“A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Janet Greek
Season 1, Episode 19
Production episode 121
Original air date: August 3, 1994
It was the dawn of the third age… We get a summary of Part I, and then we see that the ship that was coming through the jump gate is an EarthForce ship, the Hyperion. Captain Ellis Pierce says he’s taking command of the situation.
Sinclair and Ivanova bring Varn to medlab, where Franklin attempts to stabilize him. Pierce explains that the Office of Planetary Security diverted Hyperion to B5 to make sure that Earth—and only Earth, not any of the other nations represented on B5—stake a claim to the technology on Epsilon III. Sinclair is pissed at Pierce trying to horn in on his command, and at his rather brazen entry into the system, as Sinclair was trying to be discreet.
According to an ISN report, President Santiago is facing pressure to quell the rioting on Mars. Garibaldi—still not knowing the fate of his ex, Lise Hampton—sees this report in the Zocalo, and winds up remonstrating with some dudebros who rag on Mars.
Sinclair tries to get Hidoshi to get Pierce to back off, with not much success. He then bluffs Pierce by telling him that he had a jamming device that allowed him and Ivanova to go to the surface by way of getting Pierce to pull back the Starfuries down to the surface. However, the damage has been done. Ivanova reports that after Pierce launched his Starfuries, there were massive disruptions of the planetary core. If this keeps up, the planet will go boom, taking B5 with it. The theory is that Varn was holding all this at bay, but without him inside the machine, it’s going into full defensive mode. Sinclair decides to wait twelve hours, and if the situation hasn’t improved, they’ll start an evacuation.
Sinclair visits with Garibaldi to see if he’s okay, having heard about his incident in the Zocalo. He also talks frankly about how there’s no way they’ll be able to evacuate the entire station, even if they start now. But he makes Garibaldi promise that, no matter what, he makes sure Ivanova gets off the station.
Delenn is continuing to show Draal around the station, but then the latter starts hearing voices. He goes to medlab and insists that the voice he’s hearing is Varn. Franklin points out that Varn is unconscious and can’t be talking to anyone—but then Varn wakes up. He confirms that the planet is “booby-trapped” and will explode rather than let anyone take charge of it. There needs to be a new caretaker who does what Varn does. Pierce wants to send an expedition down; Sinclair tells him not to, and he’ll shoot at Hyperion if he goes through with it. (With the planet about to explode, Sinclair has nothing to lose.) Pierce reluctantly stands down.
A ship comes through the jump gate, belonging to Varn’s people, led by Takarn. They’re outcasts, who’ve been searching for Epsilon III for centuries, and Takarn gives them ten hours to hand over the planet. Varn urges the B5 crew not to give the outcasts what they want. There needs to be a new guardian. But he passes out in medlab before he can explain how that works, exactly.
Draal confirms to Sinclair that he saw a vision of Varn much like the one Sinclair saw in the previous episode. Mollari later approaches Draal and Delenn saying he, too, saw a vision of Varn.
Sinclair and Pierce agree to launch a preemptive strike on Takarn’s ship. Meantime, a Centauri shuttle asks to depart, but instead of going to the jump gate as stated in their flight plan, they head to Epsilon III. Takarn is outraged and fires, and the battle is joined.
The shuttle is piloted by Mollari, with Delenn and Draal as his passengers, and they’re headed down to the planet. Garibaldi takes a shuttle after them. To everyone’s surprise, the planetary defenses leave the shuttles be.
Garibaldi catches up to Draal and the two ambassadors (totally the name of my next band) and learns that Draal intends to take Varn’s place as the guardian of the Great Machine. Garibaldi isn’t thrilled at this idea, but it’s the only way to keep the planet from going boom.
Draal is installed as the guardian. Immediately, an image of him appears on Takarn’s ship, on B5, and on Hyperion. He says that the planet belongs to no one, and must stay isolated and off-limits. He entrusts the safekeeping of the Great Machine to the B5 Advisory Council and says that any attempt to land on the planet will be met with force.
Takarn doesn’t believe it and attempts to land on the planet. He is met with force—Draal destroys his ship.
Delenn wishes Draal well, and Varn promises to take care of him and help him adjust for as long as he lives (which won’t be much longer).
Pierce buggers off with Hyperion, apologizing for overstepping his authority.
They finally get a signal through to Mars, and Garibaldi is able to talk to Hampton, who is alive, albeit injured. However, it turns out that she’s married and is expecting a baby, which dumps a whole lot of cold water on Garibaldi.
