devolp but I think alot of what made them good characters was evident from the beginning. You could argue that they signaled a bit of a change in direction for the whole series aswell with more opportunities for drama and humour.

Its been literally years since I'v watched the gathering but as I remember it Londo and Garabali were pretty much the only overtly comic characters. Takashima and Kyle could have moved in that direction I spose but to me they seemed more like characters designed to further external stories.

That's very true about the comedy. Sinclair offered a liiiittttle bit of his dry humor, but he wasn't overt like Londo or Garibaldi. I just don't see Takashima and Kyle as comic characters ever..maybe it's the actors.

[Kevin]

I know we already started the discussion for the next episode but I hadn't had a chance yet to watch this one till recently and I still wanted to ring in.

I think Midnight on the Firing Line is entertaining enough. It's fun to watch now with all the series behind, but as a first entity into it... I don't know. You can still see a lot of the transitions between The Gathering and Season 1, some ways in production, other ways in just overall feel. There's a pompous air to G'kar, for example, that's certainly in The Gathering, and a little bit in here, but mostly gone as Season 1 continues from here. So there's still some characters settling in here.

I do think they do a decent job of introducing the newcomers, and I don't have any real big issue with their portrayals. I too would have liked to have seen Takishima continue for Seasons 1 and 2, just because I feel like that would have made that particular arc much stronger then if it had been Jack, but ah well.

Of intrest to note is that Talia's role is virtually unchanged from the original script where it was Lyta; I've always wondered what Lyta's role would have been in Seasons 1 and 2 had she been able to be there, and I have to say reading this script and seeing Lyta instead of Talia in these scenes tends to intrigue me more. But that might just be a personal Lyta bias.

Oh, just for the record... this episode has one of the most awful EFX ever in the entire entity of the show: Londo's thoughts of shooting G'kar. I mean, really... just awful ;P I wouldn't mind if they Lucased that one out in the future :P

Anyhow, for all the puzzle pieces that had to be rearranged and thrown together, I actually think MotFL came out pretty well, even if I feel overall it's a bit of a weak episode.

[Macbeth]

MotFL was what got me hooked on Babylon 5. I did not see The Gathering and quite by happenstance I came across MotFL one Saturday afternoon as it premiered in Canada.

Holy Crap!!

Here was serious science fiction with massive alien races, real physics, no cute kids or robots, interstellar war (or tensions at least) some cool cgi effects, interesting charcters that seemed like people. Gambling, drinking and dishonesty. And a promise of much more. Wow.

After the show I remember talking to my wife and babbling on to her about this great show and how it was

serioussciencefictionwithmassivealienraces,realphy sics,nocutekidsorrobots,interstellarwar(ortensions atleast)somecoolcgieffects,interestingcharcterstha tseemedlikepeople.Gambling,drinkinganddishonesty.

whew then I took a breath and we talked about the possibilities for hours.

We both became hooked because of MotFL. For this reason alone MotFL stands as one of my favourite episodes because it begain my love affair with B5.

I think that sometimes we tend to forget how groundbreaking B5 really was - even in minor ways like in Gropos when in the bar fight Susan fights a guy. Not another woman, which had always been the case in the rare times a woman threw a punch, but a guy. I had never seen that happen before. Holy crap. It is this whole series of firsts and continual astonishment of what JMS wrought throughout the entire run of the show that are inexorably connected to the same feelings I have towards MotFL and my first wow moments.

Mac.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

MotFL was what got me hooked on Babylon 5. I did not see The Gathering and quite by happenstance I came across MotFL one Saturday afternoon as it premiered in Canada.

Holy Crap!!

Here was serious science fiction with massive alien races, real physics, no cute kids or robots, interstellar war (or tensions at least) some cool cgi effects, interesting charcters that seemed like people. Gambling, drinking and dishonesty. And a promise of much more. Wow.

