Recycled movie costumes : « Science fiction films have a long history of reuse with costumes, sets, sound design, and even the occasional video footage. It has been rumored that when Stanley Kubrick finished his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that he chose to destroy most of the blueprints, props and models, as he did not want to have them appear again in future science fiction films like so many others before his. »
« Whether or not this rumor is true, a few rare props and costumes managed to escape destruction to either go up for auction or be used in other films. This blue space suit is one of three created for the film. While its yellow and red counterparts were worn in the film itself, the blue suit was only used as a prop. The blue suit was seen again in 1994 in the television show Babylon 5, in the episode entitled Babylon Squared, where it was worn on Michael O’Hare as Jeffrey Sinclair. It has been altered in some minor ways, but ultimately is easily identifiable as the same piece due to the shape of the helmet and the placement of the various patches. »
L’année 1993 est une date importante dans l’histoire de la série télévisée américaine.
Symboliquement, elle représente le passage à une nouvelle décennie créative. Entamée avec le chef d’œuvre Hill Street Blues (1981) de Steven Bochco et Michael Kozoll, les années 80 furent rétrospectivement qualifiées d’ère de la quality television, caractérisée par des séries tentant de sortir des carcans formels et narratifs avec plus ou moins de succès. Une époque où l’on tenta de mélanger les genres, de casser le 4ème mur, de faire des séries contemplatives, d’écrire des histoires sur plusieurs épisodes et de faire évoluer des personnages. C’était une période d’expérimentation folle dont le summum est atteint en 1990 quand deux grands talents, Mark Frost et David Lynch, créèrent Twin Peaks.
C’est une période d’essais plus ou moins heureux dont beaucoup sont oubliés ou minorés mais dont les fruits se récolteront dans la décennie suivante quand, par ces expériences acquises, déboulèrent la même année la série policière qui termina de briser le mythe du flic héroïque en brisant quelques tabous au passage (NYPD Blue), celle au style documentaire (Homicide, Life in the Street) et la série fantastique la plus paranoïaque de l’histoire (X-Files). Bien que lancé un peu plus tard, en 1994, on rajoutera également la séries médicale qui redynamisa totalement le genre (Urgences).
Ces quatre séries ont en commun d’êtres des grands (voire des très grands) succès d’une grande longévité, d’être visuellement novatrices et très belles, d’être, à l’exception d’X-Files, des séries chorales et enfin d’avoir des intrigues courant sur plusieurs épisodes ou saisons. Clairement elles fructifièrent les acquis de leurs prédécesseurs et elles-mêmes seront les terreaux de la prochaine évolution, celle des séries du câble. De son coté la sitcom connait un nouvel âge d’or avec une production extrêmement importante de séries toutes désireuses d’accéder au podium composé de Friends, Frasier et Senfield.
Enfin la science-fiction va également entrer dans une grande période et plus particulièrement pour une de ses déclinaison. Initiée par le lancement en 1987 de Star Trek : The Next Generation (qui, après deux saisons guère intéressantes, entame sa grande période), la décennie qui suit va voir l’arrivée d’un nombre conséquent de space-opera. Citons notamment les spin-off de la série de GeneRoddenberry avec Star Trek : Deep Space Nine, Star Trek : Voyager et Star Trek : Enterprise, Lexx, la comédie Red Dwarf, la trop courte Firefly, la très martiale Space 2063, la suite télévisuelle du film Stargate qui deviendra elle-même une franchise importante (même si la série originale Stargate - SG1 est au lisière du genre), la grandiose Farscape ou bien-sur la queue de comète Battlestar Galactica. Tous forment une grande décennie que traverse également Babylon 5. L’histoire de cette station spatiale et de ses habitant pris dans les tourments de la guerre devenant par ses particularités et ses qualités une véritable clé de voute de la série télévisée.
Vraie ou fausse, l’anecdote est désormais connue. En cette journée de l’année 1988 Joe Michael Straczynski (scénariste ayant fait ses armes dans la presse, à la radio et à la télévision sur plusieurs séries télévisées d’animations ou en prise de vue réel) est sous la douche et se surprend à avoir non pas l’idée d’une série de science-fiction mais l’idée d’en fusionner deux. Voila en effet plusieurs années qu’il travaille sur différents projets à proposer aux chaines de télévision. Le premier prend ses sources dans des livres tels que Dune, Fondation ou Le Seigneur des Anneaux et peut se définir comme une vaste saga galactique narrant les conflits entre différents empires. Problème, si aujourd’hui des séries telles que Game of Thrones, House of Dragons ou Les Anneau du Pouvoir peuvent raconter des histoires épiques de grande ampleur en s’appuyant sur des budgets conséquents, la concrétisation d’une telle chose relève de l’impossible au début des années 90 tant le cout serait énorme pour un succès incertain. L’exemple de la dérive des mini-séries puis de la série V annulée au bout d’une saison ayant dépassée largement son budget est encore dans les mémoires et la science-fiction reste également cantonnée au jeune public de par sa capacité à être un bon support pour promouvoir des lignes de jouets.
Le deuxième projet de Straczynski s’inspire de son envie de concevoir une série autour d’un lieu emblématique qui verrait passer une multitude de personnages. En prenant modèle sur Hill Street Blues, ce projet entrecroiserait différentes histoires autour de personnages tel que des commerçants, des navigateurs, des dockers, des pirates etc. bref toute la population qu’on est en droit de s’attendre à trouver dans un port de commerce situé, bien sur, dans le futur et dans l’espace. Un projet plus réalisable en terme de cout certes mais dont Straczynski doutait de pouvoir rendre les histoires suffisamment intéressantes pour captiver le public sur le long terme. Car c’est une chose de faire une série sur les policiers et inspecteurs qui composent un commissariat de police, l’universalité du lieu et la popularité du genre policier facilitant l’adhésion, s’en est une autre de le faire dans un lieu imaginaire et dans des temps futurs. Il faudrait pouvoir créer une histoire suffisamment intéressante pour capter le spectateur.
On retrouve donc JMS sous la douche avec ses deux problèmes. Et là, comme Archimède dans l’eau : Eurêka ! Fusionnons ces projets pour n’en faire qu’un seul ! Ainsi les spécificités de l’un résoudront les problématiques de l’autre. La maîtrise du budget de la saga épique sera assurée par la focalisation du récit sur un lieu unique et le contexte sera suffisamment riche et vaste pour permettre d’écrire des histoires passionnantes aux différents personnages qui le peuple. Ni une, ni deux voila que le projet, qui ne porte pas encore de nom, se concrétise : celui d’une série se déroulant dans une station spatiale dont les habitants seront les témoins mais, surtout, les acteurs des grands bouleversements que va connaitre la galaxie.
Nous sommes toujours en 1988 et il va se passer cinq années entre les premières esquisses de ce qui deviendra Babylon 5 et la première diffusion du pilote. Durant cette période, Straczynski et ceux qui vont rejoindre l’aventure, vont construire peu à peu la série et sa production afin de surmonter plusieurs réticences. Rappelez-vous qu’en 1988, les aventures de l’USS Enterprise-D de Jean-Luc Picard débutent à peine (et dans une certaine médiocrité) et les chaines sont donc assez frileuse quand à investir dans un projet inédit de science-fiction.
Il y a tout d’abord l’élaboration de la note d’intention du projet de la série, quelques pages décrivant le contexte, les personnages et les aventures à venir, qui servira de base pour vendre le projet aux studios de télévision. A sa lecture, il est intéressant de voir ce qui fut conserver (la forme de la station, la majorité des personnages) et ce qui fut modifié durant les années séparant celui-ci et le lancement définitif de la production. Pour la petite histoire, c’est la circulation de ce document au sein des différentes networks qui nourrira l’idée d’influence de la série de Straczynski sur le projet de spin-off de Star Trek : The Next Generation qui deviendra Star Trek : Deep Space Nine.
L’autre problématique est celle du coût. La production de la série se doit d’être rigoureuse afin d’être rentable, cela d’autant plus qu’elle ne peut s’appuyer sur un nom connu. Afin de boucler le budget il faut donc rassurer les (futures) chaînes productrices. Plusieurs décisions vont donc être prisent qui auront des conséquences importantes et durables sur la forme de la série.
Convaincue par des essais effectués sur des ordinateurs Amiga montrant le plan sans coupe d’un vaisseaux entrant dans la station, la production va faire le choix du tout numérique en ce qui concerne les scènes se déroulant dans l’espace. Non seulement cela permet de mieux gérer les mouvements de vaisseaux dans une approche plus conforme à certains principes physiques, cela participe également à créer le visuel particulier de la série mais surtout l’économie estimée est importante. Plus tard, Straczynski évaluera le budget SFX d’un épisode à la moitié de celui d’un épisode de Star Trek : The Next Generation). Dans cette même optique, la production privilégiera l’emploi de panneau fonctionnel et permutable pouvant être employer pour plusieurs décors et fera le choix de ne jamais tourner en extérieur. Pour le meilleur et le moins bon, toute scène se déroulant dans un environnement considéré comme « naturel » sera conçu en image de synthèse. Mais le choix déterminant se situe dans un domaine beaucoup moins visible au premier abord et s’appuie sur les travaux précédant de Joe Michael Straczynski et d’un en particulier.
Série hors-norme à destination du jeune public créé en 1987 par Gary Goddard et Tony Christopher, Captain Power et les soldats du futur raconte la lutte d’un petit groupe de résistant face à des machines ayant pris le pouvoir sur l’humanité à la suite d’un conflit mondial dévastateur. Lancée dans le but de vendre des jouets Mattel (le groupe de héros possède des armures de combat faisant de la série une proche du genre sentaï et les navettes en jouets permettaient d’interagir très basiquement avec l’épisode en cours), la série se démarque toutefois par l’usage, déjà, d’animation en image de synthèse, d’une ambiance post-apocalyptique doublé de métaphore à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale et d’une certaine violence. Embauché comme scénariste par son compère Larry DiTillio, Straczynski deviendra de fait le head writer de la série avec comme désir d’en faire, déjà, une saga au long cours. Cependant l’écart entre le public visé par la production et l’ambition des scénaristes, en plus du cout élevé des épisodes, causa l’annulation de la série à la fin de sa première saison.
Quelques temps après il imagine donc Babylon 5 et sait qu’afin que ce projet puisse se concrétiser il lui faut la garantie de la diffusion en syndication, ce regroupement de chaine locale et de «petites» chaînes afin d’acheter en commun les séries produites et diffusées initialement par les grandes chaines nationales (ABC, NBC, CBS et plus tard la FOX) Au même titre que l’achat par les chaînes étrangères, il s’agit d’un second marché très important et pris en compte dans la production et le financement d’une série afin d’assurer sa rentabilité à long terme. Il faut toutefois surmonter deux obstacles : avoir un nombre conséquent d’épisode, généralement au moins une centaine, et éviter les épisodes à suivre car plus difficile à caser sur une grille de programme. Cependant, comme on l’a vu, la manière de regarder des séries a évoluée et tout change au début des années 90. On voit bien que le public est fidèle aux séries dans laquelle se développe une intrigue couvrant plusieurs épisodes et que les scénaristes sont suffisamment ingénieux pour capter le spectateur qui prendrait une série en cours de route. Le nombre d’épisode n’est pas un problème pour ce qui se veut être une grande saga. Straczynski estime même que cinq saison d’une vingtaine d’épisodes chacune est une forme idéal pour ce qu’il présente comme un roman télévisuel. La première saison servira d’introduction à l’histoire, son développement s’effectuera durant les trois saisons suivantes et la série prendra le temps de se conclure durant la cinquième saison. Enfin s’appuyant sur le succès de Star Trek : The Next Generation, il est persuadé de la fidélité et de la solidité d’une base de spectateur amateurs de science-fiction (les comme lui, les nerds).
C’est donc ici que le travail d’écriture sera déterminant et débouchera sur une prouesse rarement égalée Non seulement Straczynski écrira la majorité des épisodes de la série (92 sur 110) mais, dans une logique d’anticipation toujours afin de maitriser les couts, il décidera également de poser sur le papier les grands arcs narratif de la série et l’évolution des personnages sur les cinq saison cela afin de prévoir toute porte de sortie en cas de changement dans les plans initiaux ce qui ne manquera pas d’arrivée plus d’une fois. C’est cette approche qui valu plus tard à Babylon 5 la réputation de série où « tout était déjà écrit avant le pilote ». Nous voila au début des années 90, la bible de Babylon 5 circule et Straczynski s’est entouré de John Copeland et Douglas Netter (compagnons de route sur Captain Powers) pour la production. Désireuse d’avoir une franchise de SF pouvant concurrencer la Paramount et Star Trek et cherchant des programmes pour une nouvelle chaine (Prime Time Entertainment Network), Warner Bros accepte de financer un pilote. Cela servira de test pour une éventuelle série et, au pire, cela pourra être vendu comme un téléfilm aux chaines étrangères. En 1992 la production est donc lancée pour une diffusion au début de l’année 1993.
I was there at the dawn of the third age of mankind.
It began in the Earth year 2257 with the founding of the last of the Babylon stations, located deep in neutral space. It was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats, and travelers from a hundred worlds.
Could be a dangerous place. But we accepted the risk, because Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace. Under the leadership of its final commander, Babylon 5 was a dream given form: a dream of a galaxy without war, when species from different worlds could live side by side in mutual respect. A dream that was in danger as never before, by the arrival of one man on a mission of destruction.
Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. This is its story.
Ambassador Londo Mollari
J’étais là à l’aube du troisième âge de l’humanité.
Tout a commencé en l’an 2257 du calendrier terrien avec la fondation de la dernière des stations de type Babylon, située en territoire neutre. C’était un port d’escale pour les réfugiés, les passeurs, les hommes d’affaires, les diplomates et les voyageurs d’une centaine de mondes.
Cela pouvait être un endroit dangereux. Mais nous avons accepté le risque, car Babylon 5 était notre dernier et meilleur espoir de paix. Sous la direction de son dernier commandant, Babylon 5 était un rêve devenu réalité : le rêve d’une galaxie sans guerre, où des espèces de mondes différents pourraient vivre côte à côte dans le respect mutuel. Un rêve qui fut plus que jamais menacé par l’arrivée d’un homme en mission de destruction.
Babylon 5 était la dernière des stations de type Babylon. Ceci est son histoire.
Ambassadeur Londo Mollari
Babylon 5 est la cinquième station de type Babylon. Située en territoire neutre et d’une superficie équivalente à la ville de Los Angeles, elle est un lieu d’échange commercial et diplomatique pour toutes les races de la galaxie connue. Construite et dirigée par l’Alliance Terrienne, Babylon 5 vient d’être mise en service depuis quelques mois et l’équipe de commandement va accueillir l’ambassadeur Vorlon, Kosh, complétant dès lors un conseil diplomatique composé également des humains (représentés par le commandant Sinclair), des Minbaris (l’ambassadrice Delenn), des Centauris (l’ambassadeur Londo Mollari) et des Narns (l’ambassadeur G’Kar). Mais dès son arrivé Kosh est victime d’une tentative d’assassinat et tout indique que le coupable semble être Jeffrey Sinclair.
Si The Gathering est envisagé comme un pilote classique pour la chaine, il s’agit avant tout pour Straczynski et ses compagnons, de raconter une histoire capable de présenter un tout nouvel univers mais également de poser les premiers éléments de sa grande histoire. Et ce n’est pas chose aisée car contrairement au spin-off de Star Trek : The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, lancée quelques semaines auparavant, ils doivent tout créer en partant de rien et convaincre un public exigeant féru de science-fiction et souvent formaté à la franchise de Gene Roddenberry.
Le début de l’épisode est un bon exemple du travail de synthèse effectué. D’un coté on use d’une technique classique du référent du spectateur qui va découvrir la station. Ici c’est la télépathe Lyta Alexander qui va faire une visite en compagnie du commandant Sinclair qui lui fait également une brève histoire de la station et de ses habitants. De l’autre l’épisode s’ouvre sur un monologue assez étrange (qu’est ce que " l’aube du troisième âge de l’humanité" ?) déclamé par un personnage somme tout secondaire et qui, par l’emploie du passé, nous suggère que nous allons regarder non pas une aventure présente mais une histoire ayant déjà eu lieu. On pense à ces petites définitions en en-tête de chapitre souvent vu dans des romans de SF tel que Dune mais également au mythique « Il y a bien longtemps dans une galaxie lointaine, très lointaine… » de Star Wars.
Dès lors Babylon 5 marque sa différence en s’inscrivant dans le registre de la légende. Paradoxalement, le pilote présente un univers se voulant plus proche (et donc crédible dans l’intention) de nous. En datant l’histoire bien sur (nous sommes au début de l’année 2257) mais également en usant d’une technologie plus proche de la notre. Ainsi, les équipements paraissent plus encombrant, les armes moins propres et il n’y a surtout pas de téléportation ! Cette interdiction était d’ailleurs malicieusement indiquée dans les documents de travail et utilisée lors de la promotion de la série. Car même si on peut trouver beaucoup de points communs (les moyens de communication attachés à la personne, un casting composé de militaire, des aliens humanoïdes etc), l’affranchissement vis à vis d’une des plus importantes œuvres de science-fiction de l’histoire est bien réelle. Elle porte sur la technologie employée, un lieu plus dangereux (on ne se ballade pas sur Babylon 5 comme on se ballade sur l’Enterprise ou sur DS9) mais surtout sur une tonalité plus sombre avec des rapports plus violent entre des protagonistes qui ne sont clairement pas tous copains.
Pour les interpréter la série va jouer la carte classique d’un casting composé d’acteurs et actrices ayant trimballer leurs guêtres dans différentes productions : Michael O’Hare (le commandant Jeffrey Sinclair), Jerry Doyle (chef de la sécurité Michael Garibaldi), Johnny Sekka (le docteur Benjamin Kyle), Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar). Et si les spectateurs peuvent se rappeler de Tamlyn Tomita (lieutenant-commandant Laurel Takashima) pour son rôle de Kumiko dans Karaté Kid 2, de Patricia Tallman (la télépathe Lyta Alexander) dans plusieurs films de George Romero et dans l’excellent remake de La Nuit des morts-vivants ou bien de Peter Jurasik (Londo Mollari) pour son rôle de Crom dans Tron (face à un Bruce Boxleitner qui recroisera bientôt sa route) ou de Sid the Snitch dans Hill Street Blues et son spin-off Beverly Hills Buntz (où il forma un duo avec Dennis Franz) d’autre comme Mira Furlan (Delenn) sont totalement inconnus. Si, en tant que pilote, The Gathering va servir de test à beaucoup de choses dans la série (costume, décors, SFX, musique etc), il est par contre stupéfiant de voir que tous les interprètes se glissent parfaitement dans la peau de leurs personnages dès le début et malgré la tonne de maquillage que certains doivent porter. Plus que tout le reste, ils sont les garants et la première raison de la qualité d’une histoire dramatique qui ne s’appuie pas sur la société utopique décrite chez Jules-de-chez-Smith-en-face.
