Returns to the future and the distant past - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

  Another exhausting week down, but at least this one has contained more opportunities for hope than most of us have had in recent years.
     This week the attention's on two series from the '90s that are (re)appearing in new places, where they will ideally be getting some attention.

     Coming to HBO Max next Tuesday, January 26th, will be the five season run of J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5. With us being down to the final two episodes of season five of The Expanse (on Amazon Prime), and the most recent season of Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All Access -- which is soon to be rebranded as Paramount+, by the way) a few weeks behind us, the timing's appreciated. This isn't to mark these all as equivalent, but they're broadly similar with their futuristic, interplanetary feel. B5 and Discovery are both what is generally described as "space opera", while The Expanse continues to mostly be that rarer bit of entertainment, actual "television" science fiction.
     Covering events in the years 2257-2262, Babylon 5 is centered on the last of the eponymous stations, built as a center for inter-species trade and diplomacy in a galaxy where trans-light travel has lead to several major incidents, including wars. Conceived as a "novel for television," the series includes multiple events that drastically change the status quo for the characters and their civilizations, with each season focused on a new year. War, peace, religion, types of government, addiction, etc. are all topics of focus.
     Here is a less than pristine trailer, and perhaps one that unfortunately hits bad notes of a '90s show with a tight budget and very heavy dependency on visual effects... and with occasionally questionable backing music choices, but it hits the general theme. Too many of the trailers lying around are specific to certain seasons, and/or give too much away.

     I'm tempted to say so much more about the series - specific character and relationship arcs, the talent both in front of and behind the camera, including at least one tragic tale of a central performer from early in the series, the occasionally toxic studio politics, and why it's generally best not to bring both this series and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine up in conversations with some people... but I tend to run long in these pieces as it is. I'll indulge just this far with respect to the first area: The relationship between Londo Mollari and G'Kar probably sticks with me more than any of the others.
     The series was produced and aired between 1993 and 1998, in four directly syndicated seasons (which created considerable problems for many who were trying to find and keep up with the show), and a final season exclusive to TNT, which is also where a series of four made-for-tv movies were produced.

     Once the episodes are in place and I've gotten a chance to look, I'll aim to update this with information in red concerning what ultimately is and isn't there. The general expectation is that what will be appearing here will be what was seen on iTunes over the past year or so - once the show was removed from general access on Amazon Prime - which means among other things that around two minutes is missing from a couple episodes (one in season one and another in season four), and that none of the tv movies that expanded the series will be part of the offered mix. We'll see.

    Neither of these things is a deal-breaker for me, as I'd been disappointed to go back and look for it last year for a rewatch, only to find it was no longer available as part of the Prime package. (Yet another reminder that buying physical media - something that one owns and can call on at will - has its advantages.) For my immediate interest, that I'll be getting access back to the five, 22-episode seasons, will be enough. I'm also interested in seeing how these look, as the expectation is that these have been restored to their original presentation aspect, and so may be more visually appealing.
     I continue to wish/hope that my Vizio smart tv gets to add an HBO Max app so I can eventually acess what's accumulating there more easily. That I have to access it on another device (in my case, via browser on my PC) and then send that feed to my big flatscreen is cumbersome. Sure, that's my, first-worldish, problem, but we are discussing leisure activities. It's not supposed to involve inconvenience and work.

     Another '90s series, this time one originally seen on ABC, will be reappearing (again, as reruns, not as a relaunch), as Dinosaurs will arrive on Disney+ a week from now, on January 29th.
     My life in the '90s was especially harried due to a combination of work and family - lengthy commutes for the full decade, and children being born early in the decade - so my television and movie viewing was at some of its lowest levels. Conscious, "free" time was at a premium, and largely hypothetical.
     Dinosaurs, which was on from late '91 to late '94 was in some of the thickest scheduling of my life, so even with the VCR available to help with viewing schedule adjustments I simply wasn't watching much, and sitcoms almost always got the lowest level of attention from me. Regardless, while being a sitcom (and an extremely expensive one) it nonetheless was ultimately high-minded, subversive and forward-thinking in its array of social topics. The accelerated dumbing down of society, the dangers of domination by religious and corporate interests, all proved to be prescient, and - unfortunately - largely unheeded lessons. Even just the parallels seen between one of the characters in the show - a self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, bullying blowhard who decides to run for office - might have spared us so much pain had people taken the warnings to heart and kept alert for the signs.

     I'm looking forward to seeing it through with this access, though I'll probably indulge myself at the start by jumping to the final episode, with its message of reckless, bottom line-driven corporate behavior and devastating environmental consequences. The sudden, grim nature of the series finale took many by surprise. It's to the credit of the people behind the show that they saw the writing on the wall - knowing that despite the high ratings even in the face of having been almost viciously moved around on the schedule, that they were going to be canceled - and went out the way they did.
     Having let the first three episodes of Ted Danson's new NBC sitcom Mr. Mayor build up, I got around to watching those the other night. (No.4 is probably posted by now on Hulu, too.)
     In the series, Danson plays a wealthy, retired man who decided to run for the office of Mayor of Los Angeles after 2020 completely broke the previous mayor's sanity. The series is about him navigating his new office, along with being single parent to his teenage daughter. One of the lessons for him so far is that he's becoming more engaged as a parent now, with his daily plate refilled, than he did from the previous run of years where he'd been officially retired with the nominal intent being to be a more present parent.

     The cast includes Holly Hunter as a quirky, driven, fringe Liberal career councilwoman with higher asperations, and Bobby Moynihan as an arrested maturity communications director leftover from the previous administration. Ultimately it's another ensemble of dysfunctional characters finding their respective niches in a work environment. Adversaries become allies, and the players find their respective grooves -- hopefully. I think we've grown past the point of tolerating cliche characters who never evolve, even in a sitcom, especially one like this which already has longer story arcs. It's a mild investment of time, and even just between Danson and Hunter they've banked more than enough credit to warrant seeing where this goes.
     I haven't made a point of doing check-ins and keeping tabs on the production of series of interest, so I'll take my fall-back position of noting those I do see as I see them. So it is that I saw that long-delated (and it's a good, blanket presumption that every 2020 set of delays was due to the pandemic) production on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime) finally began this past Wednesday, while most of the rest of the nation was focused on the inauguration. As it's a period series, currently set in the early '60s, they can't incorporate the pandemic elements overtly into the show, and will presumably be trying to maintain the same look and energy seen in the previous three seasons. As we look back on these series years from now it'll be interesting to see what stands out. In this case, the safety protocols are affecting so many things, and word is this season of the series will rely increasingly on video effects because, among other things, no one's going to be packing rooms in scenes with people.
     As a final programming note for the week:    
     The Stand (CBS All Access) dropped its 6th episode this week, hitting more major plot points both in Vegas and Boulder. The fifth episode, last week, differed from the previous four by keeping its focus wholly on the present; I meant to mention that last week, but it was one of many things I didn't get to. This week seems to cement the idea that we're not jumping into the past any more. Has anyone else (reading this, of course) been watching the series? I know if I look around I'll find places where people are watching and discussing it, but casual scans of things facebook friends have been posting have shown zero signs of any mention.
   Now I have the third episode of WandaVision to catch!
    Take care, and I'll see you back here next Friday as we roll into the final weekend of January. -- Mike