Comments on: On the Watchtower

By: kostis

kostis — Sun, 25 May 2008 02:25:47 +0000

I’ve been curious, what do you think of the fourth season so far? It seems surprisingly well-scripted to me so far (episode 7): even with the existence of a Cylon “plan” seemingly forgotten and way too many threads veering towards the metaphysical, there’s an unprecedented volume of dramatic moments and developments.

By: daddy democrat

daddy democrat — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 03:49:06 +0000

They may have a clear sense of how they plan to resolve the meta-plot of the journey to Earth, but that doesn’t mean that they know all the story archs that are going to get them there.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:27:39 +0000

Right. But I would still maintain, having followed a lot of JMS’s descriptions of the show from before it was produced, that the fates of some characters were somewhere along the way changed in a more upbeat and “franchisable” direction. JMS was big on describing B5 as following the five-act dramatic logic of a Shakespearean tragedy, and if that was the model, more than Londo needed to get some helpings of tragic consequences at the end.

BSG’s writers might claim they know where the story is going, but I would simply disbelieve them if they said so.

By: emschwar

emschwar — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:33:48 +0000

Peter: you remember correctly; the director commentary on the B5 DVDs supports your recollection. The 5th season was supposed to be more than just the Devastation of Londo Mollari, but since he’d wrapped up most of the plot at the end of the 4th season (they shot two endings, in case they got unexpectedly extended, which they did, but either way JMS couldn’t leave much un-resolved), there wasn’t a lot he could do, so season 5 was mostly filler, with the last 3 or 4 episodes being what they were supposed to be.

By: Peter Erwin

Peter Erwin — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 02:56:47 +0000

Some of the problems of B5’s final season may have to do with the stop-and-start nature of the production — if I recall correctly, partway through production on the 4th season, Straczynski et al. were told that there wouldn’t be a 5th season, and so the latter part of the 4th season ended up being a bit cramped in order to tie up the major plotlines early. Then they learned there would be a 5th season after all, but unexpectedly lost one of the major actors (Claudia Christian, who played Ivanova). I think that’s part of what made the 5th season awkward.

But B5 was explicitly conceived as a fixed-length “novel” from the very beginning; Straczinski made that clear. Have the BSG creators ever stated that they have a specific end in sight, even if they won’t tell us how far away it is?

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:16:51 +0000

Right, a single novel. But I thought B5 went pretty badly wrong in the fifth season, and not just because of the telepath storyline. Basically, I think JMS chickened out on some of the harsher fates that were foreshadowed earlier for characters. I think, for example, that Sheridan would have been a much more interesting character if he’d been somewhat hapless as a civilian leader, which is what I originally thought the flash-forward view of the future on Centauri Prime was implying, that he’d mishandled the peace. I also thought it would have been more interesting if Sheridan’s resurrection made it difficult for him to be with Delenn, so there was a more tragic element to that storyline.

Also, for me, the ultimate conclusion of the Shadow-Vorlon conflict was kind of a crock, basically a cheap fantasy novel shorthand plot device rather than something genuinely complex or imaginative.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 07:16:55 +0000

I actually thought of B5 as a single novel, not a series of them, and I wasn’t disappointed in the least by the series itself.

BSG seems to be suffering from “camel is a horse designed by a committee” plotting.

By: daddy democrat

daddy democrat — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 18:05:53 +0000

It was a disappointing season. When I was teenager, I got into reading the Joe Bob Briggs b-movie reviews. And he had a recurring phrase that pretty much summed up the problem of BSG 3.0 – “Too much plot got in the way of the story.” What made season one special was the pairing of two interwoven, highly dramatic forces:

1) The fleet was constantly on the run from a vastly superior force, and faced the threat of extinction at every turn.

2) The devestated survivors of an apocolypse had to form an entirely new civil society in order to function in the face of item #1.

Season 3 was all #2 with very little #1. WIthout the cylons, the stakes are lower, and the intrigues are relegated to philosophical navel-gazing. Ask yourself this: how much more interesting would that very smart labor strike had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a cylon scout? That would have made the stakes a lot higher for everybody?

And I’m sorry, the role of “All along the warchtower…” in the finale struck me as really silly.

The first two seasons were so brilliant and the cast so good, that I’m hopeful for a return to form. But they need to get back on track.