Yesterday we're watching B5

[conuly]

and Garibaldi gets up out of bed at night, trips over what's probably his own shoes or laundry. Not as an extended joke, as in a sitcom, just because.

It's the little things that make these characters seem like real people.

Which is good, because the writers clearly didn't correctly anticipate google. "It'll take four hours for the computer to analyze the data for these search terms and tell you that your previous identity was as a serial killer". Like, no? (Also - is there no more appeals process on Earth? It's like people get tried, convicted, sentenced, and then the sentence is executed all within a week! I'm all for speedy trials, but this is ridiculous!)

*******************

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Comments

[sovay]

"It'll take four hours for the computer to analyze the data for these search terms and tell you that your previous identity was as a serial killer".

This episode introduced me to Brad Dourif and my affection for him has never gone away.

[pwcorgigirl]

The dog with the stuffed unicorn was the cutest thing I've seen in ages.

[conuly]

I KNOW.

[pensnest]

It's as though B5 and ST got opposite halves of the equation... the creating of B5 went to such trouble to make the science plausible, have a rotating station to give them gravity, have fighting spaceships that actually use space as a three-dimensional thing, have uniforms that look like uniforms, worry about how to pay for things, and so forth. But they have plastic 'paper', which just looks silly now, and nobody has a smartphone or some device which would appear to have such functions. Such a shame.

ST:TNG really lucked out with the design, because the look of the ship remains futuristic with those incomprehensible but cool panels all over the place. They have their tricorders - desk screens are a bit teeny, but their computer seems pretty smart. And the universe, however affectionately I may feel towards it, doesn't actually work.

[conuly]

It's the money that gets me.

I'm not saying that an advanced complex society can't exist without money, but ST never quite put in the groundwork to make it make sense.

[mindstalk]

Nor has it been consistent about the alleged absence of money.

[conuly]

That's the other half of the problem.

[mindstalk]

Between Star Trek and the Culture, I think every story about "we have moved beyond money" is either smug but unsupported condescension, or showing some situation where they do in fact need money. (Or rather, need trade, but the core role of money is to facilitate trade, so...)

Look to Windward had people scrabbling for seats at a live performance, and the local Mind sniffed that they were trading and it could allocate things so much more efficiently, but of course this was not described and didn't happen.

[mindstalk]

B-5 also had bathrooms! But also a homeless population on a space station, in a pipe-leaking section.

It did have comlinks, back of the hand, but yeah not smartphones.

I remember criticizing unlabelled data crystals but it's not like my USB sticks are much better. Though at least mine look different.

[conuly]

IIRC, published diagrams of the Enterprise totally lack bathrooms.

Though, speaking of bathrooms, why does B5 have glowy lightup things on its urinals?

[mindstalk]

Have you heard? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTCwHBsXQoI

[conuly]

LOL