And Marvel Studios thought Infinity War was innovative.
A special VHS release that simulcast on the broadcast networks and independent stations where all the hot cartoons of the day tell us that drugs are bad.
Although I don’t believe for a second that Michelangelo has never smoked a joint.
Been to some events at Rockbar, but never a dance focused one. I’m kicking around checking out their party tonight, not quite sure what to expect. I do know that if it’s not my vibe, I’d probably end up at the Eagle, but I’d be interested in giving it a try.
Just looking for advice.
This is open to anyone who discovered the show at any point, but I’m most interested in hearing from those of us who watched the show when it was first run. I have a Substack where I just randomly vent my spleen, but I write about media a lot, and I’ve wanted to do a piece on B5 for a while. And I’m reflecting on how I relate to the show in middle age versus how I did as a teenager.
Partly, what I think gets me emotionally has shifted considerably. If you’d asked me in 1996 who the emotional center of the show was, I’d likely have said Delenn. Now, it’s G’Kar and Londo, and I don’t even have to think about it that hard. These days, the build-up to the Shadow War is delicious and the payoff is underwhelming. I don’t have a problem with the resolution being philosophical rather than ships going PEW-PEW-PEW at each other, but Sheridan and Delenn in a black box theater convincing the Shadows and the Vorlons to leave…looks cheap, and it doesn’t really have the emotional heft that overcomes that.
Maybe the biggest one I see now is the seams showing. I admire JMS’ ability to write himself out of corners, but some of that is clunkier than I remembered. There’s a big tonal shift between “The Gathering” and “Midnight on the Firing Line” and I can see gears shifting during S1 as it became clear that O’Hare wasn’t going to be able to continue. A lot of the humor falls flat on its face. Even little incidental bits, like Sheridan explaining his vision from when he was on the Strieb ship, are clunky. Delenn’s “you have two hands, equal and opposite” doesn’t make a damned bit of sense.
Maybe the biggest shift is how I feel about S5. I mean, I hate the character assassination of Lyta (and we never get an onscreen resolution to that), and with so much of season consumed with the telepath nonsense (and I’d bleach the image of the group gathering around sensing Byron and Lyta banging out of my head), it’s been hard to revisit it. But as I have, while I still hate the telepaths and Mack and Bo, the Centauri stuff really gets me. Virini in particular is just hard to watch. He’s made Regent because he has a lack of ambition and is pliable, and that’s what the Drakh exploit. They take his autonomy and his reputation, but even in death, he refuses to let them take his dignity. The foppish, queer-coded courtier is an old, old archetype, and this one was braver than all of the other Centauri, except maybe for Vir.
Anyway, those are some of mine. Anyone else have anything?
Not recurring (so no Refa, ISN Anchor, Bester...). Single appearance.
I'm guessing I'm going to get a lot of Sebastian or General Hague or even Anna Sheridan.
My pick is weird: Dr. Kirkish from "Messages from Earth." Mostly because the actress has what's essentially ONE SCENE that is just an exposition dump, but the actress is so good, she manages to create an entire character while being basically magnetic when all she's doing is sitting and telling a story. It's really impressive to me.
Animated series/extended toy commercial that allegedly began its life as a spin-off of The Six-Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, about two parents and their four kids (mostly adopted) who were all augmented with technology giving them different enhanced abilities and set upon the world to fight evil.
Got a full strip syndication order of 65 episodes, and is mostly lost media now.
It had astonishingly good animation for the era, and a killer theme song.
What are people's opinions of Lochley generally? I mean, I think Tracey Scoggins was really appealing and did the best she could with what was always going to be an awkward transition.
But what I've never understood was the need to make her Sheridan's ex-wife. The idea of an Earth Force senior officer who was on the other side (or at least neutral) in the civil war is enough of a hook without trying to clumsily tie her to an existing character.
I haven't revisited S5 in a while for the Byron of it all, but I remember thinking she was gangbusters when she talked about being an addict with Garibaldi.