L’univers de Babylon 5 sort en effet d’une guerre entre deux races (Terriens et Minbaris) et doit composer avec la haine que se voue deux autres (les Narns et leurs anciens colonisateurs les Centauris). Cette situation se répercute sur les différents protagonistes. G’Kar et Londo se détestent, Delenn se méfie de G’Kar, Londo passe pour un bouffon aux yeux de beaucoup, Sinclair se méfie de G’Kar, dissimulé derrière une armure Kosh entretient le mystère, G’Kar tente de manipuler tout le monde et même s’ils entretiennent des relations cordiales, Sinclair se méfie de Delenn. Bref il y a de la joie et la mission de paix de Babylon 5 prend vite du plomb dans les ailes surtout avec la tentative d’assassinat de Kosh. Après moult rebondissement et l’évitement de la destruction de la station par une flotte Vorlon, le coupable est démasquée (un guerrier Minbari voulant discréditer Sinclair) clôturant l’intrigue d’un pilote de 88 minutes posant le cadre pour une potentielle nouvelle série ou servir de téléfilm sur le marché de la vidéo.
Toutefois The Gathering va plus loin et s’affranchi de l’aspect unitaire que devrais avoir un pilote en laissant plusieurs questions en suspens. Pourquoi l’assassin a t-il affirmer à Sinclair qu’il avait un « trou dans son esprit » ? Est-ce vraiment une insulte comme l’affirme Delenn ? Car de fait il a bien « trou » dans sa vie. Pilote dans la dernière ligne de défense de la Terre face aux Minbaris, Sinclair vit son escadrille détruite et voulu se sacrifier face à un vaisseau ennemi. Vingt-quatre heures plus tard il se réveilla sans aucun souvenirs de ces dernières heures et appris la capitulation des Minbaris. Tout cela est-il liés ? Si d’autres questions se posent (qui a permit à l’assassin d’agir dans la station ? Pourquoi Delenn et Kosh semble t-il se connaitre alors qu’aucune race n’a vu de Vorlon depuis des centaines d’années ? Qu’est-il arrivée à Babylon 4 ? Qu’ont vu Lyta Alexander et le docteur Kyle en tentant de sauver Kosh ?), c’est bien le mystère autour de Sinclair et de la guerre qui sera capital dans les histoires à suivre.
Confiant dans le potentiel de la série et déterminé à la prolonger, Jo Michael Straczynski, Douglas Netter et John Copeland proposent donc un pilote sortant des sentiers battus pour l’époque et si ce dernier pêche par un manque de rythme et quelques scènes malvenues, bien leur en a prit. Une première saison est commandée et le tournage commence au mois de mai 1993 pour une diffusion en début d’année suivante.
It was 30 years ago today
Babylon 5 taught the fans to play
It’s been going in and out of style
Been growing but it takes a while
So my thanks to one and all of you
For sticking around all these years
For Babylon 5 through laughs and fun and tears
La première saison de Babylon 5 débute le 27 janvier 1994, soit quasiment un an après la diffusion du pilote (et il y a trente ans cette année si vous avez bien suivi). Lancée en mai 1993, la production permet d’ajuster la série suite au pilote et le résultat est perceptible dès, Midnight on the Firing Line (L’attaque des Narns), le premier épisode diffusé (mais non le premier produit, celui-ci est Infection) . Les effets-spéciaux font ainsi un bond en avant en terme de quantité et de qualité permettant de se rendre compte de la diversité de la station, de son ampleur mais également d’affirmer les différences entre les principales races de la série. Si Babylon 5 tient à se rapprocher d’une certaine crédibilité scientifique en ce qui concerne la technologie terrienne (une station de forme cylindrique pour générer la pesanteur, des vaisseaux massifs et évoluant avec lenteur dans l’espace), elle se lâche complétement pour les peuples technologiquement supérieure à la Terre. D’un bleu océan, les harmonieux vaisseaux Minbarris semble nager dans le vide spatial et si l’on aperçoit seulement les vaisseaux Narns et Centauris, on peut deviner leurs tendances via la décoration des logements sur la station. Austère pour le premier, ostentatoire pour le second.
On constate également que le maquillage des personnages est également affinés. G’Kar semble moins être une sorte de lézard et la coiffure de Londo est plus ordonné. Cependant le plus gros travail à ce niveau concerne Delenn. Interprété par Mira Furlan, le personnage était pensé à l’origine comme étant androgyne (de même que tous les Minbarris), cependant le maquillage adopté pour le pilote fut jugé insatisfaisant et les tentatives pour modeler la voix furent infructueux. Décision fut alors prises d’abandonné l’idée des Minbarris androgynes et de revoir le look de Delenn pour accentuer son aspect féminin. Enfin que ce soit les uniformes de l’Alliance Terrienne ou les habits des ambassadeurs, ceux-ci sont améliorés notamment en accentuant la couleur affiliée à chaque race : bleu sombre pour l’équipe de commandement Terrienne, bleu clair pour les Minbarris, violet pour les Centauris et rouge ocre pour les Narns.
Engagé sur d’autres projet, Stewart Copeland, ne rempile pas pour la musique de la saison et cède sa place à Christopher Franke ancien membre du groupe Tangerine Dream. S’il a déjà œuvré sur des séries télévisées en solo ou avec son groupe (la mini-série Les Tommyknockers, quelques épisodes de Raven ou de Walker Texas Ranger, Tonnerre mécanique etc), son travail sur Babylon 5 sera d’une autre ampleur. Disposant d’une grande liberté créatrice et en totale harmonie avec Straczynski, son empreinte sur la série peut se comparer à celle d’Angelo Badalamenti sur Twin Peaks ou de Mark Snow sur X-Files. La musique de Franke confèrera à Babylon 5 une atmosphère unique emprunt d’ambiance new-wave et porté par des leitmotiv pour certains personnages ou races qui joueront pour beaucoup dans le succès critique de la série.
Quatre autres départs ont également eu lieu entre la diffusion de The Gathering et celle de la première saison. Ceux de Tamlyn Tomita (lieutenant-commandant Laurel Takashima), Johnny Seka (le docteur Benjamin Kyle), Patricia Tallman (Lyta Alexander) et Blaire Baron (Carolyn Sykes). Pour cette dernière, l’impact est quasi nulle sur la série, Straczynski reportant ses histoires sur un prochain personnage. Pour Lyta Alexander et Benjamin Kyle, on évoquera les événements du pilote (ils sont les deux humains à avoir vu Kosh en dehors de son armure) pour justifier leur retour sur Terre participant en cela au mystère autour des Vorlons. Deux nouveaux personnages prendront leurs postes : Talia Winters (Andrea Thompson) sera la nouvelle télépathe de la station et le docteur Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs) sera à la tête du service médical de Babylon 5. Si cela est peu perceptible à la vision de la première saison, le départ de Tamlyn Tomita entraina une vaste réécriture de l’arc impliquant son personnage. En effet, à la fin de la 1ère saison Laurel Takashima devait se révéler être une traitresse (celle qui facilita notamment la tentative d’assassinat sur Kosh dans le pilote). Pensant dans un premier temps reporter cet arc sur un nouveau personnage, Straczynski changea ses plans suite à un autre événement durant la production de la 1ère saisons (nous y reviendront). Au final, voila que débarque dès le premier épisode le lieutenant-commandant Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian), un personnage qui deviendra emblématique. A ces nouveaux venus la série adjoint également Vir Cotto (Stephen Furst), Lennier (Bill Mumy) et Na’Toth (Caitlin Brown), les aides d’ambassades de Londo, Delenn et G’Kar. Tout d’abord personnages secondaires permettant d’avoir des scènes légères et de développer les différents races, ils prendront peu à peu de l’ampleur.
Production parée, effets spéciaux améliorés, musique changée, casting complété etc tout est prêt maintenant pour débuter l’histoire de la dernière station Babylon dans de bonnes condition et cela dès le générique
Sas d’entrée de toute série, le générique, quelque soit la forme qu’il prend, doit capter immédiatement le spectateur en lui donnant les premières clés de ce qu’il va regarder. Celui de Babylon 5 n’échappe pas à la règle. Comme The Gathering, une voix-off présente la station, ici ce sera celle du commandant Sinclair (en VO du moins), ses habitants et surtout son rôle dans une galaxie en ébullition. En reprenant la notion de « Troisième âge de l’humanité », en appuyant sur l’aspect « dernière chance » et en délimitant le cadre temporel (l’année 2258), la série s’inscrit encore d’avantage dans le registre de la légende, de l’histoire passée qu’on raconte au coin du feu. Tel le « Il y a bien longtemps dans une galaxie lointaine…très lointaine » on a le sentiment d’assister non pas à des événements en cours mais à une aventure qui a déjà eu lieu il y a des siècles. Tout est donc fait pour convaincre le spectateur qu’il va vivre une grande saga à l’échelle galactique.
Et si Straczynski sait ce qu’il veut raconter, il sait également comment le raconter pour que le projet d’une histoire se déroulant sur cinq saisons puisse se concrétiser. Construite comme une grande introduction, la première saison (titré par son auteur : Symboles et Présages) propose majoritairement des histoires bouclées en un épisode, soit la forme la plus courante à cette époque. Cela rassure les chaines et le spectateur qui peut ainsi prend la série en cours de route sans se sentir perdu (l’auteur de ses lignes a d’ailleurs débuté la série avec Deathwalker, neuvième épisode diffusé). Toutefois, la série s’affranchie de cette forme classique en proposant également tout un lot d’épisode qui feront avancer grandement l’histoire. Une autre série contemporaine de Babylon 5 a, par la force des choses, une approche similaire, c’est X-Files dont presque chaque saisons est composées d’épisode isolés et d’autres faisant avancer ce qu’on a appelé la mythologie de la série concernant la soeur de Fox Mulder, l’enlèvement de Dana Scully et de manière générale le grand complot extra-terrestre.
Toutefois à la différence de Chris Carter, Joe Michael Straczynki n’établit pas une distinction aussi nette. Chaque épisode apportera sa pierre à l’édifice que ce soit par l’évolution des personnages dont les motivations influenceront le récit, par l’enrichissement de l’univers, mais également par des événements anecdotiques qui prendront une toute autre signification au cours de la série. Le premier épisode de la saison, Midnight on the Firing Line, est représentatif de cette approche. Celui-ci est composé de trois histoires : La principale est celle de la gestion d’une crise diplomatique suite à l’attaque des Narns sur un avant-poste reculé de la République Centauris, la deuxième concerne l’animosité de Susan Ivanova envers Talia Winter et la troisième, nous relate l’élection du président de l’Alliance Terrienne. Trois récits d’importance différentes et qui seront terminés à la fin de l’épisode mais qui auront tous les trois des répercussions importantes sur l’ensemble de la série.
Si la haine entre les Narns et les Centauris est posée dès le pilote, elle prend, ici, une dimension personnelle pour Londo et G’Kar, le spectateur apprend que certains Centauris peuvent avoir une vision de leur mort et découvre que Londo sait que G’Kar et lui s’entretuerons dans une une vingtaine d’année. L’histoire entre Ivanova et Talia permet quand à elle de découvrir le passé tragique du lieutenant-commandant (le suicide de sa mère) mais surtout sur la manière dont les télépathes sont inclus dans la société terrienne avec les premières évocation du Corps Psi, la structure gérant les télépathes qu’ils veuillent ou non l’intégrer (et si ce n’est pas le cas c’est la prison ou les drogues inhibitrices causant des graves dommage et poussant à la dépression destructrice tel ce qui est arrivé à la mère d’Ivanova). Enfin si l’élection du président Luis Santiago (personnage qui prendra les traits du producteur de la série Douglas Netter) à la tête de l’Alliance Terrienne est une toile de fond de l’épisode, elle prendra une toute autre ampleur à la fin de la saison quand surviendra la mort de celui-ci dans ce qui est considéré de prime abord comme un accident et qui enclenchera l’un des grands arcs de la série à savoir l’établissement progressif d’une dictature sur la Terre.
Une de mes séries préféré pour l’éternité, les acteurs tiennent tellement bien leur personnages notamment Londo qu’on aime et qu’on déteste à la fois, l’ascenseur émotionnel que procure chaque saison, le mystère de Babylon 4 distillé sur plusieurs saison… y a tellement de super passage ! par contre je n’ai jamais vu les différents films, je n’ai que les coffrets dvd des saisons.
Après les rétrospectives consacrées notamment à Farscape et aux diverses séries Star Trek (sans oublier leur Superhero Movie Rewatch), le site Reactor s’attaque ensuite à Babylon 5 :
Keith R.A. DeCandido : Partly in honor of this reboot, partly in honor of the TV series’ thirtieth anniversary, and partly because I’ve been wanting to rewatch the show for the first time since its initial airing, next Monday will kick off The Babylon 5 Rewatch here on Reactor. We’ll be covering everything, starting with The Gathering, continuing to the five seasons of the TV series, the one season of Crusade, and each of the various movies, from In the Beginning all the way to The Road Home. I might cover some ancillary material, too…
It was the dawn of the third age… A summary of the plot.
Nothing’s the same anymore. Jeffrey Sinclair’s role in the story.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! John Sheridan’s role in the story.
I’m not subtle, I’m not pretty. Matthew Gideon’s role in the story.
Ivanova is God. Susan Ivanova’s role in the story.
Never work with your ex. Elizabeth Lochley’s role in the story.
The household god of frustration. Michael Garibaldi’s role in the story.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. In general, the role of the Minbari in the story, as well as the specific roles of Delenn, Lennier, and the Grey Council.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… In general, the role of the Centauri Republic in the story, as well as the specific roles of Londo Mollari and Vir Cotto.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. In general, the role of the Narn Regime in the story, as well as the specific roles of G’Kar and Na’Toth.
We live for the one, we die for the one. In general, the role of the Rangers in the story, as well as the specific role of Marcus Cole.
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. In general, the role of telepathy, telepaths, and Psi-Corps in the story, as well as the specific roles of Lyta Alexander, Talia Winters, John Matheson, and Alfred Bester.
Never contradict a technomage when he’s saving your life—again. In general, the role of technomages in the story, as well as the specific role of Galen.
The Shadowy Vorlons. The role played by one or both of the Shadows and the Vorlons, the two ancient foes whose conflict makes up the tapestry of much of the series, in the story, particularly the uses of Kosh and Morden.
Looking ahead.B5 made copious use of foreshadowing by way of flash-forwards and prophecies, and this category will show when they’re used, and also when they later come to fruition (often not in the way you expect).
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. A chronicle of the romantic and/or sexual exploits seen in the story.
Welcome aboard. The guest stars in the story.
Trivial matters. Various bits of trivia, ephemera, connections, revelations, etc. seen in the story.
The echoes of all of our conversations. A particularly good quote from the story.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. A review of the story.
“Babylon 5 is open for business.” There are three things a pilot needs to introduce: the characters, the types of stories that will be told, and the setting. The latter is more challenging in the science fiction/fantasy genre because it’s the only genre in which the setting isn’t real. So in addition to everything else, you’ve got to build a world and make it convincing.
Whatever the flaws of “The Gathering”—and they are legion—it did that part of it beautifully. Creator/writer/co-executive producer J. Michael Straczynski gives us a fully realized future history. We get an Earth that’s a power, but not the biggest power. We get the ugly history between the Centauri and the Narn, with the latter having burst onto the scene after being subjugated by the former, while the Centauri themselves are much less than once they were. And there’s the history of the Earth-Minbari War, which left scars on both sides—as well as the complete confusion as to why the Minbari surrendered.
Surrounding this world-building is a story that’s a pretty straightforward whodunnit with tech and a script that can generously be called awkward. The moment where Alexander asked Sinclair why the station was called Babylon 5, I groaned. Thirty-one years later, that conversation remains the tin standard for awkward exposition, not aided by the fact that I kept thinking of the Swamp Castle litany in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (To this day, I always refer to Babylon 4 as having fallen into the swamp.)
That clunkiness of dialogue runs throughout, alas, not aided by performances that range from mediocre to uneven. Jerry Doyle’s Garibaldi is a walking, talking cliché of the maverick cop, Andreas Katsulas’ G’Kar is a mustache-twirling villain of the most ludicrous type (the scene where he proposes mating with Alexander is embarrassing), and Patricia Tallman’s Alexander ranges from stilted (her accusation of Sinclair comes across as a teenager throwing a tantrum) to excellent (her body language when she’s the disguised assassin is completely different, making it clear from jump that this isn’t really Alexander). All three characters will, of course, get better, but that just makes watching the early versions of them even more painful to watch. G’Kar especially—Katsulas was one of the finest actors of his time, always able to bring menace and nuance to his roles (which were almost always villainous to some degree or other), and G’Kar would certainly become a complex and tragic character as the show went on. But the G’Kar of “The Gathering” has muted menace and absolutely no nuance, and feels like an utter waste of Katsulas’ talent.
The leader of an ensemble needs to have a certain charisma in order for the ensemble to work, and sadly Michael O’Hare doesn’t quite have it. O’Hare is the type of actor who’s better off playing the sidekick or the helpmeet or the bad guy. (He played Colonel Jessup in the theatrical version of A Few Good Men on Broadway, and he was amazing. It was a hundred and eighty degrees from Jack Nicholson’s performance of the same role in the movie version, instead bringing a quiet, solid intensity.) He would’ve been perfect to play Garibaldi, truly.
Besides the world-building, the other way in which the pilot absolutely shines is in the character of Londo Mollari, brilliantly played by the great Peter Jurasik. In 1993, he was best known for his role of the squirrelly and slimy Sid the Snitch on Hill Street Blues and its short-lived spinoff Beverly Hills Buntz, which in no way prepared anyone for this. He magnificently brings the broken-down Centauri ambassador to life. The bit I quoted in “The echoes of all our conversations” above is a masterpiece, showing us how far the Centauri Republic in general and Mollari in particular have fallen.
Finally, there’s the CGI visual effects, which were groundbreaking at the time, and which I was dreading on this rewatch, as I feared they wouldn’t have aged well. And, well, they haven’t, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Mostly the biggest problem with the VFX is the same problem CGI continued to have up until 2010 or so: too bright and shiny and completely unable to convey mass. But it’s not fatal, and the CGI is well integrated.
“I’m in the middle of fifteen things, all of them annoying.” There are some ways in which this feels like a do-over of “The Gathering.” You’ve got character introductions (in this case to Ivanova, Vir, and Winters), you’ve got Garibaldi investigating things, you’ve got the senator telling Sinclair to do something he doesn’t want to do, you’ve got G’Kar and the Narn being the bad guys and plotting evil things of evil, you’ve got Sinclair bopping off on his own and leaving his first officer in charge of a council meeting, you’ve got a council meeting where, once again, G’Kar doesn’t apparently have a seat, instead leaving poor Andreas Katsulas to wander around during it.
And you’ve got epic rants from Mollari, though the Centauri gets much more focus here than he did in the pilot, which is all to the good given that Peter Jurasik was the best thing about the prior episode.
The Centauri/Narn conflict is one of the bedrocks of B5, and it is very much on display here. While G’Kar is still being written as a one-note mustache-twirling villain, Katsulas imbues him with a palpable sense of outrage and fury. He’s matched by Jurasik, whose anger both at the Narn for their surprise attack on a civilian target that includes his nephew and at his government for their spineless response drives the episode.
Stephen Furst’s Vir is another character like G’Kar who will improve as the series goes on, but his introduction, alas, creates very little impression beyond “oh look, it’s Flounder from Animal House with worse hair and sharper teeth!” (The Centauri had massive incisors initially, though that makeup choice was dropped after the first season or so, probably as a favor to the actors.)
