Jumpgate #2 - Midnight on the Firing Line

Great podcast, but I havetio say I'm bit dissapointed that Vera lacks the faith of the heart.

Ville Uusivuori

Loving the podcast so far. I think the graphics do get better eventually and there is some stuff (especially alien ships) coming up where arguably they work much better as if they’d gone the Star Trek model route. Considering doing a rewatch along with the podcast. It’s such a great show.

DP_Dwarf

Ivanova is great!

Jessie Earl

So, my thoughts on that little back and forth between Ivanova and Sinclair talking about the election is that Ivanova’s comments about the chins is basically her being like “I’m not getting into details about my political views commander” rather than that actually being the basis of her voting choice. I also totally feel you guys on the whole meh Garibaldi and Sinclair thing and I agree with Jessy about the whole show just getting better with Sheridan in command. Like not to just sit here and talk shit, I do like Garibaldi in that he’s hilarious and I do feel for his character, he’s just not my favourite. And Sinclair definitely seems like a very good commander and I did enjoy his presence in the show. That being said there’s things I’ve heard about those actors that colour my opinion of their characters. Jerry Doyle was very republican and went on to become a conservative talk show host after B5. As for Michael O’Hare, in her book Claudia Christian describes him as being difficult to work with, and being a bit sexually inappropriate. Like just I don’t get the impression that it was anything too terrible especially by Hollywood standards but she does say her experience filming B5 improved significantly when O’Hare was replaced with Bruce Boxlienter.

Wooooo I am so happy now that you're properly into the first season. Susan Ivanova may be my favorite character on any show EVER.

Becky Sparks

I'm watching Baylon V for the first time alongside this podcast. This episode was far better than the pilot, and oddly relevant politically to current day. I thought the graphics in this episode were so much better than the pilot. The Babylon V station itself still looks a bit flat, but smaller fighters and space battles looked significantly smoother and more detailed. I was expecting worse from a TV show and that I'd be cringing through the whole series, but computer animations sure got better in the year delay between the pilot and the series. Everything feels more polished than the pilot, including character building and dialogue. The voting based on appearances comment in today's cultural context is interesting since that's a critique going back to the moment politics began to be televised, when it was considered a big reason JFK beat Nixon. The age of misinformation makes the comment less funny and more sad that even in the far future elections aren't issue driven either. The end scene about telepaths was my favorite bit of world building. There's a weird vibe to the psi corp I'm curious to learn more about. I can see why Ivanova blames the psi corp for her mother's death. The description reminded me of a slow, injection driven lobotomy. The way undeveloped psychic talent is described sounds closer to a strong empathetic connection than mind reading, so the persecution of anyone with even the slightest predisposition for telepathy comes off as unfair

Blueberry Hill

Fun episode! (the podcast more than the show lol). So far I don't like Garibaldi at all & agree he's too similar to Sinclair. I would have preferred to replace Garibaldi than Sinclair but it's an interesting point about 2 cis white dudes - I think more recent inclusiveness in movies & shows has made me less tolerant of too many cis white dudes in a plotline or even in a scene. This is a good thing! But it will make older shows feel even more dated. I 100% agree it's so silly & distracting to have the lead person on a station or ship go on away missions. That is something that has always bothered me about these types of shows. I know why they do it but once you get into a show it becomes more of an ensemble piece, for me anyway, so I would be happy to not have only the main folks do all the things. I'm noticing this very much in the first couple of seasons of Discovery - we barely see the secondary characters except for a few meaningful looks here and there (looking at you Owo & Detmer). It gets very annoying. The CGI segment was hilarious! I think it was very forbearing of Vera to call Sinclair's flying a "manoeuvre". :D I'm wary of telepaths. I think I still feel hard done by about Troi & how often she was made to say "I'm not getting anything Captain". It's like this sort of skill is used to make a very female presenting character even more gendered by hyper focusing on fEeLiNgS. I look forward to seeing what they do with her here.

Adrenalynn

Oh my!! 😉💜

Mountain Harpie

Out of curiosity, do you not know why Michael O'Hare left Babylon-5 or are you just being respectful of the situation? After O'Hare passed away, Straczynski told the story at a panel. Straczynski also went into more detail in his book Becoming Superman. So yeah there's actually a sad, tragic reason O'Hare left

Keith D. Jones