The Empire Strikes Out - Inside the Battle of Hoth

[citizen k]

I'd say the Borg were central to the story arc of The Next Generation, and Q was involved with that.

He merely pushed up their meeting of the Borg. Like throwing them in the deep end of the pool.

[Neil]

This sort of thinking is silly.  Wasting time by trying to imagine a universe out of scenes from a movie is a leisure time activity, and is no better or worse than drinking and attempting to determine which wine is best.  If people weren't wasting their time with this sort of thing, they'd have no choice but to start thinking about how to solve social probles.  Since the result of that would inevitably be lawyers being hunted down and shot like animals, it's probably advantageous for you that we're taking the time to do this.

Lawyers were thriving quite nicely before Star Wars.
I'll take my chances.

Lawyers are the modern equivalent of slaveholders.  You can take your chances because there is enough entertainment in this world to distract most people from your perfidy.

[Agelastus]

No, B5 is a fun SF tale with plot holes.  There is a difference between fantasy like Star Wars or the Wizard of Oz and SF like Star Trek or B5.

The boundaries of what constitutes SF and fantasy are an individual choice, I suppose; since the obvious clear dividing line between "Fantasy" and "SF" in this context would be the use of an FTL drive, something that I note exists on both sides of your personal dividing line. I guess we'll have to agree to differ here.

Before the EU there was the EEC, and before that the ECSC.

Ah. Nice. I'm ashamed to say that I completely missed it.

Well, I have explained her character development.   She is certainly not a "by the book" officer by the end of the Shadow War (she lies to and insults the First Ones to get them to join her side, for instance.  That's not "by the book.")  If you refuse to see it, then there's nothing to discuss.  Your refusal to acknowledge Ivanova's character changes does make your criticism of the lack of it rather hollow, however.

There's a "book" for getting First Ones onto your side now? Moreover that's more an expression of the recklessness of her character that's underlain it since series one rather than "breaking the book" since she's an officer, not an ambassador.

Ivanova is as close to a "Star Trek reset" character as exists in the series. And then twenty years later she shows up as an almost different person, bitter and jaded. While she did have some development on screen it affected her far less than other characters; her main changes seem to have occurred off-screen.

In this respect I find it interesting to note that of the four command staff members most involved in the break with Earth in season 3, Ivanova seems to have been the one to have the easiest time reintegrating with EarthForce and its' standard career path at the end of season 4.

Your comments make me wonder if you are more comfortable analyzing non-human characters than you are for humans, because you miss considerable character development in Sheridan, Bester, Franklin, Alexander, and Allen, all of them human.  Plus Ivanova, of course.

The alien characters get more "character development,' in a way, because they are alien, and so all of their character has to be developed.   Lennier, for instance, didn't really change during the series, he (and we) just found out more about him and what he was actually capable of.

There's a difference between describing character arcs as being more compelling than others and denying that they exist at all. That's putting words into my mouth. 

Nor do I see how my comment justifies your accusation of being more comfortable analysing aliens than humans since I specifically quoted Garibaldi's arc as being nearly as compelling as G'Kar's and Londo's.

As for the arcs you list?

Sheridan develops a considerable and believable degree of gravitas during the series, but his overall arc really feels very shallow - partly because he's been shoehorned into a chunk of another character's role, and partly because he's the lead and thus constrained more by the overall plot than some of the others. He's "ticking boxes" in the plot as much as undergoing character development at times, which is a shame; Boxleitner's performance grew on me after the rocky start that was his introduction in season 2.

Bester's arc suffers by his lack of appearances and by the fact that it's been left as "unfinished business" at the end of the series. We learn more about him, yes, but what we learn of him adds to our knowledge of him as he is rather than showing him change as a person. Although this interpretation is, I admit, somewhat reliant on one's opinion of how long his relationship with the "blip" lasted.

Franklin's arc is probably the next one down from Garibaldi's in terms of interest overall; certainly his addiction to stims was handled much better and more believably than in just about any other science fiction series I could name that has had episodes handling a similar issue. Unfortunately I found him to be the least engaging character of all the command staff so there's an unfortunate degree of disinterest in my appreciation of his arc, I will admit.

Alexander's arc...well, like Bester's it suffered from being completed "off screen" in the telepath war. Moreover, I'm one of those people who think that her relationship with Byron and his refugees was the worst part of the fifth season. Her development across seasons 2 through 4 though wasn't bad, her character seeming to subtly change with each appearance, especially in the episodes where more and more she had to choose between her human and Vorlon loyalties. A very good performance unfortunately slightly spoiled by her season 5 plot-arc.

Allen? Well, his arc when he had one was quite good...but he basically only had one for most of season 3 before and immediately after B5 broke from Earth. His personal struggle with what was morally right in the situation was extremely well done. Unfortunately before and after that his role was much more supporting, acting more as a foil for characters with arcs of their own which damages the overall impact of his own arc.

I stand by my statement that in general the alien arcs, in particular Londo's, G'Kar's and (in addition) Vir's are more compelling than the human arcs with the exception of Garibaldi's.

As for Lennier...he seems to be the exception to the rule. The overall impression of his development is almost that of underuse; perhaps it's because his most significant decision (to equate his loyalty to the Minbari explicitly with his loyalty to Delenn over his ties to caste and family) occurred so early in the show's run that it overwhelmed any possible subsequent development for him. I think also his arc was probably hurt by the truncating of 2 years worth of story into 1 with season 4 as well. Or perhaps JMS found him a problem to write since unlike Vir he had no obvious path that he could be written as being prepared for (in which case it perhaps might be significant that G'Kar's aide Na'Toth is originally recast for season 2 but then simply disappears after a few episodes since her character could have shared Lennier's issues with development although I am aware that there have been "official" explanations for this disappearance as well.)