“Babylon Squared”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jim Johnston
Season 1, Episode 20
Production episode 118
Original air date: August 10, 1994
It was the dawn of the third age… CnC has detected weird tachyon emissions in Sector 14. Ivanova sent a ship to check it out; the pilot of said ship sees something materializing, and then he screams. The ship returns to B5, but the pilot is dead, having apparently died of old age despite being only 30 years old; before he died, he set the autopilot to get the ship home and also scratched “B4” into a deckplate.
Sinclair doesn’t want to send anyone there until they know more, and in the meanwhile, all traffic is to be diverted away from Sector 14.
Delenn buggers off through a jump gate in a one-person craft, having declined to even have a pilot. She rendezvouses with a big-ass ship and changes clothes to a gray outfit in order to attend a meeting of the Grey Council. It is ten years since the death of Dukhat. The mourning period is officially over, and they must choose a new leader. Delenn is put out that they didn’t consult her in those deliberations, but it turns out that that’s because they all think she should be the new leader.
B5 receives a distress call from Sector 14. Sinclair is cranky because they were supposed to keep traffic away, but then it turns out to come from Babylon 4, which disappeared without a trace four years earlier. Ivanova confirms that the signal is really from B4, and on top of that, the timecode on the distress call is four years out of date.
Sinclair answers the distress call and talks to Major Krantz, who is relieved to find help. He asks for help evacuating the station, to which Sinclair agrees. He and Garibaldi lead a flotilla of evac ships, but only Garibaldi and Sinclair actually approach the station at first. They’re ambushed upon boarding by a crazed crew member, who is taken into custody by an apologetic Krantz.
The major explains that they’ve been getting odd tachyon readings and getting constant flashbacks and flashforwards. (Sinclair has one such flashforward.) Krantz is shocked, but not entirely surprised, to find out that he’s jumped forward four years. He needs the station evacuated, and they also have a weird prisoner.
Delenn feels that she needs to stay on B5 to make sure that Valen’s prophecy is fulfilled. The other councilors are dismissive, saying that the prophecy will take care of itself, and this is a great honor that will relieve her of the burden of playing ambassador. Delenn, however, thinks it’s very important to stay on B5 and continue her observations of humanity, whose future, she believes, is important. This effectively ends her tenure on the Grey Council.
Krantz introduces Sinclair and Garibaldi to Zathras, who speaks in the third person, and also in riddles. He says that B4 is needed to fight in a great war and Zathras is helping to facilitate that. He also makes several references to “the one.”
A humanoid figure in an EVA suit appears out of nowhere. Sinclair approaches the figure, and is zapped across the deck for his trouble. Zathras escapes custody and hands something to the figure, who then disappears.
Zathras explains that the one stopped the station at 2258 in order to let the crew evacuate, but it also causes the one pain. The device Zathras handed to the one is a time stabilizer.
As the evacuation finishes up, Garibaldi has a flashback to his argument with Lise Hampton on Mars before accepting the B5 assignment. Krantz wants to take Zathras with them off the station, but Zathras says he’ll die if he leaves B4. As they evacuate, Zathras is pinned underneath a piece of debris. Sinclair tries to rescue him, but Zathras insists that Sinclair go to fulfill his destiny. Reluctantly, Sinclair evacs with everyone else.
B4 disappears after everyone’s gone. The figure in the EVA suit rescues Zathras. The figure later removes the helmet, and is revealed to be a much older Sinclair, who regrets that everything happened the way he remembered it, and is reassured by an off-screen Delenn.
As Delenn is departing, one of the council gifts her with a triluminary, which she reluctantly accepts.
Nothing’s the same anymore. Sinclair is directly told by Zathras that he has a destiny to fulfill, and we see an older Sinclair is involved with Zathras and with the pulling of B4 through time.
Ivanova is God. Ivanova, who doesn’t do mornings all that well under the best of circumstances, is awakened early by the tachyon emissions report. Over breakfast, Sinclair and Garibaldi play a practical joke on her, with Sinclair talking about the meditative morning masses he went to when studying under the Jesuits, which puts Ivanova back to sleep, and then Garibaldi swapping their full plates for empty ones and tricking her into thinking it’s a half-hour later than it is. Ivanova panics, runs off to CnC. Sinclair tells Garibaldi he’ll notify the security chief’s next of kin, and five second later, Ivanova realizes what time it actually is, and Ivanova screams that she’ll kill Garibaldi.
