The first installment of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales was released last week on DVD. Voices in the Dark consists of two brief, unrelated stories that play like short B5 episodes. The first segment follows Colonel Elizabeth Lochley [Tracy Scoggins] as she encounters a crafty hellspawn who's taken up residence in one of the station's crew. In the second, President John Sheridan [Bruce Boxleitner] struggles with the decision to kill a future Hitler. Oy.
Unfortunately, I really don't think there's much good to say about The Lost Tales. Given how incredibly bad the last B5 effort was [Legend of the Rangers, 2002], my expectations were low. I was not disappointed. Bored, but not disappointed. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski shows his flair for heavy-handed writing and is perhaps even more two-dimensional in his moralizing & philosophizing than on the original series. It's hard to knock the actors much, given what they have to work with and the fact that JMS not only wrote but also directed. The cast didn't stand a chance. This is frustrating in the same way the Star Wars franchise frustrates me. JMS, like George Lucas, can craft a hell of a story, but then he doesn't have the sense to back off and let the professionals do their jobs. A reprise of the B5 universe could be magnificent, if only JMS would delegate some of the work. As it is, he demanded complete creative control on this project, and it shows in the results.
On the plus side, Bruce Boxleitner is aging well, so I guess I can be grateful for a little eye candy. Seeing Teryl Rothery [Dr. Frasier on SG-1] also made me smile. I can't say I recommend bothering with this unless you're a pretty hardcore B5 fan. Perhaps this was just a warm-up, though, and the next installment will offer a substantially higher grade of entertainment. Yeah, that's it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment