Jerry Doyle

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

... known to SF fans as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi on _Babylon
5_, passed away at the age of 60.

DAMMIT, 2016, stahp!

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Catherine Jefferson]

On 7/28/2016 4:29 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
>
> ... known to SF fans as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi on _Babylon
> 5_, passed away at the age of 60.

Yeah. Joe Straczynski's comments:

----------
He was funny, and dangerous, and loyal, and a prankster, and a
pain in the ass; he was gentle and cynical and hardened and
insightful and sometimes as dense as a picket fence...and his
passing is a profound loss to everyone who knew him, especially
those of us who fought beside him in the trenches of Babylon 5.
It is another loss in a string of losses that I cannot understand.
Of the main cast, we have lost Richard Biggs, Michael O'Hare,
Andreas Katsulas, Jeff Conaway, and now Jerry Doyle, and I'm
goddamned tired of it.
----------

I'm starting to think that having been a Babylon 5 cast member is a
predictor of early death. :/


--
Catherine Jefferson <tw8...@ergosphere.net>
Blog/Personal: http://www.ergosphere.net

[Don Bruder]

In article <nnek06$6tb$1...@news.sosdg.org>,

How many of 'em wore red shirts? (I confess - I've seen about four B5
episodes - maybe. I just never "caught the bug" for it)

--
Brought to you by the letter Q and the number .357
Security provided by Horace S. & Dan W.

[Catherine Jefferson]

On 7/29/2016 12:09 AM, Don Bruder wrote:
> How many of 'em wore red shirts? (I confess - I've seen about four B5
> episodes - maybe. I just never "caught the bug" for it)

You got B5 mixed up with Star Trek. :) The actors mentioned so far were
playing important, recurring roles -- the B5 equivalents of having the
actors that played Spock, Scotty, Uhuru and Chekov all die. Not a
red-shirt equivalent among them.

I'm not a TV watcher -- I never had a TV in my adult life til I got
married a decade ago. I watched all five seasons of B5 on DVD, over a
period of about two weeks. After the first couple of episodes, I
definitely caught the bug; it's some of the best storytelling I've read,
heard or watched in my life.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

If those episodes weren't from the beginning, in order, that's not
surprising. Individual episodes of B5 are rarely "grabbers". What made
B5 unusual at the time was that *everything* was part of a long-term
story-arc and what seemed to be trivial incidents early on ended up
having major story impact later.

I had seen a few episodes at random and not been caught. My friend Phil
handed me a tape with the first ... eight? ten? episodes on it and said
"if this doesn't hook you, it's not for you", and by the time we
finished it, me and my wife were calling him up in the middle of the
night demanding the next tape. His response was an evil laugh.

[Juho Julkunen]

In article <nnfkoi$1bi$1...@dont-email.me>, sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com
says...

Yeah, you really need to see a few episodes from the start, while
maintaining faith that it will be worth it in the end. I'm not sure
anymore who or what sold me on it. If I'd been older and more choosy
about my time when it ran here, or if there'd been more competition, I
might not have gotten into it in the first place.

Spending an entire season to basically set things up and get the
viewers acquainted with the characters and the universe does mean that
shit getting real has more impact. It really was quite unique for it's
time. Actually, I think it still is.

--
Juho Julkunen

[Catherine Jefferson]

On 7/29/2016 6:12 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> If those episodes weren't from the beginning, in order, that's not
> surprising. Individual episodes of B5 are rarely "grabbers". What made
> B5 unusual at the time was that *everything* was part of a long-term
> story-arc and what seemed to be trivial incidents early on ended up
> having major story impact later.
>
> I had seen a few episodes at random and not been caught. My friend
> Phil handed me a tape with the first ... eight? ten? episodes on it and
> said "if this doesn't hook you, it's not for you", and by the time we
> finished it, me and my wife were calling him up in the middle of the
> night demanding the next tape. His response was an evil laugh.

ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>

[Peter Trei]

I'm a great fan of the series, but found that it only got rolling in season 2,
though season 1 (as noted) is needed for fully understanding the context.

Seasons 2,3,4 are by far the best; the 5th and last season saw a lot of
major characters leave the show, and the major arcs were winding down.

pt

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Thanks to the unfailing idiocy of American TV show procurement...
Straczynski wrote for a five season arc, but after the third the
contract got trimmed to four seasons, so he rewrote to tie up the
storyline by then. Naturally towards the end of recording season 4 they
got a season 5 after all. The result was, well, as you've seen. A tad
poorly edited, but less than you'd expect frankly.

Could have been worse - B5 could have been Firefly'd.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Tomorrow (noun) - A mystical land where 99 per cent of all human
productivity, motivation and achievement is stored.
-- http://thedoghousediaries.com/3474

[Kevrob]

I was sold on Garibaldi from "Midnight on the Firing Line" - s01e01 -
when he fubjrq Qryraa "Qhpx Qbqtref va gur 24 1/2 Praghel!!!"

