B5 Rewatch: 1x01
Jun. 4th, 2010 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieB5 rewatch! Oh, lord, what am I doing?
I have no particular schedule for this, and I'll be gone all of the week after next, so I may get way behind the two people I'm rewatching along with. I'm also not sure how much I'll be posting for each ep. I think it'll vary considerably.
Anyway, after those disclaimers, here's one more: rewatch notes can and will contain spoilers for the entire rest of the series, so if you don't want to be spoiled, don't click the cuts.
Midnight on the Firing Line
This episode was not actually as bad as I feared it would be! It doesn't compare to S3 or S4, of course, but for a pilot it's rather well-done. I just have to keep reminding myself that the acting will get better as things go along. At the moment, it's really just Sinclair, Garibaldi, and Talia who are bugging me. Sinclair is just, I, oh dear god OW. Talia I have to admit I never really warmed up to until she turned evil and left the show in S2. Garibaldi I like as a character, but Jerry Doyle is obviously new at this. Claudia Christian, on the other hand, is also new, but somehow is still kind of rocking it. I think her overly serious and studied manner works for Ivanova, who is also new to this particular place and job. I thought she was especially good in her final scene with Talia.
That scene is still the best in the episode for me. Ivanova's "I very much doubt it" is exceptionally chilling, and I think it made me fall all the way in love with her character back when I first saw it. Also:
TALIA: I don't feel like a victim.
ME: You will.
I see so much UST between Ivanova and Talia now. I'm surprised I basically missed it the first time around. (And yet the totally non-canon pairing of Ivanova/Garibaldi still owns my heart. They didn't really give off anything but a cautiously friendly vibe in this one--hee, I love that moment where she asks if there's a reason why he's at her station or if she should just snap his hands off right now--but I still adore them.) But wow, Talia has not so good timing--how does a non-diplomatic civilian even get into C&C to bug the second in command?
Wow, I'd forgotten how much they tried to get us to dislike G'Kar early on (and, conversely,like tolerate Londo). It's amazing how much he changes over the course of five years. And JMS seemed to be working a symmetry between the Humans and the Centauri, with Londo telling Vir to forget their conversation, and then Sinclair telling Ivanova the same thing, but at the same time, he undercuts it with Garibaldi's expositioning about how their species look the same but are genetically different. (On that note, I kind of loved it when, in the council session, G'Kar was all, "I propose we don't even have this vote," and Ivanova subtly went, "Oh, SHIT, what do I do now? I am totally unprepared for this! SINCLAIR, I HATE YOU!")
And oh, Kosh. "They are a dying race; we should let them pass." Awesome foreshadowing-we-didn't-even-know-was-foreshadowing.
I still admire the Starfury design, especially the way they can just flip over and shoot something that was originally behind them.
I have no particular schedule for this, and I'll be gone all of the week after next, so I may get way behind the two people I'm rewatching along with. I'm also not sure how much I'll be posting for each ep. I think it'll vary considerably.
Anyway, after those disclaimers, here's one more: rewatch notes can and will contain spoilers for the entire rest of the series, so if you don't want to be spoiled, don't click the cuts.
Midnight on the Firing Line
This episode was not actually as bad as I feared it would be! It doesn't compare to S3 or S4, of course, but for a pilot it's rather well-done. I just have to keep reminding myself that the acting will get better as things go along. At the moment, it's really just Sinclair, Garibaldi, and Talia who are bugging me. Sinclair is just, I, oh dear god OW. Talia I have to admit I never really warmed up to until she turned evil and left the show in S2. Garibaldi I like as a character, but Jerry Doyle is obviously new at this. Claudia Christian, on the other hand, is also new, but somehow is still kind of rocking it. I think her overly serious and studied manner works for Ivanova, who is also new to this particular place and job. I thought she was especially good in her final scene with Talia.
That scene is still the best in the episode for me. Ivanova's "I very much doubt it" is exceptionally chilling, and I think it made me fall all the way in love with her character back when I first saw it. Also:
TALIA: I don't feel like a victim.
ME: You will.
I see so much UST between Ivanova and Talia now. I'm surprised I basically missed it the first time around. (And yet the totally non-canon pairing of Ivanova/Garibaldi still owns my heart. They didn't really give off anything but a cautiously friendly vibe in this one--hee, I love that moment where she asks if there's a reason why he's at her station or if she should just snap his hands off right now--but I still adore them.) But wow, Talia has not so good timing--how does a non-diplomatic civilian even get into C&C to bug the second in command?
Wow, I'd forgotten how much they tried to get us to dislike G'Kar early on (and, conversely,
And oh, Kosh. "They are a dying race; we should let them pass." Awesome foreshadowing-we-didn't-even-know-was-foreshadowing.
I still admire the Starfury design, especially the way they can just flip over and shoot something that was originally behind them.