Lightcudder wrote on Sep 11^th, 2010 at 7:31am:

I'm waiting for guests to come down for (their 8.30am!  >) breakfast so this will be brief:

I'm re-watching all the B5 series at the moment (it gets me through the ironing!) and am in awe of JMS. His passion for the story and the characters oozes from the screen. I don't think the Andersons had that sort of passion and therefore we didn't get that sort of series. Lots of things that were "good ideas at the time" but never saw any development after the relevant episode. But I don't think that was untypical of most series at the time - hero declaring undying love for (usually dying) character one week but having apparently moved on with no lasting effects by the next episode as an example.

Re smoking in France, Guina: in this part of Normandy most (though not all) of the bars and restaurants are effectively enforcing the no smoking ban, even in the countryside.

However, France is many countries and it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that Brittany or regions further south are ignoring the law. Signing up to and then ignoring laws is what France does so well. 

Edited to add: and yes, bars (and boulangeries, epiceries, etc) are closing here in droves too, especially in the countryside. But while the smoking ban has something to do with the drop in bar profits, closures are also due to the sort of societal changes that has fewer people shopping locally or going out to drink vs opening a bottle at home - drink driving limits are lower in France than in England, for eg. Things are rarely black and white.

Hi Normandie,

you should make the mattresses harder 

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Curiously that one never made it high up on my radar, I do not like it at all and can't find any character I could be sympathetic with, nor any face taking my fancy or plot intriguing me a lot. Watched it through 3 seasons and then gave up on it. Too slick, too constructed for my taste.

There are movies which do that to me as well (lately it was Avatar, left me totally cold).

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Possibly due the many tourists there? Dunno. The Southerners are so anti-Paris that they'd flout their disagreement just because   

That said, the French without Gauloises hanging from the lips, a baguette under the arm and a bottle of red in the other hand is somehow a sorry France. 

I need to get up. 9.36 am. still in bed.. bliss.
UFO.. dark, morally ambiguous , definitley. which is probably its saving grace.

(oh... and having  Ed Bishop as Straker probably had something to do with it!!)

Drool.

Alba wrote on Sep 11^th, 2010 at 8:27am:

It's a thought! I find vacuuming outside the door usually works quite well too... especially if DH is strimming the grass outside at the same time. 

Anyway, they're now up and stuffing themselves with croissants, pain au chocolate, freshly squeezed orange juice, my own home-made granola and brioche, fresh fruit salad, honey, marmelade, jams...

...and I loved Max Headroom! Though DH hated it with a passion. However, I control the remote in this house.

Hi Normandie,

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Oh gosh! Stop it already, will ya?!  >

The two things you can't get outside of France are real French baguettes and real French croissants de beurre... *snif* What they sell abroad in their stead is a travesty!

I soooooooooooooo miss them! 

Well, I'll get the DVDs, that series was absolutely fantastic, got me hooked with the pilot and that was a time when it was hard glueing me to the TV set.

Hi Louise,

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I wouldn't say everything. I already once explained that I do not think the Andersons were haphazard about the series. Some "small" details, such as continuity may have been compromised, but from what we have today it is very clear that they gave pretty concise orders as to the what, the where to and the how there.

What I mean is, that I think the stories per se were not as important as describing and building a dystopian world in which aliens preyed on humans in the vilest of all ways, where the "rescuers" had to haggle for budgets to save the planet, where every so often people lost instead of won the ensuing battle - be it personal or general.

I mean, how many ST:TOS episodes are there, where Captain Kirk loses his son (that needed a new planet, it needed be against the living Mr. Spock, it needed the son's own heroic decision and it needed the survival of Spock).

All we get here in UFO is the stale aftertaste of what might possibly have been. There are truly universes between the one and the other! And I'll take UFO over ST any given time!

What UFO actually reminds me most of lately are V, Brazil and Max Headroom (which is why I remembered about that one).

It does take planning - of a totally different sort - to arrive THERE.

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My stance is different. Quite literally - I do not care about those. I've said that already in the discussion about Psychobombs. I fill the plot holes and continuity errors with what is the most logical (to me) explanation and take as canon only what I see onscreen (no scripts, no interviews, no fan-written stuff). That makes it easy to live with what exists.

I truly much prefer the wonderful alternate reality the Andersons created, to the precision of Babylon 5, if you will. To me, one is alive and vibrant, the other a mere construction.

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The fun part is - you don't have to! I also dislike Mary, but QoP is a fav of mine instead. I see the lack of that character and I interpret it the most logical (for me) way and that is that she is a very daft bimbo and that Straker is equally daft for having married her thinking that would work out. But hey - people make such mistakes and there are such vapid bimbos and there are eminently intelligent men who happen to marry them. Maybe he liked the boobs?! 

What is plan B?

Hi K-k,

now why doesn't it astonish me that Max is a fav of yours as well? I just loved him. And I yesterday evening ordered that DVD set - must have (drooling here).  I bought my first computer because of Max - I wanted a Max in my computer ever so badly and played around for ages with the most diverse rendering softwares of the time!

As to the US market, the rates showed the fact (UFO and 2-3 like programs did eminently well in continental Europe as opposed to that). It's a repetitive thing anyway, most whatever comes out of Europe is too gritty and too dark, usually gets re-shot and adapted for US-taste, or discarded. UFO's no exception, there's a lot of that out there. Just compare the European and the US version of "Nightwatch", and that's even the same director and screenwriter for you. The US version is much tamed down and packs but half the punch of the original.

Whether the US public indeed was/is not ready for this stuff? That would need trying out, wouldn't it? I do really sometimes wonder what came first - egg or hen? Is it the cold feet of the producers or the public itself?

One pointer though is e.g. HLOTS, which is the darkest and grittiest any US TV production ever did, especially the first 4 seasons. It was its small dedicated fan-base which lobbied year after year for continuance, but the show itself never really hit off on the main US market, even tho it was showered with prizes.

All that's a really hot topic among those writing for the screen, small or big. 

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I nowhere got the impression that Mary was afraid of Rutland. What I sensed there instead was jealousy and possessiveness on his part, and the wish to cut short every contact of the former husband with son and wife. And in consequence what I get from Mary is the wish to have Ed off the premises pronto, so as to not engender even more of that.

I don't find all that very odd either, seen it many times in many badly divorced families.

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Again, I've seen pretty much exactly this in real life, not just once either - so it does not puzzle me the way it seems to strike you.

I even know from my own experience that you indeed can coldly function for days, months onwards, not a tear shed, not one yell, no "losing it" and appear perfectly alright to everyone around you. It took me 10 years before *I* could cry over what had happened, before I even dared touch that specific time in my own history and - tell you what - I haven't yet talked about it with anyone! And as said, I've seen that with others too. It's entirely dependant on personality.

So, no problem here in seeing how that can come about, I find this highly credible.

Why should Alec know, especially if Straker expressly keeps it from him? He can't do more than offer his ears, and that he did and was rebuked, emphatically. Again I fail to see the problem, as I fail to see what else Alec could have done. I don't remember Straker dashing out of HQ either - must watch this again today...