The security chief goes to the Observation Deck, where Delenn approaches him. She explains that she and Draal went off with Mollari in secret because Delenn knew that Sinclair would volunteer to be the new guardian. She also knows that Mollari will call in the favor she now owes him…
Nothing’s the same anymore. In a fit of tiresome paternalism, Sinclair makes Garibaldi promise to get Ivanova off the station in their theoretical evacuation. I guarantee that that scene would never have even been considered if Sinclair’s first officer was male.
Ivanova is God. When Mollari attempts to find out what’s going on from Ivanova, her answer is, “Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom boom. Boom! Have a nice day.”
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi gets into a bar fight, helps the new guardian happen, and finally gets in touch with his ex only to find out that she’s married someone else. Busy and not great day for him…
Also: this is the second time one of the command staff has gotten into a bar fight. How do these people still have their commissions???
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. By becoming the new guardian of the Great Machine, Draal is able to find the purpose that he’d lost (and was seemingly leading to his ritual suicide) last time.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Back in the day, Mollari led a raid on Frallis 12, and he gets to dust off his piloting skills in this episode.
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Garibaldi finds his ex and loses hope of a reconciliation. At least for now…
Looking ahead. Delenn is very firm in her desire to keep Sinclair from volunteering to replace Varn in the Great Machine. The reason for that desire will be made clear before too long.
Welcome aboard. Back from Part I are Louis Turrene as Draal and Curt Lowens as Varn. Lowens will return as an Old One in Crusade’s “Patterns of the Soul.”
Denise Gentile debuts the recurring role of Hampton, who will return in the very next episode, “Babylon Squared.” Aki Aleong makes his final appearance as Hidoshi, Michelan Sisti plays Takarn, and veteran character actor Ron Canada plays Pierce.
Trivial matters. This obviously continues from last week’s Part I.
When Draal returns in “The Long Twilight Struggle,” he’ll be played by John Schuck. Turrene will return in the recurring role of Brother Theo in “Convictions,” a human role that doesn’t require the complicated Minbari makeup and prosthetics.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“So if we go down there, it blows. If we don’t, it blows anyway, just a little later.”
—Ivanova, summing up the hoplessness of the situation.
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.
Next week: “Babylon Squared.”
“In a fit of tiresome paternalism, Sinclair makes Garibaldi promise to get Ivanova off the station in their theoretical evacuation. I guarantee that that scene would never have even been considered if Sinclair’s first officer was male.”
For what it’s worth, the rationale given in episode was that she still has a full career ahead of her, while they’re a couple of has-beens whose careers were in freefall prior to their current positions.
Minbari and Centauri eyeballs must be considerably more resilient than human eyeballs seeing as how the breathers they use don’t offer eye protection.
Riffable moment:
“Do not attempt to come here again.”
All these worlds are yours, except Europa.
“Minbari and Centauri eyeballs must be considerably more resilient than human eyeballs seeing as how the breathers they use don’t offer eye protection.”
It wasn’t a vacuum, since sound carried. So there would’ve been sufficient pressure. It must have simply been an atmosphere with little or no oxygen. Presumably the Machine provides its symbiont’s life-support needs, so the air doesn’t need to be oxygenated.
Yes, the rationale is given for getting Ivanova off the station, but, unfortunately, I agree with Keith that there’s no way this would have been included if Ivanova were male (although it should have been, for exactly the reason given).
I don’t know if I ever realized that Draal was played by a different actor the subsequent times, but I certainly should have, as I distinctly remember disliking the subsequent appearances as _way_ too over-the-top. And now that it’s pointed out, it’s obvious that Brother Theo is played by Turrene.
Like I said in an earlier episode, a lot of Season 1 is setup and can’t really be appreciated until later developments happen. But Keith’s right, this episode by itself is not much.
Easy to forget that the US military changed its policy to allow women in active combat situations in 2013. B5 not only shows women in active combat, it gives Ivanova specific (and successful) opportunities to push back against this kind of paternalism in later episodes. That suggests to me that in this moment, we’re seeing characters acting in-character in ways not endorsed by the show.
The Script Book says JMS wanted to show human arrogance from an alien perspective, which doesn’t quite hit properly because all the Hyperion-related stuff is isolated to human characters. It also mentions that the Amiga-powered CGI in S1 took as long as 1 hour to render one frame of animation.
