Like season one, season two follows up its ‘name’ episode with a rather irrelevant episode with a title all in capital letters. Fortunatly, GROPOS is nowhere near as bad as TKO.
Main problem I see here is that the episode feels a little disconnected from the rest of the setting – we never see large scale infantry forces again in the show, the Shalasan Triumvirate never even gets name-dropped again, even Dr. Franklin’s father never gets a mention during the Civil War.
Oddly, because there’s such a clear distance between the B5 officers and the Gropos, Keffer ends up playing a useful role for the first and only time in his existence. Since infantry are such a rare sight in the B5 universe, Keffer provides a vital service by helping convince me that the Gropos and the B5 staff are part of the same organization. Really, I think I might have preferred to see more scenes of Keffer trading war stories instead of Dr. and General Franklin competing to see who can be most self-righteous... I like that the story Keffer tells is his perspective from “Points of Departure”, and it occurs to me that Keffer might have actually proven an interesting character if he’d been emphasised a bit more as a guy who doesn’t ever have the big picture, and has to trust that his commanders know what they’re doing even if he’ll never find out just what the hell was going on. He could have had an interesting storyline along the lines of Zack’s in the third season...
Delenn – as Selenak pointed out, the issue of humans taking offense at Delenn’s transformation would be raised again in “And Now For A Word”. As there, Delenn seems to be uncharacteristically at a loss for words. We’ve discussed this before, and I think it’s interesting that Delenn’s idea of bringing humans and Minbari together is to take an action which makes the rapprochement process all about her while at no point making any mention of her own personal responsibility. She also seems to assume her gesture would automatically be accepted without any further action or explanation on her part, when in fact neither Minbari nor humans seem to think much of it. I find myself far more sympathetic with the human position here and in “Word” than I think I’m meant to be – grand gestures are all very well, but Delenn seems to be far too focused on the gesture itself, and not on its purpose, and it seems ends up completely failing to build any real connection between Earth and Minbar.
Minor notes:
- General Franklin is known as the “liberator of the African Bloc”. Sounds like there were fairly major conflicts on Earth itself within living memory… How recent is Earth unification meant to be?
- So, Garibaldi gives orders to seal off the more ‘colourful’ areas of the station… and that didn’t include the casino?
- Why do space navies get to be far more relaxed and informal than their real-world equivalents, while futuristic armies always seem to still be employing the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket?
no subject
Main problem I see here is that the episode feels a little disconnected from the rest of the setting – we never see large scale infantry forces again in the show, the Shalasan Triumvirate never even gets name-dropped again, even Dr. Franklin’s father never gets a mention during the Civil War.
Oddly, because there’s such a clear distance between the B5 officers and the Gropos, Keffer ends up playing a useful role for the first and only time in his existence. Since infantry are such a rare sight in the B5 universe, Keffer provides a vital service by helping convince me that the Gropos and the B5 staff are part of the same organization. Really, I think I might have preferred to see more scenes of Keffer trading war stories instead of Dr. and General Franklin competing to see who can be most self-righteous... I like that the story Keffer tells is his perspective from “Points of Departure”, and it occurs to me that Keffer might have actually proven an interesting character if he’d been emphasised a bit more as a guy who doesn’t ever have the big picture, and has to trust that his commanders know what they’re doing even if he’ll never find out just what the hell was going on. He could have had an interesting storyline along the lines of Zack’s in the third season...
Delenn – as Selenak pointed out, the issue of humans taking offense at Delenn’s transformation would be raised again in “And Now For A Word”. As there, Delenn seems to be uncharacteristically at a loss for words. We’ve discussed this before, and I think it’s interesting that Delenn’s idea of bringing humans and Minbari together is to take an action which makes the rapprochement process all about her while at no point making any mention of her own personal responsibility. She also seems to assume her gesture would automatically be accepted without any further action or explanation on her part, when in fact neither Minbari nor humans seem to think much of it. I find myself far more sympathetic with the human position here and in “Word” than I think I’m meant to be – grand gestures are all very well, but Delenn seems to be far too focused on the gesture itself, and not on its purpose, and it seems ends up completely failing to build any real connection between Earth and Minbar.
Minor notes:
- General Franklin is known as the “liberator of the African Bloc”. Sounds like there were fairly major conflicts on Earth itself within living memory… How recent is Earth unification meant to be?
- So, Garibaldi gives orders to seal off the more ‘colourful’ areas of the station… and that didn’t include the casino?
- Why do space navies get to be far more relaxed and informal than their real-world equivalents, while futuristic armies always seem to still be employing the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket?