The Gathering - The Pilot
Oct. 7th, 2019 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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b5_revisitedThe Gathering
The Gathering recap and discussion from last rewatch is here. It will give you the basic plot along with some quotes and a few screencaps. You can read it to refresh your memory if you didn’t get a chance to rewatch this episode.
I came to B5 after it was done. A friend recced it and even sent homemade video tapes of Season 1 because I’m not sure that videos were even available at that time. She sent me Season 1 with a photocopied version of the book “Signs and Portents” with an episode by episode guide (https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/jane-killick/signs-and-portents.htm). The rest of the series was being shown every night at 7pm on Scifi (as it was called then). After only a few episodes, I was hooked – that was about 20 years ago.
I’m still hooked.
How different would it have been with the pilot cast? The standout to me of the lost ones was Dr. Kyle, though he did seem kind of strange in retrospect. I love Pat Tallman, but I never liked Lyta (or any telepath) to be honest. Laurel Takashima was such a small blip on my radar that I never noticed that she was there, or not there. To find out later that she was supposed to be the inside man was rather odd (Or even to see hints that Susan Ivanova was a spy later). The there’s Carolyn who even seems to know Delenn quite well.
Did you all notice that there were more alien ‘looking’ aliens in the pilot? Not just G’kar and Delenn, but all over the station, there were more aliens. One can assume that the reason there were less after is money. What other differences popped out at you right away? Another thing I noticed was the C&C was dark in The Gathering but was bright in the rest of the show.
What signs and portents did you catch in this first episode? I swear I never noticed Kosh calling Sinclair “Ent’il’zah Valen’ before! Maybe I just never actually understood what he said…
Anything else you want to bring up, feel free to do so. We are adults and unless the discussion gets ugly or personal, I see no reason to limit topics as long as they pertain to Babylon 5.
This is the original version of the beginning:
This is the ‘special edition’ intro:
Some photos of the cast who we never saw again:
Dr. Kyle:
Carolyn:
Laurel Takashima:
Lyta:
And really alien G’kar:
And Delenn:
Your turn!
The Gathering recap and discussion from last rewatch is here. It will give you the basic plot along with some quotes and a few screencaps. You can read it to refresh your memory if you didn’t get a chance to rewatch this episode.
I came to B5 after it was done. A friend recced it and even sent homemade video tapes of Season 1 because I’m not sure that videos were even available at that time. She sent me Season 1 with a photocopied version of the book “Signs and Portents” with an episode by episode guide (https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/jane-killick/signs-and-portents.htm). The rest of the series was being shown every night at 7pm on Scifi (as it was called then). After only a few episodes, I was hooked – that was about 20 years ago.
I’m still hooked.
How different would it have been with the pilot cast? The standout to me of the lost ones was Dr. Kyle, though he did seem kind of strange in retrospect. I love Pat Tallman, but I never liked Lyta (or any telepath) to be honest. Laurel Takashima was such a small blip on my radar that I never noticed that she was there, or not there. To find out later that she was supposed to be the inside man was rather odd (Or even to see hints that Susan Ivanova was a spy later). The there’s Carolyn who even seems to know Delenn quite well.
Did you all notice that there were more alien ‘looking’ aliens in the pilot? Not just G’kar and Delenn, but all over the station, there were more aliens. One can assume that the reason there were less after is money. What other differences popped out at you right away? Another thing I noticed was the C&C was dark in The Gathering but was bright in the rest of the show.
What signs and portents did you catch in this first episode? I swear I never noticed Kosh calling Sinclair “Ent’il’zah Valen’ before! Maybe I just never actually understood what he said…
Anything else you want to bring up, feel free to do so. We are adults and unless the discussion gets ugly or personal, I see no reason to limit topics as long as they pertain to Babylon 5.
This is the original version of the beginning:
This is the ‘special edition’ intro:
Some photos of the cast who we never saw again:
Dr. Kyle:
Carolyn:
Laurel Takashima:
Lyta:
And really alien G’kar:
And Delenn:
Your turn!
no subject
Date: 2019-10-13 07:53 am (UTC)I do wish we had seen more of Takashima, though. Her actress got screwed over by executive meddling from the start. The producers found her delivery too cold or hard, and so made her redub her lines to make them 'softer', then they decided they couldn't take her seriously as a military officer, so she got replaced by Ivanvoa. There's some interesting kernels of characterization there, her "It's been a long time since I've broken the rules" speech when she just got done telling Kyle about her illicit coffee plants had a lot of potential. In some ways she seems more like a proto-Lochley than a proto-Ivanova.
Garibaldi is the only human character to make it from the pilot through all 5 seasons.
G'Kar and Londo at least are very much themselves right off the bat.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-13 12:57 pm (UTC)I don't think I saw The Gathering until much later either. It's kind of odd, even Londo's voice is a bit tinnier or something in the lead-in.