Attn: JMS - B5's impact on ordinary folk
bev1...@ecn.ab.ca
While reading some e-mail I received from an on-line fan group I belong to
(the BB Grapevine) about the saddest scenes in B5, this missive popped
up from a member who lives a little off the beaten track. Thought you
might be interested in seeing it.
She does not have access to newsgroups, and she gave me permission to post
it.
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 99 15:58:39 +1000
From: sonny <so...@webspin.org>
Subject: RE: SAD MOMENTS - Z'HA'DUM
> All of life can be broken down into moments of transition and revelation.
> There is a greater darkness than the one we fight, it is the darkness of
> the soul that has lost its way.
> The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against
> chaos and despair.
> Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of
> dreams.
> Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us,
> waiting in moments
> Of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the
> shape of that future, or
> Where it will take us. We know only that it is always borne in pain.
I just had to comment on this.
I rarely watch TV (bit hard with no TV stations <G>) and saw B5 only in
batches of 5 eps at a time, pirated tapes sent to me by friends. At this
point I had watched B5 from the beginning, then was slammed with the last
five eps of S3 in one evening. I had subconsciously been caught up in the
evolving story, but until then, whilst admitting to extraordinary
continuity and depth for mere tv, didn't know it was written as a five
year novel....I had not followed it on the net, nor had I seen
advertising - anywhere - I live in the middle of nowhere. But after this
ep, I sat alone in the dark...stunned.
A televison show was not meant to impact me like this. I mean it was
*just* a tv show. What right did it have to grab hold of my emotions and
shake them apart? How could mere *television* do this to *me* - real life
as dramatic enough. This evoked not so much sadness ...as despair.
After a while, I went to bed and for the first time in years, suffered
insomnia. Hours later I faced reality...a damned tv show had grabbed me
by the heart and soul and had torn into me. So I hit the internet, and
within an hour had learned that S5 had just been given the green light
and Sheridan was still a part of that world.
I went back to bed, a little easier of mind...but forever changed, just a
little. A tv show had impacted on me, made me lose sleep, made me care
deeply, saddened me to the point of despair.
Other moments in B5 have since moved me to tears - I still have real
difficulty watching Sleeping in Light. But no one single moment in tv or
movies had, before or since, affected me like this. And thus, I must
judge it to be, if not *the* saddest, then certainly the most profound
moment both in B5 world and my own perspective of television. I no longer
viewed it as a source of mindless entertainment and news, but as a
genuine artform, with the power to wrest emotions as real as true life. I
wonder if we will ever see its like again.
Sonny
Jms at B5
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
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