New Babylon 5!

See? Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. Cool, huh? John and I got it on Netflix and watched it Thursday night. It's good. Isolated from the rest of Babylon 5 it wouldn't be all that great, but as part of it... mmmm. There are two short stories on the DVD -- it's a little confusing on the menu. There are three options for watching it. Apparently two of them are the short stories by themselves, and one is both of them back to back, although it has a whole different title, rather than being called "play all." But at any rate, two short stories. And they feel more like short stories than just about anything else I've seen on TV. They're not episodes, they're short stories. The plot concepts were fun, if not quite as impressive as they thought themselves. Definitely seen worse on sci-fi. Of course it's low budget, so although the special effects may not have been as painful as in the original show, this release is still limited.

But when all's said and done, it's Babylon 5! It was good to be in that universe again. It was especially good to see and hear of the characters again. Sharon, go, watch Babylon 5! (= And there's a lot in the way of special features on the DVD, a lot of interview stuff, especially with J.M.S., who, as a person separated from his shows, isn't as cool as Joss Whedon; but we still like him. And Bruce Boxleitner seems very intelligent for an actor, which makes the interview with him and J.M.S. fun.

On a much sadder side, apparently Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs (played G'kar and Dr. Franklin, respectively) have died. If I had heard that before, I'd forgotten. In terms of them as actors rather than as whole persons (since I only know them as actors), I'm especially sad about Andreas Katsulas. Especially after hearing J.M.S. talk about him. Remember that scene with him and Londo in the elevator, the particular one that's just of him laughing? Apparently that was all his idea and initiative. He didn't even ask Straczynski about it first, they just filmed it. Then Straczynski went over and watched it (the laughing he didn't remember in the script made him curious, so he went over and investigated) and approved. He's another one who seemed very intelligent. I miss G'kar, Marcus, Ivanova. She wasn't even mentioned on the DVD. A little odd. Marcus I can understand, he wasn't a major character for as long, and, well, there's no need to explain what he's doing these days... But Ivanova? Not even a passing comment? Oh well. Such a good story. And it looks like they want to do more of these. It makes me happy.

There's a review on amazon, second one on the guy's page at the moment, that talks about it in more detail than I did. Explains more of the negative side. I might have given it three stars instead of two like he did, but I agreed with most of his points.