Why she only blames Garibaldi (and why Sinclair thinks she’ll only blame Garibaldi) when Sinclair was at least as responsible is left as an exercise for the viewer.
The household god of frustration. We see Garibaldi’s past and possible future. Garibaldi is also skeptical that it’s really B4 that’s appeared, at least until he sees it and boards it.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. The Grey Council members rarely leave their capital ship. Delenn is the first person to ever turn down leadership of the council, and she does it because she thinks being on B5 is important, plus she’s the opening-credits regular on a TV show called Babylon 5, so she could hardly leave it…
We live for the one, we die for the one. The concept of “the one,” which will become very important over the course of the franchise, is introduced here, and Zathras claims at one point that he will live for the one and, if needs be, die for the one, a phrase that will (to say the least) recur.
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Garibaldi has a flashback to the argument he and Hampton had on Mars before he took the B5 assignment. Hampton is particularly cranky that Garibaldi is throwing away their relationship for someone he doesn’t even know that well, which is an odd thing for her to say given that Sinclair and Garibaldi are supposed to be old friends…
Looking ahead. Oh, where to even begin?
Let’s start with the flashforward that we know can’t happen: Sinclair and Garibaldi at the eve of the destruction of B5 while it’s being overrun by, um, something. This can’t happen for two reasons: Sinclair will wind up leaving the cast at the end of the first season and won’t be around for the destruction of B5 many years hence (which will happen much differently anyhow); and Jerry Doyle will have long since lost all his hair by the time this flashforward would take place. (Sorry, but I always find it hilarious that with all the planning done with this show, nobody took male-pattern baldness into account…)
In addition, we see a very old Sinclair in the EVA suit talking to an off-camera Delenn. That half of the story was probably originally intended to be much later in the series’ run, though instead it’ll be in the “War Without End” two-parter. The reasons for Delenn being off-camera will be clear in the early episodes of season two.
When Zathras first sees Sinclair, he seems to recognize him, then sits back down and says, “not the one.” This will also be explained in the “War Without End” two-parter.
Delenn’s declaration that she’ll never set foot in the Grey Council chambers ever again will prove to be less than prophetic.
Ivanova jokes that next time B4 appears, she’s gonna go and Garibaldi will stay behind, which comes to pass in “War Without End.”
Welcome aboard. Three recurring characters in this one: Kent Broadhurst debuts the role of Major Krantz; he’ll be back in “War Without End, Part II.” Denise Gentile returns from “A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II” as Hampton, this time in flashback; she’ll be back in season four’s “Conflicts of Interest.” And Tim Choate debuts the delightful recurring role of Zathras; he’ll be back in “War Without End, Part I.”
In addition, the other two members of the Grey Council are played by Mark Hendrickson and an uncredited actor.
Trivial matters. The other half of this episode will be told in the “War Without End” two-parter in season three.
Babylon 4’s fate was first mentioned in “The Gathering,” and spelled out in more detail in “Grail.”
The death of Dukhat was established back in “Soul Hunter” as the inciting incident of the Earth-Minbari War. It will be dramatized in the move In the Beginning.
This is the first time we’ve seen the Grey Council in person, as it were. Previously, it was only seen in Sinclair’s memories in “And the Sky Full of Stars.” Delenn’s being part of the council was more-or-less established in “The Gathering,” and made more explicit in “Soul Hunter.”
Garibaldi references the Flying Dutchman legend at the very top of the episode, thus enabling the episode to show its work, as it were. Sinclair explains the legend to Ivanova by way of explaining it to viewers who are unfamiliar with it…
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“Zathras not of this time. You take, Zathras die. You leave, Zathras die. Either way, it is bad for Zathras.”
—Zathras laying out what’s happening.
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.
Next week: “The Quality of Mercy.”
““fasten/zip” conversation … is a rhapsody in cringey awkwardness.”
To be fair, I think it’s intended to be cringey. Guys who need to stay awake on a long patrol/guard duty/whatever will talk about weird stuff.
One of the best first season episodes, other than Delenn’s part which feels kind of like filler. Yes, important for the future, but could have been handled more efficiently.
The scene also subtly shows how wrong Babylon 5 (and almost everybody else) was about the future. It’s played like there’s nothing to do except wait to get there and stare into space, hence filling the time with meaningless conversations. Nobody really predicted that we’d have pocket computers so the two of them could be reading/writing reports, communicating with people back on the station, or even playing a game.
