Post by B5Erik on Feb 4, 2021 4:49:30 GMT
Season 2 - The Geometry of Shadows/A Distant Star
I picked these LaserDiscs up on a whim. I had been a LaserDisc collector in the early to mid 90's, and still have about 30 of them (along with a player that still works - barely). I had given consideration to buying all the Babylon 5 LaserDiscs when they came out, but they were pretty pricey at the time, running $30 - $35 each at most stores. That's for two episodes.
But since I had been taping the episodes off of their original broadcast, I held off.
By the time my VHS tapes were showing some wear DVD was on the horizon, so I held off, again, and put it on the back burner. Seemingly forever.
Until I found a couple online for a reasonable price ($10 each), and as I was curious as to the quality of the discs, I jumped at the chance.
This disc has two early episodes from Season 2. The Geometry of Shadows and A Distant Star are both standalone episodes with key bits of the overall story arc included. They're two solid episodes, each with well known (to genre fans) guest stars. Michael Ansara in The Geometry of Shadows, and Russ Tamblyn in A Distant Star. Both give top notch performances, and are a lot of fun to watch.
The Geometry of Shadows is about a group of Technomages passing through Babylon 5 as they head out beyond the rim, fleeing from the coming darkness that only they and few others know about. Ambassador Mollari sees their arrival on the station as a bit of good fortune, as, historically, Technomages were revered figures on Centarui Prime, and the endorsement of one of them could propel him to the highest ranks in the Centauri Royal Court. The lead Technomage, Elric (played by Ansara with his usual, almost regal tone) wants nothing to do with Londo, but that doesn't dissuade the Ambassador from trying to trick Elric into giving him that endorsement. It is a plan that backfires, with amusing results.
It isn't one of the series strongest episodes, but it's still far better than average for TV Science Fiction of that era.
A Distant Star is, in some ways, more interesting. Captain Sheridan's first commanding officer, Captain Jack Maynard of the Explorer Class ship, The Cortez, stops by Babylon 5 when he hears that Sheridan has been appointed as the station's commanding officer. They talk about old times, and it causes Sheridan to consider whether or not he belongs on the station, or whether he should be the captain of a starship. The answer comes later, but in the meantime The Cortez has a key system overload and blow out, causing them to become lost in hyperspace. Sheridan sends out a group of starfuries on a high risk rescue mission.
Like The Geometry of Shadows, this isn't one of the series strongest episodes, but it's got a lot going for it. Tamblyn is charismatic in his role as Sheridan's old friend, and the chemistry between him and Bruce Boxleitner works well. There's a lot of good dialogue on this episode (written by the great D.C. Fontana), including the famous Delenn, "Starstuff," speech. This is a very good episode, one that continues to develop The Shadows not only as a potential threat, but a mysterious force as well.
But what about that picture quality?
As Babylon 5 has (as of this writing) just been re-released on HBO Max in streaming form with completely remastered episodes (in their original 4x3 aspect ratio), this became even more intriguing.
The problem with the DVD's was not the live action footage. Most of that looks great! It's the CGI and composite shots (live action mixed with CGI) that are the problem. For the DVD's they used the 16x9 widescreen image that was filmed, but realized that they didn't have widescreen effects shots. So, rather than spend more money doing new effects (which would have been more expensive), and rather than upscaling to HD and then cropping the image to widescreen, the production people in charge of the DVD's chose to simply blow up/enlarge the image and then crop it. Taking an SD picture, and making it LESS than SD for those shots. The results didn't look bad on old SD CRT tube televisions (not great, but not bad), but on an HDTV? The picture quality for those shots ranges from mediocre to atrocious. Almost all of the composite shots look like garbage.
But with the LaserDiscs, there isn't that enlarged and cropped problem. It's the original image, in it's full resolution.
And it looks great!
OK, not great, but pretty darned good, and WAY better than the DVD's when it comes to the CG and composite shots. Some of the shots, from 10 feet away, look really impressive. Sure, CGI has come a long way since the mid 90's, but for a TV show at that time this still looks pretty damned good!
What, then, about the live action footage?
Well, there the LaserDisc falls short. It looks better than VHS, but not as good as the DVD's. And you've then also got the issue with the cropped 4x3 image (with the sides cut off). The framing looks decent enough - this IS the way it was originally shown, and it isn't bad. But on many shots on the widescreen version you get all of both characters in the scene, rather than just part of each. And the image does have a bit of digital noise, as well, making the DVD releases superior in that aspect.
So when it comes to the picture quality, the Laserdiscs win in some aspects of the image, and the DVD's in the other. It would have been interesting to see a hybrid release - widescreen for the live action only shots, and 4x3 for the CGI and composite shots (with something like a computer display on the outer edges to fill the screen rather than just black bars. That, sadly, will never happen.
The sound quality on the LaserDiscs is OK. It sounds like what I remember from the 90's. The sound quality on the DVD's is a step up for sure.
Bottom line? These discs have some really good picture quality by the standards of the day, but those standards have been far surpassed over the last 25 years. Still, it is fun to watch these episodes the way they were originally released. The quality of the stories, dialogue, and acting is still really good, and the old standard picture quality doesn't detract from that (and the superior effects quality actually helps a lot).