I thought "Day of the Dead" wasn't that bad. Ironically it's only one of 2 episodes JMS didn't do in the final 3 seasons IIRC (Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame wrote it or at least did the initial screenplay or something) and I think it works well to set up certain... elements later, as well as giving a coda to a couple of past characters.Pick wrote:The middle-ground is hard to tell, but I'll flat-out say the ones you can skip completely because they suck:
The Paragon of Animals
Learning Curve
Secrets of the Soul
A Tragedy of Telepaths
Phoenix Rising
Day of the Dead
The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father
These ones have bits that are important because they characterize Londo and G'Kar's interactions in later eps and foreshadow things (that is, without them, you'd be all, "wtf is goin' on" later):
No Compromises
Strange Relations
In the Kingdom of the Blind (involves the Regent)
The Ragged Edge
Darkness Ascending
The rest are absolutely necessary. Er, except the "Objects" ones. Not as important.
"Paragon of Animals" was only good for Sheridan and the ISA Council getting to toy with that slimy Drazi ambassador.
As for the telepaths, it sucks about Byron because Robin Atkin Downes isn't a bad actor (or voice actor) at all, but the character was simply badly mis-handled. From the way he was written he seemed to be considered a telepath MLK or Gandhi, save that his character is annoyingly-patronizing toward others.
But the entire telepath arc of Season 5 was an abomination. Seriously, is B5 not a freakin' ISA holding, where ISA directives would hold precedence over Earth law? Why the fuck do Psi Corps get any jurisdiction to hunt the telepaths when they have the personal protection of the fucking ISA President himself?!
But of course we must have our tension episode to build up to the "tragic" end of the Byron storyline, where instead of a proper ending we instead have this contrived outcome where Franklin and Lochley come up with a "temporary" solution to save the telepaths from Psi Corp.
Imagine if instead of that we have Sheridan and Zack Allen greeting Bester's bloodhounds at the cargo bay as they try to take the telepaths off B5. They come with a phalanx of armed Narn security guards and Minbari telepaths and Sheridan has a standoff with Bester and sells him the Byron group is under ISA protection and to get his damned hands off them, and of course Bester gives his prediction that Sheridan will regret it (IIRC he did similar to Lochley). It doesn't even need to be as contrived as it sounds, simply have the episode include Sheridan trying to get Luchenko to pull back Psi Corps, fail because Luchenko's a bitch and is also trying to avoid being seen as a tool of Sheridan in domestic politics, and then decide to do as he does best and take a strong moral stand, the political fallout (and a resulting heated disagreement with Lochley) be damned.
This has the potentially-beneficial (for some) side effect of making Byron even more of a douchebag when he betrays Sheridan and the ISA, trying to blackmail them for a homeworld and giving some character drama as Sheridan endures the feelings of doubt over his judgement, having invested so much political capital in protecting Byron just to have the telepaths stab him in the back.