Similarly, the “scratching B4 into the deckplate” is pretty absurd and actually that one was absurd even then. Surely there’d be SOME contingency system in place to record information if the computer was down, even if it was a Mark 47 ballpoint pen and dead tree notepad.
We see Vir with some kind of hand-held mobile gaming device in a previous episode. So such things exist.
Perhaps someone who knows can post a comment here about how thr US military (or another military) feels about soldiers on active duty in transit playing games on their phones?
As for the fighter pilot not having a pen and paper while strapped into a seat in a small fighter with no artificial gravity which might need to make high-g maneuvers at a moment’s notice, making a pen into a dangerous object… well, it doesn’t seem like a great idea. Also, the guy was in communication with B5 when he got aged; it’s unclear what happened at that stage.
Given that the autopilot worked fine, though, he should have been able to record a message or leave something in text. There’s ways to imagine him being trapped in a time loop that undid some of what he did, but obviously the whole point is to open with something weird, mysterious, and disturbing and having his flight computer showing B4 with an invalid timestamp on the image just isn’t creepy enough.
Actually, TNG did allow shuttles to have games/books available for entertainment, as well as music.
I realized my phrasing was a bit sloppy after the editing window had lapsed. TNG was full on “the future is magic” and had shuttlecrafts/PADDs with more interactive elements (although PADDs as depicted probably aren’t as good as our actual IRL phones– in particular, we’ve come up with much better ways to interact with our devices than the hunting and pecking we see on screen). Babylon 5 was positing a future where casual space travel is possible, but we hadn’t hit the pocket computer phase yet. Obviously that didn’t happen, who knows if we’ll ever travel to another star, but we’re unlikely to forget how to make iPhones.
Hence characters still reading newspapers, there being no on-board entertainment, “data crystals” being substantially bulkier than 2024 flash drives, etc. It was not generally believed when this aired that we were so close to pocket computers. If this was made today, it would look a lot more like The Expanse with tablets and such. And this scene in particular would probably have Garabaldi distracting Sinclair from reading some report rather than it being depicted as a three hour journey of staring straight ahead.
Speaking of how PADDs do or don’t measure up to our tablet computers, I’m always amused that PADDs only seem capable of displaying one “page” at a time. Starfleet’s OS doesn’t let you have multiple tabs open at the same time, apparently. (Given how many dozens of tabs my teenage daughter has open at the same time, maybe this is actually an improvement!)
(Apologies if someone has already made this observation!)
Again, we know a shuttle with comms should be able to pick up the B5 TV system. But these aren’t business travellers and watching “The Adult Channel” at work when you’re station commander is probably frowned upon, even if you’re stuck in a shuttle with Garibaldi.
By the mid-90’s hand held computers were becoming commonplace in written SF, too. The Niven/Pournelle “Gripping Hand” has them with wireless encrypted communication and easy to use digital signature capabilities.
Eerily, real life internet/smart phone technology seems to be the creation of fictional characters–see the novelization of Buckaroo Banzai, conveniently just before the photo section.
I’m glad to see Keith, at least, loves Zathras as much as I do. He’s good here, but the supreme moment of perfect Zathras-ness comes later in a conversation he has with Ivanova
JMS seems to have been proud of the fasten/zip conversation. He played the clip on the Hour 25 radio show (which he had previously hosted). IIRC, he thought it was a great illustration of how big space is and how long it takes to get anywhere. Dr. Tasaki’s quip about anyone having a deck of cards a couple of weeks ago was probably more successful. And honestly, the episode does just fine pointing out how far apart the two stations are with the turnaround times on the evacuation runs.
When Sinclair and Garibaldi first board B4 and are moving cautiously through the bay, Garibaldi is constantly looking behind him. Obviously he know to watch his back in some situations; he just forgets when he’s complacent. (I’m also reminded that Sinclair told him to watch his back when he was following Londo, Delenn and Drall down to Epislon III last week.)
Sinclair having studied under Jesuits has previously been alluded to in “By Any Means Necessary”.
Not sure I understand why you find the fasten/zip conversation cringey. I’m guessing the issue about socks Garibaldi intended to bring up was going to concern if you put your right or left one on first. That I suspect is more likely to be a righthanded/lefthanded thing.