They lampshade this… when we next see Draal, he makes a point of the obvious visual difference, saying that the Great Machine has rejuvenated him, and given him the appearance of 30 years ago.
Yeah, I always found this two-parter underwhelming except for the setup that is necessary for further down the arc.
Lampshading the later change in actor does help, and Draal’s rejuvenation does make a sort of sense in-story. But I was struck during this rewatch that Shuck’s more bombastic, energetic version of the character (which I prefer, FWIW) seems far more likely to take the guardian role than Turenne’s more world-weary version.
Just another re-confirmation of krad’s key summary: these two episodes are a big ol’ pile of necessary story-building setup in search of a compelling narrative structure.
At least they were 84 minutes of generally watchable TV due to decent acting performances. I mean, Ron Canada and Michelan Sisti may have struggled mightily to bring any nuance to their strawman characters, but both their performances were almost Emmy-worthy when compared to many of the antagonist roles in other Season 1 episodes.
That’s either very flattering to John Shuck or insulting to Louis Turenne, because Shuck was born only 7 years later than Turenne. I mean, yeah, Minbari age more slowly, but that’s not much rejuvenation.
Just think of all the productions of Hamlet where the actor who portrays the title character is older than the actress who portrays Gertrude.
There really isn’t a lot to say here that wasn’t already said last week. It all fits wonderfully in what’s to come, but without that knowledge it’s largely just a two-part episode of 90s TV.
I don’t think Draal was on his way to commit ritual suicide. Rather he was looking for a way to do something that makes a difference. Yeah, he probably wouldn’t object and might even prefer if he has to make the ultimate sacrifice to achieve that difference, but that’s not the goal. It’s not too different from part of Dr. Franklin’s arc in Season 3, just more final.
The trip to the surface is probably Londo’s last moment of true joy.
I can follow the logic in the suicide theory, but I never read it that way. It struck me as a self imposed exile, sort of like a religious mission, like the Grail seekers.
Reviewing the dialogue, I agree:
“I am going to the sea.”
“Draal. No, you’re too young to go to the sea. There’s much you could do back home.”
“I don’t know what good it would do. Better to find a place out there in the sea of stars where I can be
of service before the end.”
It implies a custom of leaving home permanently to live out one’s final years abroad, or to commend oneself to the elements and fate so that you might or might not survive.
“The trip to the surface is probably Londo’s last moment of true joy.”
No, his last moment of true joy came when he divorced Daggair and Mariel.
I’d argue there was one other, but to say much more would be too spoiler-making.
I was going to say the same thing vis-a-vis, ritual suicide. I interpreted “going to the sea” as “going out into the stars to look for purpose” (he specifically refers to the “sea of stars” in part 1), more or less journeying out into the unknown to never return. It is suicide in the sense that it is planned as a way one journey, but not an immediate plan to end ones life.
I never contemplated “going to the sea” as ritual suicide, but now that Keith points it out, I can definitely see that interpretation. I still agree with you: he was looking for actual meaning and a chance to make a difference.
I remember finding this two-parter quite exciting the first time I saw it. After rewatching it, I wonder why. I completely agree with Keith’s assessment. A few things happen that become important later, but as episode it’s pretty mediocre. I particularly disliked the character of Captain Ellis Pierce. A caricature of the stupid military man who wants to solve every problem by pressing the trigger. And isn’t the almost impertinent way in which Sinclair talks to him as a superior officer completely out of line? Speaking of out of line: “Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom boom boom. Boom! Have a nice day.” Who talks like that? Maybe a lunatic, but certainly not the second in command of a space station to an ambassador.
I had the same reaction as you about Sinclair’s attitude towards Pierce; even if you assume his control over the sector was actually absolute (as Santiago confirmed later in the episode), I doubt it’s appropriate to address a superior officer in that way. Then again, I don’t know much about military protocol and how it works when a superior officer not in your chain of command is around. I’m sure a number of people around here can chime in on that.
Sinclair does have additional authority as Earth ambassador and command of something comparable to a naval base.
There’s an (unofficial) way for an NCO to deliver an ass chewing to an officer. Generally you won’t have a corporal going after a major unless the major is doing something really stupid in combat (and then the major is likely to be doing something stupid enough that he’ll wander into someone’s line of fire and then, oopsie!) But I’ve seen a platoon sergeant school a lieutenant a few times. It generally involves saying “Sir” alot while pointing out the options that the officer hasn’t considered.