Featuring his "household god of frustration." :)

Kevin R

[Dimensional Traveler]

I'd say even more so for today. Networks (OTA or Cable) don't have the
patience to give a new show a whole season like that anymore.

--
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey for Summer 2016

[Cryptoengineer]

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in
news:h9fnpb1tn7j75picb...@4ax.com:

That's how I remember it going down too. MJS engaged with online fandom
to a very high degree, and discussed the whole thing in detail on The
Lurker's Guide and usenet.

pt

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 7/29/16 3:20 PM, Peter Trei wrote:
> On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 1:49:24 PM UTC-4, Catherine Jefferson wrote:
>> On 7/29/2016 6:12 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>>> If those episodes weren't from the beginning, in order, that's not
>>> surprising. Individual episodes of B5 are rarely "grabbers". What made
>>> B5 unusual at the time was that *everything* was part of a long-term
>>> story-arc and what seemed to be trivial incidents early on ended up
>>> having major story impact later.
>>>
>>> I had seen a few episodes at random and not been caught. My friend
>>> Phil handed me a tape with the first ... eight? ten? episodes on it and
>>> said "if this doesn't hook you, it's not for you", and by the time we
>>> finished it, me and my wife were calling him up in the middle of the
>>> night demanding the next tape. His response was an evil laugh.
>>
>> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
>> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
>> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>
>
> I'm a great fan of the series, but found that it only got rolling in season 2,
> though season 1 (as noted) is needed for fully understanding the context.

I'm a fan of Sinclair, so I really liked Season 1. Though Sheridan was
a good Captain too.

>
> Seasons 2,3,4 are by far the best; the 5th and last season saw a lot of
> major characters leave the show, and the major arcs were winding down.
>
> pt
>

[Joy Beeson]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:49:26 -0700, Catherine Jefferson
<spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote:

> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>

I was hooked when the first episode I saw showed Garibaldi being
treated for a wound he'd suffered in the previous episode. I was *so*
tired of shows in which nothing that happens really happens, and the
Clampits endlessly face their very first day in Beverly Hills.

It was worth watching them in random order -- because I could *tell*
that they were out of order.

--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

[Cryptoengineer]

Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
news:miunpbh89tl74c5ic...@4ax.com:

> On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:49:26 -0700, Catherine Jefferson
> <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote:
>
>> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
>> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
>> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>
>
> I was hooked when the first episode I saw showed Garibaldi being
> treated for a wound he'd suffered in the previous episode. I was *so*
> tired of shows in which nothing that happens really happens, and the
> Clampits endlessly face their very first day in Beverly Hills.

Nitpick: Clampetts.

[Cryptoengineer]

Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
news:miunpbh89tl74c5ic...@4ax.com:

> On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:49:26 -0700, Catherine Jefferson
> <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote:
>
>> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
>> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
>> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>
>
> I was hooked when the first episode I saw showed Garibaldi being
> treated for a wound he'd suffered in the previous episode. I was *so*
> tired of shows in which nothing that happens really happens, and the
> Clampits endlessly face their very first day in Beverly Hills.
>
> It was worth watching them in random order -- because I could *tell*
> that they were out of order.

As I recall, B5 was the first SF series which had really serious
continuity across episodes and across seasons. Many episodes simply
don't make much sense in isolation.

I credit the VCR, DVDs, and later, DVRs and VoD for kickstarting the
Second Golden Age of American Television.

pt

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 7/29/16 10:18 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
> news:miunpbh89tl74c5ic...@4ax.com:
>
>> On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:49:26 -0700, Catherine Jefferson
>> <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote:
>>
>>> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
>>> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
>>> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>
>>
>> I was hooked when the first episode I saw showed Garibaldi being
>> treated for a wound he'd suffered in the previous episode. I was *so*
>> tired of shows in which nothing that happens really happens, and the
>> Clampits endlessly face their very first day in Beverly Hills.
>>
>> It was worth watching them in random order -- because I could *tell*
>> that they were out of order.
>
> As I recall, B5 was the first SF series which had really serious
> continuity across episodes and across seasons. Many episodes simply
> don't make much sense in isolation.

American series, perhaps. Space Battleship Yamato, Mobile Suit Gundam
and other SF anime had been doing it since the 70s, at least.

[Kay Shapero]

In article <nne4gi$soa$3...@dont-email.me>, sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com
says...

>
> ... known to SF fans as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi on _Babylon
> 5_, passed away at the age of 60.
>
> DAMMIT, 2016, stahp!

It's gotten a good friend of mine, too, whose funeral I'm going to
Sunday am. Enough indeed!
--

Kay Shapero
Address munged, try my first name at kayshapero dot net.