After the show I remember talking to my wife and babbling on to her about this great show and how it was

serioussciencefictionwithmassivealienraces,realphy sics,nocutekidsorrobots,interstellarwar(ortensions atleast)somecoolcgieffects,interestingcharcterstha tseemedlikepeople.Gambling,drinkinganddishonesty.

whew then I took a breath and we talked about the possibilities for hours.

We both became hooked because of MotFL. For this reason alone MotFL stands as one of my favourite episodes because it begain my love affair with B5.

I think that sometimes we tend to forget how groundbreaking B5 really was - even in minor ways like in Gropos when in the bar fight Susan fights a guy. Not another woman, which had always been the case in the rare times a woman threw a punch, but a guy. I had never seen that happen before. Holy crap. It is this whole series of firsts and continual astonishment of what JMS wrought throughout the entire run of the show that are inexorably connected to the same feelings I have towards MotFL and my first wow moments.

Mac.

Wow..that's really cool. I started getting hooked that episode where Mars was getting bombed. I think that was toward the end of the first season? I always forget heh. That's really cool that the very first ep hooked you, must have had a nice payoff when the series came to an end to have watched the beginning at the beginning. I had to catch up later.

I didn't know that about Susan...interesting. You mean to say that Tasha Yar never fought a guy in the first season of TNG though? I find that hard to believe...

And per the "new episode discussion already up," don't worry about it. This is a message board for everyone to get further enjoyment out of B5 and the more we can discuss the eps, the better for the community, right?

[Macbeth]

Thanks Smile

Yeah I was almost 30 when Midnight aired and I chased the show all over the dial doing my best to record it with my VCR. I ended up with 110 first run eps on tape. As we know the show still stands up well, but the commercials are freaking hilarious.

Ypu are right about Tasha Yar, but it was prbably some sterile martial art thing so it did not register. Susan did the punch in the face bar fight. I remember at the time the Holy crap feeling. Wheter it was the first - who know? but that's how my recollection goes so that is pretty cool.

I remember clearly when Battlestar Galactica 1980 came out. Bleh. B5 was somewhat of an improvement over that and the seemingly sterile TNG. (Big Trek fan her so I am not dissing it).

Watching B5 S1 while a slower burn, was the equivalent impact in my memory of when I went in saw Star Wars first run in 1977.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Thanks Smile

Yeah I was almost 30 when Midnight aired and I chased the show all over the dial doing my best to record it with my VCR. I ended up with 110 first run eps on tape. As we know the show still stands up well, but the commercials are freaking hilarious.

Ypu are right about Tasha Yar, but it was prbably some sterile martial art thing so it did not register. Susan did the punch in the face bar fight. I remember at the time the Holy crap feeling. Wheter it was the first - who know? but that's how my recollection goes so that is pretty cool.

I remember clearly when Battlestar Galactica 1980 came out. Bleh. B5 was somewhat of an improvement over that and the seemingly sterile TNG. (Big Trek fan her so I am not dissing it).

Watching B5 S1 while a slower burn, was the equivalent impact in my memory of when I went in saw Star Wars first run in 1977.

I must agree, there isn't a show that's emotionally impacted me as much as B5 on television. The new battlestar's good for story and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but doesn't give you that character attachment that B5 had. It's really the perfect mix.

[moreorless]

Thanks Smile

Yeah I was almost 30 when Midnight aired and I chased the show all over the dial doing my best to record it with my VCR. I ended up with 110 first run eps on tape. As we know the show still stands up well, but the commercials are freaking hilarious.

Ypu are right about Tasha Yar, but it was prbably some sterile martial art thing so it did not register. Susan did the punch in the face bar fight. I remember at the time the Holy crap feeling. Wheter it was the first - who know? but that's how my recollection goes so that is pretty cool.

The difference with B5 was IMHO that alot of the taboo subjects were incorperated without the tradisional style "moral message". That TNG episode as I remember it(havent seen it since it was firsted aired in the UK) was pretty much completely based around that fight and what a strange siaution it was. Ivanova punching a bloke in the face or having a relationship Talia or indeed the general presense of religion wasnt something that needed to be commented on from a "safe" distance.