What is cringey is Delenn’s monologue on the strengths of humanity, which was pure Narm (not Narn).
Having now introduced Zathras, we will later meet his brother Zathras and his other brother Zathras.
What is cringey is Delenn’s monologue on the strengths of humanity, which was pure Narm (not Narn).
Yeah, I’m with you on that one. “Humans are the most special beings in all the galllllllllllaxy” just completely breaks immersion and reminds me that I’m consuming something that was produced by humans who naturally consider humans the bestest. We’ll never get a Narn monologuing about how the Minbari are the best, a human opining that the Centauri are the best over, or any other combination.
It actually fits what you would expect of someone in the religious caste that has internalized prophecy to the point of intended to fulfill it oneself.
Given all that, of course Delenn would want to think that humans are something special. Other members of the Grey Council, particularly members from the warrior caste, are going to be more skeptical.
We’ll get there when we get there, but that retroactively makes the conversations here kind of nonsensical. The Grey Council and Delenn are very vague and carefully don’t talk about what it’s talking about for no real reason other than the viewer not knowing about it yet. There will be a few times when later revelations make earlier episodes look a bit strange.
Based on on-screen evidence, Minbari political debates and discussions are radically different from human ones. It’s maybe the only situation where I’d give a pass on this kind of cryptic non-discussion, unless maybe i were imagining a Vorlon political discussion.
I think you can partially justify it as the arrival of humans on the galactic stage being the inciting incident of a lot of developments. Humans being special helps explain why they’re so significant despite being young.
Ivanova’s choice of target is easy to explain: a LCDR threatening a superior officer would be insubordination, whereas threatening a warrant officer is merely enforcing proper discipline.
The A-plot here is nice and tight, refreshing after the flabbiness of the previous two episodes. It’s impressive how much of it they were able to retain intact given the dregree to which the original story arc had to be revised following the first season.
Also it’s pretty clear that Garibaldi was the one who came up with the prank, with Sinclair just being an accomplice.
Hmm, as I recall, Sinclair was the one who started it by talking about his Jesuit meditation classes to put her to sleep; Garibaldi then capitalized on that prank with the food prank, and Sinclair played along willingly.
I think it was planned in advance of Sinclair’s hypnotizing Ivanova. That was part of the whole thing, which is why Garibaldi had the plates ready. They’d obviously noticed that she isn’t a morning person and came to breakfast barely awake, so let’s pull a prank where we get her to nod off and think she’s late.
I don’t think that’s possible, since her sleepiness was due to the atypical situation of being woken up an hour early, which she only told them about at the start of the scene.
No, the empty plates being there was probably just the result of sloppy directing, and they were hoping we wouldn’t pay attention to that part.
I just rewatched the scene on YouTube and Sinclair does give Garibaldi a wink after Ivanova nods off. Best guess, they saw Ivanova across the room, noticed she looked extra out-of-it, and stashed some empty plates before she sat down.
I think that’s trying too hard to justify it. My impression of the scene was that Sinclair didn’t know specifically what Garibaldi had in mind, but just went with the gag he improvised on the spot. The conveniently empty plates were just a theatrical contrivance to simplify the bit; there is a difference between diegetic elements and extradiegetic ones. For instance, we don’t need a diegetic explanation for why a sitcom family doesn’t lock their front door, or why a TV protagonist’s car doesn’t have a rear-view mirror when the camera is looking through the front windshield. Those are extradiegetic conveniences, not story elements.
Fair enough. Regardless whether it makes in-universe sense, I do think it made for a pretty good sight gag when Garibaldi just reaches down and grabs the empty dishes.
Sloppy directing? Ha ha, it is to laugh.
Garibaldi is a diligent student of Looney Toons / Merrie Melodies. It has already been established that he has learned the fine art of comically timed teleportation (at least with respect to elevators).
This scene merely establishes that he has also developed the ability to access hammerspace. :)
“It has already been established that he has learned the fine art of comically timed teleportation (at least with respect to elevators).”
Mmm, by the standards of an era when a man stalking a woman was still considered comical…
I remember reading (or watching) somewhere that the official retcon for “the flashforward that we know can’t happen: Sinclair and Garibaldi at the eve of the destruction of B5 while it’s being overrun by, um, something” is that subsequent events of season 1 finale/2 premiere and”War Without End” had prevented that future from happening. In retrospect it was Straczynski having to do a story fix due to Michael O’Hara leaving acting due to personal reasons.
