Jumpgate #68 - The Hour of the Wolf
Added 2023-07-04 13:02:00 +0000 UTCTime to start Season 4 of Babylon 5 on the Jumpgate podcast, my favorite season of the show! And I forgot how Game of Thrones this show becomes; cause oh boy is there a lot of political machinations and eldritch horror monsters!
Comments
I always figured Cartagia was modeled off of some of the more lunatic and sadistic Roman emperors. As Becky says, rather like Caligula. Even the name is a mere hop skip and jump from "Caligula".
Patrick Greene
2023-08-02 21:01:03 +0000 UTCI figure the show made Cartagia soooo cartoonishly evil, so that we don't hate Londo or Vir for what they're planning to do (spoilers, as they say). Also this was the season JMS realized he wasn't bound by "standards and practices", so things like the severed heads was the show pushing at the boundaries of acceptable TV. The one thing out of several that really, really bugs me about season 4 is G'Kar's (spoilers! spoilers! huge spoilers!) arc. The needs of the 5-year plot getting crammed into 4 years feel very, very close to the surface for (spoilers!) G'Kar (spoilers! spoilers! huge spoilers! arc shaking spoilers! dear god, eye patch! spoilers!). Ahem, G'Kar's very out of character decision coming up quick
Keith D. Jones
2023-07-05 17:05:36 +0000 UTCKosh II's name is never said in the series, it is only used in one of the official tie in novels--"To Dream in the City of Sorrows" where it is revealed to be Ulkesh. Gonna have to hard disagree about the Biden joke. Biden's presidency has honestly been the best of any president since LBJ--he's proven far, far, far better than Obama or Clinton or Carter let alone any Republican and I say this as someone who REALLY did not want him to win the nomination. It's also radically insufficient still & I will be voting for Marianne Williamson in the primary next year. BUUT back to Babylon 5. I love how you two continue to just, correctly, rake Londo over the coals for how horrible he is. I actually don't think that the show realizes just how truly monstrous he is. It knows he's not a good guy, but I don't think he's presented as the monster he is via his actions. I also appreciated how Vera made the perceptive point about Delenn's critique of the League ambassadors NOT being framed by the show as correct unlike it's framing of Garibaldi's critique of the Narn captain. For all that I think that the 4th season is the strongest season of B5 over all, i have to admit I absolute loathe everything to do with Cartagia as it changes the problem of the Centauri from a problem of hereditary aristocrats who enact imperialism to the problem of a crazy person. I don't like it. It's such a stupid development thematically & doesn't gell narratively with how the emperor & Centauri society had been described previously. It's so banal.
Conrad
2023-07-05 04:46:34 +0000 UTCI think the beginning of Season 4 is a perfect time to look back into Season 1 and give yourself a minute to appreciate the journey every major character has taken.
Daihatschi
2023-07-04 22:18:26 +0000 UTCI've always thought of Cartagia as a Centauri version of Caligula. His insanity seems to me like it's based on legends of insane emperors rather than being in any way similar to actual mental illness.
Becky Sparks
2023-07-04 21:09:58 +0000 UTC