Proto-Blacksplotation series from the mid-70s starring Teresa Graves (who was known from Laugh-In) as the titular Christie, a Black LAPD detective. Its pilot movie is quite gritty by 70s standards--our first scene of Christie, she's uncover as a sex worker and gets called the n-word by a john, but Graves had a devote religious conversion after the pilot, and put a lot of restrictions on what she'd do (Christie never uses a gun or tells a direct lie, for example), and that ended up hamstringing it. It had a pretty strong initial reaction. It's a shame. Graves was a really appealing star.
The pilot movie is available on some streaming sites, but I'm unsure of the status of the series. It did air on the channel that's now known as BET Her.
They've talked about rebooting it a few times within the last 15 years, and frankly, this is the rare case that I wish they would.
Depressingly, this was the first drama series to have a Black female lead, and there wouldn't be another one until Scandal.
WB two season summer replacement series starring Lori Loughlin (post-Full House, pre-Hallmark, pre-prison) as a woman raising her orphaned niece and nephew. Also had a post-Alias Merrin Dungey, pre-True Blood Ryan Kwanten, and an immediately pre-High School Musical Zac Efron.
Although lets be honest, we were watching for Aunt Becky.
Hi, Bros--
I'm a bit stumped on this one, so I'm throwing it out to the group.
My boyfriend is a very masculine-presenting trans guy, but he's very much a Short King. We go to the Eagle pretty frequently, and while we're not usually on the second floor for much beyond checking out what's happening, we do spent a lot of time on the dance floor and the back bar. Goal isn't hooking up, it's more being in the communal space, enjoying vibes and the music, and maybe making out with a cute stranger or three. The last couple times we've been, he's been completely ignored, despite his best efforts, and it's left him kind of discouraged. I've been brainstorming alternatives that might be more what he's hoping for. I had suggested TransFerno, but he's not up for a sex party, and some of the stuff that's more trans-forward isn't exactly his thing, as he kind of considers himself a gay guy with different equipment first, and doesn't really center the trans part of his concept.
Anybody have any thoughts?
I threatened to do this in another thread, so here we re.
Completely strange melange of soap opera and every 90s goth's favorite RPG Vampire: The Masquerade. From Aaron Spelling, managed I think a total of 8 episodes. They did vampire a year before Buffy, and San Francisco three years before Charmed. I have absolutely no idea why anyone thought there'd be a big audience for this.
That said, I weirdly think VtM wouldn't be the worst thing to adapt to the vastly different media landscape of 2026. Unfortunately, AMC got there first. Fitting, I suppose, since VtM owes a lot of its existence to The Vampire Chronicles.
This has been floating around in my brain for years, but I have what I assume is a clear memory of JMS talking up Crusade in advance of A Call To Arms. I don't remember him specifically mentioning the Drakh plague, just that we'd have a crew going around the galaxy uncovering ancient secrets.
But more, I remember him talking about some of the characters. Very specifically, he mentioned a Warrior-Caste Minbari and Zathras.
Now, I assume Zathras' agent wanted too much money, although that doesn't explain why they didn't try to get Zathras or Zathras, but the Minbari is the head-scratcher for me. Aside from Neroon and briefly Shakiri we didn't really spend all that much time with the Warrior Caste (Lennier sliding by on a technicality) and that honestly seemed like a huge missed opportunity. We'd seen, kinda, the idea of humans with mostly Minbari crew with the Rangers. Seeing a Minbari, particularly one who was more likely to have animus towards the humans on a mostly-human crew seemed like a real missed opportunity.
And honestly, when the only alien we really saw was Dureena (to be fair, one of the characters I remember really liking), it somehow made the universe seem so much smaller.
Showtime series that found its way onto the Sci-Fi Channel after its original run. Basically answers the question “What if the X-Files was run by the Watcher’s Council from Buffy, and they were based in the house from Charmed?”
Miniseries which aired on ABC in Spring 1993. Six hours spread out over four nights. Great cast and production values. Surprisingly prescient even if it got the technology wrong.
