Exposition

[JasonDavis]

Because Babylon 5 only employed the top of the episode recap on the three two-part episodes, there were many occasions throughout the series where vital information had to be conveyed through dialogue, sometimes sans the elegance usually found in J. Michael Straczynski's writing.

My personal favorite is from "War Without End," when Ivanova said, "You know, I was thinking, Delenn said that their great leader, Valen, came forward around the same time. Lennier says Valen was a Minbari not born of Minbari. I've always been intrigued by that."

Any other favorites?

[Jan]

Poor Ivanova, she got stuck with some major batches of exposition. My nomination for most groan-worthy is from "The Long Night""

I suppose it was inevitable...with
the Vorlons attacking Shadow bases
all over the place, wiping out whole
colonies where the Shadows have
influence, they were bound to strike
back. It's like two giants fighting
in a sandbox...they don't care who
gets stepped on anymore.

Who's next?

Jan

[AmyG]

"The War Prayer," Sinclair to Ivanova. Clunksville. The entire scene:

Ivanova: "Any word yet from Earth Central?"

Sinclair: "Funny...there's something I've been thinking about all day, and I can't get it out of my head."

I: "What's that?"

S: "When Earth Central assigned you here, did they brief you on what happened when Ambassador Kosh arrived?"

I: "Just that a radical organization within the Minbari military caste tried to assassinate him."

S: "They used poison, administered through the hand. I was talking with Kosh earlier, and I remembered something that I never could quite figure out. Kosh wears an encounter suit to protect him from our atmosphere, so how did the poison get into his system? His hand should have been completely covered."

I: "The Vorlons are very secretive. They don't want anyone to know what they look like, what they breathe, or how their biology works. I mean, who knows how much that suit is really necessary, and how much it's camouflage, to keep us from seeing what's inside."

S: "The only person who does know is Dr. Ben Kyle, who saved Kosh's life. Since he's bound by a doctor's oath of confidentiality, he never told me what he saw when he opened that encounter suit. Strangely enough, right after that he was transferred to Earth to work directly with the President. And our first telepath, Lyta Alexander, the only member of the Psi Corps to scan a Vorlon, was transferred back a week later."

I: "You think there's a connection?"

S: "I don't know. Maybe."

[valens_shadow]

"The War Prayer," Sinclair to Ivanova. Clunksville. The entire scene:

Ivanova: "Any word yet from Earth Central?"

Sinclair: "Funny...there's something I've been thinking about all day, and I can't get it out of my head."

I: "What's that?"

S: "When Earth Central assigned you here, did they brief you on what happened when Ambassador Kosh arrived?"

I: "Just that a radical organization within the Minbari military caste tried to assassinate him."

S: "They used poison, administered through the hand. I was talking with Kosh earlier, and I remembered something that I never could quite figure out. Kosh wears an encounter suit to protect him from our atmosphere, so how did the poison get into his system? His hand should have been completely covered."

I: "The Vorlons are very secretive. They don't want anyone to know what they look like, what they breathe, or how their biology works. I mean, who knows how much that suit is really necessary, and how much it's camouflage, to keep us from seeing what's inside."

S: "The only person who does know is Dr. Ben Kyle, who saved Kosh's life. Since he's bound by a doctor's oath of confidentiality, he never told me what he saw when he opened that encounter suit. Strangely enough, right after that he was transferred to Earth to work directly with the President. And our first telepath, Lyta Alexander, the only member of the Psi Corps to scan a Vorlon, was transferred back a week later."

I: "You think there's a connection?"

S: "I don't know. Maybe."

Clunky yes BUT it's Vorlon propaganda keeping us on our toes.

[JasonDavis]

"The War Prayer," Sinclair to Ivanova. Clunksville. The entire scene:

Ivanova: "Any word yet from Earth Central?"

Sinclair: "Funny...there's something I've been thinking about all day, and I can't get it out of my head."

I: "What's that?"

S: "When Earth Central assigned you here, did they brief you on what happened when Ambassador Kosh arrived?"

I: "Just that a radical organization within the Minbari military caste tried to assassinate him."

S: "They used poison, administered through the hand. I was talking with Kosh earlier, and I remembered something that I never could quite figure out. Kosh wears an encounter suit to protect him from our atmosphere, so how did the poison get into his system? His hand should have been completely covered."

I: "The Vorlons are very secretive. They don't want anyone to know what they look like, what they breathe, or how their biology works. I mean, who knows how much that suit is really necessary, and how much it's camouflage, to keep us from seeing what's inside."

S: "The only person who does know is Dr. Ben Kyle, who saved Kosh's life. Since he's bound by a doctor's oath of confidentiality, he never told me what he saw when he opened that encounter suit. Strangely enough, right after that he was transferred to Earth to work directly with the President. And our first telepath, Lyta Alexander, the only member of the Psi Corps to scan a Vorlon, was transferred back a week later."

I: "You think there's a connection?"

S: "I don't know. Maybe."

What's truly dreadful about that exchange is that IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT OF "THE WAR PRAYER!" At least the Vorlon and Valen stuff that Jan and I mention above was relevant to the episode at hand. If you can wait seven episodes to acknowledging major cast changes, they probably weren't worth acknowledging. Besides, we knew what happened to Kyle, courtesy of Franklin in "Soul Hunter" and Ivanova and Winters were clearly identified as newcomers in "Midnight..." and the mystery of Kosh's nature is adequately perpetuated in "Chrysalis."

