February Round-Up, Pathfinder Legends, and Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio

Another month has come and gone. It was a fairly quiet month for me here on the blog, particularly in the world of Doctor Who. However, I did review the excellent and very important book Doctor Who and Race. I highly recommend people read it! I also wrapped up the third series of Sherlock with “His Last Vow” and took a little look back at Babylon 5 in honour of its 20th anniversary. In the world of Pathfinder, I looked at three products: Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, People of the Sands, and Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs.

In some exciting Pathfinder news, this month sees the release of the first Pathfinder Legends, a series of audio dramas from Big Finish, who are most well known for their Doctor Who audio dramas. The first release is Rise of the Runelords: Burnt Offerings, based, of course, on the first Pathfinder Adventure Path volume. You can listen to a trailer at the link. To be honest, I’m not all that impressed by the trailer, which surprises me as you would expect the trailer to showcase the very best of the production. Still, Big Finish has a very good record with their Doctor Who audios—enough of a record that I am very confident in their ability to do a very good job with Pathfinder Legends. You can purchase copies from Big Finish or from Paizo. Alas, much like with Big Finish’s Doctor Who material, personal budgetary constraints mean I’m not going to be able to pick any of these up in the near future. Hopefully one day, though. One day...

I’ll wrap things up with a short review. Here’s to a great March!

Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio

As with most map folios for the adventure paths, the Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio comes with three large, full-colour maps. One is a map of the Worldwound, the area where most of the action of Wrath of the Righteous takes place. The second map is of Kenabres, the city where the adventure path begins in The Worldwound Incursion. Both of these maps are high-quality and beautiful to look at, while also being highly useful for playing the adventure path. Admittedly, the map of Kenabres is really only useful for the first adventure, but the map of the Worldwound will be useful right up to the final instalment.

However, the stand-out map of this set is the third one: a map of the Abyss (which the PCs travel to in the fourth and fifth instalments of Wrath of the Righteous). Mapping out the Abyss is a daunting task—no, more an impossible task really, considering the Abyss is essentially an infinite plane made up of countless other planes. What this map does instead is provide an artistic rendition of the various Abyssal realms and “where” (metaphorically speaking) they are in relation to each other. Admittedly, the map doesn’t have a lot of utility in actual game-play. However, I don’t really care. The map is utterly beautiful to behold and can easily serve as an in-game representation of the Abyss—something the players’ characters might actually see. Ultimately, this map provides a visual element to enhance game-play. It gives both players and GMs just a little hint on what their characters are seeing, allowing the imagination to fill in the rest. It also makes a great poster to hang on the wall.

20 Years of Babylon 5

It’s hard to believe that, until now, I have never once mentioned Babylon 5 on this blog. That’s partly because I talk mostly about contemporary things and Babylon 5 has been over for quite a while now, but still... I should have mentioned it at some point. It was an inspirational and ground-breaking series, and one of my favourites of all time.

It’s also hard to believe that it’s been twenty years since the show first began (it’s actually been nearly 21 years since the pilot first aired on 22 February, 1993, but the regular series didn’t start until 26 January, 1994, nearly a year later). It’s doesn’t feel that old. I don’t feel that old. In an odd sort of way, Babylon 5 reaching twenty years seems a little more landmarking then Doctor Who recently reaching fifty years, and that’s because Doctor Who has always been old. I know that’s not literally true, but from the perspective of my life, it has always been around. When I was born, Doctor Who was already turning ten years old. By the time I was becoming a hardcore fan, it was turning twenty (and to a ten-year-old boy, twenty is ancient).

But with Babylon 5, I was there from the beginning. I remember a time when there was no Babylon 5. It didn’t exist yet, and quite possibly wasn’t even an idea in creator J. Michael Straczynski’s mind yet. I watched the pilot the day it aired—wasn’t all that impressed by it to be honest. But despite the pilot’s flaws, there was something about it that drew my interest and I kept up on news about when the series itself would start and began watching it right from the beginning too. I was hooked after the first few episodes and I followed the series through its entire five-year run and Crusade’s unfortunately much-shorter run. So the fact that it’s now twenty years later creates just a little bit more “Has it really been that long?” than fifty years of Doctor Who does.

Babylon 5 made a huge mark on science fiction and on television in general. It was the first show to have an ongoing story arc in an era of television when everything was episodic. During any particular episode of any other programme, that story’s problem would be resolved and the characters would return to their lives exactly as they were at the beginning of the episode. Characters rarely changed or grew. Babylon 5 changed all that, and that is, without a doubt, one of the biggest things that drew me to it and kept me watching. It helped, too, that I found the characters compelling to begin with, as well as the intricate storytelling. I was disappointed when Commander Sinclair left (and yes, I’m one of those rare Babylon 5 fans who, to this day, prefers Sinclair to Sheridan), but I accepted that change and development were what made the show so good. Other shows started to learn from Babylon 5 and soon started including ongoing plots as well. Today, it’s pretty much the norm.

I’ve rewatched the series all the way through a few times since its original airing. The latest was about three years ago when I finally got the full run on DVD (until then, I had been relying on degrading VHS tapes). My wife and I watched it through together and it was her first time seeing the show. I don’t think we’ve ever made it through any other show (of similar length) so quickly. As one episode would end, she would insist we watch the next immediately. It was my only real experience with “binge watching”. If I remember correctly, we got through all five seasons, plus the TV movies, Crusade, and the various direct-to-DVD specials in the space of just a few weeks. She liked the show that much.

I would love for there to be some more Babylon 5 some day—a revisit or two, perhaps even a resolution for Crusade (please!). But even if there isn’t, I’m very happy with what there already is. It’s a show I can easily go back to time and time again, and still enjoy every moment.