Crusade rewatch [SPOILERS]

[phazedout]

So a kind, unammned person sent me on the unpublished crusade scripts, culled form various sources. Having finally set up a reasonablly funcitoning region one player, I decided to rewatch it.

I looked at episode one this morning and... It is a little rough, to say the least, the masks oon the drakh look odd and i seem to recall a call to arms era stuff they were surrounded by a sort of shifting, shadowy black cloak type thing.

I can see why people would have had issues with it. I honestly do not recall if I wathed with the commenteries on but I will do both this time.

ositive notes, Gary Cole is excellent as Gideon and also the ever brilliant PEter Woodward as Galen, maybe I am just overlly fond of characters whose names behin with G

I will let y'all know my thought son episode two tomorrow

[Jan]

What order are you going to be watching them in, Phaze? DVD order?

Jan

[phazedout]

there doesn't seem to be a definative list at at least the first episode on the DVDs seems the initial one logically but I am open to suggestions as to what to watch next.

[Jan]

Here's an order compiled by B5 Books Editor Jason Davis. It ignores uniform changes but includes the unproduced scripts.

108 War Zone
111 Ruling from the Tomb
107 The Long Road
109 The Path of Sorrows
113 Appearances and Other Deceits
103 Racing the Night
101 The Needs of Earth
102 The Memory of War
104 Visitors from Down the Street
105 Each Night I Dream of Home
114 To the Ends of the Earth (script)
112 The Rules of the Game
110 Patterns of the Soul
106 The Well of Forever
115 Value Judgments (script)
116 End of the Line (script)

Oh...and consider the usual "we don't encourage bootleg anything around here" said, okay?

Jan

[JasonDavis]

It does NOT ignore the uniform change.

[Jan]

Oops, sorry. Must have been thinking of somebody else's list.

Much apologizings....

Jan

[Ubik]

So a kind, unammned person sent me on the unpublished crusade scripts, culled form various sources. Having finally set up a reasonablly funcitoning region one player, I decided to rewatch it.

I looked at episode one this morning and... It is a little rough, to say the least, the masks oon the drakh look odd and i seem to recall a call to arms era stuff they were surrounded by a sort of shifting, shadowy black cloak type thing.

I can see why people would have had issues with it. I honestly do not recall if I wathed with the commenteries on but I will do both this time.

ositive notes, Gary Cole is excellent as Gideon and also the ever brilliant PEter Woodward as Galen, maybe I am just overlly fond of characters whose names behin with G

I will let y'all know my thought son episode two tomorrow

Will try and pitch in when I can, but in theory I'm up for revisiting Crusade too. I watched War Zone this morning, and yes, it remains slightly clunky in places. Some of the dialogue made me cringe a bit, especially the scenes between Gideon and the Earthforce higher ups when the team is being assembled.

I've often found Woodward to be a bit OTT, but his performance has presence and imbues the role with plenty of character. I think JMS always wanted the technomages to have a dramatic air about them, very 'British stage actor' in their delivery. It's grown on me over time.

The portrayal of the Drakh, visually, does very little for me. The masks on the troops look awful. The leader fares better, but on the whole they make for an underwhelming foe. This is perhaps fitting as they operate in the shadows and by subterfuge much of the time. Still it lacks impact, when they're meant to be the show's big bad (for S1 at least).

All in all, by the time the episode wrapped, there were plenty of reason to keep watching. I've said before that I struggle with Crusade, and I do... but it's interesting to come back fresh after so long.

[phazedout]

So in accordance wiht the list provided above, this morning I watched "ruling form the tomb".

A much more solid episod,e no Galen sadly (boo) but it did have lockley (yays). Tight, self contained storyline, I would almost call it a one off, sort of like a police procedural, good humour, good writing. Purely human bad guys and touching again on the themes of religion, spiritualism and martydom.

This sort of episode frustrates me, I see how brilliant the show could have been, if we had even been given onle full season, sure the first episode was rocky but what show (firefly aside) doesn't have a slightly rocky first ep, trying to cram the introduction of all major characters in to a single episode, even with the sort of backstory pre launch given by ACtA is still tricky.

I shall continue with the recommended order and post my thoughts on tomorrow's episode... tomorrow
Phaze
on the "yes I have not been bohering much with IDs lately but have elected to restore them, who I am to argue with *looks up and to the right* tradition" ID

[Jan]

War Zone is at the bottom of the list that JMS made...because he never wanted to make that episode in the first place. He didn't want a 'coming together' episode, he wanted to jump right in and let the characters become known through the episodes. All in all, I don't mind it but I do know that the knowledge that it was never supposed to exist at all does color my perception.

I liked 'Ruling' precisely because it left the question open as to whether Lebecque was hallucinating or not. Yeah, there was the part about what we heard being Joan of Arc's real words, but obviously he could have read them.

Jan