The SF Site: Babylon 5.1 by Rick Norwood

Babylon 5.1
by Rick Norwood

SF on TV

Websites
Other Babylon 5.1 Columns
For more information, you can try the following sites:
Rick Norwood's Website
Worldwide TV Schedule
The Official Babylon 5 Website
The X-Files
Pocket Books: Star Trek
Paramount Star Trek

Ratings
Ratings are based on a four star system.
One star means that the commercials are more entertaining than the program.
Two stars watch if you have nothing better to do.
Three stars is good solid entertainment.
Four stars means you never dreamed television could be this good.

Revenge of the Sith,
Written and Directed by George Lucas
I went to see Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith for a second time. Since I was not expecting much of the plot or the dialogue, I was able to enjoy the beautiful pictures and music, and the exciting action. I noticed how often George Lucas uses close-ups of the actors to draw us into the picture, how crisp and well-defined the light-saber battles are, and how much detail there is in every scene. I was able to pick up on little things, like the baggage handling droids at the spaceport and the dragonfly flyers and the gorgeous sunsets. There are entire planets that we see for less than a minute that are more completely realized than the main sets in other films. I watched the detail at the edges of the screen, and never caught a flaw. I still rank this as the least of the Star Wars films, but there is no denying its success on a technical and artistic (in the sense of pictures) level, if you forgive its faults as drama.

Lois & Clark – Season One (****)
by Deborah Joy LeVine et al., based on characters created by Siegel and Schuster
Before there was Smallville, there was Lois & Clark (and before that Superman: The TV Series). The first season of this show was excellent, thanks to intelligent scripts that focus on the characters rather than on the rather primitive special effects. Deborah Joy LeVine was responsible for the success of the show, so naturally they took her off the show after the first season. The other three seasons are not worth watching -- often actively painful to watch -- but this first season is well worth buying on DVD.

Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon.