Babylon 5 showed up on HBOMax today. I took a look at a few bits and pieces… “Severed Dreams” and “Sleeping In Light” to be precise – and can confirm that it looks great. It’s back to the original aspect ratio; it looks like some sort of processing was done to it so that it looks better than DVD quality, though clearly not super-duper upscaling. If anyone knows how long it’ll be on HBOMax, let me know. it would be nice if it’ll be there for a few years, but it’s hard to tell.
Now, consider this. A plot point in Season One is the election for Earth Alliance President. In the end, Luis Santiago wins the vote as President, and brings along Vice President Clark. By the end of Season One, Santiago is dead in an explosion of the transport vessel Earthforce One, and Clark is President. Clark does such a piss-poor job – screws with the economy, institutes departments devoted to deplatforming/depersoning people and squashing the views of those who disagree, gets the government into bed with badguys, creates a surveillance state that will punish you for wrongthink (literally, what with the Psi Corps), mandates political/ideological tests – that humanity splits apart and a civil war breaks out. On one side, Big Government, with all the power; on the other side, the people who just want to be left alone with their freedoms and their guns and their low taxes. Hijinks ensue, many die. Turns out Clark, under the influence of shadowy manipulators from far away, set up Santiagos assassination with a bomb.
One wonders if President Biden has a scheduled stop at a transfer station near a place called Io…