The more forward deployed you are, the more flexible the chain of command will be. Authority often goes with the position rather than the rank. At least if the ranks are close. A (Navy) captain is only one grade above a commander, so it could be reasonable for a commander to (politely, but firmly) tell a captain to pound sand. If the fecal matter is hitting the turbines the politeness may get set aside. I did once see a lieutenant get in a major’s face when the major was causing havoc in the ranks, but the Lt had his platoon sergeant backing him up.
Note that whatever the ranks may be a master sergeant with 20 years experience will have more authority in most cases than a lieutenant fresh out of the Point. As more than one lieutenant has discovered. Sure, the MSgt will be polite about it, but he’s still going to be in charge…
Maxim 2. A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on.
The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
Beat me to it.
Heh. Beat me to it. :-)
What surprises me is how completely unsubtle this script is. Pierce is a caricature of a shoot-first military man. Takarn is just as unreasonably violent. The script doesn’t even trust us to recognize the obvious fact that the “jamming device” is a bluff, instead giving Ivanova and Sinclair extremely stilted expository dialogue about it.
The writing of Ivanova is suffering in other ways. Her dialogue seemed like a lazy “greatest hits” callback. “Look how fatalist I am because I’m Russian. Also, boom.”
It also bugs me that Draal got in the Machine because of his deep desire to do something benevolent and charitable for others, and the first thing he does is to ruthlessly blow away Takarn’s ships, which, if Takarn is to be believed, contained the last of his species other than Varn, who was dying anyway. So his first benevolent, charitable act is to commit genocide.
Incidentally, Takarn’s portrayer Michelan Sisti was the suit actor for Michaelangelo, appropriately enough, in the first two Ninja Turtles movies (though Robbie Rist did the voice). He also played a Ferengi in TNG: “Bloodlines” just a few months before this. Over the years since, Sisti has worked as a suit performer and puppeteer in numerous Muppet and Henson Studios productions, including being the operator for Animal’s drumming hands.
I’d also note how bizarre it is to give any credence to Varn’s word for it that the other faction is a bunch of baddies. By Varn’s own telling of events, they were cast out 500 years ago. Who knows how much they’ve changed since then? Even spotting them long lifespans absent the machine, a lot of them would presumably have been born since then and have nothing to do with that happened back then. It would have been better to find a way to deescalate this situation but, hey, hour’s up.
I assumed Varn was able to follow them while hooked up to the Great Machine.
If that was the intent then that tracks with what we see later, but he doesn’t mention anything about what they’ve been up to lately, just a 500 year old schism. Draal’s decision at the end appears pretty informed by that information, so I’m only going off of what he was told. Although I guess we can further rationalize that once he was plugged into the machine he knew a lot more even if the audience doesn’t.
And we have no way of knowing whether he was on the right side of that schism, come to think of it. Sure the one on-screen representative we get is kind of a jerk, but well the commander of a sect that’s been searching for 500 years is probably going to be pretty assertive at the minimum. The schism faction adds so little and raises so many problems it would have been better just to omit it. They appear only to exist because they didn’t want to have Draal shoot down an Earth ship, but also wanted a climax with explosions in it, hence disposable antagonist.
I think there are a lot of things in this two-parter that, for better or worse, result from the confluence of three things.
1) The decision to make a two-parter was economic, rather than being driven by any particular story need.
2) JMS was apparently very sick with the flu while writing it.
3) JMS has a work ethic in which hitting a deadline is essentially the highest goal that pretty much trumps anything else.
So, needing a two-parter, he sat down and wrote a two-parter. But did so in less than ideal conditions. According to his own account, he wrote a full script that was completely different, but that he decided was unusable. So this was a second attempt, drafted in a rush while feverish, that received very little polishing before it went into production.
The result seems to be that not enough thought went into some of these questions beyond “how can I get to the outcome that I want?”
That makes some sense, but doesn’t explain why Sinclair et al. would believe him. At this point they have not yet seen anything to establish what the Great Machine is for or what its capabilities are (other than self-defence).
I don’t see Sinclair’s desire to put Ivanova out of harm’s way as paternalistic. Of the three main characters, she’s been through the worst childhood. A telepath mother who committed suicide, a brother who died in the war, and a father she didn’t speak to and wasn’t able to mend their wounds before his end. But she still succeeded in her career, rising through the ranks faster than anyone else. Sinclair and Garibaldi had no future beyond B5, but they knew she had the most potential to thrive beyond the station. And of course, she’d reject any attempt at being protected against her will – hence the shoving line.
