And so I finally got around to introducing my daughter to "Babylon 5".
"The Gathering" is an odd episode of B5, filmed and shown a year ahead of the rest of the series (not by design), with only half the eventual Season 1 cast in attendance, the final makeup for the alien ambassadors not yet set, and the revolutionary all-CG FX that much cruder.
And from an acting standpoint, it's pretty rough going — the humans, especially. But there are some very nice moments there there as well — in particular (on both counts) from Michael O'Hare's Jeffrey Sinclair.
We watched the revised edition, re-edited during the 4th Season of the show and re-issued as a TV movie — there's some extra character footage put back in, but the superior (to my mind) Stewart Copeland soundtrack is replaced with one by the series composer Christopher Franke.
My reaction, net-net, was that it was a lot less embarrassing than I was afraid it would be. For all the sketchy parts, there's enough mystery and foreshadowing showing through to get the conspiratorial juices flowing. And it did get a nomination for the 1994 Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo (the only TV show on the ballot that year), so there was something there.
Kay's reaction was mixed — she got into some deep speculation as to what was going on about 2/3 of the way through the film (and while she was only about half-correct, the half-wrong was damned good plotting, too), but she ended up feeling so-so about the heavy doses of politics.
We'll see, by the bye, what she thinks about the regular series.
Most dramatic moment: Jeff really doesn't want to talk about the Line — until it gets dragged out of him.
Most amusing moment: "Beep-beep"
Most arc moment: A toss-up between Lyta scanning Kosh (boy, is that going to come back to haunt her a few seasons from now) and
(in the directors cut) Kosh first meeting (he thinks) Sinclair and saying, "Entil'Zha Valen".
Guide page: “The Gathering”
The Vorlon ambassador is nearly killed by an assassin shortly after arriving at the station, and Commander Sinclair is the prime suspect. Tamlyn Tomita as Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima(*). Blaire Baron as Carolyn Sykes(*). Johnny Sekka as Dr. Benjamin Kyle(*). Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander(*).
The acting is so bad… and it only gets somewhat better throughout the series. Still, it is possibly my favorite Sci-Fi show of all time.