[Jonas]

"The War Prayer," Sinclair to Ivanova. Clunksville. The entire scene:

Ivanova: "Any word yet from Earth Central?"

Sinclair: "Funny...there's something I've been thinking about all day, and I can't get it out of my head."

I: "What's that?"

S: "When Earth Central assigned you here, did they brief you on what happened when Ambassador Kosh arrived?"

I: "Just that a radical organization within the Minbari military caste tried to assassinate him."

S: "They used poison, administered through the hand. I was talking with Kosh earlier, and I remembered something that I never could quite figure out. Kosh wears an encounter suit to protect him from our atmosphere, so how did the poison get into his system? His hand should have been completely covered."

I: "The Vorlons are very secretive. They don't want anyone to know what they look like, what they breathe, or how their biology works. I mean, who knows how much that suit is really necessary, and how much it's camouflage, to keep us from seeing what's inside."

S: "The only person who does know is Dr. Ben Kyle, who saved Kosh's life. Since he's bound by a doctor's oath of confidentiality, he never told me what he saw when he opened that encounter suit. Strangely enough, right after that he was transferred to Earth to work directly with the President. And our first telepath, Lyta Alexander, the only member of the Psi Corps to scan a Vorlon, was transferred back a week later."

I: "You think there's a connection?"

S: "I don't know. Maybe."

I... actually don't see what's wrong with it.

The only thing that ever struck me as truly clunky was Garibaldi's "appearances aside, we're two completely different species" bit with Londo in "Midnight on the Firing Line," but most of it is saved by good acting and a couple of rather funny lines.

[KoshN]

I... actually don't see what's wrong with it.

Neither do I.

[AmyG]

Well, from where I'm sitting, that scene might as well have started with, "For those of you who missed our pilot..."

[David Panzer]

Took a peek at the Lurker's Guide and found this under the "jms speaks" section for The War Prayer

By the way...on the Kosh poisoning thread, which was originally to be discussed in "Parliament"...we ended up about 3 minutes long on "Parliament," and three minutes short on D.C. Fontana's "War Prayer." So we lifted that scene and inserted it into her episode, doing a small bit of ADR to facilitate the move. It's now quite seamless

I'm also of the thought that the scene, while edited seamlessly into the episode, is still out of place.

[Jonas]

I personally rather like having the characters look back at previous events and wonder about them. I mean, it's the sort of thing that happens in real life:

"You know when that one thing happened?"
"Yeah, I heard about it."
"I've been thinking, and it actually doesn't make any sense."
"Well, those people are weird, who knows."

Seems pretty natural to me.

[AmyG]

Jonas, the problem (for me, anyway) isn't so much that they were looking back and revisiting something; it's that it was done so heavily-handed. I see this kind of thing done on soaps all the time, and while viewers accept it as a necessary convention (soaps air five days a week, 52 weeks a year, so you are always going to have some people who need to get caught up), it's still something you have to roll your eyes at, a bit: "By the way, Doctor Hayward, do you remember when I was pregnant by my husband's evil twin brother, the one who owned the winery but who died in the terrible explosion caused by the serial killer who was a dead ringer for the matriarch of the town's most prominent family, the Smythes?" Seriously, that speech might as well have started with, "Previously, on All My Children..." And that's how the conversation sounded to me in "The War Prayer," too. The more detail Sinclair gave, the harder I laughed. Don't get me wrong; I love this show unreservedly (I'm on my tenth full-series viewing right now, in fact). And I realize that the nature of arc-based television is that you must recap sometimes. But those moments do stand out, and they scream "tv trope! cue the recap!" to me.

[David Panzer]

The scene in Signs and Portents where Sinclair tells Garibaldi about what he's starting to remember of his missing 24-hour gap, I think is done well. That scene doesn't seem heavy handed, as it's one confiding in their friend. The scene from "The War Prayer" that Amy brought up? It's like trying to shoehorn Shaq's size 23 foot into a women's size 5 shoe.

[JoeD80]

What's truly dreadful about that exchange is that IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT OF "THE WAR PRAYER!"

Well that's because that dialogue was actually written for Parliament of Dreams.

[I, Zathras]

The only one that sticks in my mind at the minute is Garibaldi in season 5 when he talks about who is leaving the station. It's something like: "With Franklin back on Earth, Sheridan and Delenn leaving...etc etc"

I was waiting for him to say he was off too then wave at the camera

[Garibaldi's Hair]

What's truly dreadful about that exchange is that IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT OF "THE WAR PRAYER!"

You know ... I absolutely understand why you feel that way but, for me, one of the great things about B5 was that the wider story gave them scope to include stuff in the episodes that wasn't directly related to the story they were telling that week. It was that very thing that I felt gave the show a wider canvas than other shows used. It wasn't just A leads to B leads to C leads to the end credits.

Of course the exposition sometimes felt a little shoehorned in and a little clunky, but I spend half my time at work talking about things that have little to no relevance to the job on my desk at that precise moment, but a great deal of relevance and importance in a wider context ... and I quite like the fact that B5 also does that.