They already ran with the notion that prophetic visions are merely one possible future in Signs and Portents and the same appears to be true here, this is officially how prophetic visions work in Bab5. And I gotta say it’s an extremely useless superpower; a “possible future” that can still be changed makes everybody a prophet. I just had a prophetic vision: On February 16, 2030, everybody in New York City will wake up and spontaneously break into song, like an IRL musical. If that happens I’m a great prophet, if it doesn’t happen then that was merely a possible future and it must have been changed.
Garabaldi’s memory also isn’t a memory at all, it’s altered by what he’s saying now. So the rift doesn’t really grant visions into either the future or the past, it just makes you hallucinate but throws in some elements from your actual life. Great.
Surely the useless ability is being able to see the future without having any ability to change or influence it? Cassandra had that brand of prophecy and it was explicitly a curse. The Centauri version seems to come with an expectation that you have some ability to influence or change what will happen, including the death visions: otherwise Londo would never try to kill G’Kar because he has had a vision of a future where G’Kar is still alive.
Knowing the future for sure at least gives you the knowledge that this is all predetermined and you can relax/manage expectations. Who knows, you might even like the future and be assured everything will be fine; Cassandra’s curse was only a curse because she wanted to change it but couldn’t. If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose knowing the future for sure, because everybody already comes preloaded with “guessing what the future might be.”
On Londo: Yeah, it’s clear he doesn’t believe in his death vision either. Every time he actively makes an effort to not die, which will happen repeatedly, he implicitly reveals that he doesn’t believe his supposed date with destiny is certain. It’s just a possible future, which is a nice way of saying a guess.
Either that or Garibaldi actually traveled to the past and thus was able to affect it rather than just witnessing it. I think that was the implication, given that the station was supposed to be “unstuck in time.” That phrase comes from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Slaughterhouse Five, describing the lead character who was bouncing around between past, present, and future in his own life.
Oh is that what’s happening here? Okay, I didn’t realize that. By the way, this comment reminded me of same lateral Bab5 trivia: If for some reason somebody was to make it through all five seasons of Sliders, they would eventually come across Peter Jurasik (Londo) playing the part of Oberon Geiger who suffers from an “unstuck in time” condition that’s described in that way.
I’d never seen this one before. It was neat to see what I remembered from War Without End in their original context. The B4 plot is still fun on its own merits though. Delenn’s is neat from a broader point of view but doesn’t make for good TV.
We’ll get there when we get there, but I gotta say: It’s hard to escape the impression she botched this call and, somewhat paradoxically, it was on the selfish side to turn down leadership so she can engage in her own lark. A stoic would tell you that she should do it even if she doesn’t feel like it. She wants things to go a certain way, believes important events are coming, and knows there’s divisions in Minbari society. Surely she can do a better job guiding events as the leader of the whole government rather than as a mere ambassador.
Every time from here forward the Minbari Federation isn’t doing what she wants, well, she could have made this a lot easier for herself and by extension everybody else. Surely there’s SOMEBODY she trusts enough to mind the store on Bab5 and the other Minbari is right; if prophecy is accurate, then it will attend to itself. If prophecy isn’t accurate, then engineering your actions to try to make it happen is pointless.
seeing how her argument is: i have to be on Babylon 5 because it and it’s crew is special, so i HAVE to be there” does go with a certain character flaw of her’s that does get brought up later though. She thinks she’s an Important Person doing Important Things”. God, i can’t wait for Here comes the Inquistor.
Oh, off on a tanget! I loved that episode. It prompted the first (and only) time I ever wrote a fan letter – to Wayne Alexander. He actually (well probably is publicist) sent me back an autographed pictue of him in costume.
Say no more; ‘twould be sp’ilers thar!
Yes, and selfishness becomes more of a characteristic of Delenn as the series goes on, I feel. I sometimes wonder if where some see selfishness, Straczynski sees a virtue of independence and fortitude. He definitely believes in the importance of the individual (or the one).
The Minbari as a whole have plenty of issues, but this is the one time I’ve agreed with them. Delenn’s choice to turn down leading the Council felt like a selfish one, even if she doesn’t see it that way. And I think the show is aware of it too, because next season we get Sebastian in the episode “Comes the Inquisitor”. Clearly Straczynski was aware of how people might perceive Delenn’s actions here.
