Slowly as death and sure as taxes they come; reporters.

wasn't this episode great? It really gave a diffrent perspective of B5. The action was great, and did you catch that Psy Cops advertisement?

Nits? well, don't you think that for ambassadors, these people seem awfully inebt? They can barely answer questions. Dellen and G'kar should take a course.

And don't everyone seem awfully pesimistic about the station? would you really build 5 Babylon station if u didn't thnk they were gonna do some good?

Did everyone catch the subliminal message in the Psi Corps ad? You have to tape it and watch it frame by frame to see the message. Innovative things like this are why I love this show!

Kitzman: You had to tape it to spot the message.

Webber: I believe I already said that.

I could've sworn I put a ? after that. I formed it as a question. I meant that I sptted it easily.

Yes, you can see the message without taping it, but you can see it more clearly by taping it and watching it frame by frame. Let's not split hairs here, OK?

I thought the effect was really cool and innovative. Babylon 5 has done some really great things to revolutionize TV. I just hope that it gets the accolades and rewards that it is due. In my opinion, Babylon 5 is the best and most intellegent science fiction series that has ever been on TV. Heck, for that matter, the best television series, period. And these comments are coming from someone who has been a die hard Star Trek fan for 25 years.

Omer, regarding Delenn at least, she is a rather sensitive soul and in that first interview, that reporter was being very tactless.
Woud I be correct in assuming from the title that the format of that show is based on 48 Hours? I'm not really much of a newsmagazine viewer.

(Omer) and don't everyone seem pesemistic about the station.

You say that people are pessimistic about the station, but I suppose at the time the Babylon project was concieved it was popular (anything to avoid a war which nearly destroyed your race and homeworld would be worth a shot in most peoples eyes)by the human public. but as time has gone on the high crime rate, high cost and the attentions of the Narn Centauri war will erode public confidence in B5.

It does'nt help the project, that the (Previous) Babylon Station(s), never went "on line",for various reasons, though (mainly terrorism, though B4's "Disapperance" must not have helped the project one bit)...
The cost overruns, though, must have been
horrendous!

Still, the cost overruns probably weren't as bad as the Scottish Parliament building.

By Mark V Thomas on Thursday, December 04, 2003 - 10:08 pm:
It does'nt help the project, that the (Previous) Babylon Station(s), never went "on line",for various reasons, though (mainly terrorism, though B4's "Disapperance" must not have helped the project one bit)...
The cost overruns, though, must have been
horrendous!


- Also remember tht the Centuri helped pay for the station. I forget the episode that's mentioned though.

Ruminations

- Watch Ivanova (in the background) when the other CnC officer is being interviewed. Watch her facial expressions, notably when asked if there was anything to make you angry.

- Even if I approved of the Psi Corp and had a child in need, I would not want anyone from the Psi Corp to be able to just "beam" into my living room. Shows what kind of privacy the Psi Corp believes in.


Possible Nits
- One of the people helping the Centuri victims at the beginning looks like the GROPO that assaulted Delenn.

Nits
- Sheriden at the end tells the reporter: ...to create the peace, not enforce it. But then Sheriden says: "make them lift their eyes..." "making people understand that..." To make anyone do anything requires enforcement. It would have been better if he said encourage.

By Mark V Thomas on Thursday, December 04, 2003 - 10:08 pm:
It does'nt help the project, that the (Previous) Babylon Station(s), never went "on line",for various reasons, though (mainly terrorism, though B4's "Disapperance" must not have helped the project one bit)...
The cost overruns, though, must have been
horrendous!

I guess it depends on what you mean by 'on-line'. The first 3 stations where destroyed before they were finished. Babylon 4 was fully operational when she vanished, but wasn't quite open for business. I'll have to get around to checking my copy of this episode. I can't remember if it was said that the station had problems after coming on-line, or just before she was due to.


- Also remember tht the Centuri helped pay for the station. I forget the episode that's mentioned though.

