This show continues to surprise me. I never would have guessed that the Shadow War would be finished six episodes into season 4! In fact, I was a little disappointed at first. I had expected the struggle against the Shadows would last for most of the rest of the show. Or, at the earliest I expected, it would end at the end of season 4 or beginning of season 5 and most of season 5 would be about rebuilding order around the galaxy. Instead, it looks like that rebuilding and regrowth time has begun before season 4 is even half over.
Upon reflection, I realize that as far as story arc timing goes, this is fairly typical of the series. You end one season with a great buildup of tension and continue that tension for several episodes at the beginning of the next season until the story arc is mostly resolved. The middle of the season is the incubation period. It picks up unresolved story threads and helps them grow in tension and importance. By the end of the season, the story tension has become too great to maintain the mid-season's status quo and all kinds of stuff happens to carry the arc into the next season. It's probably effective because you have a lot of excitement at the beginning of the season to get new people in; you know in mid-season you might lose some viewers, but you bring them back at the end of the season with even more adrenaline.
Nevertheless, I still rather miss the Shadow War. There's nothing quite like having a really, really bad bad guy to root against. Trying to sort out the Minbari caste system and weed out the corrupt Earth officials isn't the same. But like Delenn says:
Quote of the Day:
"War is easy. Destruction is easy. Rebuilding is hard."
--Delenn Mir
That may not be an accurate quote, but it's close.
In other news, what is the deal with Garibaldi?! That's been another frustrating thing about this season because I still don't know what happened to him on that alien ship and how it's affected his uncharacteristic decisions since then. Honestly, Garibaldi's always had a suspicious nature, but before this season he'd always been staunchly loyal to his job and his fellow officers. I keep waiting for G'Kar to get in his face and remind him of that "support and obey your superior officer" speech that Garibaldi gave G'Kar last season. Grr.
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The usual explanation for the Shadow War story arc ending so early is that the seasons 4 and 5 arcs were compressed into one season to wrap things up for a cancellation that never came. Whether this was really the case is a matter of some controversy in B5 fandom.
A lot of people have found it unsatisfying; one commentator said something to the effect that it would be like Micronesia telling the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to shove off during the height of the Cold War--and actually taken seriously. I kind of agree, but I do like the effect it has on the season as a whole. I like that so much of it is devoted to dealing with the mess that Earth Alliance has become, and I like that despite basically saving life as we know it things are still pretty far from okay.
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