"The Rules of the Game" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for "The Rules of the Game" . Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware. If you have any fanworks related to this episode, you can also leave links to them in this post.

Summary:
Excalibur stops by on Babylon 5 to participate on negotiations to allow it to land on a alien planet..

Extra reading:
The article for "The Rules of the Game" at The Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Episode, how I love you, let me count the ways!

1) Gideon and Lochley are a first (on screen, anyway) for an adult human couple who feels sexually attracted, has sex, and afterwards neither is deeply in love nor beastly to each other, or angsting horribly, but shows a refreshingly matter of fact "this was fun, let's just see where it goes" attitude. Not that I don't appreciate romance, UST and longing as much as the next person, but all the same, after years of a) Ivanova and her lovelife leading invariably to pain and disaster, b) Sheridan and Delenn batting their eyelashes at each other for two and a half seasons, and c) our two champions of All True Love Is Unrequited And Aren't I Admirable In My Romantic Suffering, Lennier and Marcus, this feels like a nice change.

2) Also Lochley tricking Gideon with the fast food vendor cracks me up.

3) Max and his ex wife, as well as Sarah Chambers, Bodyguard, are great to watch. Max as the genius nerd who would not shut up even when beaten into a pulp makes much sense as background. The way he deals with the catnapping stalker is stylish fun.

4.) Mr. Kitty for the win! Of course Max would be a cat person. And awwwww on the bit in the credits where the episode is dedicated to the real Mr. Kitty, "now chasing star mice".

Nitpick: the hypocritical and none too bright aliens are a bit repetitive from B5 times as one shot characters, but I love the episode so much that I don't care.

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

Nitpick

I thought for a while the aliens with their religious overacting were meant to be putting on a show. I was disappointed when they turned out to actually mean it...

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

I really like the Max-centris episodes. We see that there is ever so much more to our nasty IPX boy than meets the eye. SArah makes a hell of a bodyguard for Cynthia too. And talk about fixing a bully... yes! Max is perfection at that.

Gideon and Lochley - I love the way they interact and the friendship. I could do without gratuitous sex but at least there wasn't much to it. It seemed a bit contrived anyway.