With so much happening with the Babylon 4 plot, I tend to overlook Delenn’s subplot. But unless I missed something during the rewatch, this is the first time that we hear about Valen. And Delenn makes it very clear that she sees her decision to fulfill prophecy to be more important than taking firm control of the Grey Council.
I always enjoy watching this episode and reflecting on how JMS managed to reconfigure his original intentions into what we saw in “War Without End”. We all know that revision is part and parcel of the writing process, but this is one area where the seams show more than usual. JMS has gone into some depth about the changes that were necessary (and many of them are evident in the final product, of course).
Honestly, I found this one underwhelming. There really isn’t much of a plot — the characters go somewhere, get a whole big infodump about future plot developments, and leave again. There’s no real conflict, just the manufactured dangers of the random crazy guy and the station falling apart.
My first editor and mentor, Stanley Schmidt of Analog Magazine, advised in his book on writing that a good way to write an interesting exposition scene is to inject some conflict into it — say, one character trying to get info out of someone reluctant to divulge it, or perhaps trying to give info to someone who doesn’t want to hear it. But that doesn’t happen here. There’s some initial lip service about Zathras refusing to talk, but then it’s instantly forgotten and he monologues exposition as freely as a supervillain gloating to the hero about his fiendish plan. (See? Conflict!) This is the problem with far too much serialized writing — telling a story that’s only about setting up a future story, without having any real merits of its own.
The Delenn subplot is similar. They introduce a conflict out of nowhere just to give Delenn a reason to say “No, I need to continue the status quo because of mumblemumble reasons about what the future may hold.” It’s all just an excuse for foreshadowing. (And present shadowing, given that the set design is of the “We ran completely out of money so let’s just use a dark stage and spotlights” persuasion.) Meanwhile, having the ruling council of the entire Minbari civilization live in a spaceship is an odd choice, as if they didn’t have the budget to depict a Minbari capital city so they just recycled a CGI warship.
A lot about the story doesn’t make sense either. The first thing was the pilot’s death. I hate, hate, hate the recurring trope (cropping up in Doctor Who more than once and in The Orville‘s pilot episode, among others) of someone being caught in a time-acceleration field and dying of old age. Does nobody remember that people need food and drink? If someone’s subjective time were accelerated while they were stuck in a fighter cockpit, they’d die of thirst in subjective days, and wouldn’t have remotely enough time for their organs to age 30 years. Also, inanimate objects age too. Why was the fighter completely intact, without showing any signs of 30 years’ worth of material wear and decay?
There’s also the inconsistency that Ivanova said it would take several round trips to evacuate everyone on the station, but then they got them all out in one go. Also, when the deranged guy started shooting at Sinclair and Garibaldi and calling them monsters, why did they just shoot back instead of announcing who they were and trying to talk him down first? That made no sense.
Keith, I’m surprised to see you praise Kent Broadhurst’s performance as Krantz, since I consider him the new title-holder for worst guest actor in the series. His line readings were terrible and stilted, mistaking shouting for acting.
As for Zathras, he was somewhat amusing, but getting humor from a character’s broken, accented English seems like a discredited trope. He came off a bit too much as a “native guide” character, and his loyalty and submission to a white savior didn’t help. Frankly, the whole “We live for the One, we die for the One” business sounds like something a brainwashed cult member would say, rather than evidence of the One’s nobility as we’re supposed to think.
“Keith, I’m surprised to see you praise Kent Broadhurst’s performance as Krantz, since I consider him the new title-holder for worst guest actor in the series.”
Worse than Gregory Paul Martin as Col. Ari Ben Zayn in “Eyes”? Say what you will, Broadhurst was nowhere near clearing that high bar.
Martin overplayed his role, yes, but at least he delivered the lines competently. I could believe Ben Zayn was a character whose performance conveyed his actual emotions, however absurdly extreme those emotions were. Broadhurst’s performance was amateurish even on a technical level; he sounded like a high school drama student who’d never acted before. He didn’t come off as a character expressing emotion, just as a man awkwardly reciting scripted lines while shouting.