By contrast, Claudia Christian creates an instant, excellent impression as Ivanova with her cynicism, her sarcasm, her fatalism, and her bluntness. Though she also has a tendency to speak without contractions in this first appearance which comes across as mannered, and which will also be dropped before long.
As for Winters, there’s nothing to really distinguish Andrea Thompson from Patricia Tallman’s Alexander beyond hair color, at least so far.
This is a stronger opening to the series than “The Gathering” was by far, setting up one of the show’s core conflicts as well as establishing some of the character dynamics. And Garibaldi is, at least, portrayed as competent in this one, actually solving the case and not faffing about the way he was last time, plus we get his Daffy Duck fandom, which is delightful.
“The soul ends with death unless we act to preserve it.” Thirty years ago, I watched the first season of B5 and was not all that impressed. I don’t remember specifics, but I remember in particular finding each of the first two episodes to be awful.
On this rewatch, I actually really liked “Midnight on the Firing Line,” but “Soul Hunter” is, if anything, worse than I remember.
Part of what I dislike about the episode relates not so much to the episode itself, but the pre-show hype that B5 had online. Creator J. Michael Straczynski spent a great deal of time promoting the show in advance of its debut on the various online bulletin boards of the era, particularly GEnie and CompuServe, and one of the things that he said would be the hallmark of the show was that it would that it would be scientifically accurate, unlike most other screen science fiction.
And then we get this episode, which starts with a damaged ship coming through the jump gate that, somehow, is on a collision course for B5. At this point, my disbelief needs the Heimlich maneuver, because, as Douglas Adams reminded us, space is big—really big. There’s no reason for the jump gate to be all that close to the station. In fact, it makes sense for there to be a certain distance for safety reasons. Yet somehow, this badly damaged ship winds up on a collision course with the station—which is, in astronomical terms, incredibly tiny—and it’s so close that Sinclair is barely able to grapple it in time (after missing twice) to keep it from crashing.
After that, we get the entire concept of Soul Hunters, which is exactly the kind of fantastical thing that Straczynski was supposed to be avoiding. True, we’ve already got telepathy, which is equally fanciful, but the use of telepathy in science fiction is pretty well established, from Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man (which, as we’ll see, is a huge influence on the use of telepathy in B5)to Professor X and Jean Grey of the X-Men to the Ghosts in the StarCraft game, so one can forgive it a bit more readily.
But this episode presents the swiping and storing of souls as a real thing that Rufus does. Now, you can argue that it isn’t really what he’s doing—but he’s doing something. His soul-sucking vacuum cleaner enables him to see something in Delenn, so it obviously functions on some level. (Also, does he really need to carry that big-ass soul-sucking vacuum cleaner around every time he does this? Is that really practical?) Heck, the whole idea of “sensing death” is pretty much nonsense, too.
There’s some fun foreshadowing of the connection between Sinclair and the Minbari and of Delenn’s true purpose, and nobody ever went wrong casting W. Morgan Sheppard, but these are very minor good points in an episode that is just awful. It doesn’t help that there’s no sign of Andreas Katsulas or Peter Jurasik, and an episode without G’Kar and Mollari doesn’t bear thinking about.
“What do you want, you moon-faced assassin of joy?” As is often the case with stories involving the Centauri and/or Narn ambassadors, the A-story in this episode is elevated entirely by the performances, not just of Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas, but also of Fabiana Udenio, whose radiance and reluctance are both played quite well.
Which is good, because, man, this story has whiskers on it. The old man seduced by the pretty young sex worker with the heart of gold, and they fall for each other, and she still betrays him because she has to, but she doesn’t want to, and it all comes out okay in the end, and ugh!
But this one mostly works because Jurasik and Udenio make it work. So does Clive Revill, who has made a career out of playing snotty bad guys (he was the original person playing Emperor Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back) and is snotty as all get-out here.
The B-plot is of more interest, mostly because it provides useful exposition on Ivanova and also illuminates character, both Ivanova’s and Garibaldi’s. It’s also a big honkin’ cliché, but, again, the performances elevate it, especially the pained stoicism of Claudia Christian. Her dismissal of Garibaldi’s concerns plays up as her usual I’m-too-busy-to-deal-with-your-bullshit attitude, and it modulates effectively into sad resignation, with pain eking out through the cracks when she’s talking to her father.
G’Kar is still being played annoyingly like a doofy villain, and his interactions with Ko D’ath are just painful, the straitlaced aide cramping the boss’s style. Not that Mollari’s interactions with Vir are much better. Although the “moon-faced assassin of joy” comment was magnificent, the portrayal of Vir as a dork playing videogames while waiting for Mollari to show up is also cringe-inducing.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” It’s never a good sign when an episode of B5 doesn’t have any of the three most interesting characters in it. Delenn, G’Kar, and Mollari are the heart and soul of this show, and that none of them appear in this episode is but one of a billion problems with it, the biggest of them being that it’s awful.
Seriously, this script would make for one of the weaker episodes of Space: 1999 or Buck Rogers in the 25th Century or the original Battlestar Galactica or Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, much less the show that promised to be the vanguard of a new age of great SF TV. B5 got some great guest stars over its run, and I thought I remembered all the good ones, but I’d totally forgotten that David McCallum was ever on this show. It’s a testament to how truly dreadful this episode is that it made me forget that McCallum was in it.
“Infection” is a tiresome collection of weak clichés, boring action, and tired tropes, from the mentor-gone-evil to the manly hero avoiding the plucky female journalist who just wants to ask him some questions to the laughable look of Drake after being transformed.
It does have one redeeming feature, but the problem is, you have suffer through the entire crappy episode to get to it. Sinclair’s answer to Cramer’s question about whether humanity should continue to go into space or stay home where it’s safe and only has humans in it is brilliant (and quoted in “The echoes of all our conversations” above), erudite, and, most of all, quite true. (I wish half the people he cited weren’t from twentieth-century Western civilization, but I also love that his list included the creators of both the Tao Te Ching and “Peggy Sue.”)
Some might say that Garibaldi’s come-to-Jesus speech to Sinclair is a redeeming feature, too, but I’m not one of them. It’s a legitimate complaint from Garibaldi, and it certainly provides justification for Sinclair being at the forefront of the action all the time. But it feels too much like Straczynski came up with a Marvel No-Prize to explain why the guy at the top of the opening credits does all the cool actiony stuff, rather than an actual bit of characterization.
“Gods for all occasions!” Okay, I have two extremely minor pet peeves about this generally quite good episode, and I want to get them out of the way.
One: why the hell is a Narn wearing Earth-style spectacles? Why would a species that doesn’t have external ears develop a device whose entire design is predicated on having ears that stick out on the side of the head? Why would a species that doesn’t have external ears use a device whose entire design is predicated on having ears that stick out on the side of the head? For that matter, how are Tu’Pari’s glasses being held onto his head? (J. Michael Straczynski explained online that Tu’Pari uses human spectacles because the Narn have a prejudice against mechanical improvements to oneself, which explains why G’Kar will later go around with only one eye, but that only answers my first question, not my other two. He should be wearing a pince-nez, if anything…)
Two: Sinclair introduces the rabbi in the Religion Receiving Line as an Orthodox Jew. He and Ivanova then shake hands, and no! An Orthodox Jewish male would not touch a woman he was not married to or a very close relative of in so casual a situation. He’s very obviously neither of those things, because Ivanova’s reaction would be more direct and affectionate if it were the case. And you can’t explain it away by saying that maybe Orthodox Judaism has changed in the three centuries that B5 is in the future, because Orthodox Judaism hasn’t changed in the last five thousand seven hundred and eighty-four years. In fact, what defines Orthodox Judaism is that it hasn’t changed ever. If it does change, then it’s another form of Judaism, not Orthodox.
Sigh.
Okay, now that that’s all off my chest… This is a decent little episode. G’Kar’s plotline is pretty straightforward, although the misdirects are muted by Caitlin Brown being in the opening credits, making it extremely unlikely that she is either the assassin or the assassin’s backup. Still, Brown’s Na’Toth is much more compelling than Mary Woronov’s more stereotypical Ko D’Ath was, and she and Andreas Katsulas play off each other nicely.
Seeing the different religious ceremonies was fun. It’s a little to Planet of Hats-ish to see only one Centauri ceremony and one Minbari ceremony but then have Earth show off how many religions there are. Having said that, the ceremonies are definitely appropriate: the Centauri eat, drink, and are merry because they’re not dead yet, and the Minbari are all ritualized and sedate and ceremonial and stuff. Each is very fitting. For that matter, the Narn not participating is also very fitting, as even at this early stage it’s obvious that the Narn play things close to the vest and don’t reveal much to outsiders. (Indeed, G’Kar’s reluctance to let any non-Narn in on his crisis is a plot point.)
And Sinclair introducing representatives from all over Earth is lovely, as is his kicking off with an atheist (which is Straczynski’s own philosophy). I especially like that he put the Muslim and the Jew next to each other (which he has said was quite deliberate).
“I give you a gift.” This introduces two very important parts of the B5storyline, to wit, the Psi Cops and the First Ones (who don’t have that name yet).
In particular, we’re introduced to Bester, who will go on to appear in a dozen more episodes (and was scheduled to appear in a Crusade episode, but the series was cancelled before it was filmed), and become a very important recurring character. He creates quite a strong impression here, though a big part of it is seeing a very familiar actor in a most unfamiliar role, as Bester is absolutely nothing like Chekov. Which is fabulous, as he’s a very effective villain.
Certainly more so than his sidekick, as Felicity Waterman is dreadful as Kelsey. In that, she’s matched by the episode’s primary focus, which is Jason Ironheart—a dopey name for an awful character. William Allen Young plays him with all the charisma of a dead fish, utterly failing to convey the anguish and torment the script calls for, which takes the episode out at the knees, sadly. Not that the script helps overmuch, trying to make Ironheart out to be a tragic figure and a victim, hoping we won’t notice that (a) he slept with one of his students, and (b) he committed several murders, only one of which he was able to even remotely justify. Indeed, the glossing over of the death of the Starfury group at the top of the episode is galling. And having Bester imitate the denizens of the Village in The Prisoner was a little too cutesy. (I remember one friend saying after this episode aired in 1994 that it’s never a good idea to reference a show that’s better than yours.)
The B-plot does, at least, have better acting in it, as G’Kar finally gets a bit more depth, and we’re introduced to the rather important notion that there are much older, much more powerful species floating around the galaxy that are a fair piece farther along on the evolutionary road than we are.
“We have friends everywhere.” For the second week in a row, the A-plot sees a good script sabotaged by a weak guest actor. The damage is much less this time, mostly because the guest actor in question is a small part of a larger problem, one that will continue to plague our heroes through the show. Indeed, bigoted humans will continue to be seen throughout the show, which is the main difference between B5 and Star Trek—the latter is utopian fiction, the former is realistic fiction. Trek is about humanity at its best; B5 is about humanity as it is.
And humans can be real assholes. Malcolm Biggs is a particularly assholey asshole, and unfortunately, he’s played with all the subtlety of a nuclear explosion by Tristan Rogers, who’s practically has the word “SCUZZBALL” tattooed on his forehead. (This would’ve been a much better role for David McCallum than the dipshit scientist in the execrable “Infection.”) And he’s not the only one. I think it was a particularly nice touch to have an actor of Chinese ancestry play one of the bigots, given that Chinese-Americans have been victims of discrimination in the U.S. for centuries, for a nice little touch of plus ça change, plus c’est la mêmechose. (It was also hilariously weird to see Michael Paul Chan with hair, as he’s been bald for more than twenty years now…)
There’ve been hints of “Earth first” groups in the past, mostly from comments made by the reporter in “Infection,” as well as some of the noises made around the presidential election in “Midnight on the Firing Line.” Learning that they’re organized and have access to classified tech is worrisome to say the least, especially given the audacity of their plan.
The B-plot has the reverse problem. The script is a hoary young-lovers-escaping-the-icky-arranged-marriage storyline that has whiskers on it, but it’s elevated by the performances. Mostly Peter Jurasik, as is typical, but also by Stephen Furst, who shows the first signs of Vir’s backbone when the aide berates the ambassador for being a big stinky. The indications of just how miserable Mollari’s life is are beautifully and subtly played, adding depth to a tired plotline.
Mention also must be made of an excellent guest turn by Nancy Lee Grahn as Mayan. From her lovely conversation with Delenn at the top of the episode to her impressive equanimity when discussing keeping the brand with Franklin to her incisive comments to Mollari, Grahn plays the role beautifully.
“Maybe we’re both still inside.” I have a lot to say about this episode, some of which is tangential and/or nitpicky, so let me lead with this: “And the Sky Full of Stars” is a fantastic episode, the best one of the season so far. I said in the “Soul Hunter” rewatch that an episode without G’Kar or Mollari doesn’t bear thinking about, and with this episode we have our first exception, as neither ambassador is missed this particular time ’round.
While I would love to live in the parallel universe where Patrick McGoohan played Knight Two, Christopher Neame is still good in the role: Somewhat over-the-top, but the part calls for that, and his deep, intense voice is used to good end. (Judson Scott not so much, but he’s always been pretty much entirely 80s-pretty-boy looks and no talent, and he keeps that sad streak going here.)
But writing this rewatch, I hit back on one of my greatest frustrations from watching this show three decades ago, as I went to the Lurker’s Guide web site (which I strongly recommend) and found this gem from J. Michael Straczynski from one of his online posts prior to the episode airing: “Absolutely unlike anything ever produced before for television.”
And, um, no. Just off the top of my head, I can think of two examples of this being done before on television—and, I might add, done better. One should be obvious given who his choice for Knight Two was prior to casting Neame: the final two episodes of The Prisoner (especially the penultimate episode “Once Upon a Time”). The other is Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Chain of Command, Part II,” which is superior mainly due to the much higher quality of acting on display. (This is not meant to disrespect Neame or Michael O’Hare, but we’re talking about Sir Patrick Stewart and David Warner here. They’re on a different level…)
And honestly there was no need for this level of hyperbole, because the episode is damn good. But being primed with being told it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before makes all the parts we have seen before stand out. In particular, the tired clichés in how Benson’s debt collectors, the Knights, and Delenn’s cohort at the end are all written.
In all three of those cases, the characters say that someone might have to be killed, which is to show that the characters in question are, at the very least, ruthless, and at the most, incredibly evil. But it also makes them, at best, stupid and at worst incompetent. First off, anyone who is collecting debts is not going to make a threat, the fulfillment of which will not result in the debt being paid. Compulsive gamblers are addicts, so they’re not going to be dissuaded by someone making an example of them (the usual reason for threatening violence given in fiction that portrays such). Debt collectors are in it to collect debts, not commit acts of violence. (Plus, killing a member of the security force of your mini-city in space will just draw attention to you that you do not want.)
Knight Two saying “so be it” when Knight One says Sinclair might die is equally ridiculous, because they’re trying to obtain information. (Much like Number Two was on The Prisoner, ahem ahem.) You can’t get information from a dead body, and, again, killing the commander of a major space station will just draw attention to you, which you don’t want on a covert mission.
The last issue is less of one because we don’t know the truth behind why the Minbari surrendered, but once we do find out, the threat to kill Sinclair makes absolutely no sense, since the Minbari suddenly realized that killing humans would be bad. But we’ll get to that down the line…
One final nitpick: Garibaldi is reading a printed newspaper. This seemed a failure of imagination thirty years ago, and is something of a howler now when far more people in 2024 consume their news on a computer, tablet, or television, and the physical newspaper is dying a slow death. Heck, the original Star Trek understood that in the future people were more likely to be reading on an electronic medium than a paper one.
Okay, now that I’ve spent all this time on nonsense, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty—damn, this episode is good. For starters, it’s easily O’Hare’s best work to date, showing the character’s anger, confusion, and especially frustration. The missing time in his memory is something that’s gnawed at him for a decade, and this interrogation brings all those questions and annoyances to the fore. It’s a beautifully done set of sequences, culminating in some genuine revelations about Sinclair’s missing time. Of course, those revelations just prompt more questions, but it’s progress. I kind of wish Sinclair had confronted Delenn about it right away instead of holding off for a future episode, but we’ll find out soon enough.
And while I wasn’t all that thrilled with the “if he finds the truth, you must kill him” tag, I will say that Mira Furlan has done superb work in showing Delenn’s complexity and depth—and deviousness. There is a lot more to her than meets the eye, and Furlan expertly plays it without overdoing it or losing the character’s charisma and charm.
“Listen to the music, not the notes.” This should have been an excellent episode, and the general story is a good one, but the execution is botched on many different levels.
One level is isn’t botched on is guest casting for the A-plot. If you want to cast someone whom you know is unrepentantly evil, you can’t go wrong with Sarah Douglas, who exudes menace, contempt, and nastiness as Jha’dur. In addition, Robin Curtis does superlative work as Kalika, giving the character a passion and determination that is very compelling. Also, not having Delenn in the episode works in its favor, as one simply cannot imagine Delenn going quietly along with the coverup needed here. Lennier as a low-level flunky wouldn’t have much choice in the matter but to follow orders without question.
Alas, so much of the rest of the story doesn’t quite gel. For starters, the plot is catalyzed by Na’Toth recognizing Deathwalker, and a big part of why we care about what’s happening is Na’Toth’s righteous anger at how her grandfather was one of Jha’dur’s victims. But after Jha’dur’s request for Na’Toth’s head, she’s never heard from again, which is frustrating. She should have been there when Jha’dur was taken off the station.
In fact, the ending would’ve worked way better if Na’Toth fulfilled her blood oath by killing Jha’dur instead of relying on a deus ex Kosh to end things. As it is, the fact that Kosh is able to murder a sentient being without due process and without any consequences is staggering, and should be met with a lot more outrage and reaction than, “Oh, well, Vorlons will be Vorlons, la dee dah.” Plus, as I said in the plot description, why is Jha’dur flying by herself to Earth? It makes no sense, but it’s a necessary plot hole, because if she was being escorted, Kosh would also have to murder innocent EarthForce personnel, and we can’t have that…
The big twist about the antiagapic is an utter failure. There’s a reason why “show don’t tell” is a truism. Jha’dur sneeringly telling us that the only way the elixir works is for someone else to die does not land at all, mostly because we have no context for any of it. It’s a made-up serum that has a twist that works in a made-up and not-explained way, which renders the entire twist meaningless, except as a feeble attempt to make us not feel so bad when the Vorlons murder her.
The B-plot is a whole not of nothing. For starters, the script was very obviously written for Gilbert Gottfried and just as obviously not adjusted for the much less manic Cosie Costa, who sounded completely wrong reading the lines he was given. On top of that, one thing that this being a rewatch reminds one of is that this particular subplot is never to be seen again, aside from one quick mention later. And hoo-hah has the notion of someone referred to as a “VCR” aged badly. Okay, that one’s not really anybody’s fault, but man, I can see someone under the age of thirty watching this now and wondering what the heck a VCR is, since Garibaldi uses the term as if it’s common knowledge…
“Life has to be more than just a pulse beat.” Full disclosure: the writer of this episode, David Gerrold, is a friend and colleague of your humble rewatcher. Most recently, my wife Wrenn Simms and I co-edited and co-published an anthology called The Four ??? of the Apocalypse, to which Gerrold contributed a story.