It wasn't the Centari, it was the Minbari who helped fund construction of Babylon 5.
After Sinclair remembers being taken onto a Minbari warship during the battle of the line and seeing Delen there, he asks Garibaldi to do some checking on how he got the job, and why the Minbari would send a member of the Grey Council to the station as their ambassador.
When Garibaldi gets back to him in a later episode he notes that the Minbari vetoed all other potential candidates for the job of commander of B5 until they got to Sinclair - something they could do because they had provided funding for the stations construction and this was part of the deal.

I'm pretty sure Londo said his people helped pay for the station too

Having just done a very quick check on the net we might both be correct.

Most sources specify that Babylon 5 was co-funded by by both Earthforce and Minbar - which is stated on-screen. At least one other sight states that the funding came mainly from Earth, but with some backing from the other major powers - including the Narn, Centari and Vorlons.
However, given that the Minbari could veto Earthforces choice of commander - which they did - and that there is no indication that any other power had the same right, we can only conclude that;

The other governments had no part in funding construction the station.

or

The vast majority of funding came from Earthforce and Minbar, with other governments providing only a token amount of money.

Or

Other governments provided support in the form of political assistance (That is, they agreed to use the station therefore removing one stumbling block - that no one would use it. Political help might also mean agreeing that the system the station was built in was considered neutral). Or that they provided help in the form of materials and technical help, rather than in hard cash.

I would have said the assistance from the Centauri was political only. When we are first introduced to them, there is a strong indication that they are more likely to fleece humans of money, rather than give it to them. The fact that they pretended that Earth was a lost Centauri colony, despite knowing full well it was not, shows that they were probably going along the lines of the 'Arthur Daly's' of space. One of the reasons I love this show so much is the fact that both Londo and Vir start off as bumbling characters who develop into very serious major players. Particularly Vir, for whom I will always have a soft spot, because of his attempts to rescue the suffering Narns and get them to places of safety.

It is not a nit or changed premise should the Centari have provided help for the station. We later learn that the Centari Emperor during this time was a man of peace, so he may well have opted to give some help. Given the nature of Narn/Centari relations I would expect that whatever one did the other would at least try to equal.

Of course knowing Londo 'Paid for the station' could have a somewhat different meaning to what it sounds like;

Londo; Mr Garibaldi, we did pay for this station.

Garibaldi; You mean you bought one of the workers a drink.

Londo; And he worked harder for it, we provided funds where they would be most effective.

Garibaldi; So, you bought drinks for more than one of the workers?

Londo; Exactly.

I was particularly impressed with the reporter's interview with Delenn. Most of her interviewing seemed fairly neutral, and did not betray any particular bias on her part, especially her disclaimer at the end that the battle outside B5 was not typical of life on the station, but her quite leading question to Delenn about how humans "might" react to her appearance seemed quite clearly to betray the reporter's own feelings. I felt bad for Delenn, especially given her flustered reaction, and wanted her to verbally thrash the reporter. I was disappointed that she didn't.

I was also impressed with the tone of some of the interviews in the very beginning of the episode, in particular, Sheridan's and Franklin's. It's hard not to be self-serving and grandiose when being interviewed by a TV reporter, even if one is normally sincere and unassuming. The temptation on the part of a writer might be to maintain an otherwise positive or humble character's appearance in that respect when writing such a scene, but instead, I almost got the sense that the writer and director of this episode deliberately had Sheridan and Franklin come off as slightly more affected than usual, in order to convey that all-too-human personality trait, instead of idealizing them. It might be my imagination, but if not, then kudos.

Oh, and that Psi Corps was both amusing and frightening!

I'm watching it right now and it's a shame how much it suffers on the DVD version. Because of the interview structure of the show any shot that involved text or graphics (originally rendered in 3x4 ratio) crops the heck out of the people's faces.

I think the Psi Cop beaming in was simply advertising BILC (because it looks cool) - we do the same thing in the 20th century even though we don't have transporter technology.

Come to think of it, I don't think any of the four strictly corporeal races on the B5 council have transporter technology. The Vorlons keep secrets, and it looks like the Shadows might have something, unless its holoprojection or mental projection that allowed them to appear around Morden and on the bridge of Sheridan's Whitestar.