Man, I hate how these things always seem to happen in cycles — you go for a while without hearing about anyone dying, then all of a sudden one day, familiar faces from our extended TV-and-movie family are dropping all around us. Today I read that actor Richard Biggs, who played Dr. Franklin on the TV series Babylon 5, died suddenly over the weekend. If you’re a fan of that show or of Mr. Biggs, you can read more about his passing here. I have to admit that I was only an occasional viewer of B5; I just never seemed to find the time for that one. But from what I saw of him, Franklin was a good character, a flawed man with an essential core of decency, and Biggs did a consummate job of bringing him to life. He was only 44 years old, just ten years older than myself. A damn shame.