At least, I hope we’re still friends after he reads this, because I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with this episode on rewatch. Mind you, it’s still very powerful and thought-provoking, with a wonderfully nasty ending, but I have two problems with it.
The first is a simple one of an inability to predict the future: seeing Franklin use a scalpel to cut open Shon’s chest probably seemed reasonable in 1994, but in 2024 we already have way less invasive ways of operating on people. Indeed, there are plenty of procedures that involve using existing openings in the body to put in the tools that will be used in the surgery, and that’s just thirty years after this episode was aired, much less the three hundred that it’s supposed to be in the future.
Still, that’s minor, and not really the point. The Onteen are fictional, so even if the surgical procedures are less invasive than slicing open the skin, one can adjust the religious beliefs in question to make the surgery not be an option.
The other problem is a bigger one, to wit, that of consent. Specifically, that of Shon. I know that in our culture, at least, children under eighteen don’t have a full set of rights, and there is also precedent for the government interceding to save a child’s life when the parents won’t do everything possible.
But I still can’t get my mind around the fact that, not only do M’Ola and Tharg refuse the procedure, but Shon himself says he doesn’t want it. I have a real problem with the government stepping in to force a medical procedure—any medical procedure—on someone. And Shon is fully aware of what’s happening—hell, he’s cogent enough to see through Franklin’s “glopet egg” thing—and doesn’t sound in any way coerced or hesitant in his lack of desire to lose his soul.
Sinclair, at least, realizes this, and Gerrold’s script serves the commander well, as it feels like he’s the only one behaving rationally. Certainly more than his medical officers are, as I spent the entire episode wanting to smack both Franklin and Hernandez. Yes, they have a fervent desire to save the child’s life, and that’s important, but it’s mainly important because a) they come from a culture that values the life of a child even more than that of an adult and b) they are dedicated to healing. But that doesn’t give Franklin the right to play god—even though he himself thinks that. Franklin says that every patient who comes through Medlab’s door wants him to play god, and if he has that responsibility, then he wants the power, too. Except for one thing: this patient very explicitly did not ask him to do that.
I felt like the script desperately wanted us to see that there were no right answers, and while there aren’t, there are wrong answers, and Franklin’s was wrong every single time. That’s brought into sharp relief at the end when Hernandez shows him the cultural database on the Onteen and the real meaning of the travelling robe, which indicates that he did no such research prior to that. He couldn’t even be bothered to learn all he could about the Onteen, he just went ahead and assumed he was right when, by their lights, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Michael O’Hare gives one of his best performances here, and you can always count on Tricia O’Neil to bring depth to a guest role, something she made a career out of. I also loved how Claudia Christian delivered Ivanova’s rant to get Sinclair to let her out of the house, so to speak, though the rest of that B-plot went absolutely nowhere interesting, and was such obvious filler that nobody even bothered to show its climax and resolution.
Now that I’ve written several hundred words criticizing this episode, I actually feel more positive about it than I did when I started. There’s a lot of meat here, and while the execution doesn’t always land, it doesn’t back away from anything, either. And that really is a powerful ending. In fact, the only flaw in the ending is that Franklin should have resigned, and failing that, been fired—and either way, also been disciplined by the Earth Alliance medical authorities.
“The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.” As a vehicle of exposition and backstory regarding the character of Michael Garibaldi, this is excellent. The pain of his relationship with the Kemmer family and the character’s vicious struggle with alcoholism are very well portrayed by scripter Marc Scott Zicree (with uncredited rewrites by show creator J. Michael Straczynski) and by actor Jerry Doyle.
Unfortunately, that’s the only way the episode is even a little good—in general as an episode of a television show, it’s tiresomely predictable, riddled with clichés, and really badly acted.
B5’s hit-and-miss casting has two misses this time, as Elaine Thomas is spectacularly wooden as Kemmer. She only has one bland facial expression, and she has none of the bitterness or ruthlessness that the script insists she has. Her fatal interrogation of Nolan has no bite to it due to Thomas’ shortcomings. And in the end, they have to change her hair to show that she’s softened because the actor herself doing it has proven to be beyond her means.
As for Tom Donaldson as Cutter, he’s practically wearing a sign on his forehead that says “I’m the secret bad guy.” Indeed, Cutter’s status as the real saboteur is one hundred percent inevitable, as he’s the only character with a speaking part who it could be, thus draining all suspense from the storyline.
I’ve never had much patience with stories where a character becomes a fugitive in order to clear their name, because the very act of becoming a fugitive makes that impossible. I mean, sure, Garibaldi is cleared of sabotage, but he’s now guilty of resisting arrest, assaulting both military personnel and civilians, theft (of the clothes he’s wearing), and disobeying orders from his commanding officer. But—as with Franklin last week—Doyle’s in the opening credits, so he suffers no consequences. (Well, except for the consequences of drinking again, something the show will, to its credit, continue to address.)
And then we have my biggest problem with the episode, which is a problem I had with the entire series: we never even see Santiago. Santiago is never seen in the flesh, and his vice-president and successor Clark is only seen briefly on screens in three episodes, finally seen in the flesh very briefly in his fourth and final appearance. These are two incredibly important characters to the storyline, yet they have no kind of significant presence in the foreground, which severely dilutes their impact (especially Clark’s, but Santiago’s, too).
“There are no happily-ever-afters, just new battles.” It’s funny, I have absolutely no memory of watching this one the first time back in 1994, which is disheartening only insofar as I really really really like it a lot.
Indeed, it only has one flaw, and it’s one I saw coming in the guest list: John Snyder is completely not up to the task of playing a skilled negotiator. Snyder has a very limited range, and any time a role requires charisma (here and also Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Masterpiece Society”), he utterly fails.
But Snyder is the episode’s only real flaw. The conflict is one that’s familiar to viewers, reminding us why unions exist, and how governments continue to do everything they can to break and damage unions. Katy Boyer does excellent work as the plucky union rep, putting a human face on the dockworkers, though a big chunk of the credit should go to scripter Kathryn M. Drennan and actors José Rey and Claudia Christian, as the exhausted banter between Ivanova and Delvientos at the top of the episode sets the tone for the rest of it, showing that B5 is a machine that is not nearly as well-oiled as it should be, but at the very least the parts work.
The B-plot is guaranteed to be wonderful because it focuses on the heart and soul of B5: Mollari and G’Kar. Peter Jurasik beautifully plays Mollari’s playful tweaking, which modulates effectively into righteous anger when the real reason for his torments comes out. Meanwhile, the scripting finally catches up to Andreas Katsulas’ performance, as G’Kar’s religious devotion adds layers to the character, and the mess that his political situation makes of his religious observances is very compelling viewing.
But the rock star here is Michael O’Hare who, for the second time in three episodes, puts in a bravura performance, aided, once again, by a great script by Drennan. You feel his frustration and his exhaustion, which makes his actions in the climax all the more wonderful. I honestly think of this as the Loophole Episode, and it’s glorious.
One of the gags Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does in his Sherlock Holmes stories is have Holmes make a deduction about someone, the person is shocked, thinking Holmes must be psychic or something, and then Holmes explains the very rational reasoning, at which point the person is no longer shocked, and actually disappointed at how simple it was for Holmes to figure all that stuff out.
That’s the vibe I got from Sinclair’s three great solutions here: they’re all actually fairly obvious and reasonable, for all that they’re truly obscure and (at least by some characters’ lights) unreasonable. In particular, I love that his solution for both obtaining the G’Quan Eth and ending the strike are going for the letter of the law over the spirit, while his suggestion to G’Kar for how to perform the ceremony is the other way around.
The vague wording of the Rush Act also reminded me of the various laws that allow business to discriminate for “religious reasons.” I’m just waiting for someone to discriminate because of their belief in Buddha or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Satan and cite the law, which doesn’t actually say it’s only for Christians, even though that’s really what the lawmakers meant. Ditto the Rush Act—the titular phrase was meant to apply to violent solutions, but it doesn’t say that, and while sometimes in the spirit of the law is more important, the letter of the law is really the only part that’s enforceable…
“I want it all back the way it was!” This is an episode that closes out one plotline—the raiders who’ve been a problem for the entire thirteen episodes of the season so far—and sets up a ton more. Well, okay, maybe not a ton, but a few at the very least.
It also continues a plotline that has been hanging way longer than it should have. Seriously, Sinclair should’ve gone to Garibaldi with his problem pretty much the nanosecond after Christopher Neame’s brain-damaged Knight was taken away in handcuffs back in “And the Sky Full of Stars,” not five episodes later. (Following production order doesn’t help, as this was produced a full ten episodes after “And the Sky…”) The lack of urgency on Sinclair’s part is just weird. It’s the sort of thing you expect from television, especially of the era, but it’s something that particularly stands out in a rewatch. (Though I do recall asking the same “what took him so damn long???” question thirty years ago, too…)
We also find out how the raiders have been so awesome, and we get more hints as to the state of Centauri politics. There’ve been hints about the latter up until this point, the biggest being Mollari’s lament in “The Gathering” about how far the Republic had fallen, but also in “Midnight on the Firing Line” when it was clear that the Centauri didn’t have the wherewithal to defend a colony that had been invaded. In Gerritt Graham’s Kiro, we see the discontent amongst the aristocracy. (And also the arrogant stupidity, as it probably never occurred to Kiro that the raiders would double cross him, even though that was a blindingly obvious outcome.)
And we get the danger of overplotting your future when you’re producing a TV show, as Straczynski had to keep rejiggering the notion of the station being blown up, to the point where it was abandoned, but still kept it anyhow, sort of. More on that when we reach “Babylon Squared” and then “War Without End” and then “Sleeping in Light.”
But the episode is truly made by a fantastic performance by Ed Wasser as Morden. Wasser brings a delightfully bland emptiness to the role. It’s obvious from the moment we see him that he’s completely faking what little emotion he’s showing. He’s there to do what he’s been told, and he goes about it in a very matter-of-fact way.
The question he asks is so simple and yet so complicated. Because it’s not the easiest thing to express—as G’Kar proves with his word salad of vengeful utterances and empty platitudes. Mollari, though, speaks from the heart when he answers, and it results in a Faustian bargain that he doesn’t even realize he’s made.
“You cannot run away from your own heart, Susan.” When people are listing the worst episodes of B5, “TKO” is almost always featured on the list, so I am now going to declare something that will possibly get me tarred and feathered: “TKO” was always my favorite first-season episode, going back to when the show first aired thirty years ago. And I still like it a lot.
Not, I hasten to add, for the A-plot, though I have a lot more thoughts on that now that I have twenty years of martial arts under my (black) belt. But I love this for the absolutely magnificent B-plot, and I don’t see how anyone who actually cares about the character of Susan Ivanova can call this one of the worst episodes when half of it is devoted to her, and it is brilliantly written and acted.
First of all, I was over the moon at the fact that B5 actually acknowledges that there are Jews in the future, something that remains vanishingly rare. Indeed, routine portrayal of Jews in any pop culture only really started happening about thirty years ago or so, and it still remains scattershot. In 1994, I was married to a Jewish woman, so I was particularly sensitized to it, and I remain so even though that particular marriage ended two-and-a-half decades ago.
Secondly, nobody ever went wrong casting Theodore Bikel, and he is magnificence itself as Koslov.
Thirdly, the plotline itself is hugely important for Ivanova, not just because it establishes her Judaism, but also continues the work begun in “Midnight on the Firing Line” and “Born to the Purple” of showing her difficult childhood and how that helped turn her into the overly stoic and incredibly cynical adult she is now.
Meantime, we have the absurd A-plot, which is one of the worst examples of The Inevitable Boxing Episode that so many shows have foisted on their audiences, including other genre shows like Batman (“Ring Around the Riddler”), Battlestar Galactica (“Unfinished Business”), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (“Olympiad”), Future Cop (“Fighting O’Haven”), Quantum Leap (“The Right Hand of God”), and Star Trek: Voyager (“The Fight”).
What makes “TKO’s” version particularly terrible, though, because while the Mu-tai appears to be the usual Space Boxing nonsense, where it’s like regular boxing only alien, it is, um, not. What we see in the Mu-tai is basically Asian martial arts. They even wear gis! (A gi is a martial arts uniform.) And belts! (Okay, they’re sashes, but they’re color-coded just like the belts in Asian martial arts.) Rather than go through the trouble of actually creating an alien form of sport combat, Lawrence G. DiTillio just gave us a mishmash of kung fu, karate, judo, taekwondo, jeet kune do, etc. The casting and costuming just overemphasizes this, the former with the casting of the (excellent) Soon-Teck Oh as the Muta-Do. (And that’s another thing! Muta-Do sounds like a title you’d hear in a karate school.)
Now the thing is, this isn’t a bad metaphor for a conflict that has happened in the martial arts world. As Asian martial arts started to proliferate around the world in the 1960s and 1970s, prompted by military personnel in the region for the Korean and Vietnam wars learning about them, as well as the meteoric popularity of Bruce Lee, there was a conflict between maintaining the perceived purity of the art versus the proliferation and popularization of it in other countries. There was a Kyokushin tournament held in Japan in 1976 whose primary purpose was to reassert the dominance of Japanese karateka in the martial arts world (and the judging was very obviously biased toward the Japanese participants—see the documentary Fighting Black Kings for more on that).
But the metaphor falls down because the Mu-tai is such a lazy kitbash of Asian martial arts that it only works as being alien if you’re a Westerner. Me, I’m looking at the Mu-tai in general and the Sho-rin in particular and thinking that I know about a dozen martial artists in the New York Metropolitan Area alone who would do just fine in the Mu-tai. There is absolutely nothing in it that truly bespeaks something that it would be tough for humans to manage. (It also highlights one of B5’s flaws, which is the poor representation of Asians in its future.)
I will give some credit to the fight choreographers, as the climactic bout between Smith and the Sho-rin is well done. I particularly like the fact that, while the Sho-rin uses punches and kicks—as do all the other participants in the Mu-tai—Smith sticks with what he’s good at: boxing. All his moves are punches, and he moves and fights like a boxer rather than a martial artist. It’s a nice touch. (Though his lack of experience with defending against kicks is something that should do him in, and it doesn’t.)
The Ivanova subplot means that this will continue to be my favorite first-season episode. Even if the A-plot is awful…
“No boom today, boom tomorrow—there’s always a boom tomorrow.” So many times in this rewatch, I have seen some truly horrific guest casting ruin, or at least damage, an episode. It is, therefore, a genuine pleasure to watch “Grail” and see greats David Warner and William Sanderson ply their trade magnificently. Plus there are strong turns here by Tom Booker and Jim Norton.
What they’re acting in is a nifty little science fiction story by Christy Marx (who, full disclosure, is a friend of your humble rewatcher) that plays the what-if game in a fun way, to wit, if you’re trying to find something, and you’ve looked all over the Earth, and you have space travel and contact with other species, why not look elsewhere? After all, if God is supposed to infinite, why shouldn’t the chalice used by his kid at a millennia-old seder wind up somewhere other than Earth?
I also found the concept of Jinxo to be charming, both that the notion of his curse had grown roots to the point that everyone seemed to believe it to an extent, but also that it proved to be nonsense when he finally did leave in the end.
It’s a little disappointing that we didn’t see G’Kar’s reaction to the grail quest, but that’s mostly because an episode with Andreas Katsulas is better than one without him. Mollari’s attempt to get some extra gamblin’ money out of Gajic is amusing and in character, ditto Vir’s circumventing that with his ultra-efficiency.
The Deuce part of the plot is mostly fine, especially his using Kosh’s mysteriousness for his own purposes. It’s good to see the court system on the station (and the guy suing a Gray Alien for kidnapping his ancestors was cute), but the storyline lost me when Deuce kidnapped Wellington for no compellingly good reason. Seriously, what purpose did that serve? The ombuds had already let him go! And mind-wiping a station official is going to get you way more attention from Garibaldi and the gang than random nobodies in downbelow…
Finally, I love that Delenn commands sufficient respect that Sinclair drops everything and throws together an honor guard just on her say-so—even if it is for a crackpot…
“I don’t like being irritated—it gives me gas.” Just last week, I was discussing how having a good guest star can make an episode sing, and this episode is a prime example of the reverse of that, as Gregory Martin is embarrassingly terrible as Ben Zayn. His bad acting is contagious, too, as this is also one of Michael O’Hare’s absolute worst performances. The shouting match between Martin and O’Hare at the episode’s climax is just awful, a master-class in ineffective overacting to no good end.
Not that the episode’s script helps matters. First we get a wholly pointless misdirect, as we’re not initially told who our mysterious antagonists are. Besides the fact that we already did this in “And the Sky Full of Stars,” the deception lasts all of half a second before we find out it’s an investigation by the “Eyes.” So why bother?
In the abstract, it’s nice to see that some of Sinclair’s unorthodox solutions to some of the station’s problems are coming home to roost—except they don’t actually roost, they just sit there for a bit and then unconvincingly go away.
So it’s bad enough that we’ve suffered through the terrible acting of Martin and O’Hare and a mediocre script, but then we get to the end, and it somehow all is settled, and I didn’t buy that for a second.
Yes, this particular investigator was compromised, and perhaps should never have been given the assignment in the first place given his biases. But Sinclair’s conversation with Miller makes it clear that this goes a lot deeper than one colonel and one cranky-ass Psi Cop. It therefore makes no sense, none, that Grey’s scan and Sinclair’s belting Ben Zayn would be the end of it. Quite the opposite, as Ben Zayn pulling a weapon and Sinclair’s punch would both require an additional investigation.
The edges of the episode are fun. I love the fact that Ivanova wins a bar fight all by herself. While it’s more than a little cheesy that Garibaldi happens to be restoring a motorcycle from the era in which the show is filmed, that subplot is kind of adorable, mostly due to Bill Mumy’s earnest enthusiasm as Lennier. And Jeffrey Combs is always worth watching.
Still this episode is a disaster. It’s nice that it acknowledges what came before, but it doesn’t really address it in any meaningful manner. It would’ve been much more interesting to have an investigator who had a legitimate gripe against Sinclair, and who had a legitimate case against him. Instead, they went for the cheap conflict and the cheap solution.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Perhaps there was some small wisdom in letting your species survive.” Okay, I mentioned this above, but it bears mentioning again, because it really bugged the crap out of me when rewatching this episode:
Based solely on a piece of cloth found in a corridor, Garibaldi is able to compel every single member of a species on the station to have their stomachs pumped—which is an invasive medical procedure, and one that has a profound impact on its victims, as they now have lost all the value from the food they’ve recently eaten. That is, to say the least, appalling, especially since the Pak’ma’ra are all compelled to do this due entirely to what species they happen to belong to.
That is, bluntly, revolting. I’m uncomfortable enough every time they refer to the “alien sector,” which always feels like a ghetto. Now we have this, which I can’t imagine being something that the humans on the station would all agree to. (Also, how many Pak’ma’ra are on the station? Are they all accounted for? Wouldn’t it take a while to do this?)