[Kay Shapero]

In article <MPG.3205a88d5...@news.kolumbus.fi>,
giao...@hotmail.com says...

>
> Spending an entire season to basically set things up and get the
> viewers acquainted with the characters and the universe does mean that
> shit getting real has more impact. It really was quite unique for it's
> time. Actually, I think it still is.

As Joe said from the start, it was intended as a novel for television
with a beginning, middle, end, character development and all that good
stuff. I will always be glad I happened to have been on
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated since before the beginning of the
first season (started about the time the pilot, "The Gathering" came
out, thanks to a friend in the know who pulled me in). So got not only
to see the episodes as they came out, but read JMS' commentary on them,
along with discussing it with a batch of other fans online.

Watching them die off in the following years otoh is an experience I
could have stood to miss. Alas, the longer you live, the more this
happens. When I leave, throw the biggest, noisest, wildest wake you can
manage. I'll try and show up to sing along...

[Gary R. Schmidt]

On 30/07/2016 12:18, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
> news:miunpbh89tl74c5ic...@4ax.com:
>
>> On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:49:26 -0700, Catherine Jefferson
>> <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote:
>>
>>> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
>>> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
>>> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>
>>
>> I was hooked when the first episode I saw showed Garibaldi being
>> treated for a wound he'd suffered in the previous episode. I was *so*
>> tired of shows in which nothing that happens really happens, and the
>> Clampits endlessly face their very first day in Beverly Hills.
>>
>> It was worth watching them in random order -- because I could *tell*
>> that they were out of order.
>
> As I recall, B5 was the first SF series which had really serious
> continuity across episodes and across seasons. Many episodes simply
> don't make much sense in isolation.

Doctor Who, BBC, first episode aired November 23, 1963...

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
They don't really mean it.
When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
They don't mean it either.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 7/30/16 5:20 AM, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
> On 30/07/2016 12:18, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
>> news:miunpbh89tl74c5ic...@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:49:26 -0700, Catherine Jefferson
>>> <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband)
>>>> lent
>>>> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two
>>>> episodes.
>>>> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>
>>>
>>> I was hooked when the first episode I saw showed Garibaldi being
>>> treated for a wound he'd suffered in the previous episode. I was *so*
>>> tired of shows in which nothing that happens really happens, and the
>>> Clampits endlessly face their very first day in Beverly Hills.
>>>
>>> It was worth watching them in random order -- because I could *tell*
>>> that they were out of order.
>>
>> As I recall, B5 was the first SF series which had really serious
>> continuity across episodes and across seasons. Many episodes simply
>> don't make much sense in isolation.
>
> Doctor Who, BBC, first episode aired November 23, 1963...

Which didn't have "serious continuity". It had self-contained stories
and some returning characters, but until the reboot in 2005, it made
minimal effort to have any real continuity, as opposed to nods.

[Cryptoengineer]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
news:nnicer$btu$1...@dont-email.me:

Anime has been pointed out as having significant continuity.

Old Doctor Who had arcs, but no little or no continuity between arcs.
It didn't matter if you watched "The Power of the Daleks" or "The
Smugglers" first - aside from the change-out of companions, and the
rarer change-out of Doctors, there was no way to tell which comes
first in-story.

Dr Who also was, and is, open-ended. There's no plan to end it as
long as it makes money, which constrains possible plot lines.

B5 was conceived as a single story, with a beginning, middle, and
end. Events from season 1 have unexpected (to the viewer) consequences
even near the end of the show.

pt

[Kevrob]

US TV animation had occasional flashes, too. The 1960s Grantray-
Lawrence syndicated "Marvel Super Heroes" cartoons were adopted,
with a few changes, from various Marvel comics by Stan Lee, Jack
Kirby, and others. ["Captain America", "The Incredible Hulk",
"Iron Man", "The Mighty Thor", and "The Sub-Mariner". ] These had
ongoing storylines, as did the comics they were based upon.

The Spider-Man and Fantastic Four series were more traditional
all-done-in-a-half-hour versions in their 1960s incarnations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marvel_Super_Heroes

> Old Doctor Who had arcs, but no little or no continuity between arcs.
> It didn't matter if you watched "The Power of the Daleks" or "The
> Smugglers" first - aside from the change-out of companions, and the
> rarer change-out of Doctors, there was no way to tell which comes
> first in-story.
>
> Dr Who also was, and is, open-ended. There's no plan to end it as
> long as it makes money, which constrains possible plot lines.
>
> B5 was conceived as a single story, with a beginning, middle, and
> end. Events from season 1 have unexpected (to the viewer) consequences
> even near the end of the show.

What was amazing was, given the cobbled-together near-network that
was the PTEN distribution, which degraded to just about a mere
syndicator by the end of the run, that it managed to stay on as
long as it did!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Time_Entertainment_Network

PTEN could be seen as a proto-UPN, which broadcast ST:Voyager.

