ALT.SF4M

  Amusements 4/24/98

   • j********o@***.com
     24/04/1998 00:00:000 UTC

     I finally re-watched this. It plays a lot better knowing where it's
     going than

     originally. They took out the "Alien Petting Zoo" scene - I bet the
     criticism

     of that stung "JMS" to the bone! They left in the thing about arguing
     with the

     designers over the stone garden (for space reasons) - the (new?)
     rationale

     isn't completely absurd until you remember the (ultra cool) baseball
     stadium!

     Although it would take a lot of land to feed so many people: yet we
     never get

     to see the ambassadors gawking at the scale of the place or its
     population the

     way I'd like them to (all official functions should be held outdoors
     (inside)

     for just that purpose). I'm proud to say that I ID'd the guy who plays
     Mr.

     Morden as a bridge officer (before he even spoke or we got a good look
     at him).

     Dilenn and J'Kar sure looked ugly. The scene where Sinclair is
     remembering

     the Line plays so much like "Airplane!" that it's hard not to chuckle.

     Amusing thing: happened to park the TV through the end of last night's

     Promised Land (the heartwarming family drama) where they had the guy who
     played

     Sikes on Alien Nation - and the show ended with him and his daughter
     leaving to

     follow his estranged wife to L.A.. The show ended with a mysterious
     voice-over

     saying that "Our story continues next on Diagnosis: Murder..."
     Intrigued, I

     waited to see what would happen. Lo and behold, that show starts with
     the same

     characters showing up at a murder scene (apparently of the wife). By the
     next

     commercial, it turned out to be her room-mate. Anyway, that was pretty
     cool,

     especially as they aren't even in the same genre!

     Gorno

       • j********o@***.com
         01/05/1998 00:00:000 UTC

         In article <1***************.********2@l*******.****.***l.com>,
         j********o@***.com

         (JohnGorno) writes:

         >I finally re-watched this. ...

         "this" referencing the B5 pilot: the Gathering (*this in C++ terms).

         Bits 'n pieces:

         Messed-up comedic Millennium tomorrow: probably featuring (on a TV
         in the

         show) Scully and Mulder plus a demonic version of the Dancing Baby.

         Ran across a Tech manual for Aliens; one cute bit was that the
         Sulacco had

         been an unfortunate ship from her launch. Another was a reference to
         the

         "Chinese Arm" - a geographic term from the rather similar Traveller:
         2300 game

         world. And the rationale for the ship-board hibernaculums: their
         hyperdrive

         converts the ship to tachyons, and a relativistic time _expansion_
         occurs - the

         faster they go, the longer the trip. In fact, applying a beta>1 to
         the time

         dilation formula and ignoring the imaginary coefficient for
         tachyons, we do in

         fact get an effect like this, with the expansion going to
         proportionate to beta

         - however, since external trip time is proportional to beta too,
         they'd cancel

         and ship time would always proportional to distance, whatever the
         speed

         employed (which is not what the writers wanted - they didn't use the
         real

         equation, mind you.) This leaves us with a messy constant time
         ratio, which I

         guess we can conveniently set to 1 year ship time per light year
         travelled.

         But the net effect still works, and it's a cute idea that their FTL
         ships may

         age decades, even centuries, while the crews rest in icy slumber.

         Gorno

         Hmmm... Major Kira... I wouldn't mind having a copy of her in my
         holo-suite!

         That little red dress - grrrrrowl!