Anyhow, this is a perfectly cromulent B5 episode. I mostly come away from it disappointed that it didn’t do more with the story. The big thing is Beldon. This is an orphan who’s reduced to thievery to survive. The episode never really focuses on that part of it, the class differences, and the fact that even something as awful as Psi Corps is a huge-ass improvement on living alone in downbelow. On top of that, the costuming and makeup department did a terrible job of showing us a person living on the raggedy edge of life, as Beldon is way too kempt and together for someone in her position. I like that Ivanova fights for her to have a choice, but the brutal truth is that Ivanova wouldn’t give two shits about her if she wasn’t a telepath.
On top of that, after Ivanova makes a fuss over keeping her out of Psi Corps’ hands because she’s a criminal, that’s never followed up on. Is she found guilty? Does she see the ombuds? What happened there?
The main plot is also fine, and is mostly fun for giving us Neroon. John Vickery’s magnificent voice makes every role he plays automatically one of gravitas. (See also his Klingon lawyer Orak in Enterprise’s “Judgment” and his Cardassian soldier Rusot in DS9’s series–endingstoryline.) The tension between him and Sinclair and between him and Delenn is sparkling—though the latter is completely muted once Delenn goes all Grey Council on him.
The best thing about the main plot, truly, is to remind us that, for all that Delenn is sweet and pleasant and friendly, she’s also a master manipulator who has an agenda. Though her ability to shut Neroon down takes the wind out of the sails of the plot, too, as it’s a disappointingly pat solution to the problem that makes you wonder why they went to all that trouble in the first place…
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “And so here we are: victims of mathematics.” It’s really hard to judge this episode on its own, for much the same reason why it’s hard to judge most any first part of a two-part episode: it’s all setup.
More to the point, it feels like it’s two separate episodes mushed together unconvincingly in order to make the two-parter that Warner Bros. could then sell as a two-hour VHS tape. This is not helped by a particularly weak cliffhanger. Rather than end on Sinclair and Ivanova finding Varn, they instead end on Sinclair and Ivanova having already rescued Varn and heading back to B5, thus draining any possibility of suspense. And the actual cliffhanger is Garibaldi saying “What the hell?” as a ship comes through the jump gate—a ridiculously commonplace occurrence.
Still, there’s some fun stuff here. While Garibaldi’s worry-about-his-ex storyline is kinda meh, the scene where Mollari cheers him up is beautifully played by Peter Jurasik and Jerry Doyle, with the added punchline of Mollari wandering off and sticking Garibaldi with the bill. That punchline, by the way, is funnier than Mollari’s attempted dissection of “The Hokey Pokey,” which didn’t tickle my fancy as much as it might have others, though you can totally see how someone unfamiliar with humans would be completely confused by it. Hell, I’ve been hearing it all my life, and I’m fairly certain I’m human, and I’m completely confused by it…
Mira Furlan beautifully plays Delenn’s affection for Draal, while Louis Turrene has a quiet dignity as Draal. And I adore Jim Ishida’s Tasaki and wish we’d seen him again, as his enthusiasm for science is adorable and infectious.
Plus, we’ve got the “Ivanova is God” speech. Honestly, the whole episode is worth it for that…
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “He discovered something inside that he thought was buried long ago.” I am absolutely struggling to find anything to say about this episode or this two-parter. Thank goodness this is a rewatch, because that means I intellectually know that there’s some important stuff here. The turmoil on Mars, the Great Machine, and Garibaldi’s tumultuous relationship with Hampton are all threads that will continue to be pulled on in the future.
But this two-parter that sets them all in motion is absolutely nowhere as an actual episode of television. For one thing, there really isn’t enough story here for two parts. We have the addition of the Hyperion to introduce artificial conflict, and hoo-boy is it artificial. Ron Canada can be a good actor when given quality material, but he is not given that here at all. Pierce is a straw man for Sinclair to tiresomely knock down, and his presence in the episode mostly serves to just drag it all out.
Garibaldi’s mooning over Hampton is spectacularly uninteresting, and ends with one of the oldest clichés in the book—he finally gets in touch with her, but she’s married now! Oh noes!
Worse, what should be a huge catharsis for Draal doesn’t have any emotional heft to it in the least. It feels more like he’s getting into the Great Machine because the script says he does. Delenn’s declaration to Garibaldi that Draal finally found meaning in his life has more emotional weight than anything the script or Louis Turrene did in the previous hour.
As usual, it’s left to Peter Jurasik to inject some entertainment into the proceedings, as Mollari’s pleas to Ivanova to know what the hell’s going on and the joy he takes in reviving his old piloting skills are a delight to behold. And also the only delight in the entire episode.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “They are better than they think and nobler than they know.” Even if the rest of the episode was terrible (it isn’t), it would be worth it just for the introduction the wonderful Zathras, played with a very compelling furtive loopiness by the late great Tim Choate. Zathras is one of J. Michael Straczynski’s greatest creations and he’s just so much fun here.
I’m a sucker for a good time-travel story, and this is a particularly strong one. (The other half of it will have its problems, but those were due to external circumstances and it isn’t fair to ding this episode for it. We’ll get to that in season three…) We finally find out what happened to Babylon 4, and it’s a doozy. The revelation of who’s in the EVA suit is a very effective reveal, and leaves one eager to learn more. And Kent Broadhurst very nicely plays Krantz’s frustration and eagerness to get the hell off the station.
The episode has its flaws, however. While Straczynski is a master plotter, his scripting is often hit or miss, especially at this stage of his career, and the “fasten/zip” conversation between Sinclair and Garibaldi as they take the two-hour trip to B4 is a rhapsody in cringey awkwardness.
And Delenn’s portion of the plot is the worst kind of artificial suspense, as we know that Delenn isn’t going to accept the leadership position. The whole thing feels like an excuse for Delenn’s speech about how much potential humanity has, and it just feels incredibly constructed. Both plots are important for the future of the show, but the B4 plot was at least compelling viewing. Delenn’s just feels like string-pulling.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “I did the necessary thing—that isn’t always the same as the right thing.” There’s one issue I have with this episode, and it applies in general to the world-building of the station: since when do people have to pay to use medlab?
I mean, if it’s a purely capitalistic endeavor—or at least is one for civilians, since I doubt that the military personnel have to pay for treatments—then, for starters, the entire plot of “Believers” goes out the window. All the Onteens had to do was refuse to make payment and walk out, and the entire plot changes. And we’ve never seen any kind of billing procedure, even though plenty of non-military personnel have gone through medlab.
But the plot of this episode doesn’t work if there isn’t a free clinic in downbelow, so writer/creator/producer J. Michael Straczynski just defaulted to the status quo of the United States at the time he was writing the episode, which is, to be blunt, lazy world-building. The trend in the world at large is toward free healthcare, and it was thirty years ago, too. The U.S. is the glaring exception, not the norm.
Once you get past that, this is a fine episode. The Mollari/Lennier subplot is fun mostly in the amusing jock-nerd contrast that Peter Jurasik and Bill Mumy give us. Indeed, this rather hoary plot really only works because of the talent of these two actors, with Jurasik’s good-natured sleaze and Mumy’s earnest naïveté selling it.
I like the fact that jurisprudence on the station is dictated by factors that have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with expediency—which is how things always work. A space station doesn’t have the resources to feed, clothe, and house a prisoner for the rest of his life, the death penalty is very limited (that is a good bit of world-building, as the trend in general has also been toward fewer and fewer capital crimes), and transporting a prisoner is a much more complicated thing when you’re talking interstellar distances.
And if you’re proposing a world with telepaths, then the notion of death of personality becomes realistic as a criminal sentence. It has the same possible benefit of the death penalty—to wit, removing a murderer from the commonweal—but without the state having the power of life and death over its citizenry and truly allowing for the possibility of rehabilitation, even if it’s artificially catalyzed.
Finally, June Lockhart is never not wonderful, and I love that the alleged quack faith healer isn’t someone ostentatious or ridiculous, but just an old woman who wants to help people. Lockhart has a quotidian simplicity to her Hippocratic passion that is very compelling and feels very real.
Plus, they now have a handy deus ex machina for future episodes!
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “You have forgotten something.” This is a fairly effective season finale, but it suffers from two problems, one actively while watching it and the other from rewatching it and knowing what will come next.
The problem watching it is that the episode desperately wants us to be affected by the assassination of President Santiago, and—for me, at least—it utterly fails to do so. I don’t know who Santiago is. The fact that he’s president is not, by itself, enough for me to give a damn. If we’d actually seen Santiago at any point, even if it was just news footage of a press conference or an interview or something, it would’ve helped. Hell, in “Survivors” Santiago was right there on the station. That was the perfect opportunity to see him, get to know him a little. It wouldn’t require much, just a few bits here and there to make him a person rather than an abstraction. As it is, his death is just a CGI explosion, and who cares? (Also I ask again: how could they see the ship exploding if all transmissions in the area were jammed?) Clark as his replacement is certainly sinister enough given that he left EarthForce 1 just before the explosion with a sudden flu, and he will eventually become quite the problematic president (though that has similar issues, which we’ll cover).
The other problem with rewatching this is that this is supposed to be the big thing where everything changes and gets upended—but it doesn’t, entirely. Yes, Delenn’s in a cocoon, but she’s going to come out as the same person, but with hair. Yes, Garibaldi’s been shot and is in a coma, but he’s going to recover completely.
There are only really two big changes, and one of them doesn’t count because it doesn’t kick in until the top of season two: the departure of Sinclair, replaced by Sheridan. It’s not even entirely clear that Sinclair’s departure was known when this episode was written. (The reasons behind Michael O’Hare’s departure were not revealed until after the actor’s death.)
However, then we have the one significant change, and that’s one that truly will matter. As is often the case when discussing the best thing about a B5 episode, it involves the Centauri and Narn in general and Mollari and G’Kar in particular. Mollari’s Faustian deal with Morden and G’Kar’s continued righteous fury and patriotism come to a rather vicious head. Up to this point, the relationship between the two characters has seemed simplistic. Mollari is the washed-up diplomat on a shitty assignment for a failing republic, G’Kar is the mustache-twirling villain determined to do everything he can to improve the Narn Regime’s standing in the galaxy. Their rivalry has been played for laughs (e.g., “By Any Means Necessary”) almost as often as it’s been serious.
The performances of Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas have elevated that to some degree, as have bits and pieces of script, but this is the episode where the picture starts to get more complex. Mollari’s arc will continue to darken, while G’Kar will come into focus as a tragic, noble figure, which you would not predict from the preening bad guy we first met in “The Gathering.” And it all starts here, with Mollari allowing himself to be sucked into Morden’s plot and G’Kar realizing that his people are in trouble. This conflict will be the heart of the rest of the series, truly.
Despite how much I’ve ragged on the episode, it is, as I said at the top of this segment, an effective finale. The pacing is superb as we bounce from plotline to plotline, and Janet Greek does a superlative job with the visuals, especially at the episode’s close. The shots of Sinclair and Sakai sitting apprehensively on the couch of Sinclair’s quarters, and the closeup of Lennier crying by candlelight as he stands watch over Delenn’s cocoon are beautifully composed and framed, images that stick in the brain. (Greek is the second most prolific director in the franchise, as she will in the end direct 14 episodes of B5 and Crusade, second only to Michael Vejar’s 18.) In addition, Garibaldi’s being shot in the back is magnificently filmed. And J. Michael Stracyznski’s script is tight and focused and keeps things moving very well, making you eager to know what happens next. Which we’ll get to in a couple weeks…
"Dans l’épisode L’ÉPREUVE (FINAL STAND), à 20 minutes et 48 secondes, le personnage de Tank révèle au Captain Power que « quand il s’est échappé de Babylon 5, il pensait avoir laissé son [ancienne] vie derrière lui ». Cet épisode, comme quatorze des vingt-deux épisodes de cette unique saison de CAPTAIN POWER, est écrit par Joseph Michael Straczynski.
Joe Michael Straczynski, ou « jms », surnom qu’il adopte dès l’antiquité des réseaux sociaux, vous le connaissez forcément, sans le connaître. Les gens de notre génération ont forcément été exposés à ses histoires. Depuis le premier scénario qu’il a vendu, pour LES MAÎTRES DE L’UNIVERS, il aura ègalement co-créé SHE-RA, PRINCESSE DU POUVOIR, et écrit pour THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS et JAYCE ET LES CONQUÉRANTS DE LA LUMIÈRE.
Car jms a un rêve secret, une série de science-fiction ambitieuse où une station spatiale, Babylon 5, sera le point central d’une histoire à l’échelle galactique. CAPTAIN POWER est une série de transition pour lui, à plus d’un titre. C’est son premier contact avec le « live-action » après des années passées dans l’animation. Et c’est là qu’il va réunir autour de lui les collaborateurs qui vont l’aider dans cette nouvelle aventure :
Douglas Netter, producteur exécutif
John Copeland, producteur
Ron Thornton, superviseur des maquettes, et qui transitionnera bientôt vers les effets numériques
Larry DiTillio, scénariste (eux se connaissaient déjà depuis LES MAÎTRES DE L’UNIVERS)
John Iacovelli, chef décorateur
Sans ces personnes, pas de BABYLON 5, tout simplement. Ces gens resteront à ses côtés durant les cinq ans qu’il mettra à vendre la série, et durant toute sa production (sauf Larry DiTillio après la saison deux, car quel est l’utilité d’un « story editor » quand le créateur de la série se met à TOUT écrire ?)."
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Why Babylon 5?” Through the first few years of the 1990s, J. Michael Straczynski spent a lot of time online on the GEnie and CompuServe online forums and on Usenet promoting this show he was developing called Babylon 5. His promises were understandably hyperbolic—he was trying to market his show, after all—but that hype led to some outsized expectations. This, allegedly, was going to be the most scientifically accurate science fiction show ever, it was going to have an overarching plot that would run the entire five years of the show, it would take risks, and all kinds of other stuff.
With all that buildup, it’s hard to view the actual first season of the show that aired as anything but a massive disappointment.
There are bits and pieces of the great show that would eventually materialize, hints of some of the wonderful things to come. But what showed up onscreen in February 1993 and between January and October of 1994 was a series of flawed TV episodes wracked with clumsy scripting, mediocre acting, and an unexpected amount of rubber science (from telepathy to “life energy” being transferred to an inconsistent understanding of the distances of space).
There’s an old saying that the fish stinks from the head down. When you’ve got an ensemble cast, the head of that ensemble is crucial to the success of the show. One of the reasons why shows like MASH* and Hill Street Blues and Star Trek: The Next Generation were so successful is due to the strong charisma of, respectively, Alan Alda, Daniel J. Travanti, and Sir Patrick Stewart.1
Michael O’Hare, alas, is not up to that standard, and it truly affects the entire show. (How much so becomes apparent once his replacement is introduced at the top of season two, which we’ll get to next week.) O’Hare’s talents were much better suited to being a member of the ensemble, not the leader of it—I’ve been saying for three decades that he would’ve been much better playing Garibaldi—and that had a deleterious effect on the entire show. It doesn’t help that the scripts keep hammering home how important Sinclair is, but the actor never brings the gravitas that the writing insists he has.
The actor had his moments, though. This rewatch reminded me of his strong performances, particularly in “By Any Means Necessary” and “And the Sky Full of Stars.” (It also reminded me of his weaker entries, like “Eyes” and “The Gathering.”)
However, his shortcomings are indicative of one of the season’s biggest flaws, which is making the humans interesting. This infects, not just the main cast, but the guest cast as well.
Garibaldi is a walking, talking cliché, the maverick cop who plays by his own rules and pisses off the bosses and all that—he’s even an alcoholic and has broken relationships in his past! Plus we’ve got the love for twentieth-century ephemera that seemingly every science fiction show feels the need to insert so they can put contemporary references in….
Franklin and Winters get surprisingly little to do this season, and what we do get is not wonderful. The doctor comes across as an arrogant snot (I still think “Believers” should have ended with his resignation and censure by whatever Earth Alliance’s equivalent of the AMA is), and the telepath is mostly just a spectator to other stuff going on (“Mind War,” “Deathwalker,” “The Quality of Mercy”), when the show even bothers to remember she’s there.
And then we have the litany of human guest stars who are just horrible either as characters (“Infection,” “And the Sky Full of Stars,” “A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II”), as actors (“Survivors,” “By Any Means Necessary”), or both (“Mind War,” “The War Prayer,” “Eyes”).
The exception is Ivanova, whom Claudia Christian imbues with a delightfully snarky cynicism, as well as a level of self-reliance and inability to trust others that is well-ingrained by past experiences. But this tendency to make the human characters uninteresting, unsympathetic, or both makes it hard for the viewer to take any interest in Earth Alliance generally. And what we do see is mostly creepy and corrupt (the less-than-helpful senators we see in “The Gathering,” “Midnight on the Firing Line,” “Deathwalker,” and “Chrysalis,” the insidiousness of Psi Corps as seen most overtly in “Mind War,” the skeevy representatives of EarthGov and EarthForce that we meet in “By Any Means Necessary,” “And the Sky Full of Stars,” “A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II,” and “Eyes,” etc.). That combined with never having President Santiago on screen (not even when he visited the station in “Survivors”) mutes the impact of his being assassinated in “Chrysalis,” as there’s no personal hook there to make us care about the person and not enough of a dramatic hook over the past season to make us care about the office.
It’s in the non-humans that the show truly shines. Mira Furlan’s Delenn, Andreas Katsulas’ G’Kar, and especially Peter Jurasik’s Mollari are all magnificent. Katsulas is not always well served by the writing, as he’s too often relegated to the mustache-twirling villain role, though he starts to climb out of that in “Mind War” and “By Any Means Necessary.” But all three of them provide tremendous depth of character and purpose in both the writing and acting that serves the show extremely well. Delenn and Mollari in particular are fascinating. The former is charming and sweet, but that velvet glove covers an iron fist of ruthlessness and deception. The latter comes across initially as a comic figure with a tinge of tragedy, but he quickly proves to have much more depth, as the tragedies start to come to the fore, and at the season’s end he finds himself trapped in a Faustian bargain that will direct the course of galactic politics forward.
Still, despite its many flaws, the foundation of a great show is laid here.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “We cannot escape history.” My memory of watching this episode thirty years ago is of relief and joy, and particularly a sense of energy that was completely missing from season one. A lot of it is the change at the top of the ensemble, as Bruce Boxleitner—whom I was a fan of from his time as the co-lead with Kate Jackson in the spy show Scarecrow and Mrs. King, not to mention his work as the title character alongside Jeff Bridges and fellow B5 star Peter Jurasik in Tron—is a much more dynamic lead than the often-somnolent Michael O’Hare.
And, to be fair, part of it is that this is a rather exciting episode, mostly because it brings the Minbari as a current threat a bit more to the fore. In the first season, the Minbari have been mysterious “other” type aliens. The Earth-Minbari War was an abstraction, a thing of the past—even Sinclair’s rather brutal role in its end was more of a puzzle to solve than anything. Plus, of course, Mira Furlan’s Delenn (who is only directly seen in flashback in this episode) has always been a calm, pleasant, friendly, almost ethereal presence for the most part.
But the legitimate threat that the Minbari potentially pose is front-and-center here, seen through the much more nasty performances of Richard Grove and the late great Robin Sachs, as well as the brief over-the-comms roles of Jennifer Anglin and Michael McKenzie. The scene where Grove’s Kalain gets Sachs’ Hedronn in a headlock and puts Wolverine-like blades to his throat is striking and memorable, beautifully filmed by director Janet Greek (rapidly becoming B5’s rock-star director). Sachs is always a joy—he was brilliant as Ethan Rayne on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plus he was magnificent as Sarris in Galaxy Quest—and Grove conveys an impressive arrogant contempt.
