“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Ivanova confirms that the signal is really from B4, and on top of that, the timecode on the distress call is four years out of date.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.”
