Mira Furlan: Babylon 5 and Lost actress dies at 65 | Hacker News Reader

Mira Furlan: Babylon 5 and Lost actress dies at 65

bbc.com

43 pointsmetabagel21 comments

She was so perfect as Delenn, one of my favorite characters, in my all-time favorite show. Babylon-5 was a big part of my formative years and some of her best scenes and voice still rattle around in my mind. I am truly saddened by this news. The world has lost a great actress and soul, too soon.

Oh no! Babylon 5 was pretty good in the beginning, then it became GREAT when seeds planted in past episodes paid off big time in later episodes.

The "In the Beginning" prequel movie was amazingly good - though has huge spoilers so should be watched after the show proper.

In the beginning is the only B5 movie worth watching the rest are garbage, the 5th season was also quite terrible I don’t know how much it was them moving to TNT and how much it was them essentially rushing the 4th with the looming cancellation and tying too many loose ends at the end.

B5 was unique for its time because back then especially sci-fi was essentially still stuck in the syndicated monster of the week model where you had little to no continuity plot wise across episodes because it made the show easy to watch out of order and thus it could easily be syndicated.

Ironically another TV show that started as a mainly syndication format show during the 90’s - Stargate SG1 started to lose steam when they went too heavy on single plot seasons, they came to a point where they’ve essentially ran out of bad guys and they had to invent a new more and more powerful bad guy every season, and at the end even the cast seem to have given up on the show.

> the 5th season was also quite terrible

With the exception of the final episode, which was filmed along with Season 4 before (as you said) they knew they would get renewed for a 5th. Absolutely gut-wrenching episode.

Still, season 5 does have its moments, like the "We are one" declaration from G'Kar...

the best is when Zathras comes back in season 4 or whatever

Season 3. Yes, that was awesome.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/060.html

So many Babylon 5 actors have died too young

Basically half of the main cast (7 out of 14 or 15 depending on how you count) have died below life expectancy for their birth year. The causes of their deaths are all different or at least had very different comorbidities. That is really weird.

This is the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline.

Here they are, from the "starring" field of the B5 Wiki page:

   60 Michael O'Hare
   60 Jerry Doyle
   65 Mira Furlan
   44 Richard Biggs
   63 Stephen Furst
   59 Andreas Katsulas
   60 Jeff Conaway

Also, not starring but great in a bit role:

   49 Tim Choate

> 49 Tim Choate

Zathras died!? Oh man!

I am quite sad to hear this news. Only a week ago I was bingeing on all the old DVDs for Babylon 5. Upscaling on my Sony 4k TV was spot on for all but the CGI generated content which looked as if they were 640x480. Netherlees I enjoyed rewatching it all. RIP, Delenn. I had a huge crush on Ivanova.

The CGI was ruined by publishing in widescreen format. The live shots were filmed wide screen, but the CGI was not, so they chopped off the top and bottom of the screen and called it a day.

Some of the CGI looked like they'd done it on the cheap. I don't see the sense in having ships moving around B5, it's a waste of mass, far better to have them in a parking orbit, especially if B5 is at a Lagrange spot.

Maybe they should redo the CGI if they ever decide to re-release on 4k Blu-ray.

According to JMS, Warner-Brothers, which owns the rights, has absolutely zero interest in remastering B5. Which really sucks.

It has been remastered and is now available on HBO Max and for purchase online. This dropped last week with almost no warning.

It is very sad. Us Russian kids didn't get to see Star Treks, so B5 was the first real sci-fi TV show that we saw in mid 90s, and it still has a very special place in my heart.

I loved her later works (B5 and Lost), but I will always remember Mira most for Smogovci and other roles when she was much younger. Rest in peace.

So sad. Thanks for sharing here.

I’m more of a DS9 fan but I think B5 presented some really interesting ideas as well.

B5 is great.

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