ATTN JMS: B5 magazine Chronology oddity
Mark D. McKean
the official B5 magazine that I've had lying in my stack for a while.
And as I'm reading Part Five of the Chronology, which covers the years
2258 and 2259 (i.e. seasons one and two), I'm noticing something very
odd. The chronological order of events in 2258 does not match the airing
order of first season episodes. In some cases, the difference is quite
significant (for instance, "Babylon Squared" is listed as having
happened prior to "A Voice in the Wilderness", "Legacies", "Signs and
Portents", "Grail", "TKO", and "Eyes", though it aired after all of
these).
Knowing that the Chronology's dates are official (if not actually
canon), does the order these episodes appear in the Chronology reflect
the order you originally intended these episodes to appear in? Or is
there some more (or less) devious reason for the asynchronicity?
--
Mark D. McKean - The Quantum Panda - qpa...@iwaynet.net
Jay Denebeim
Mark D. McKean <qpa...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>Knowing that the Chronology's dates are official (if not actually
>canon), does the order these episodes appear in the Chronology
>reflect the order you originally intended these episodes to appear
>in? Or is there some more (or less) devious reason for the
>asynchronicity?
Yes. Check out the lurker's guide. There's definate plot issues due
to the airing order and story order not matching up. Attitudes change
with no reason and so on. Lurker's guide has them both listed.
Jay
--
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Mark D. McKean
Denebeim) wrote:
> In article <qpanda-F0DC25....@news.supernews.com>,
> Mark D. McKean <qpa...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>
> >Knowing that the Chronology's dates are official (if not actually
> >canon), does the order these episodes appear in the Chronology
> >reflect the order you originally intended these episodes to appear
> >in? Or is there some more (or less) devious reason for the
> >asynchronicity?
>
> Yes. Check out the lurker's guide. There's definate plot issues due
> to the airing order and story order not matching up. Attitudes change
> with no reason and so on. Lurker's guide has them both listed.
If you're talking about the listing on the master episode list (found at
<http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/master/eplist.html>, that still
doesn't match the order in the Chronology. For instance, the Chronology
lists "Babylon Squared" as being immediately followed by "Legacies",
then "Grail". (My mention in my previous post of AVitW being listed as
after "Babylon Squared" was a misimpression caused by the extremely odd
page layout used by the magazine.) On the Lurker's Guide's corrected
order, "Legacies" is listed as being the next-to-last episode in the
first season, between "TKO" and "Chrysalis". (Given what Alisa Belden
saw in Delenn's mind, I think it makes more sense for "Legacies" to be
immediately before "Chrysalis" than for it to be half a season earlier.)
Jms at B5
*inside* the episode when determining the chronology rather than when PTEN
decided to air an episode.
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
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SFX Magazine)
Simo Aaltonen
>So, if it is the airing order that is screwed, can we take it that the
>videos are all in the right order? (I am refering to the UK Warner Home
>Videos). Apart from The Long Twighlight Struggle being put on with Divided
>Loyalties in the wrong order, obviously.
Not if Babylon Squared is supposed to come before A Voice in the
Wilderness (I haven't seen the timeline yet, but someone mentioned this
upthread). The UK video order has the last episodes of the first season in
the following order: Grail, Eyes, Legacies, A Voice in the Wilderness
Parts I & II, Babylon Squared, The Quality of Mercy, and Chrysalis.
-simo aaltonen
Mark D. McKean
simo...@itu.st.jyu.fi (Simo Aaltonen) wrote:
> Not if Babylon Squared is supposed to come before A Voice in the
> Wilderness (I haven't seen the timeline yet, but someone mentioned this
> upthread). The UK video order has the last episodes of the first season in
> the following order: Grail, Eyes, Legacies, A Voice in the Wilderness
> Parts I & II, Babylon Squared, The Quality of Mercy, and Chrysalis.
That someone was me, and I was mistaken (blasted lousy out-of-order page
layout in the B5 magazine). AVitW is listed in the Chronology as
happening before B^2.
The original airing order of season one (numbered to make the
differences in the other orders easier to see) is:
00 - The Gathering
01 - Midnight on the Firing Line
02 - Soul Hunter
03 - Born to the Purple
04 - Infection
05 - The Parliament of Dreams
06 - Mind War
07 - The War Prayer
08 - And the Sky Full of Stars
09 - Deathwalker
10 - Believers
11 - Survivors
12 - By Any Means Necessary
13 - Signs and Portents
14 - TKO
15 - Grail
16 - Eyes
17 - Legacies
18 - A Voice in the Wilderness I
19 - A Voice in the Wilderness II
20 - Babylon Squared
21 - The Quality of Mercy
22 - Chrysalis
The order of 1st season eps, in the Chronology, is:
00, 01, 02, 04, 03, 05, 07, 08, 06, 12, 09, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20, 17, 15,
13, 14, 16, 21, 22.
The order of 1st season eps given as the "corrected" order on The
Lurker's Guide, at
<http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/master/eplist.html>, is:
00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19,
20, 21, 14, 17, 22.
It is understandable that production considerations would cause airing
order to not match the "correct" order of events. But both the Lurker's
Guide's "master list" and the Chronology claim to have JMS's blessing,
and yet there are episodes moved in both lists but in different new
locations in each list. "Legacies" (#17), for instance, and "TKO" (#14),
are really the only moved episodes in the Lurker's Guide's corrected
order. The Chronology places both of those episodes much earlier, and
also moves "By Any Means Necessary" (#12) much earlier, and "Signs and
Portents" (#13) much later, as well as other changes.
I'm honestly not trying to be nitpicky here, but it bothers me that both
orders claim to be "official" and yet both cannot possibly be correct. I
just want to know, straight from JMS, which order is the order he would
have wanted those episodes shown in, all other things being equal.
(And to be honest, this isn't just curiosity. I'm working on a project
regarding B5 as a developing story, and knowing what the "correct" order
of events is does matter to analyzing development of characters and plot
threads.)