Also, this episode has one of my favorite Ivanova lines: her comment of Sinclair and Pierce going at each other’s throats – the male testosterone poisoning remark. So it’s not as if Straczynski was blind to the straw man nature of the conflict between them.
Pierce is actually a character I wish we could have revisited later in the Earthforce arc. The character could have gone through a potentially interesting arc (not unlike Zack Allan, but I digress). But I guess an actor as busy as Ron Canada would have been hard to schedule.
What’s interesting about part 2 is how quickly everything is resolved. Draal replacing Varn in the machine makes the most sense. But in retrospect, it definitely feels sudden. But at least we get that bittersweet epilogue between Delenn and Garibaldi as they reminisce about losing their closest friends. This is where the show started leaning into Mira Furlan’s ability to convey pain and loss like no one else.
One thing that bugs me in retrospect is the naming convention for the Epsilon III alien race. Varn and Takarn are names that sound like something that came straight out of a pulp sci-fi magazine.
And they’ve already got Narn…
Indeed. At least we thankfully didn’t get Narnian as a derivative of Narn. Imagine having to spell Narnian cruiser, Narnian gods, Narnian homeworld. Lewis might have had a legitimate case.
So you want to be Warned next?
Darn
This might be the worst cliffhanger and resolution to a cliffhanger in SciFi TV history and that’s really something. I remember idly wondering what the “big” ship could be when this first aired: Vorlons? The people who built the machine? Maybe the Minbari are taking an interest? G’Kar was absent, maybe he’s coming back at the head of a whole armada from the Narn regime. Perhaps Londo summoned the Centauri? “Oh, it’s another ship from Earth” is the least interesting possible answer to a question that wasn’t that great to begin with. There also appears to be no reason for it to be a surprise– why not advise Bab5 on a secure channel that the Hyperion is inbound? Doesn’t appear to be a good reason other than to create “suspense.”
Relatedly, does calling that one Senator for help work even once? The actor’s okay, but “Sorry, there’s nothing I can do to help you” isn’t compelling material for him to work with. It comes through at the end that Sinclair was right the whole time, but too late to matter.
<i>Garibaldi gets into a bar fight</i>
Yeah, this is pretty egregious– at least Ivanova is generally good at her job, which makes it easier to excuse one incident of bad behavior. Here? Garabaldi picks on one out of a group of three and the others are mostly intimidated by the badge rather than Garabaldi himself. They decline to file a complaint, presumably because filing a complaint against a cop on Babylon 5 works about as well as it does in real life. AND off-screen, his subordinates somehow let Delenn and Draal abduct the patient through some diversion. So Garabaldi abuses his authority, isn’t good at training his people, isn’t that great at his job himself (as we’ll see again soon), and sometimes has an alcoholism relapse. Sinclair is a nice guy, but he’s being a bit too nice here; he should get somebody better for this job. And hypothetically if a new officer were to take over the station, he should definitely clean house. Alas…
Agreed on the resolution being quite underwhelming. I don’t know if this was true on the initial run, but the Hyperion is just not as impressive looking a ship as the Earth destroyers like the Agamemnon we get in season two, which might have helped at least a bit.
And yeah, the fact that senior officers getting into bar fights without consequences can pretty much be laid on the lap of the Security Chief, though to be fair, we will see little happen to other characters involved in such brawls later on as well, so maybe bar brawls just aren’t that big a deal on B5.
I skipped ahead last week to see what was coming through the jump gate. Very unimpressed to see that it was just an earth ship.
I’d forgotten almost all of this episode and I can’t say I felt that was a loss. I do remember Mollari’s glee at piloting the ship. “Now, if I was a [technical thing] button, which one would I be?”
I really enjoyed Mollari’s little burst of derring-do. Was it transactional? Sure, and he and Delenn both know it. But watching him pilot the shuttle, it was clear that it was bringing him a great deal more pleasure than his ambassadorial duties usually do.
There was really no reason for Londo to be involved in the story at all except that Londo is entertaining.
Well, it is one more weight on the “Londo is a good guy/has a good heart” side of the scale.