Kevin R

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 30 July 2016 01:35:55 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 7/29/16 3:20 PM, Peter Trei wrote:
> > On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 1:49:24 PM UTC-4, Catherine Jefferson wrote:
> >> On 7/29/2016 6:12 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> >>> If those episodes weren't from the beginning, in order, that's not
> >>> surprising. Individual episodes of B5 are rarely "grabbers". What made
> >>> B5 unusual at the time was that *everything* was part of a long-term
> >>> story-arc and what seemed to be trivial incidents early on ended up
> >>> having major story impact later.
> >>>
> >>> I had seen a few episodes at random and not been caught. My friend
> >>> Phil handed me a tape with the first ... eight? ten? episodes on it and
> >>> said "if this doesn't hook you, it's not for you", and by the time we
> >>> finished it, me and my wife were calling him up in the middle of the
> >>> night demanding the next tape. His response was an evil laugh.
> >>
> >> ROFL! And +100. I got hooked when my then-boyfriend (now husband) lent
> >> me the first season on DVD, and insisted I watch the first two episodes.
> >> After the first, I told him to send me the other seasons. <G>
> >
> > I'm a great fan of the series, but found that it only got rolling in season 2,
> > though season 1 (as noted) is needed for fully understanding the context.
>
> I'm a fan of Sinclair, so I really liked Season 1. Though Sheridan was
> a good Captain too.

I think I hadn't got straight before what unfortunately
happened to Commander Sinclair in real life - as told at
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Hare>
but, evidently, not revealed at the time. So, not
the original plan.

As for Jerry Doyle in that show: he was fun to watch,
and a lot more than fun. Thank you.

[Robert Carnegie]

Arguable - although the show was about travelling
randomly in time and space, before it was in colour,
most stories ended with a lead-in to the next,
like in _Quantum Leap_. And later, arcs. But
otherwise, yeah, self-contained stories in effect.

[Kay Shapero]

In article <XnsA6557D225D...@216.166.97.131>,
treif...@gmail.com says...

Speaking of which, I did a rewatch several years ago posting comments on
each episode about it's affects later (yes, this is NOT for anybody who
hasn't seen the show!). I ran out of energy towards the end, mostly due
to the story being about over and thus fewer things to comment about,
but will probably get back to it some day. It's on my site at
http://www.kayshapero.net/B5thon.htm

[hamis...@gmail.com]

My understanding is that JMS had contingency plans for all the characters if something happened to stop the original one continuing on.
e.g. Patricia Tallman coming back into the series because Andrea Thompson left and Tracy Scoggins replacing Ivonova.

[Dimensional Traveler]

He called them "trapdoors" as i recall.

[Gary R. Schmidt]

I wasn't watching very much US-derived teevee back in the mid-sixties,
which is when Doctor Who arrived on the ABC here in Oz and I started
watching it, (it took a while for the tapes to make it here from Blighty
given the behaviour of the Trade Winds), were there many shows that had
story arcs that covered more than one season? Apart from soap operas,
that is, tortured plots that back-up and repeat on themselves shouldn't
count!

And Castrovalva crossed over two incarnations of the Doctor, anyway.

[Peter Trei]

No, there weren't. I think Hill Street Blues (1981) was the first prime time
drama to run long arcs, and it was regarded as quite unusual.

pt

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

In US TV, aside from Soap Operas, no. You didn't generally get story
arcs longer than two episodes ("A Special Two-Part Episode" was a big
event) and continuity, what's that? STATUS QUO IS GOD!

> Apart from soap operas,
> that is, tortured plots that back-up and repeat on themselves shouldn't
> count!
>
> And Castrovalva crossed over two incarnations of the Doctor, anyway.

Yes, but continuity in Doctor Who was little more than the occasional
nod up until the 2005 restart. The ambitious part OF the restart was
that RTD really, really tried to construct a coherent, if
bizarre-by-necessity, universe out of the hodgepodge of
self-contradictory material the decades of Old Who had left him, and he
did a pretty decent job of retconning the hell out of all of it.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Preceded by "Dallas" and its related primetime soaps, which set the stage.

But in SF TV, Babylon 5 was exceedingly unusual for the American
market. As noted earlier, not nearly so for other markets, especially
the Japanese who'd been doing SF sagas with multi-season continuity for
decades by then.

[Scott Lurndal]

B5 was followed a couple years later by the excellent _Stargate SG-1_,
which due to Showtime budgets, had higher quality SFX than B5 the first
few seasons.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Well, having a convenient Time War to remove the bits you really didn't
want to deal with certainly helped. :D

[William December Starr]

In article <nnqrmj$shj$2...@dont-email.me>,

As opposed to the situation faced by the guys who took over "Star
Trek: Enterprise," for whom a Time War was at the top of their list
of things _to_ remove...

-- wds