Return to Babylon 5

After reading Downbelow Station, I just had to re-watch Babylon 5 (for the umpteenth time... I've lost count, but I'm probably well into double digits by now). It's hard to believe the show is over twenty years old; it still works so well, and even the special effects have held up nicely. (The Shadow ships still give me goosebumps.) If you haven't seen Babylon 5, you need to. It's amazing, and a great lesson in constructing plot and character arcs, if you're a writerly type like me. The show also does foreshadowing remarkably well. That's part of why it's so much fun to re-watch: the second time around you get all the cryptic remarks and glimpses of hidden things.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from the show's first season:

Kosh: Understanding is a three-edged sword.
--  "Deathwalker"

Ivanova: Commander, we don't have a lot of time. We're cut off from the way we came in, we don't know if we can find another way back to the ship before we run out of air. . .

Sinclair: We can't leave him like this!

Ivanova: I know, I know. It's a Russian thing. When we're about to do something stupid, we like to catalog the full extent of our stupidity for future reference.

--"A Voice in the Wilderness" part 1

Delenn: I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light.

-- "Babylon squared"

Londo: There comes a time when you look into the mirror, and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. Then you accept it, or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking into mirrors.

-- "Chrysalis"

Kosh: And so it begins.

-- "Chrysalis"

Go on, go watch it. I know you want to.