Sorry I haven’t been around the last few weeks; honestly, I don’t really enjoy watching the last half of season five. I mean, they’re good episodes, but they’re just… not fun, you know?
The thing that makes this whole sequence of episodes agonizing to watch is that, for once, the horrible things happening are not the result of Londo’s own decisions. He’s ended up back where he was in season one, completely out of the loop, unable to do anything to represent his people’s interests, powerless to improve his own situation. Ironically, of course, he’s ended up here more due to his efforts to correct his previous bad decisions than the bad decisions themselves – had he been more like Lord Refa, and openly embraced the opportunities for power the Shadows offered rather than turning against them in the end, it’s likely none of this would have happened…
I do find it interesting how different the series feels as a whole than it would have had season five not been made – season four ends quite optimistically, with the focus on Earth’s liberation and the formation of the Alliance. This half of season five then undermines that, returning the focus to the far more tragic Centauri story, while showing the Alliance as just as vulnerable to outside manipulation as the League of Non-Aligned Worlds was.
(It’s another reason why this part of the season is hard to watch – its fundamental message seems to be that things never really change and you’d be naïve to think otherwise, and even Sleeping in Light doesn’t do much to lighten things…)
So, does Alliance Intelligence actually employ anyone other than Garibaldi? Because if he’s being expected to handle everything by himself, I’m not sure if it’s the booze that’s making him tired…
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Date: 2011-02-17 05:18 am (UTC)The thing that makes this whole sequence of episodes agonizing to watch is that, for once, the horrible things happening are not the result of Londo’s own decisions. He’s ended up back where he was in season one, completely out of the loop, unable to do anything to represent his people’s interests, powerless to improve his own situation. Ironically, of course, he’s ended up here more due to his efforts to correct his previous bad decisions than the bad decisions themselves – had he been more like Lord Refa, and openly embraced the opportunities for power the Shadows offered rather than turning against them in the end, it’s likely none of this would have happened…
I do find it interesting how different the series feels as a whole than it would have had season five not been made – season four ends quite optimistically, with the focus on Earth’s liberation and the formation of the Alliance. This half of season five then undermines that, returning the focus to the far more tragic Centauri story, while showing the Alliance as just as vulnerable to outside manipulation as the League of Non-Aligned Worlds was.
(It’s another reason why this part of the season is hard to watch – its fundamental message seems to be that things never really change and you’d be naïve to think otherwise, and even Sleeping in Light doesn’t do much to lighten things…)
So, does Alliance Intelligence actually employ anyone other than Garibaldi? Because if he’s being expected to handle everything by himself, I’m not sure if it’s the booze that’s making him tired…