Lost Tales, Found on Doorstep!

Had a crap day today. Spent most of it trying to get GWT working with a Sourceforge library that adds access to the map api. Yeah. That didn't work so well. Wouldn't build when I finally managed to get everything stitched together, and my initial assumption was yet another Mac problem. So I decided to confirm on Solaris. Right. Except GWT is built on SWT, and I decided I didn't want to work around that, too. So GWT is out.

So it was with great joy I found B5 waiting for me on my doorstep. It's been far too long since I got to enjoy these characters and these stories. Unfortunately, all I got was Sheridan¹ and Lochley. Man, how pissed is JMS at Claudia Christian that he couldn't have called her back home. Lochley. Ugh.

The efx looked good, though there was one chroma scene where the cgi guys didn't put enough depth of field into the background and it looked like an old-style rear-projection shot. Also, the exteriors were a little too video-gamy for my tastes. I'm impressed with what JMS accomplished with a small budget, but I've been spoiled by BSG: I want battle-scarred dull steel space vessels, not floating, spinning kaleidoscopes.

Clearly a lot of the budget savings on The Lost Tales were on cast. This was the definition of spartan². Seven, no eight, on-screen speaking roles and a couple of OS lines. And one of the on-screen speakers had one line. Much more like a two-act play that was filmed (with some efx) than an episode of the finest SF show ever created. There weren't even enough extras to make the station feel like its old, bustling self.

JMS used this disc as an opportunity to work on his directing skills (I guess he already had his guild card from Sleeping in Light). I hope he's picked up some good tricks to bring to bear on the next disc. And I want my damn Garibaldi story!

So, it was worth the $15 bucks. It was worth the time to watch - the low-key memorial to Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs would have been worth the price and time alone to me - and I recommend it to any fans. If I were to compare it to its siblings, I'd say it was better than Crusade, better than Legend of the Rangers, but worse than about 60 of the original flavor episodes.

---

¹ Not to imply there's ever anything unfortunate about watching Scarecrow work. He's always a joy.
² Okay, sure. It's not the definition of Spartan. There were no Greek warriors anywhere in sight, and not once did someone get kicked in the chest by a scantily-clad dude in a beard. Also, there were chairs. A special point was made about chairs. No throw pillows, but chairs.