Chant Down Babylon was the best episode of the entire series, hands-down. First off it is named after one of the best songs in the history of rock or reggae. And it has Morgan Fairchild as a real bad woman, and it shows spots where Michael has real intelligence and leader ship. His growth was always my favorite part of the show, as well as his relationship with Maria.
"You have to kill the one you love"
We knew there was something sinister going on in the lab where Michael worked, we just never knew the scope of it.
The show wasn't Star Trek the next generation, even though there were several references to it, even though it was produced by Jonathan Frakes and Ronald D Moore took over as show runner practically.
The stories had to be told within the context of what the show and the characters were about.
So where in next generation we are given pseudoscientific resolutions of various conundrums, in this show we never had to do that. Other than to simply say "these kids are aliens". That was the whole point. Because you really don't have to explain anything, and even so we are given small pieces of the history of Antar, small glimpses into the people who Max Isabell and Michael were, and very small technical explanations of how they came into being. Not enough to explain anything but enough to let it makes sense.
So this particular episode has two different conundrums, Isabel and the end of the Max/Clayton arc. Is Clayton really Max now? Is Max Clayton?
And Isabel's portion of the story was seeded properly in the episode that was made like "bewitched" - it was all about Jesse, hating lying of all things and having to lie to him and then suddenly having to tell him the truth.
On the other side this is where Liz gets to give back what Max gave her in the very first episode, his life.
I loved this episode when I saw it for the first time during marathons on the Syfy channel, and I loved it just now when I saw it again after 15 years.
This show was incredible, the stories relevant, the conundrums interesting, and it's my favorite show where William Sadler is a major character. I never knew he was such a great singer until the third season. And also in the third season they focused a lot on Majandra, who really grew up in two years quickly, she is probably one of the best singers I have ever heard and I loved it when they use her music in an episode.
They never should have rebooted the show, they should have just continued the show on from where they leave Roswell in the final episode.
it was also great that John Doe From "X" was Liz' father- although he wasn't in this episode. One of the most visible members of a classic punk rock band was Liz father, this was totally appropriate.
This episode marked the end of the major season Arcs, and the beginning of the final arc. Because Max's son is coming to him, Max no longer has to search for him. But we didn't know that yet during this episode, we simply didn't know how it was going to happen. And we thought some of the bad guys from seasons one and two were, er, bad. We haven't seen anything yet.
"You have to kill the one you love"
We knew there was something sinister going on in the lab where Michael worked, we just never knew the scope of it.
The show wasn't Star Trek the next generation, even though there were several references to it, even though it was produced by Jonathan Frakes and Ronald D Moore took over as show runner practically.
The stories had to be told within the context of what the show and the characters were about.
So where in next generation we are given pseudoscientific resolutions of various conundrums, in this show we never had to do that. Other than to simply say "these kids are aliens". That was the whole point. Because you really don't have to explain anything, and even so we are given small pieces of the history of Antar, small glimpses into the people who Max Isabell and Michael were, and very small technical explanations of how they came into being. Not enough to explain anything but enough to let it makes sense.
So this particular episode has two different conundrums, Isabel and the end of the Max/Clayton arc. Is Clayton really Max now? Is Max Clayton?
And Isabel's portion of the story was seeded properly in the episode that was made like "bewitched" - it was all about Jesse, hating lying of all things and having to lie to him and then suddenly having to tell him the truth.
On the other side this is where Liz gets to give back what Max gave her in the very first episode, his life.
I loved this episode when I saw it for the first time during marathons on the Syfy channel, and I loved it just now when I saw it again after 15 years.
This show was incredible, the stories relevant, the conundrums interesting, and it's my favorite show where William Sadler is a major character. I never knew he was such a great singer until the third season. And also in the third season they focused a lot on Majandra, who really grew up in two years quickly, she is probably one of the best singers I have ever heard and I loved it when they use her music in an episode.
They never should have rebooted the show, they should have just continued the show on from where they leave Roswell in the final episode.
it was also great that John Doe From "X" was Liz' father- although he wasn't in this episode. One of the most visible members of a classic punk rock band was Liz father, this was totally appropriate.
This episode marked the end of the major season Arcs, and the beginning of the final arc. Because Max's son is coming to him, Max no longer has to search for him. But we didn't know that yet during this episode, we simply didn't know how it was going to happen. And we thought some of the bad guys from seasons one and two were, er, bad. We haven't seen anything yet.