It’s also nice to finally get the whole story of the hole in Sinclair’s mind, since that’s been dangling since the pilot movie, and really took too damn long to resolve. Having said that, it’s annoying to hear Lennier say, “Oh, but I didn’t tell them everything,” and why the hell not, for crying out loud??? Seriously, there’s absolutely no good reason given why Lennier had to hold back the information about the “ancient foe,” especially knowing in hindsight that we’ve seen this foe, the Shadows, twice, in “Signs and Portents” and “Chrysalis,” and we know from the former of those two that Delenn and Kosh know this is coming. So why keep it a secret, beyond the need to create suspense and mystery?
This episode provides a nice breather between the many things that happened in “Chrysalis” and the many things that will happen next time in “Revelations,” and also resets everything nicely with Sheridan at the top of the ensemble. A good start to the new season.
Next week: “Revelations.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Weep for us all.” Having spent most of “Points of Departure” setting up the new post-Sinclair status quo, “Revelations” then addresses the task of catching some of the balls that were thrown in the air in “Chrysalis.”
The revelation of Delenn’s transformation is interesting, and certainly works nicely with what we learned last week, both about the shared souls between humans and Minbari and Lennier’s statement that humans and Minbari will need to come together to face the coming darkness.
But what’s weird is that apparently Delenn had no idea this was gonna happen, which really makes no sense, either in the moment or in light of what happens over the course of the show. The link between Earth and Minbar is crucial to one element of the story arc, so it just seems weird that Delenn becoming part-human wasn’t part of the plan all along. It doesn’t help that we have no idea what the other options were (beyond, apparently, “scaly lizard thingie”). It just feels like constructed suspense prior to the reveal.
I’m back and forth on Garibaldi being brought out of his coma by the Great Hit Point Rearranger from “The Quality of Mercy.” On the one hand, it’s good that the show doesn’t do the Star Trek thing of forgetting all about game-changing technology after it’s introduced. In fact, we’ll see the Great Hit Point Rearranger again. On the other hand, it’s incredibly deus ex machina. On the third hand, that it’s a deus ex machina is on the label, as it were. The gun was already on the mantelpiece…
My only issue with G’Kar’s storyline is that he apparently never at any point took any pictures or scans of the ships that attacked him and his fellows? I mean, seriously, why isn’t he showing the council the visual images that his ship surely must have taken of their foes? Aside from that, Andreas Katsulas lends his usual gravitas to the proceedings, making it clear that this is a threat to be reckoned with. And I’m a sucker for anyone who quotes one of my favorite poems in the world. (I’ve mined “The Second Coming” for story titles many times in my career…)
The resolution of Jack’s storyline is exactly as expected, but falls flat for me, mainly because of the complete lack of impression Gary McGurk provides as Clark. He doesn’t come across as a bland bureaucrat, he doesn’t come across as an insincere slimeball, he doesn’t come across as a charismatic leader. He, unfortunately, comes across as a 1990s Central Casting white dude who’s there to take up space and nothing else. Given how important Clark is to the overall storyline, they really needed to do a better job of casting the role.
And finally we get to learn more about our new lead, as Sheridan has a wife he’s still mourning after two years. Bruce Boxleitner plays Sheridan’s grief and guilt well, and I like how Beverly Leech plays Liz as the sibling who just wants to smack her brother upside the head.
After spending far too much of season one waiting for, um, revelations, it’s nice to see so many questions answered in one episode, even though it goes ahead and asks a few more, and does so in a compelling manner.
Next week: “The Geometry of Shadows.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Green must fight Purple, Purple must fight Green—is no other way.” There are two things that make this episode worth watching all by itself. One is the very act of casting Michael Ansara, which makes every scene with Elric sparkle and shine. Ansara was one of the absolute greats, with one of the most magnificent voices in the world, and he elevates any role he plays with his deep timbre and stentorian tones. Just an absolute master of the craft, and watching him verbally fence with Stephen Furst and Peter Jurasik and plead with Bruce Boxleitner is an absolute joy.
The other is the scene between Sheridan and Garibaldi in the latter’s quarters, for which a great deal of credit goes, not just to Boxleitner and Jerry Doyle and scripter J. Michael Straczynski, but especially director Michael Vejar. It starts with Garibaldi putting the power cell into and taking it out of the PPG while staring intently at it. Then, when Sheridan enters, his eyes go briefly to the PPG, but he doesn’t really look at it until Garibaldi’s back is turned. And then when he speaks his words of encouragement and understanding, he deliberately walks over to the coffee table and puts the PPG in its holster. It’s a magnificent scene, where Sheridan shows support without pressure, and makes it clear that Garibaldi is wanted, but that the captain will respect his decision. It also shows how low Garibaldi has mentally sunk without beating you over the head with it.
The rest of the episode is hit-and-miss. There’s a certain Gulliver’s Travels-esque amusement value from the Drazi fight between Purple and Green. I kinda wish the episode spent more time examining the origins of the tradition, as I suspect it was created as a method of managing people’s violent impulses in a somewhat controlled manner. Instead, it was mostly played for laughs. A lot of the scenes with the Drazi in general make me cringe, as their method of speaking English is presented to us in the broken style that was also used a lot for Indigenous people in pop-culture portrayals. It comes across as paternalistic at best.
Still, given the incredibly arbitrary and random nature of the entire conflict, coming up with an arbitrary solution is a very clever way of solving it.
Next week: “A Distant Star.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “We are starstuff.” To me, this will always be the bagna càuda episode. While it’s not something that was ever in the repertoire of my various Italian-American relatives, it’s still a yummy Italian food, which always makes my heart happy. And it’s a nice tradition Garibaldi has with his Dad. I especially like that, once it becomes something personal, Franklin modulates from Garibaldi’s doctor to his friend and asks to partake in the tradition.
Having said that, the put-everyone-on-a-diet subplot is weak-tea sitcom nonsense, complete with silly 90s euphemisms (“eating plan”), creepy dialogue (Franklin’s oogy “nice borders” line), and mediocre humor (the plate-switching scene).
The rest of the episode is good. As with last time, the guest casting hits it out of the park, as Russ Tamblyn is superb, making Maynard a very lived-in character, with perfect best-friend chemistry with Bruce Boxleitner. The rescue mission is handled well, especially since the Cortez is made up entirely of guest stars, and killing off the main character’s heretofore-unseen best friend is a long-established cliché, so there’s an expectation that Maynard and his crew might not make it. Adding to this is the constant stream of portentious utterings about the coming darkness we’ve been getting since “Chrysalis,” and you genuinely fear for the Cortez. Which makes their rescue all the sweeter.
Alas, the redshirting of Galus doesn’t land as well, nor does the attempt to give Keffer a minor spotlight. Both characters are complete ciphers, making it hard to get worked up over their danger, especially since Galus is a guest star and Keffer is an opening-credits regular, so the former’s death is expected for the same reason that Maynard’s was feared, and Keffer’s survival is almost a given. (Caveat necessary for reasons that will be clear at season’s end.) This is Keffer’s second appearance and he has yet to be granted a personality, which is problematic.
I’m iffy about the writing decision to have Delenn quote Carl Sagan without attribution, but it’s such a great quote, I think I can forgive it. And it’s nice to see Sheridan come to embrace his job, and also see the beginnings of the Sheridan-Delenn pairing in the conversation where she quotes Sagan.
Next week: “The Long Dark.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Evil sometimes wears a pleasant face.” I’ll take “Episodes That Have Aged Really Badly” for $1000, Alex…
Seriously, I felt like I needed a shower after watching the episode. It started with Franklin stroking Mariah’s hair while she was unconscious in medlab, and it just got worse and worse, from him taking her to his quarters while she was unconscious when there’s a perfectly good medlab to bring her to, to the kiss and then letting her stay overnight in his quarters. There is nothing ethical in any nanosecond of Franklin’s behavior, and a lot that is creepy and oogy, and I found myself for the second time in this rewatch (after “Believers”) wishing that someone would report Franklin to the EarthGov equivalent of the AMA. Not aiding this disaster is a remarkably charisma-free performance from Anne-Marie Johnson.
Also at this point I’m suffering from some serious foreshadowing fatigue. This is the sixth episode since we started getting warnings about a coming darkness in “Chrysalis,” and I find myself feeling like I’m in a Monty Python sketch where they cut to a crowd that shouts, “GET ON WITH IT!” The Markab ambassador this episode is just the latest, after Delenn, Lennier, G’Kar, and Elric—everyone’s just so sure there’s this nasty-ass thing coming, so you’d think we’d have more information. I know that J. Michael Straczynski is never happier than when he’s fulfilling prophecies, but I find myself growing incredibly weary of the portentous dialogue promising awful things at some vague future point.
Luckily, the episode is redeemed by a typically brilliant performance by Dwight Schultz as Amis. Schultz has always been able to manage a perfect combination of subtle and over-the-top and somehow making it work, and Amis is a particularly strong example of Schultz’s strong suit. Amis is at once ridiculous and tragic, and Schultz absolutely nails it.
Next week: “A Spider in the Web.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “These are volatile times.” This is a perfectly decent little episode, one that promises lots of nifty possibilities in the future, not all of which are entirely picked up on. For one thing, this is the only time we’ll see Carter or Voudreau, which is majorly disappointing, as both Adrienne Barbeau and Jessica Walter are fabulous. In particular, it feels like the late great Walter is wasted in a role that consists entirely of one conversation over a viewscreen. If you’re gonna hire Lucille Bluth, you should give her a way meatier part than that! Ah, well…
In addition, Sheridan’s habit of digging up weird-ass black-ops projects seems like just a very weird hobby, but we’ll also see that pay off before too long as well.
Once again, we have Winters as part of a story where things happen to other people and she has to react to it. Winters herself remains a complete cipher. Andrea Thompson is doing the best she can, but the character is pretty much just an empty container into which the plot is poured every time she appears, which may be why the actor decided not to continue in the role. (More on that later this season.)
The biggest flaw in the episode is, alas, the guest casting of Horn, as Michael Beck is a throwback to the first season’s array of bland-ass guest stars. Still, it’s, as I said, a perfectly decent episode, one that reminds us how dire things are back on Earth, while continuing the background element of Mars’ independence, one the show will continue to return to.
Next week: “Soul Mates.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “If I were married to Londo Mollari, I’d be concerned.” First of all, full disclosure: this episode’s writer, Peter David, is a friend and colleague of your humble rewatcher’s of more than thirty years’ standing.
Secondly, this episode is a great deal of fun, and a big reason for it is David’s most excellent ear for dialogue and for humor. J. Michael Straczynski and Lawrence G. DiTillio, who have done the bulk of the writing for the show to date, have many virtues as writers, but neither is particularly ept with humor. David’s script, though, sparkles with some lovely dialogue, from G’Kar’s sarcastic rejoinder to Sheridan quoted above, to pretty much every acid line of dialogue spoken by Jane Carr’s Timov, to Mollari’s joyous reveling in his impending freedom from two-thirds of his wives.
I will also give David credit for giving Winters a plot that actually involves her, rather than one that could easily have been given to any generic telepath, and which is also genuinely engaging. If you want to someone to play an arrogant sleaze, you can hardly go wrong casting Keith Szarabajka, and he arrogant-sleazes it up something fierce. His verbal fencing with Garibaldi is well played by him and Jerry Doyle, and Andrea Thompson makes Winters’ feelings for Stoner convincing and compelling.
And it’s very typical of David to look at Delenn now with hair and think, “Okay, how does someone from a hairless race take care of her newly acquired lengthy brunette tresses?” The moment when Ivanova opens the quarters to see Delenn with a rat’s nest atop her head is epic, as is the later look on Bill Mumy’s face when Lennier is confronted with Delenn’s hair up in curlers.
Having said that, I’m baffled as to why the job of helping Delenn work on her hair went to Ivanova. Surely there are hairdressers on the station? I mean, it’s a city in space, and I dare you to show me a city anywhere that doesn’t have dozens, if not hundreds, of places to get your hair dealt with by a tonsorial professional.
The main plot is—fine? I don’t know, the whole man-henpecked-by-his-overbearing-wife plot has whiskers on it, and multiplying it by three just makes it more tired. Carr and Lois Nettleton ameliorate the problem with their superlative performances, at least, but they’re both big honking clichés. That gets bigger and honkier with Mariel, to whom Blair Valk gives neither nuance nor depth. It’s just the bitch, the social climber, and the seductress. Snore.
Also, it seems to me that the revelation that G’Kar is sleeping with one of Mollari’s wives should’ve had more impact, both in this episode and after it. Alas, none of the wives will be seen again onscreen, which is disappointing.
Still, this is an enjoyable hour, one that gives almost everyone something to do. I particularly like that David found small but strong roles for Vir (his helplessness in the face of the three wives is adorable), Lennier (as mentioned above), Franklin (his dialogue exchanges with both Timov and Mollari are fabulous), and Winters. (Even David couldn’t find anything for Na’Toth or Keffer to do, which is a problem faced by everyone who wrote for the show in its sophomore season…)
Next week: “A Race Through Dark Places.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Mary had a little lamb.” One thing I’d like to address before I get to the episode proper is the airing order. While there are reasons why this episode should, perhaps, come before “Soul Mates,” especially given Winters actually considering Stoner’s proposal to quit Psi Corps, which may seem more logical coming after this episode, the fact is that, as far as I’m concerned, “Soul Mates” absolutely must come first for one simple reason: there is absolutely no way, none, that Delenn would have been able to get her hair done for her dinner with Sheridan before Ivanova taught her about hair care in “Soul Mates.” Case closed.
Anyhow…
Walter Koenig’s return as Bester is quite welcome, and this time he has a much better story (and better fellow guest actors) to work with than he did in “Mind War.” The awfulness of Psi Corps is front and center throughout the episode, as we get multiple accounts of their horrific acts elucidated by the various rogue telepaths in downbelow. Plus, of course, there’s just Bester’s very existence. The first thing we see of him is his murdering a fellow telepath just to get some information, an act of sociopathic depravity that Koenig plays beautifully.
Later, when he tries to show Garibaldi his “nicer” side by saying that he has a wife and kid with whom he goes on picnics every Sunday, it’s hilariously ineffective. It’s impossible to think of Bester as anything but a monster. Koenig’s delivery of this attempt to get on Garibaldi’s good side is magnificently false. Bester can’t even fake sincerity.
It’s good to see the scales fall from Winters’ eyes, though the scattershot way it’s been shown has been frustrating, more so knowing the character’s fate later this season. It’s especially maddening to see her using her telekinesis long enough to establish that she still has it (which is good, since—as I’ve pointed out repeatedly in this particular entry—there’s been zero evidence of it since “Mind War”), but to not actually use it in the episode. What was the point of giving her this super-power if she’s never going to use it?
The three leads’ reactions to Bester’s arrival is very instructive. Sheridan is open to the Psi Cop’s presence, neither resistant nor fully accepting. He’s got no history with the Corps or with Bester to influence him. Ivanova is, of course, completely against the notion of Bester being given any assistance. Most telling is Garibaldi, who obviously detests Bester and everything he and the Corps stand for—but he’s also sworn to uphold the law, and so his response is to track down the railroad and shut it down, because that’s his job.
And in the end, Bester wants to keep an eye on Sheridan, and only because he wasn’t enthusiastic enough about helping Bester—just to remind us that he’s still a monster.
The subplots are entertaining. Delenn is a complex character, but a big part of her persona is her considerable charm—which is why she makes such a good diplomat—and that charm is on full display here in her first date with Sheridan. It’s even more fun to watch their dinner together knowing where this particular relationship is going. And Sheridan and Ivanova’s fuck-you response to the bean-counters is well played. I do like that doing a two-step with the budget has been the go-to solution to a crisis on the station twice now (the other was in “By Any Means Necessary”). Of all the ways that creator J. Michael Straczynski promised that this show would be more realistic, using budget tricks to solve a problem is probably the way he fulfills that the most…
Next week: “The Coming of Shadows.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “We are now at war.” In a lot of ways, B5 up to this point has been a big tease. There’ve been hints of things and threats of things and (ahem) signs and portents, but this is the first episode where it feels like shit is getting real.
For starters, this is how you show the devastating impact of the death of the leader of a large nation (as opposed to the bloodless death of Santiago in “Chrysalis”). Over the course of the episode, we get to know the emperor, get a feel for who he is and what he wants, and what he means to the Centauri Republic. The conflict between his desire to normalize relations with the Narn and to take responsibility for the Centauris’ crimes, and Mollari and Refa’s (and the Shadows’) desire for more power and control, is the heart of the episode, and the source of the awful tragedy. His death is meaningful in so many ways.
So many great performances in this, starting with Turhan Bey’s bravura turn as the emperor, who too late finally makes an actual choice of his own, one that fails to have the consequences he wanted it to have. William Forward’s Refa and Peter Jurasik’s Mollari calmly setting the Centauri Republic on an awful path, with Stephen Furst’s Vir trying and failing to be a conscience. Bruce Boxleitner’s Sheridan feels like the only grownup in this situation, trying to convince both the emperor and G’Kar to be reasonable and sensible, and not really succeeding with either. (Malachi Throne is also his usual fine self, though it feels like an actor of Throne’s calibre should have had a more substantial role than this.)
But the episode is absolutely owned by Andreas Katsulas. G’Kar goes on quite the roller coaster in this episode, and Katsulas nails every upward climb and every downward spiral: his anger at the emperor’s very presence, his resigned determination to kill him if it’s literally the last thing he ever does, his frustration at being denied the assassination attempt, his joy at the emperor’s apology, and his righteous fury at the destruction of Quadrant 14. Every single moment is real and pure and devastating, each emotion sharp as a knife, even through the craptons of latex and red contact lenses and such.
No scene, however, lands as nastily as G’Kar’s declaration of war in the council chambers, which is at once preternaturally calm and a seething volcano ready to erupt again at any minute.
On top of that, we get introduced to the Rangers, complete with surprise Michael O’Hare cameo. This is another thing that feels like it’s being kept secret for no compellingly good reason, especially given that a Ranger’s gonna be in the opening credits next season and one of the attempts at a spinoff will focus on the Rangers. Still, it’s a start, and it’s nice to see O’Hare again.
Next week: “GROPOS.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Leave it to the infantry to ruin a guy’s morning.” Last week, we got one of B5’s best episodes. This week we get, um, not that. “GROPOS” is a dreary collection of tiresome clichés masquerading as a script. It’s hard to say what’s more excruciating to watch, the stereotypical Marines doing stereotypical Marine things or the stereotypical father-son arguing-and-reconciliation scenes.
The only saving graces of this utter nonsense are the performances of Marie Marshall and Paul Winfield. Marshall gives Dodger a gleeful charm that is very compelling, and Winfield was never even really capable of giving a bad performance. Even so, neither is a particularly well-written character, and both suffer for that. Still, you can see why Garibaldi was interested in Dodger—and vice versa, truly—and you really just want to smack Garibaldi for screwing it up.