I just remembered that the thing about the Grey Council being on a warship was already established in Sinclair’s backstory, when they took him aboard the ship, discovered the special spoilery thing about him, and ended the war within 24 hours. So I guess there was a plot reason for that, but it still seems odd. I can see the merits, as Eduardo suggested, of an expansive nation’s rulers being mobile; there were some nations in history where the rulers’ courts were migratory, moving from city to city rather than having a permanent capital (though that was largely because the greedy appetites of the royal court depleted the cities’ resources so they couldn’t stay in one place too long). But it’s weird to have the ruling council’s starship be on the front line of the battle as we saw in Sinclair’s flashbacks.
Zathrus talk like Straczynski’s Belarusian grandmother. Zathrus may be dated ethnic stereotype, but at least Zathrus stereotype same ethnicity as man who wrote him.
Interesting take and possible explanation for the Grey Council set. Myself, I always appreciated the visual design of the place. A minimalistic realm with minimal lighting that I always felt complemented a number of Minbari characteristics and customs: people who live to serve, who take little to no material posessions, and rarely indulge in anything. I can see their government office being that empty and sparse, since it reflects their state of being. And I always thought the concept of staying in motion while you rule to be not only cool, but also a sensible security precaution – they wouldn’t want to be stationary, and a sitting duck for potential threats, especially not an insular race mistrustful of others such as the Minbari.
I like the visions, the premonitions and I unabashedly love Zathras. I could spend a day quoting Zathras lines. Tim Choate is that memorable and charismatic, and Zathras is very much one of Straczynski’s stronger creations.
But the episode itself is all setup, and weirdly enough there’s not a lot of story there. The Delenn B plot was clearly designed to compensate for just how quickly and uneventful the B4 side of the story goes by. And that B plot also suffers from being rather short and abrupt. Hence the need for stuff like the fasten/zip scene (which I actually adore – of course Garibaldi would come up with something ridiculous to fill the void of a boring two hour journey).
The same can be said for the hilarious Ivanova/Sinclair/Garibaldi breakfast scene. It’s to fill time, and it’s also fun. It makes sense she would only blame Garibaldi. He’s the prankster. Sinclair has never done anything like that. At worst, she can blame Sinclair for ‘letting’ Garibaldi deceive her (and of course, she wouldn’t – him being the CO and all).
In my previous viewings of B5, I always used to take Delenn’s side in most of her conflicts with the Grey Council. This time, I found myself understanding the council’s position a lot more. Delenn refusing the call to take charge could be construed as arrogant and selfish (we know in the long term it’s not, but the feeling remains here). Because that’s also all setup designed for later payoff, it also ends up feeling rushed and undeveloped.
I adore Sinclair’s vision (of what’s presumably the year 2260). This is good depiction of a potential apocalyptic future. The raw intensity of whatever threat is about to break the station apart as Garibaldi forces Sinclair into an escape shuttle with panicked passengers as he stays behind, possibly forsaking his life – and it ties into Lady Ladira’s prophecy from “Signs and Portents”, heralding B5’s potential destruction. This scene always had an impact for me (and I do think it could have plausibly happened had the “War Without End” events not gone according to plan – not accounting for another truckload of real life events changing the show’s planned narrative over time – but that’s another spoilery topic for when we get there).
Otherwise, this is pretty bare bones episode in terms of actual plot. As pointed out, there’s no actual conflict on B4. They go in, rescue the helpless working personnel, and get out. Zathras provides some misdirecting mystery exposition, but the only semblance of conflict there is between Sinclair and Krantz deciding what to do with him. And that pretty much amounts to nothing. We know they would take Zathras out had the coincidental debris not struck him at the climax (even though I love the seriousness in Zathras’ voice as he brings up Sinclair’s inevitable destiny). The B plot has more stakes and conflict than this. The episode still works somewhat thanks to some strong character work and the aforementioned one/off scenes that keep things somewhat interesting.
Ivanova blaming Garibaldi and not Sinclair: I always looked at it as Sinclair is her boss and Garibaldi … isn’t.
The breakfast prank bugged me, because why did Garibaldi just happen to have those empty plates sitting there on the seat next to him? He couldn’t have known to plan it in advance. Did some previous diner just leave their empty dishes there? If so, why leave them on the bench instead of on the table?
Also, in the “fasten/zip” scene, I think they said there were 2 hours, 3 minutes at the start of the scene and 1 hour, 57 minutes at the end, but there’s no way that conversation was six minutes long. They couldn’t have timed the dialogue and tweaked the time references to be more accurate?
