A Tennessee law professor blogger who shall remain nameless posts a link to some sort of article on California business. The expression "nibbled to death by ducks" makes an appearance.

As that unnamed blogger might say, "heh."

My all-time favorite TV series (which, in the Grand Scheme Of Things, ranks in importance somewhere between a favorite grandparent and a favorite flavor of icecream) is Babylon 5. (The full set of DVDs is in my wish list... but I may pop for it myself one of these days.)

Yes, I'm a geek.

Yes, there's a connection. Bear with me.

Babylon 5 was smartly-written: gritty, suspenseful, thrilling and realistic (well... as realistic as science fiction can reasonably be), with grand themes surrounding the day-to-day action. Characters had failings, flaws and deep dark secrets — no prissy Jean-Luc Picards anywhere to be seen. The problems of everyday life intruded into the characters' lives. The tip-off for me was that the space station had bathrooms, and characters actually used them.

[I'm convinced the missions of Star Trek's vessels were mainly concerned searching for planets with decent lavatory facilities, since no commodes are apparent on Star Fleet's ships.]

As the saying goes, for science fiction to be good science fiction, it must first be good fiction. By any standard, B5 scored on that count. It was such a good show that, given Hollywood's penchant for killing quality projects, I still think it's a miracle it made it to the airwaves at all, much less made it through its complete 5-year storyline.

If you never followed it, I can only say: it's not too late.

Not only was B5 one great big terrific story, but almost all episodes (there were a couple of stinkers) were good stories in and of themselves. Throughout the series were moments that would have any normal person shivering with anticipation, cheering, saddened, or laughing out loud.

Hence this post. We began with ducks, and end with one of my favorite "gems" of dialog from the program.

Londo: "... I think I will stick my head in the station's fusion reactor. It would be quicker. And I suspect, after a while I might even come to enjoy it. But this — this, this, this is like being nibbled to death by... what are those Earth creatures called? Feathers, long bill, webbed feet .. go 'quack'...?"

Vir: "Cats."

Londo: "Cats. I'm being nibbled to death by cats."

Cracks me up every time.

[I always thought the expression was "nibbled to death by cats" rather than "by ducks." A quick Google of both phrases yields 2,910 hits for "cats" and a mere 695 for "ducks," but that's beside the point....]

[Point? What point?]

Posted by Russ at 11:14 AM, August 6, 2004 in DVD & TV