Babylon 5 and other TV notes

When it comes to entertainment, for me, it seems like it never rains but it pours. We seem to go through stretches with nothing interesting on, then suddenly a flood. Although some things have been out a while and have just taken a while for me to catch up on.

One of them is the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. I’d heard that this movie was interesting due to its multiverse setting. And I definitely found that to be true. But what’s noteworthy is just how nuts it is, in a very good way. Characters are able to take remote control of other versions of themselves in parallel universes. They’re also able to draw on the skills of other versions. So the main character, Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn Quan Wang, draws on a version of herself that became a martial arts expert in one of her timelines, as well as skills from a number of others.

The way this works is by setting up a very low probability situation (which is typically comical) and then mentally putting yourself in the situation you need to be in. That probably sounds a bit flighty, and it is, although not in any way particularly worse than most sci-fi movies. But it also shows that the writers actually know something about quantum theory. It could be interpreted as setting up a situation where the brain activity of one version of the character constructively interferes with activity in the brain of another, assuming of course that quantum interference is relevant for brain activity. Again, nothing to be taken too seriously, but does make for a fun and wacky movie.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds just finished its second season run. Like the first season, I enjoyed it, except for an episode or two. I thought the musical episode would be a major turnoff, but it actually worked for me. (I’ve historically hated musicals, except when the whole movie is one long musical performance like in Moulin Rouge.) Maybe the fact that there’s an explanation for the singing helped (even if it is a bit silly).

I had a much harder time dealing with an episode where Spock loses his Vulcan half and has to go through a ceremony with his fiancé’s family in in a pure human state, a very Three’s Company type situation, and ultimately had to fast forward through most of it and just watch the denouement to get past it.

Overall though, Strange New Worlds‘ return to the traditional episodic format is still working well for me. The season does end in on a cliffhanger, in much the same way seasons did during the Next Generation era. Hopefully the franchise managers are noting their success here. This just seems to be Star Trek’s ideal format.

I really have no idea where Foundation‘s second season is going. The first season firmly established that this was going to be something more inspired by the original books than a scene by scene adaptation, and that definitely has continued. As I noted when reviewing the first season, I think fans have to be realistic about this. The original books would almost certainly not make for good TV. This adaptation feels like it was heavily influenced by a lot of fiction that’s happened since the earliest books, notably Dune. I’m still enjoying it, but it’s definitely not your father’s Foundation.

And finally Babylon 5: The Road Home. The original Babylon 5 series is a classic. It was an early harbinger of the age of serialized storytelling. It happened at a time just when that type of storytelling in a TV show was becoming feasible. Prior to the age of VCRs, DVDs, and streaming, trying to tell a serialized story was a dodgy affair. Most people had to catch shows when they actually ran on live TV, and so inevitably missed episodes, with only later reruns as a possible means of catching up. It made a tightly serialized story difficult to keep up with, and most shows that tried it didn’t do well.

I haven’t tried to watch the original episodes in many years. I heard they haven’t aged well. And the occasional specials that came out for several years afterward, while moderately entertaining, only served to make me miss the original show. The fact that much of the cast has passed away hasn’t helped.

This latest effort gets around those issues by going animated. Some of the cast is back, but many other characters had to be replaced by new voice actors. That said, the movie is entertaining for any fan of the old show. Like Everything Everywhere, it’s based on parallel timelines.

Sheridan, as the new president of the Interstellar Alliance, is at a ceremony for the opening of a new power plant that works with tachyons. When it’s turned on, due to the energy that keeps him alive (from events in the original series), he becomes unstuck in time, but unlike in the series where he just went forward and backward along the same timeline, here he crosses into alternate realities.

There’s a little bit too much quantum double talk around this for my tastes. The overall plot seems based on the many-worlds interpretation, but there’s a lot of talk about observer effects, which seems more like interpretations involving consciousness. So the movie’s draw from quantum theory is muddled. But overall, as a story frame, it works.

We end up seeing when the Icarus first landed on Z’ha’dum and woke the Shadows, as well as a reality where the Shadows overwhelm Babylon 5, and another where their enemies, the Vorlons, destroy Earth. But the movie really ends up enticing us with another timeline, one that offers the possibility of a reboot.

This is interesting because J. Michael Straczynski, the creator and chief writer of the original series, as well as this movie, has actually been working on a reboot. Although reportedly this isn’t the reimagining he has in mind. But if that effort doesn’t pan out, the seeds laid here could bear interesting fruit.

So that’s what I’ve been watching lately. I also watched the first half of the third season of The Witcher, but haven’t finished yet, so it’ll have to wait for another post. Have you seen any of these shows? If so, what did you think? Any other shows you’re watching worth checking out?