You’re talking about later events. I’m talking about this specific story. There’s plenty of stuff in other episodes to establish Londo’s character. And for the purposes of this story, there was no particular reason for Varn to reach out to Londo except to get him involved so he could pilot the shuttle, and I can see little reason to have him pilot the shuttle except for giving Delenn someone to talk to. They could’ve just as well written Lennier or G’Kar into that role, it seems to me, or just let Draal fly the shuttle.
Script Book JMS says that, knowing where he was going with Londo, he wanted to offer this glimpse first to the audience. I would argue that the idea Londo would sacrifice himself for the good of others hasn’t been established and he’s often a transactional character, so there’s at least some utility here.
I think we are to infer that Varn reached out to particular people for a reason, and that that reason says something about them: specifically, that they are looking for some kind of purpose. So it couldn’t have been Lennier or G’Kar because those characters aren’t adrift in the same way. It could have been Garibadi, though. At the very least, I think we are supposed to ask ourselves what do Draal, Sinclair and Londo have in common?
However, I agree that Londo’s involvement doesn’t add much that pays off in this story itself, other than providing some (needed) levity.
One thing Draal, Sinclair, and Londo have in common is that they are different species. And they are the species that we have seen be willing to sacrifice something for others (or at least some sense of greater good).
I’m uncomfortable with defining something like that on a species level. Presumably any sapient species would have some individuals who are generous and self-sacrificing and others who are callous jerks, just like we humans do.
Also, being different species is the exact opposite of having something in common.
Ivanova got into a bar fight. Garibaldi did not get into a bar fight. He simply assaulted a patron. This was the equivalent of a small town chief of police randomly beating up someone while in uniform with zero consequences apart from the mayor telling him not to do it again. It makes both of them look a lot worse than the jerk he assaulted.
But yeah, this story had no business being a two partner. All the interesting bits were in part one, which didn’t leave much in the way of substance here. I thought when the outcasts showed up there might be some debate over what right they might have to the world they’ve been searching for, but apparently this isn’t that kind of show.
“one of the command staff has gotten into a bar fight. How do these people still have their commissions???”
So when I was in Korea in the Army we had a general get into a bar fight. Now, the other guy swung first, but to be fair he might have thought the General was swinging at him and made a pre-emptive strike. It all kind of got swept under the rug, if only because the MPs arrested everyone involved and not charging the general meant not charging anyone else…
Loved Ivanova’s “worst case of testosterone poisoning” comment, and Londo’s joy at rediscovering his youth. Otherwise? Maybe not a great episode, but I liked it. Very middle of the road.
I think this is a tricky story to make work and S3 JMS would have handled it differently. I’d have the episodes focused on a limited PoV around Delenn and Londo. Have the B5 council force their way onto the CnC, with Delenn and Londo allowed to stay (G’Kar is away and Kosh doesn’t appear). Delenn and Drall can have some side conversations. Sinclair has to try to talk around Earth being unilateral. The Hyperion shows up and declares martial law in the sector on com channels, blowing the situation wide open; Sinclair is forced to lock the station down.
Make Earth seem a genuine menace. Coupled with the Mars B-plot, that would have some real teeth. Have the Minbari Consolate in Sol located on Mars and tie Delenn into the B-plot, have Garibaldi catch wind of the Varn kidnapping in time to pursue. Have Drall disable the attacking ship and the Hyperion then destroys it. Drall is upset and issues a testy warning to leave the Great Machine alone.
By having our human leads as focal characters, the oppressive undertones of Earth’s behavior get muddied and the tension arises only from external circumstances. This should be following in the footsteps of Deathwalker and turmoil on-station.
One oddity of this two-parter, at least for me, is that it introduces a major revolt on Mars, a situation that will have consequences throughout the rest of the series, but especially context for early second season events…and it all happens so far off-screen that you practically forget about it by the second half of the story. It’s understandable why that might be the case, given the budget and so forth, but even as a diehard fan of the show who has delved into the details countless times, I always forget what happens with Mars here.
Another oddity is Londo. I understand the connection between the capacity for self-sacrifice and seeking a purpose and his feelings as expressed in “Signs and Portents”. In a way, we see that self-sacrificial aspect come into play down the line, so it’s not completely out of character. But I always thought he was playing on a relationship to Delenn that we never got to see previously, so it feels manufactured for the moment. And while I could easily see Sinclair strapping himself into the Great Machine, I don’t see Londo doing that at all. He is willing to sacrifice for *his people*, not in general.
