Jumpgate #15 - TKO
Added 2022-06-28 13:01:02 +0000 UTCGrab your boxing gloves cause it's time for what many consider the worst episode of Babylon 5... but do Vera and I agree? Find out on the Jumpgate podcast!
Comments
Haha you should hear the tangents we go on before we hit record
Jessie Earl
2022-06-29 18:39:54 +0000 UTChahaha oh boy, we got a while to go before then
Jessie Earl
2022-06-29 18:39:38 +0000 UTCThanks SG Matthews!
Jessie Earl
2022-06-29 18:39:26 +0000 UTCFair!
Jessie Earl
2022-06-29 18:39:14 +0000 UTCMmmm, that helps!
Jessie Earl
2022-06-29 18:38:57 +0000 UTCtotally fair
Jessie Earl
2022-06-29 18:38:09 +0000 UTCListening to this episode, I kept thinking three things: 1. Ack, they are following a very different episode order. I haven’t gotten to TKO yet. Last time I watched it was probably when it aired on rabbit-ear TV back in the 90s. Do I even still have the DVDs? The qualify of those DVDs was not great. 2. I kept remembering something Straczynski would post on the Babylon-5 usenet group. Paraphrased because I’m pulling from very old and dusty memory here: when you are working on 22-26 episode seasons, about a third of the episodes you create you are going to wish would die in a fire never to be remembered by anyone ever again, about a third of the episodes you are going to tolerate, and maybe a third of the episodes you are actually going to like or be proud of having created. 3. TKO strikes me as one of those high-concept-let’s-show-the-duality-of-humanity things. On the one hand, we are capable of kindness, sharing, and grief. On the other, we are capable of beating each other into bloody pulps while everyone cheers in a testosterone-filled haze. Also I love how these Jumpgate episodes can start with long tangents about the states of your lives and other perfectly random stuff. Please keep including them.
Keith D. Jones
2022-06-29 17:34:06 +0000 UTCWe haven't even gotten to S5 yet - way too early to be tossing around candidates for worst episode. ;)
North
2022-06-29 05:57:59 +0000 UTCSo, I think the “high concept” idea that a writer couldn’t wait to work for this episode was probably a Jackie Robinson metaphor, where it’s the first human to earn the respect in an alien sport… which could work if the aliens were the dominant culture in the station, if Walker really had to work at it, if the sport was something more “alien” than MMA, and if Walker was a character we knew or cared about. Probably would have been easier just to have one of the main ambassador’s attachés just try to break into an Earth sport. Congrats on the Gunn video!
S G Matthews
2022-06-28 22:48:18 +0000 UTCThis isn't my least favorite episode (Believers received that dubious honor). I do think this episode is bad, but at least it didn't make me angry.
Becky Sparks
2022-06-28 21:05:45 +0000 UTCA little historical context re the alien assassin bit that went nowhere, this would have aired roughly a year after Monica Seles was stabbed by a crazed Steffi Graf fan. I suspect JMS had that in mind when he wrote it.
Frunobulax the Poodle
2022-06-28 15:50:58 +0000 UTCIt's certainly my least favorite. It's the only episode I have watched only once.
Conrad
2022-06-28 13:15:48 +0000 UTC