As for General Franklin, it was an interesting touch to have a Black character give the “why don’t you help your own kind” speech to his son, since that’s the sort of thing a White character might have said to his son the doctor who treated Black people. (Something we would see in real life a decade after this episode aired, when General Colin Powell, who was Black, used the exact same language to justify keeping LGBT people out of the military that was used prior to 1948 to justify keeping Black military personnel segregated.) Unfortunately, the script doesn’t really do anything with that after the first conversation between dad and kid, which is a blown opportunity to give the episode some life. Or at least something beyond the war-movie clichés.
The episode’s plot also strains credulity, as there’s just no way B5 would be able to accommodate 25,000 new arrivals without warning. It might have worked if General Franklin requested shore leave for his people, but to give them all bunks? That’s madness, and logistically completely unfeasible for the station to be able to provide.
Next week: “All Alone in the Night.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “The first obligation of a prisoner is to escape, right?” One of my personal frustrations with season two of B5 when it aired was the complete inability of J. Michael Straczynski and his writing staff to make Keffer in any way interesting. It would later come out that Keffer was put in at the insistence of the studio, as Warner Bros. wanted a “hotshot pilot” character, and Straczynski’s rather immature reaction to that was to not do anything interesting with him and then kill him off in a manner nobody could possibly care about. (We’ll get into that more when we hit “The Fall of Night.”)
Tempting as it is to view this as an inability on Straczynski’s part, we turn ourselves to Ramirez in this episode. It’s not much, but we learn more about Ramirez in one charming sixty-second scene in the Zocalo discussing baseball among him, Garibaldi, and Franklin than we do about Keffer across the six episodes he appears in.
This is how you do a redshirt death: establish who he is, make us actually like the guy, have him act selflessly and heroic, and then when he dies, it actually matters.
I have to add that this is also how you don’t do a redshirt death, as there were two other pilots who got blown to smithereens by the Streib, who don’t get the courtesy of names or billing or being mourned.
The Sheridan-is-kidnapped part of the plot is a serviceable riff on the bog-standard character-is-kidnapped plot that we’ve seen a gajillion times before. After creating no impression whatsoever as the big scary enhanced dude in “Infection,” Marshall Teague does a very nice job with Ta’Lon, establishing a nice rapport with Bruce Boxleitner’s Sheridan as they struggle to escape together.
The meat of this episode, though, is Delenn’s side of the plot, as it becomes clear that the gamble she took in transforming herself is not paying off the way she thought it would. The Grey Council has snipped off her metaphorical cufflinks and turned their back, not just on her, but on her entire caste, as the Religious Caste is weakened in the council in favor of the Warrior Caste. It’s also great to see both Robin Sachs and John Vickery return as their respective Minbari, as both actors are excellent as usual, their sharp voices magnificently filling the dimly lit council chamber. In particular, both do a wonderful job conveying the utter contempt they both feel for Delenn. In the end, she’s sent back to B5, but where her initial assignment to the station was a cover for her work with the council, now it’s an exile for a person who has fallen out of favor and whom the government wishes to be both out of sight and out of mind.
(This is an interesting reversal of the journey Mollari has gone on, as he was initially exiled to B5 to get him out of the way, but he has parlayed that into a position of power and authority in the Centauri Republic.)
And then we have the revelation at the end that Garibaldi isn’t the only one who saw Santiago’s death as something more than an accident. Hague and Sheridan are part of a group that is concerned about the direction Earth is heading. This isn’t much in this episode—just a tag at the very end to get the ball rolling—but it sets the tone for much of what will be happening on the station moving forward…
Next week: “Acts of Sacrifice.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “When you have been crushed beneath the wheel for as long as we have, revenge occupies your every waking thought.” All right, let’s get the pink elephant in the room out of the way: I was dreading rewatching this episode because the final scene between Ivanova and the Lumati made me laugh in 1995, but the memory of it three decades later made me shudder.
And then I watched the episode, and I did laugh again, but this time the laughter caught in my throat. While Ivanova’s solution was a clever one to get her out of being forced to have sex against her will—pretty damn close to the textbook definition of a rape—that doesn’t change the fact that she was being forced to have sex against her will. Brava to her for the solution, which has the added benefit of being hilarious (and Claudia Christian played it beautifully), but the entire notion as written is problematic as hell.
J. Michael Straczynski pointed out online back in the day that the notion of using sex to close a deal is something that has been seen throughout human history in places like ancient Egypt and parts of the Middle East, and even in parts of medieval Europe. The problem is that in those places, both parties knew going in that that was the endgame, as it were, and that’s not remotely the case here.
There’s also a very oogy component to all this, that the prize Correlimurzon gets is to have sex with the hot chick. (A component that is borne out by Correlimurzon pawing over Ivanova’s clothing in her quarters, setting us up for frat-boy behavior rather than the behavior of a diplomat doing what he’s culturally obligated to do.) Straczynski also said that if Sheridan was the one negotiating, the same demand would’ve been made, and sorry, that doesn’t wash. I don’t buy for a nanosecond that he would’ve ever even considered writing that, and also saying it on an online forum is easy. I didn’t buy it when J.K. Rowling tried to convince us that no, really, Dumbledore is gay, and I don’t buy it here, either.
As for the rest of the episode, it’s truly excellent. I love that Mollari is finding out that being influential and powerful isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (kind of the same lesson the emperor learned too late in “The Coming of Shadows”), and his scenes with Garibaldi are superb, full of pathos and sorrow, as he realizes that it really is lonely at the top.
Of course, if we feel sorry for him for too long, we can always cut back to the opening scene of the Centauri firing on civilians and G’Kar’s righteous indignation at the way the war is progressing. While this episode is full of excellent performances, Andreas Katsulas is the one who owns it. G’Kar is trying so desperately to do right by his people, and it’s a constant struggle, not aided by his own people complicating matters. Katsulas beautifully plays G’Kar’s anger, his sorrow, his desperation, and especially the complex series of emotions he goes through when Sheridan and Delenn give him the news of the aid they can provide. On the one hand, he went to this meeting so sure that the Minbari Federation and Earth Alliance were going to provide aid, and he’s so disappointed that they’re not. What Sheridan and Delenn are offering is a pittance by comparison, and you can see that it takes him several seconds to realize that both the captain and ambassador are taking a huge risk by acting against their government’s wishes to still help the Narn people. But it’s not nearly enough, either…
Also the Lumati plotline is generally pretty good, too. I love and heartily approve of the shot taken at the Star Trek spinoffs’ appallingly brutal application of the Prime Directive (see my rants on the subject in the rewatches of The Next Generation’s “Homeward” and Enterprise’s “Dear Doctor” in particular) by having the Lumati act the same way Trek protagonists do when dealing with “inferior” species. And for all that the “sex” scene is yucky, I love that Taq very obviously figured out what Ivanova was doing and gave her that knowing smile and handshake at the end.
Next week: “Hunter, Prey.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “You do not even understand yourself.” This episode suffers from an unavoidable problem—or at least was unavoidable once casting was finalized. There is simply no way for Cranston to be in any way convincing as an antagonist, or even as a person, when being (and I use this term loosely) “portrayed” by Bernie Casey and his wooden line readings. Cranston as written should come across as a brutally efficient professional. (As an example, look at how Michael O’Neill played Secret Service Agent Ron Butterfield on The West Wing or how Jonathan Banks played Mike Ehrmantraut on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Heck, look at how Walter Koenig plays Bester on this show…) I’d even settle for him being a bureaucratic tool, but Casey can’t even swing that. He’s just an automaton who brings absolutely nothing to bear on the character.
Casey’s somnolent performance drags the episode down a bit, but it’s still a generally effective story. I particularly like the way Sheridan dances between the raindrops, as it were, staying on Cranston’s good side and giving the illusion of cooperation while enabling Garibaldi and Franklin to do their work to find him before an army of trained security personnel manage it. And I enjoyed Tony Steedman’s portrayal of Jacobs as an intelligent, determined person who doesn’t let the fact that he’s completely out of his depth slow him down. Though it does get him in trouble that he only escapes because of the dumb luck of Franklin noticing the watch being sold. Plus, it’s nice to see the good guys getting a proper victory.
One plot point did bug me, though: why did Cranston agree to ransom Jacobs without once actually seeing Jacobs or just generally getting any proof that Max had him. Why did he just take some random shady dude at his word? Every other bit of Cranston’s behavior was that of a trained professional, but that was an amateur screwup. (Of course, if he got that proof, the plot doesn’t work, since Cranston needs to end the episode thinking Jacobs was never on B5.)
The Kosh subplot is mostly okay, but I find myself being frustrated in general on this rewatch with the parsimonious providing of important information. Knowing what’s coming, and how important Sheridan will be in the coming craziness, Kosh’s reluctance to even engage with him despite obviously knowing his importance is maddening. Having said that, I loved the whole mythology that has grown up around Bay 13, with the maintenance crews giving it a wide berth, and Garibaldi not willing to even talk about anything important in front of the Vorlon ship.
This is the last B5 Rewatch entry for 2024. We’ll be taking the next couple weeks off for the holidays, then be back on the 6th of January with “There All the Honor Lies.”
Thank you all for continuing to take this ride with me. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from watching B5again for the first time in three decades, but I’m happy to say that most of the surprises have been pleasant ones, and just in general, it’s been great to re-experience this show again. Looking forward to continuing with season two and the great war coming upon us all in 2025…
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “The last best hope for a quick buck.” There are three plots going on here, and while the A and C plots are both just fine, the B plot annoys the hell out of me on two different levels, ones that are exacerbated by the fact that scripter Peter David is a friend of mine, and I know some of the backstory of both of the things that annoy me. So let me get that out of the way so I can get to the good stuff. (If you want to skip my fulminating on the subject of the gift shop plot, just skip the next five or six paragraphs.)
The gift shop storyline is something that started out promising, but went right into the toilet, starting with Ivanova’s self-righteous nonsense about how this station stands for something and we shouldn’t sully ourselves with yucky commerce—never mind that stuff on the station costs money. Indeed, budget problems have come up more than once, and both Sinclair and Sheridan have had to play all kinds of silly games to make the money work. Ivanova herself has been at the forefront of one of the biggest budgetary issues, as seen in “By Any Means Necessary.”
So why the hell are she and Sheridan so grumpy on the subject of something that is a guaranteed profit-maker for the station? This will solve so many of their budget problems! Or it would if they didn’t get rid of it for no compellingly good reason.
I was on a panel with David at the I-Con convention back in 2017, and he said that one of the reasons why he wrote that portion of this particular script was anger and outrage when he heard Star Trek referred to as a “franchise.” He was angry at that notion, as he felt that it diminished Trek. Hence the “deep-space franchise” line here, taking a shot at Trek in general, and DS9 in particular. Speaking for myself, I don’t get that at all. Of course, I also refer to B5 as a franchise, which it kinda is…
Bad enough we have that ridiculousness, but then J. Michael Straczynski had to stick his nose into it by railing against the very notion of “cute” by taking the gift that David gave him and using it to have his main character space a teddy bear. Worse, doing it in a script that is only credited to the guy who gave him the gift, thus making both David (as the credited writer) and Sheridan (as the character doing it) look like heartless scuzzwads, because, seriously, who spaces a teddy bear? (The fact that your humble rewatcher may, in fact, sleep with a teddy bear that he has had since 1997 is completely irrelevant to his outrage, so stop looking at me like that.) Points to David for getting a hilarious revenge in Space Cases (see “Trivial matters” above for the whole schmear).
And what’s especially funny is that, for all the outrage expressed on the subject, a good chunk of the merchandise in the store was actual B5 merchandise that was available in stores. And others were props built for the store, at least one of which Straczynski was proudly saying he’d have in his office after the show ended. So yeah.
The only part of this wrongheaded piece of wrongheadedness that works is the bit with Mollari and the emasculated action figure, which was just hilarious.
As was the Mollari-Vir C plot, which is a nice bit of characterization for Vir, and a nice moment where Mollari appreciates what Vir does for him. While I didn’t directly put this in a “Looking ahead” entry, this is a low-key bit of foreshadowing of the importance of Vir to the future of the Centauri Republic, and his continued role as the conscience that Mollari can no longer afford to have.
The main plot, meanwhile, is some good stuff, picking up on the annoyance that lots of Minbari have with Sheridan’s appointment to run B5, as seen in “Points of Departure,” as well as the discomfort that many Minbari have with Delenn’s transformation, as particularly seen in “All Alone in the Night.”
There are a few issues. For all that it’s nice to see Caitlin Brown without all the Narn makeup on her face, Corey serves no obvious plot function—the danger to Sheridan’s command was already pretty clear. While it’s a funny line, Sheridan’s answer to Garibaldi’s query for a description of the Minbari witness (“He was bald with a bone on his head”) smacks a little too much of “all those people look alike,” which is not a good look for our hero. And while I agree with Sheridan and Kosh that the chants in the tiny crawlspace in downbelow were incredibly lovely, it felt sledgehammered into the storyline. Sheridan’s own problems in the episode meant that he really wasn’t given an opportunity to properly appreciate the gift Kosh gave him there, which did that scene a disservice.
Still, the plot showcases Sheridan, Delenn, and especially Lennier very well. Bill Mumy does particularly good work here, showcasing Lennier’s badassitude while retaining his inherent calmness, devotion, and loyalty, the latter both to his clan and to Delenn.
Next week: “And Now for a Word.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “I hope to get through this interview without getting fired.” It is likely that the primary inspiration for this episode was the classic MASH* episode “The Interview,” in which Clete Roberts (playing himself, as he was a war correspondent in Korea) interviews the staff of the 4077th. That episode had the actors creating their own answers to Roberts’ questions, so it wasn’t formally scripted as such (the questions were written ahead of time, but Roberts ad-libbed some extra questions, too).
That didn’t happen here, and while I would love to see what some of these actors would have done with their characters given free rein, it wouldn’t have been appropriate, as J. Michael Straczynski has bigger fish to fry.
This is one of the absolute best episodes of the series. So many themes are explored in this hour, and there are so many wonderful touches, both big and small.
Some of the small ones, which I really appreciated, included interviewing Delvientos, a welcome return (honestly, I hate that we didn’t see more of that end of station life), finding out Corwin’s name and rank (and establishing the very unsurprising fact that he’s scared shitless of Ivanova), and seeing Torqueman’s hilariously failed attempt to get anywhere near Kosh for more than half a second.
But the big ones are what make this episode shine. Torqueman’s brutal questioning of Delenn, as the ambassador gets hit with an unintended consequence of her metamorphosis. Mollari’s political acumen as he navigates both the interviews and the crisis with sleazy aplomb. G’Kar’s sheer exhaustion, magnificently played by Andreas Katsulas. Franklin’s compassion, especially his moving defense of why B5 is necessary. Ivanova’s bland unrevealing interview, in contrast to Garibaldi’s very relaxed one. And the Narn-Centauri War—which was already pretty ugly when last we looked in on it in “Acts of Sacrifice”—has grown nastier.
The best is Sheridan. Bruce Boxleitner has a relaxed charisma that is very compelling, and he uses it beautifully here, as Sheridan is a brilliant advocate for B5, focusing on the optimistic possibilities rather than the pessimistic ones—as opposed to Quantrell, who focuses only on the negative. Though, amusingly, those positions are reversed when discussing EarthForce’s battle readiness, as Sheridan is much less sanguine about Earth’s ability to fight a war—and since he’s a veteran who’s been at the heart of EarthForce as a ship captain, his opinion is a much more informed one than the senator’s.
What I particularly appreciate about this episode is that the characters are permitted nuance. I especially like the way Quantrell and particularly Torqueman are portrayed. Like Mollari, Quantrell is playing politics, not actively saying anything bad about B5, and giving lip service to what’s good about it. His words are friendly, but you can read the hostility toward the station (and toward aliens) between the lines—however, it’s nothing you can specifically point at and make an accusation.
And what a performance Kim Zimmer gives. It would’ve been so easy for Torqueman to come across as the same kind of vapid twit as the last ISN reporter to come to the station, Patricia Healy’s Mary Ann Cramer back in “Infection” and “By Any Means Necessary.” Instead Torqueman is personable, charismatic, mildly eloquent, seemingly intelligent, and generally has a genial affect that serves her work well. She also asks good questions, and I particularly like how effectively she modulates from polite and charming to hard-assed when questioning Delenn.
What this episode does particularly well, however, is show, in various subtle and not-so-subtle ways, how incredibly awful life is on Earth at this point. We’ve got Clark’s new propaganda and enforced morale organizations in his government. We’ve got Quantrell’s self-aggrandizing posturing and disdain for non-humans. We’ve got that chilling Psi Corps commercial.
And we’ve got perhaps the most insidious bit: Torqueman makes a passing reference to the unrest on Mars, referring to it as “an Earth-loyal population held hostage by a violent minority,” a description that is at odds with what we’ve seen of the Mars situation in “A Spider in the Web” and elsewhere.
B5, and MASH*, for that matter, are hardly the only shows to use a visiting reporter as a way of exploring character and plot, but they have provided arguably the two best examples of the breed.
Next week: “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “The Shadows were old when even the Ancients were young.” Even if the rest of the episode was dreadful—and it isn’t, this is a good, strong, powerful episode—it would be worth it for Vir’s answer to Morden’s perpetual query of what he wants. It was worth it the first time through, and it’s even more worth it on a rewatch. Just a fantastic moment for Stephen Furst and for Vir, whom you underestimate at your peril. (I particularly like the tone of pure glee Furst puts into Vir’s voice when he says “lifeless.”)
We also get to see a very ugly side of John Sheridan. His behavior in this episode is appalling, and it’s a good thing it ends well, because if he kept going the way he was going, Ivanova was going to be forced to find a way to get him brought up on charges. True, Sheridan’s loophole that Morden was listed as dead meant that he could legally keep Morden there for as long as he wanted. But ethically, it’s a spectacularly shitty thing to do, and bravo to Garibaldi for sticking to his guns and handing in his link and weapon. Threats are useless if you don’t follow through, and it would’ve been even cooler if Garibaldi had stayed resigned. (Honestly, the Garibaldi-Sheridan relationship was always a little off. Garibaldi was created to be Sinclair’s confidant and best friend, and the dynamic between Garibaldi and Sinclair’s replacement never quite gelled.)
And even with him finally doing the right thing, Sheridan does a lot of wrong things along the way, particularly his treatment of Winters. A pity there won’t be any followup to that…
Finally getting Morden’s backstory is also useful, especially since it ties into Sheridan’s wife’s death. Morden was already a powerful presence on the show, and this adds a fascinating new layer to it, one that has very direct meaning to our lead.
We also have the very low-key introduction to Nightwatch, which made my skin crawl the first time I heard it thirty years ago. “Spy on your neighbors! We’ll pay you!” There is no way to interpret that as anything other than icky. Points for casting the perpetually bland Alex Hyde-White, who brings just the right tone of reasonable bureaucratic dullness to the presentation, making it seem perfectly harmless.
Next week: “Knives.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “You cannot build an empire based on slaughter and deceit!” The Sheridan half of this plot is relentlessly mediocre. It’s pretty standard space opera stuff that wouldn’t be out of place in a Star Trek or Stargate or Buck Rogers or Space: 1999 or Doctor Who episode, with the only uniquely B5 element being the use of Sector 14, but that’s only relevant as a minor continuity hit.