In a way, this two-parter is a fitting example of the first season. It set up some important elements that will pay off nicely in the future, but it does so in clunky fashion. And again, I say that as a dedicated fan of the series.
But I always thought he was playing on a relationship to Delenn that we never got to see previously, so it feels manufactured for the moment.
We see very little of them interacting, but they’re 2 of the 5 major power ambassadors at Babylon 5 and Kosh doesn’t come out to play as much, so 2 of the 4 that are frequently at events or part of negotiations. They’ve both been on the station since launch, and I think we’re coming up on the two year point. It stands to reason they have something of a working relationship even if we barely see it. It’s not like the scripts plays it like they’re ultra close friends or anything, just that they know each other and are reasonably cordial.
is that it introduces a major revolt on Mars, a situation that will have consequences throughout the rest of the series, but especially context for early second season events…and it all happens so far off-screen that you practically forget about it by the second half of the story.
This I definitely agree with. Stories usually need personal stakes to work and “Garabaldi’s ex is caught up in a larger event” ain’t cutting it.
“Clunky, but pays off later” is an apt description of a large portion of the entire first season.
In a way, this two-parter is a fitting example of the first season. It set up some important elements that will pay off nicely in the future, but it does so in clunky fashion. And again, I say that as a dedicated fan of the series.
My other memory of this is how some elements don’t pay off – in particular the Great Machine itself.
It”s this huge miles-deep piece of advanced technology that everyone wants, under control of a friendly person and in later seasons it – does almost nothing. It was used to broadcast some messages, maybe one vaguely-prophetic vision, and basically nothing else. Never helps defend the station when it’s attacked, never connects to any of the other alien races or plots, barely gets mentioned. IIRC it doesn’t even have much to do with the Babylon 4 story.
It’s Chekov’s mile-high gun that never goes off.
Well, yes and no.
We’ll get there when we get there, but yeah I likewise feel like the Great Machine was a mistake. It’s not even clear to me why Babylon 5 orbits a planet but assuming there’s a good reason for it, it’s an astonishing coincidence that it just so happens to be a planet with such a wacky gadget hiding underneath. In later episodes, it will either get ignored or flimsily handwaved away, such as the several times when the station is attacked. What few story things it does do could easily be handled in other ways.
As of now, Babylon 5 is also operating with a Minbari gun pointed at its head– there’s no way the station can defend itself. You’d think this would be troubling to all the other races and seriously jeopardize its status as a neutral place to conduct diplomacy but, no, life just trudges on without anybody caring about this.
I was just going to post something similar when I saw your comment…
Something that confuses me: Is it supposed to just be a massive coincidence that B5 is built in orbit of a planet that turns out to house a massive machine that will be pivotal to events to come? I don’t think we’re ever given any insight into why Epsilon 3 was chosen as the site for B5 other than it being neutral territory, and I think it’s safe to assume that nobody knew the Great Machine was located there (maybe the Vorlons and Minbari?). What if B5 had been built somewhere else entirely?
Maybe in the B5 universe intelligent life has been around so long pretty much every planet (except Earth) has a giant ancient alien machine buried in it, which must be a considerable inconvenience for people building cellars, subways, or overly vigorously plowing their fields.
“Hey, Abner, how’s the new orchard coming?”
“Had to stop planting the dang trees because every time we dug a dang hole a telepathic projection of a squid showed up”
“I feel for you. Last week the boy got stuck in a time loop in the new root cellar. And I hear old Elliot still hasn’t figured out what to do with the Apocalypse Beam he turned up in his # 2 pasture.”
“Well, at least the sheep devolved instead of hyper-evolving. Could be worse”.
“Could be worse. See you last week!”
It’s probably not that much of a coincidence.
This is not an episode that is helping me stick around.
Just saying.
As I told a friend who was seeing it for the first time: stick around until you’ve seen at least the first few episodes of S2. If you’re still not interested at that point, no harm, no foul.
Nobody on the planet is saying that season 1 of Babylon 5 is the part that’s worth your time. In principle you could even start with season 2, but at this point you might as well finish the setup season.
That is fair. But I’d suggest sticking with it a little longer – Bruce Boxleitner brings a different energy in season 2 , and season 2 is probably a better indicator of how you’ll feel about the rest of the series.
This episode is pretty lousy from the story standpoint, but pretty entertaining when compared to most massive lumps of exposition.