I noticed that time discrepancy myself. A similar thing happens later in season 3’s “A Day in the Strife” – the probe’s final 3 minute countdown as Sheridan and Ivanova argue over sending the quiz answers. Corwin says 3 minutes, then shortly after 2 minutes. Not long after, Ivanova says there’s a minute left, then a brief Sheridan theory, then Ivanova says 15 seconds left as she dares him to send the data. Not one of those lines is said at the correct time. The scene is way shorter than 3 minutes.
As for the breakfast scene, maybe there is someone on the command staff who’s so anal about reserving his preferred seat that he always leaves empty plates on the bench so he can go serve himself or go to the bathroom and not lose the bench to someone else? Maybe Garibaldi even likes to take that seat and table just to annoy him? Personally, I like my theory.
Probably when it was shot they intended to cut away from it and cut back between those two lines, but in editing it turned into one long scene. And by that point they didn’t have the time/money to fix it with ADR or whatever.
No, the time references are at the start and near the end of the fasten/zip conversation. It’s all one continuous exchange.
It’s just commonplace in TV and film for time references in the script to bear no resemblance to the actual passage of time. They just figure the audience won’t pay enough attention to the exact numbers or won’t be timing the scenes, so they can get away with it. Sometimes it’s more about conveying an impression than getting it technically correct. And any scripted scene may have its timing changed in editing, and even if the writer reads it aloud to time it out, the actors may deliver the lines at a different pace. So there’s no way to know in advance if the timings in the script are going to be accurate. Still, six minutes for such a short conversation is so unbelievable that I’m surprised it was written that way.
One thing I’ve always found bizarre is that when characters on screen count down seconds aloud, it’s almost always slower than actual seconds. I guess it’s done to build suspense or something, but it’s weird.
You’re “that guy,” but so am I, so I checked the script book for this scene:
Scene 44, first page, Garibaldi says, “Look, we got two hours to kill —“
Second page of the scene, Garibaldi, “One hour, fifty-seven minutes.”
JMS knows damn well one script page dosn’t translate into three minutes. Likely, Garibaldi is estimating the two hours and checks when Sinclair asks how much time is left. Or maybe JMS just thinks “One hour, fifty seven minutes” is funnier than “One hour, fifty-nine minutes”?
The Muppet Show actually gets its “X seconds to curtain, guest star” numbers correct.
Okay, I rewatched the actual scene on Tubi. The scene opens with Sinclair asking “Time to target?” Garibaldi says “Two hours, three minutes” at 12:19. There’s a cut to an exterior shot of the shuttles and fighters, then we cut back inside and the conversation begins. Garibaldi’s “Look, we got two hours to kill” is at 12:43. The “one hour, 57 minutes” is spoken at 13:39, so that’s an alleged passage of six minutes in just 80 seconds of screen time.
However, it’s possible the brief cut to the exterior and back could represent a time jump of around 5 minutes before the conversation starts. Which would mean that Garibaldi’s “we got two hours to kill” would’ve been spoken at 1 hour, 58 minutes, close enough for rounding.
Am I the only one who liked the line about it’s the end of the world as we know it. I remember that from when I first saw this episode. At the time, I was a huge REM fan.
Zathras are my favorite characters from B5. They bring wisdom, chaos, and a bit of whimsy to the proceedings every time they appear.
This episode was entertaining enough while I was watching it, but when it was over I didn’t feel like I’d actually watched an episode. As time was running out, I started to think this must be another two-parter, but the ending made it clear this is all we were getting. Reading the review, I am at least reassured that the rest of the story will eventually be told, but that doesn’t make this work any better in the here and now. I did like Zathras. It’s funny, because when I first saw him he looked a little bit like Michael O’Hare with a fake nose, and my first thought was that this was supposed to be Sinclair from the future.
Riffable moment:
“Not the One.”
The kid is not his son.
Here’s a thought about another weird conversation Garibaldi might initiate. In this case it would occur in the episode “A Distant Star”, when Garibaldi is making Bagna Cauda. “So I’ve been thinking. We have extra virgin olive oil. But what about extra promiscuous olive oil? You never see it on store shelves. Or do they keep it in a back room where you have to show your ID before you enter?”
“Why she only blames Garibaldi (and why Sinclair thinks she’ll only blame Garibaldi) when Sinclair was at least as responsible is left as an exercise for the viewer.”
Because vengeance can only be properly visited on fellows of equal rank or below, not superior officers.