I’m also genuinely curious as to how the underfunded B5 has the space to waste on an entire baseball stadium, and how the Coriolis effect and the station’s rotation would affect baseballs hit in the air, which this episode carefully avoids discussing.
However, that’s not what this episode is worth watching for. We’ve already seen Mollari come to appreciate how alone he is on B5 now that his star has risen in the Centauri Republic, mostly in “Acts of Sacrifice.” Now he’s seeing the underside of it in the republic itself. This is the first hint that Refa may not be the staunch ally Mollari thought he would be.
The introduce-a-best-friend-we’ve-never-seen-before-and-then-kill-him is a bit of a cliché, but it works mainly because of the talent of the two guys playing them. Carmen Argenziano’s relaxed charisma works perfectly here, as he modulates from reminiscing with his old friend to outrage over how he’s been scapegoated by the Centaurum for daring to speak out against the current imperialism. And Peter Jurasik perfectly plays it, lucking into his ignorance regarding the prime minister’s cause of death to cover his lack of ignorance about the evil conspiracy of evil that has taken over the republic. He also is seeing all the unexpected consequences to the new world order on Centauri Prime, one that hits him right where he lives with the condemnation of his childhood friend.
Next week: “Confessions and Lamentations.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Choose whatever strategy makes least sense, then do it.” It’s always impressive, and a bit creepy, when a show that predates something major winds up commenting on it, whether it’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “Homefront” / “Paradise Lost” being a colloquy on 9/11 even though it aired five years prior to it, or B5’s general commentary on the dangers of creeping fascism thirty years before, well, now.
And then we have this, and man is it weird watching this after living through 2020. Of course, it also hit hard in 1995, as there’s quite the allegory for the AIDS epidemic here, as well as for the Black Plague, which is right there in the script.
The basic theme is a good and powerful one: when there’s a disease, focus on the medicine. Because diseases don’t give a shit about your politics or your religion or your moral fibre or any of that nonsense. It acts completely indiscriminately, and you have to treat it thusly. If you don’t, you only make it worse.
Which is exactly what happens with the Markabs. The Sodom-and-Gomorrah-esque story of how Drafa got started has grown roots in their culture, and they focus way too much on the irrelevancies of politics and morality and religion, thus choking off the air supply to the medical research.
Hilariously, the end result is that you could argue that their lack of moral fibre did kill them all: their hubris led to their genocide.
On the one hand, I find it difficult to credit that the entire species was wiped out. They’re a space-faring people, and as Douglas Adams reminded us, space is big—really big. On the other hand, the allegory works much better this way: that the Markabs’ stubbornness and unwillingness to just let science do the work led to their complete elimination as a species.
As for the other stuff, while I like the concept of Delenn returning the favor of her and Lennier preparing a Minbari meal for Sheridan, the execution was a little too ha-ha-look-at-the-funny-aliens-and-their-rituals with Sheridan stumbling over everything. Especially since the dinner was so very much like a Passover seder. I would rather they went for Sheridan appreciating the nuances of another culture than having him go all ugly-American on us for laughs.
And hey, look, it’s Keffer! Showing up just long enough to remind us he’s there and continue to utterly fail to make us give a flying fig about him! Sigh.
Next week: “Divided Loyalties.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Go to hell.” The heights to which I loved this episode when it first aired is matched only by the depths to which I despise it in retrospect.
When I first saw it in the fall of 1995, I thought it was such a wonderful twist and a nifty setup for future plots. I assumed, incredibly wrongly, that we’d be seeing Winters periodically as an antagonist using her inside knowledge about B5 to damage our heroes.
It wasn’t until later that I found out that Andrea Thompson was frustrated by her lack of much of a role for someone in the opening credits of a TV show, and was written out rather than give her a more flexible schedule so she could find other work instead of being on call regularly and hoping she might be in an episode.
Instead, the uppity woman was written out permanently. And if that sounds unfair, you’d be right if this was a lone event, but it isn’t. At roughly the same time, Stephen Furst got a co-starring role in a sitcom called Misery Loves Company, and his B5 schedule was adjusted to accommodate. (Not that it needed to be adjusted much, as the show only lasted eight episodes.) It’s hard not to draw conclusions when the man gets the accommodation and the woman gets unconvincingly written out.
And looking back at the episode from three decades on, it’s unconvincing as hell. We start with the out-of-nowhere revelation that Ivanova and Winters are sleeping together. The leap from “okay, maybe I don’t hate you as much as I hate other telepaths” to “sure, stay in my quarters, and you can sleep in my bed” is way too long and too far to be in any way convincing.
But, of course, there wasn’t time to develop the relationship, because Winters needed to be gotten rid of. Winters will never be seen again, and only referenced once or twice, but otherwise is completely disappeared.
Which, as I indicated above, takes the wind out of the sails of the whole thing. We get about ten minutes of shock and betrayal from the crew in the episode’s final act, and then that’s it. This huge game-changing character alteration is a total nothingburger for the remainder of the franchise’s duration. What started as a literal character assassination instead becomes a figurative one because an actor had the temerity to ask for the ability to work more.
Actually, two theoretically game-changing alterations are unconvincingly dropped here, as Winters’ telekinesis is allegedly a huge deal, though absolutely nothing has been done with it for the better part of two seasons. And now it never will.
Finally, at no point does anyone bring up the fact that Alexander commits murder in this episode. What’s more, it’s premeditated murder. Alexander says right up front that her sending the password into someone’s brain will make Control come to the fore, killing the host body’s personality completely. The ethics of this is completely glossed over and ignored. After all, we’ve got an actor to write out!
The episode has its merits. For all that having Garibaldi suggest bringing Winters into the inner circle in the episode in which she’ll be revealed to be a traitor is clumsy writing, I love that Sheridan and Garibaldi have important clandestine meetings in the bathroom. All the stuff with Ivanova’s latent telepathy is brilliantly done, full of pathos and anguish, fantastically played by Claudia Christian. And I’ve been a fan of Patricia Tallman since the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, and she does good work here.
And hey, I’d say Thompson got her revenge, as she wound up on NYPD Blue for four years, and a lot more people watched that show than B5…
Next week: “The Long, Twilight Struggle.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “We will hold that line, no matter the cost.” One of the first things I said in this rewatch is that an episode without Mollari and G’Kar doesn’t bear thinking about. This episode is a classic case of why I said that, because holy shit, do Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas just own this damn episode, aided by a great script by J. Michael Straczynski and superlative direction by John C. Flinn III (one of the show’s cinematographers and directors of photography).
One of the lasting images of the entire franchise is Mollari looking out the window of the Valerius watching in disgust and horror as the Narn homeworld is, basically, destroyed.
However, while he may be privately disgusted, in public, he takes to fascism like a duck to water. Indeed, the only thing that gives him pause is Sheridan standing up to him (literally, as Sheridan gets to his feet when he denies him the ability to arrest G’Kar). Aside from that minor setback, Mollari is a force of nature in the council chambers, and it’s a remarkable performance. That setback doesn’t set him back very far, either, as he runs right over Sheridan’s attempt to delay G’Kar’s removal from the council.
And then G’Kar gives a magnificent speech—on a show that is full of speeches, magnificent and otherwise—which is quoted above, and which Katsulas delivers with in a beautifully understated yet passionate tone, a speech of quiet, angry dignity. It’s almost impossible to credit that this is the same character as the cardboard-cutout villain of “The Gathering,” who wouldn’t know dignity if it bit him on his spotted butt.
Speaking of character changes, it’s really hilarious that they cast the bombastic John Schuck, who never met a line of dialogue he couldn’t shout and/or overenunciate, to replace the quiet, placid Louis Turenne. But Schuck is always a joy, and he plays the role of Draal with gusto.
The only part of the episode that falls flat is the very ending, as it feels like Sheridan is being introduced to the Rangers, not because it’s the right time in the story, but because it’s the right time of the season (there’s only two left after this). I dunno, the thing I’m getting most out of this rewatch is a frustration with how long it’s taking for things to be revealed that don’t need to be delayed.
Still and all, this is one of the high points of the series, a tour de force for Jurasik and Katsulas in particular, and an important episode for the overall storyline.
Next week: “Comes the Inquisitor.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Good luck to you in your holy cause, Captain Sheridan.” The G’Kar parts of this episode are fantastic. Andreas Katsulas is never not wonderful, and we see G’Kar in so many modes here: the grateful supplicant, dependent on the help of others for his cause when dealing with Garibaldi (the G’Kar-Garibaldi scene is a particular favorite, as neither character has the time or interest in bullshit) and with Sheridan; the proud spokesperson for his people, both in the Zocalo and with the other Narn; the bitter victim of conquest when speaking to Vir; and even a return to the ruthless bad guy of season one in his dealings with Chase, though he is more subdued (and scary) now than he was then.
As for the Delenn-Sebastian plot, in the moment, it’s compelling viewing. I loves me a good interrogation scene, and having two actors of the calibre of Wayne Alexander and Mira Furlan going at it is definitely worth watching.
But watching it this time in particular, I found myself turned off by it because I was paying more attention to the words than the performances. It didn’t feel to me like Delenn was in any way refuting Sebastian’s accusations. And also, if Sebastian wants a straight answer, the best way to not get it is to torture your victim.
On top of that, Sebastian doesn’t even use the most obvious bullet in his interrogatory gun, to wit, Delenn’s transformation. Given that she underwent the transformation without reading her fellow Grey Council members on it, it can very easily be viewed as an act of hubris. One can see that as a red flag for the Vorlons—but Sebastian never even mentions it.
Then the ending happens, and it seems that the torture wasn’t a means of gaining information—which it wouldn’t be anyhow—but rather a way to get Sheridan to ride to her rescue so that he can torture both of them and see how they respond.
And then we have the utterly ridiculous notion that Sebastian is really Jack the Ripper, and sigh. I recall my reaction three decades ago being an eye-roll, which matches my response when I rewatched it last week. J. Michael Straczynski has said that it had to be Jack the Ripper because it needed to be a serial killer and the Whitechapel murderer was one who seemed to have a holy cause and whose fate is open-ended, thanks to never having been identified.
My response to that is, well, no, it doesn’t have to be anything. You’re the writer. You’re God. You can do as you please. While I do see some value in having a serial murderer being the inquisitor—especially with the questions it raises as to why the hell the Vorlons think using this jamoke is a good idea—I see a lot more value in having an actual interrogation going on instead of a constant game of torture while asking the same question over and over again. Especially since we never really get an answer from Delenn to that question, as it’s bigfooted in the story by Sheridan’s attempt to play knight in shining armor to rescue the damsel in distress.
Having said all that, the end point for the inquisition is very much a good one: making sure that your leaders are in it for the right reason. As Delenn says, her cause is life, and the important thing is to preserve life, and it doesn’t matter if she dies alone and unnoticed, because the cause is bigger than her.
If nothing else, the episode does introduce us to Alexander, who is absolutely brilliant as Sebastian, magnificently selling the character’s bitter regret about how his life turned out. Luckily, we’ll be seeing more of the actor…
Next week: “The Fall of Night.”
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “We will, at last, know peace in our time.” Okay, let’s start with the Starfury-shaped elephant in the room: the utter failure of the character of Lieutenant Keffer to in any way, shape, or form work. And that’s entirely on the back of J. Michael Straczynski who refused to do anything interesting with him.
Look, I get that it’s annoying when studio executives make demands, but they’re the ones who pay the bills. When I write, for example, a media tie-in novel, I have to follow the rules that are laid down by the people who own the property. For that matter, when someone writes a Babylon 5 script, they have to follow the rules of the setting that Straczynski established.
So he should’ve just sucked it up and actually made Keffer into a character instead of a cipher. It wouldn’t have taken much. Hell, he gave Lantze more of an interior life in a single conversation with Ivanova in this episode than he was able to dredge up for Keffer in a half-dozen appearances. I mean, the first shot we got of Keffer, back in “Points of Departure,” he’s looking at a hologram of a pretty woman. We never have the first clue who this woman is. Is she a girlfriend? Sister? Wife? Close friend? Ex? Hooker? Sex simulation? Was he watching the holographic equivalent of a porn site? And then we never found out anything else about him, beyond his Shadow obsession, which barely got any play. It wouldn’t be so bad except Keffer’s in the opening credits of every episode, and the utter failure to do a damn thing with him makes Straczynski look bad and it makes poor Robert Rusler—who probably thought he was getting, y’know, a role, and whose fault this absolutely was not—look bad.
As a result we have, in this episode, the death of a character we have never, in his meager six appearances prior in a twenty-two-episode season, been given a single solitary reason to care about.
Sigh. Okay, I’ve just spent four paragraphs on one character, who is a minor part of a much greater episode. I do feel like I’ve given more thought to Keffer than anybody actually involved with the production of B5, up to and including Rusler.
The rest of this episode is generally excellent. The notion of Vorlons as angels—and as looking different depending on who’s looking at them—is one of those things that sounds cooler than it actually is, and raises all kinds of questions that never really get answered.
But that was the only non-Keffer thing that twigged me in the episode, and it didn’t twig me that much. Besides, I just love that Mollari doesn’t see anything, a great metaphor for what he’s become.
We get so many great moments here, from Vir and Lennier’s bitch session to Ivanova telling Welles to go fuck himself to Sheridan’s practice apology to Allan’s utter misery as he realizes just what he’s signed up for with NightWatch.
Welles is a little too broad a bad guy. It’s interesting, John Vickery has had many roles on B5 and the various Star Treks, and the only two that didn’t move me much are the two in which he wore no facial prosthetics: Welles, and the Betazoid he played on The Next Generation’s “Night Terrors.” In his other roles as Minbari, Klingon, and Cardassian, he was superlative. Go fig’.
It doesn’t help that Vickery suffers by comparison to the great Roy Dotrice, but so would most people. However, Lantze is also better written. He’s a person who genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing. He’s also completely open and honest, and never prevaricates about his intentions. While he does have an overinflated sense of his own importance—there are several occasions where he oversteps with Sheridan, assuming an authority over military matters that he doesn’t have—it comes from a place of genuine patriotism.
By contrast, there is very little that is genuine in anything Welles says or does. He’s a pretty obvious snake in the grass, and it’s to the credit of both Ivanova and Allan that they both see it instantly, though Allan isn’t really in a position to do anything about it. But the threat that NightWatch poses is quite real, as is made clear by Welles’ meeting, by the CnC officer who snitches on Sheridan, and by the shutting down of a shopkeeper who was just speaking his mind.
The big turning point here is Earth refusing to take a stand against Centauri aggression. It’s obvious that Sheridan in particular was counting on that, and he’s utterly gobsmacked that Lantze has an agenda that is a hundred and eighty degrees from what he was expecting. Now the promise he made to G’Kar back in “Acts of Sacrifice” to help the Narn feels even more hollow. Earth’s neutrality in the prior episode was bad enough, but now Sheridan can only keep his promise to G’Kar if he goes against his government. Not that that’s necessarily a deal-breaker…
This is overall a brutal end to a brutal season, as the Centauri are becoming a huge threat, and that’s as nothing compared to the danger posed by the Shadows. (Who are, of course, partly responsible for why the Centauri are such a huge threat…) Ivanova’s closing voiceover serves as the perfect coda to the season and a preview for the next one: B5 has failed at being the last, best hope for peace because there is, at this point, absolutely no hope for peace.
Next week: An overview of the second season.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “I’m out of it for a few days, and the whole place goes to hell.” This season is a fascinating combination of whirlwind changes to the status quo, yet also of a seemingly glacial pace when it comes to parceling out revelations. Some of this is eventually revealed to be deliberate: Delenn, Lennier, and Kosh avoid giving away too much because they need the Shadows to think that their return remains a secret until they are better prepared.
In general, though, the main thing this season accomplishes is to take things we saw in season one and deepening and/or expanding them, and often making them way more interesting.
It starts, alas, with the person billed first in the opening credits. With all due respect to the memory of Michael O’Hare—who was a friendly acquaintance of your humble rewatcher—Bruce Boxleitner is definitely trading up. His charisma and relaxed charm works so much better in the commanding officer role. In particular, Sheridan is more compelling in multiple modes, whether it’s as the friendly leader, the talented former ship commander, the brilliant strategist, the diplomat, the clandestine leader, and so on.
Delenn goes through some brutal changes, as her transformation has many unexpected consequences, from humorous (her issues with hair care after being hairless for her entire life) to brutal (being ostracized by both humans and Minbari, being kicked out of the Grey Council). It seems that, just when she needs to be at her strongest to fight the Shadows, she’s at her weakest, with much less support from her own people.
As ever, the real stars of the show are Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas. After spending most of the first season as semi-humorous antagonists—Mollari as the drunken ambassador of a failing empire, G’Kar as the mustache-twirling villain trying to improve the Narn’s standing—both take a turn for the tragic.
Mollari watches as his deal with the devil goes about as well as those things usually go. While the benefits seem nifty and keen at first—including enabling him to divorce two of his three wives, which he views as addition by subtraction—he soon discovers the awfulness of what he’s done, both large-scale (he watches in horror as mass drivers all but destroy the Narn homeworld) and small-scale (Refa manipulating events so that Mollari is forced to kill his best friend).
G’Kar, meanwhile, goes on the worst kind of roller coaster: anger at the Centauri’s continued aggression, joy at learning that the emperor wishes to improve relations, anger at the emperor’s death meaning greater Centauri aggression, joy at the promise of assistance from Sheridan and Delenn, anger at discovering that their help is far less than expected and will not include official assistance from their respective governments, joy at the possibility of destroying a major Centauri supply line, despair at that campaign failing and the homeworld falling, righteous indignation at being stripped of his diplomatic post, and hope as he tries to rally the Narn to his cause.
Throughout all this, Jurasik and Katsulas simply nail every single emotional beat, every character nuance, every bit of drama, pathos, and tragedy. Both try so desperately to do what is right for their people, and both fail rather spectacularly—though, amusingly, in both cases it’s entirely the fault of Mollari’s hubris.
As usual, the stuff with the humans is the least interesting part of the season. But aside from Sheridan, who as a new character needs to be introduced and fleshed out, there’s not much by way of character development for any of the humans. We meet Franklin’s father, which is fine—aided by an actor of Paul Winfield’s calibre playing the part—and Ivanova is revealed to be a latent telepath, but that’s about it for the non-Sheridan humans. Far too many of their storylines don’t have anywhere near the interest as the ones for the non-humans, resorting to simple stuff like alien abductions, energy-being possessions, war-movie clichés, creepy romances, bitching about commerce, and so on. Some of this works—for example, I liked Sheridan (along with a reluctant Ivanova) committing civil disobedience to protest being charged rent for accommodations on a post he was assigned to, and pretty much any story that directly related to Earth’s creeping fascism was well done—but too much of it just doesn’t work as well. Tellingly, the best human-centric story was “And Now for a Word,” a brilliant special report on B5 that was actually more interesting for its revelations about the non-humans than it was the humans.
Still, as complaints go that, and the parsimonious doling out of revelations, are both extremely minor. This is a much more powerful set of episodes than the first season, building nicely on what came before, and, more to the point, making what came before more interesting in retrospect. And it gives us three of the strongest hours of television you’re likely to see in “The Coming of Shadows,” “The Long, Twilight Struggle,” and the aforementioned “And Now for a Word.”
