The Gathering | For the Second Time

[0:00] Hello and welcome to Babylon 5 for the second time. We actually recorded our second time viewing and reaction of The Gathering back in May of 2024. And instead of doing that all over again, we're going to go ahead and share that with you now. Next week we'll get to Midnight on the Firing Line and then continue through Season 1 from there. But for now, enjoy our second viewing of The Gathering. This is my first time.

[0:27] Music. Welcome to Babylon 5 for the umpteenth time. We're going to get there. Someday we're going to talk about how we watch this for the 47th time. Welcome to everyone here. If you've not joined us for Stargate SG-1 for the first time, you're about to see our exciting new format that we use for that show. I think you're really going to dig it here. We're about to watch the pilot episode of Babylon 5, The Gathering, for what will be for us the second time. With that, here we go. As the TNT version, as you can see. This is the first time we've watched an episode of Babylon 5 together, Jeff. It is. Wow. That's kind of fun. This is great. I was there at the throne of the third age of mankind. First voice you hear. How awesome is that? You can tell they're trying to just make it feel big and epic with the music and the big sweeping. You know what it kind of feels similar?

[0:30] Second. Second. Second. First time. Second time.

[1:44] Music.

[1:55] Look at that ponytail. That guy's going to start working with Byron pretty soon.

[2:00] Okay, we do this quiet and better night. To this day, no one knows what happened to it. Yeah, but when you find out, it's going to be awesome. Right? Hey, you know, I think that Babylon 4 thing is going to be a big thing. It seems like a mystery. It does so much makeup. It looks nothing like her. Well, and notice the head bone comes, like, way out this way. It doesn't look like bone. It just looks like a head. A dress. So a headdress sort of thing. You can definitely see they tried to masculine up her face a little bit. Like they're really going for that androgynous look. They did. However, I noted when he just got the buzz about her, the pronouns they used was she and her. That's him. No way. Really? Yep. Wow. See, look at that. Oh, yeah.

[2:47] Ed Wasser. There he is again. Oh my god, his hair's awesome. Get me the commander, fast. And let's just hope nothing else goes wrong. Not exactly fair. That's not Catherine Sakai. I was in a hurry. Not at all. We'll discuss that later. This is late 80s TV heartthrob. One hour, 40 minutes. Just in time for the reception. From central casting. I'll tell you all about it when you arrive. On my way, I picked up some Carnelian bed sheets. They're supposed to be completely frictionless. Scene 140. I still want to know what that would be like. Yeah. I feel like you would just slide off. I was going to say, not as cool as it sounds. You need friction to...

[3:31] To not move. And to move. Like, in specific ways. Like, you know.

[3:42] Okay, I'm going to share something. And I'm going to try to be high level and not super gross about it. Not too long ago, bought a new bed. And when you go buy a new mattress, you know, they tell you to lay on it. You make sure it's comfortable, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I set the pillows up in a certain way and got onto my knees on the mattress, and I tested the mattress.

[4:11] You know what? That is a legitimate thing to do. Katsul has had this character figured out already. Good to meet you, Lieutenant Commander. That is the Jakar we just saw in the last episode of Babylon 5, Season 5. Get a baldeel, my good, close friend. Oh, no. No! No! Good close friend. No, he said it wrong! Come on, get a baldy! I am empowered to compensate you quite handsomely for your genetic background. The process would be either a direct mating, you and I, or a donation of vital cells from which we could clone a replicant. Yes, obviously, the cloning is less efficient since we have to grow the clone, so payment would have to be proportionately smaller, and we'd still have to fuse your genes with our own, and that would take even longer. The direct mating is far more cost efficient.

[5:10] Would you prefer to be conscious or unconscious during the mating? I would prefer conscious, but I don't know what your... Dude, that's a heck of a salesman right there. He didn't even ask for the sale. He just assumed it. Just going in. It's so good. I would prefer conscious. You are clear for docking. Please surrender. That you will never again mention the Great Council in my presence. Three gravities. Six will crush your ribs to jelly. Great Council. Oh, wow. Four. Rabbities. Five.

[5:49] Don't submit. Don't submit. Oh, my God. You know, I total... What do you call a flashback that hasn't happened yet? I suggest you leave now. Flash forward? Flash forward. What a flash forward to Cartagia and the whip. I don't know if that's intentional, but it's beautiful. Like, the connection is freaking gorgeous. And I'm super glad they got rid of those dumb rings. Right? Open 9 to 5. Earth time.

[6:20] Like this, it makes so much more, like this makes the whole thing with Morden and stuff makes so much more sense. It also makes it so much more tragic because you're like, he's there, he sees how foolish it is. And to do what he does to go back and preserve it and get it back, like. Pretty shock. It's heartbreaking. I am. I've been taking stims to stay alert. Oh, that's not a good thing for doctors on Babylon 5. I wonder if they're setting that up for Franklin. Like right here. Like are they already seeding it? In tears of Valen. How cool is that? In tears of Valen. You abstained. I did not have all the facts. I still lack some of the... What you lack is a conscience. That is an interesting thing, considering what we know about D'Lynn and how she was the one who emotionally reacted to kick off the Earth-Membari War. Multiple times she acted. And then when Sheridan died, she responded emotionally. Jacquard offered me an exchange. What's Garibald to drink in the screen? It's not water. We never had a chance. The sky was full of stars. The sky was full of stars. He said the thing. One of ours.

[7:47] Ben, your bastard. I think I got to him in time. If we could broadcast that signal to the Voiland ship. I'm on it. He plays a huge role in this. Well, I mean, he's Corrin before Corrin. Totally. The proto-Corrin. I have looked upon the face of a fall on Laurel, and nothing is the same anymore. I remember that line. I remember this really clearly from Dr. Kyle. And I don't think what I understood at the time or that I remembered is that he looked at him at like minute 14. And here we are six days later in real time for you and me. And now he's saying this. None of this life-changing stuff reflected itself in any way through this whole episode. The Minbari assassin looked at me and said, there is a hole in your mind. An old Minbari insult. Nothing you need to worry about. I thought Minbari couldn't lie. I'm just going to wrap up with one little thing.

[8:56] I liked a lot of parts of this episode. They totaled about 18 minutes of the actual 25-minute episode that existed in this hour and a half. I remember liking this episode better than what i do now i think people are aware it's super flawed yeah it was done with a shoestring budget yeah and and i think that we enjoyed it that first time around more because we didn't know anything yeah maybe we know everything was new, and so it's just like oh look at that look at that look at that look at that and like there's some there's some things that they they dropped and didn't become things there's things that they put in place that they changed you know a little bit but the to me the parts of the episode that persisted were amazing Londo and Jakar Londo and Jakar existed here Peter Juricic Andreas Kotsalas had their characters figured they knew who they were yeah Garibaldi right Jerry Doyle you take those characters you pick them up from here you plop them right into a tragedy of telepaths they fit perfect yeah awesome yeah okay i did enjoy jacar and londo and garibaldi those three specifically but hey i have something that'll brighten you up as we as we go out.

[10:23] Remember i dusted some stuff off from season one uh-oh this is my first time.

[10:28] Music.