“Eyes”
Written by Lawrence G. DiTillio
Directed by Jim Johnston
Season 1, Episode 16
Production episode 122
Original air date: July 13, 1994
It was the dawn of the third age… Garibaldi is restoring an old Kawasaki Ninja ZX-11 motorcycle from 1992. Lennier interrupts him with a security matter, but becomes intrigued by Garibaldi’s project, and asks if he can help. He has a lot of downtime with Delenn off-station, and he’s intrigued. Garibaldi shows him one of his stumbling blocks: the manual is in Japanese, which he does not read. Lennier takes the manual with the intent of studying it.
We then meet Colonel Ari Ben Zayn and a telepath named Harriman Grey, who are looking at various B5 personnel files, including those of Ivanova. They speak in vague terms that make it clear that they’re bad guys, though they (barely) stop short of cackling madly, and only don’t twirl their mustaches because they don’t have any.
Sinclair, Ivanova, and Garibaldi meet to discuss the recent terrorist attack on Phobos, which appears to have been by the Free Mars movement. Sinclair is worried that terrorists will take advantage of the rules allowing arms sales on B5 (which was insisted upon by several of the alien species) to do arms deals on the station.
Ben Zayn poses as “Aron Franks,” and starts asking Welch questions about Sinclair and the station. Welch is mostly peeved that “Franks” is interrupting his lunch. After Welch tells him to take a hike, he links Garibaldi.
Garibaldi quickly determines that “Franks,” and his associate Grey, have been on the station for three days, asking lots of questions about the station. Sinclair authorizes him to investigate further. Garibaldi goes to their shared cabin to talk to them, at which point “Franks” outs himself as Ben Zayn and Grey as a telepath. They’re from EarthForce Internal Affairs Division, colloquially referred to as “Eyes.” They’re conducting an investigation into B5’s command staff.
Sinclair isn’t pleased, but Ben Zayn’s orders come straight from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ivanova objects to Grey’s presence, as Psi Corps isn’t allowed to scan people without their consent. Ben Zayn announces that regulations have changed in that regard, and officers must submit to a psi-scan. In private, Ivanova makes it clear that she absolutely will not submit to any kind of telepathic scan under any circumstances. Meanwhile, Garibaldi looks into Ben Zayn and Grey on his own.
In CnC, Grey shows up, unannounced and unwanted, and despite Ivanova’s attempts to get him to leave (he’s unauthorized to be there, and besides, he’s annoying her). He explains that he dreamt of joining EarthForce ever since he was a little boy, but as a telepath he wasn’t allowed. He’s just trying to serve as best he can. Ivanova is uninterested and unimpressed. Then he mentions that she will have to submit to a scan, but it won’t be that bad, really, and Ivanova tears him a new one, reiterating that she will never submit to a scan.
Ben Zayn asks a lot of probing questions about specific decisions Sinclair made. Garibaldi warns the commander that Ben Zayn seems to be going after Sinclair specifically. Sinclair isn’t worried, as his decisions are on the record and already approved, but Garibaldi isn’t so sure, reminding him of what Ironheart told them about Psi Corps’ growing influence, and the fact that Sinclair pissed off a Psi Cop.
Lennier has been studying the history of the motorcycle (including a hilarious informative video), and also learning Japanese so he can read the manual. He offers to assist Garibaldi, but the security chief is incredibly distracted, and absently gives Lennier permission to work on the motorcycle without him. Later, Garibaldi returns to his quarters after working all night to discover that Lennier has also been up all night, working on the Ninja. Garibaldi grumpily kicks an abashed Lennier out of his quarters, though the former is impressed with what the latter has accomplished.
Ivanova hands in her resignation, but Sinclair refuses to accept it. He’s actually read the new regulation that Ben Zayn threw at them, and it’s very specific: a telepath can be used when charges have been made against an officer. No charges have been filed, so Grey can’t scan them. Grey agrees and leaves the room, annoying Ben Zayn, who then interrogates the shit out of Sinclair, questioning his decisions in virtually every episode prior to this one.
Grey goes to the Zocalo to try once again to suck up to Ivanova, admitting that he really doesn’t like Ben Zayn. When he mentions Psi Corps, her reaction is very powerful, so much so that he can’t help but detect what’s in her mind—and he’s surprised to see that she can tell she’s being scanned. (It turns out her mother scanning her as a girl made her sensitive to it.) Ivanova is called away to CnC, which is the only thing that saves Grey from having his head ripped off, and she leaves in a huff.
Ben Zayn’s questioning gets more severe to the point where Sinclair says he’s done with this. Ben Zayn, however, outranks him and orders him to remain, and then officially relieves him of duty on a charge of working against the best interests of Earth, which is vague enough to cover anything from sedition to treason. He also assumes command of the station. He orders Sinclair to be confined to quarters, escorted by Garibaldi, to await being scanned by Grey, which is now kosher with specific charges made. Sinclair appeals to General Miller, but to no avail.
Ben Zayn announces to CnC that he’s in charge now. He informs Ivanova that she, too, will be required to undergo a telepathic scan. She and Garibaldi confer after that, with Ivanova taking him up on his previous offer of a drink. He says he’ll meet her in the casino.
Before meeting her, he finishes his dive into Ben Zayn and Grey, and reports to Sinclair that Ben Zayn was in line to command B5, but was bigfooted by the Minbari insistence that it be Sinclair. Ben Zayn is also friends with Bester, who still is peeved at Sinclair for getting his aide killed and generally making him look bad during the Ironheart affair.
Garibaldi is then linked with a report that there’s a bar fight in the casino. He goes down to find that Ivanova is at the center of it, and is also the only one standing and not injured. Garibaldi manages to calm her down and get her out of there.
Ben Zayn starts his interrogation, with Grey, Ivanova, and Garibaldi all present, and also with it being recorded. Sinclair accuses Ben Zayn of carrying out a vendetta against the person who beat him out for command of the station, and also of colluding with Bester to go after Sinclair. Ben Zayn gets furious, enough so that Grey can detect his thoughts, and since it’s now legal for him to scan Ben Zayn, he does so, and determines that Sinclair is absolutely right. Ben Zayn pulls a weapon, but Grey is able to telepathically zap him enough so that Sinclair can sock him in the jaw.
Garibaldi returns to his quarters to find that Lennier has finished the Ninja. Garibaldi is at first disappointed, as he was looking forward to doing it all himself, but then Lennier shows that he’s put in a Minbari power source, so he can actually use it, which he wasn’t expecting to be able to do, since the original is based on a power source (fossil fuels) that is no longer in use.
As Sinclair and Ivanova talk about how things are back to normal now, Garibaldi and Lennier go zooming down a corridor on the motorcycle.
Nothing’s the same anymore. Sinclair stands by all his decisions and is exonerated when he, um, punches a superior officer. Sure.
Ivanova is God. At one point, Ivanova has a brutal nightmare involving her mother, who is flanked by two figures in tragedy and comedy masks. Ivanova also sees herself in her mother’s place. One suspects this nightmare has happened before…
She also gets into a bar fight and wins.
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi apparently has a thing for twentieth-century motorcycles to go with his thing for twentieth-century animation. (And twentieth-century comedy movies, based on his Abbott and Costello reference.)
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Lennier learns Japanese and restores a three-hundred-year-old motorcycle in a day or two. Because he’s just that awesome.
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Grey is actually an ethical and decent Psi Corps representative, which makes him something of a rarity.
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Grey notices that Ivanova is thinking about Winters. This may be important later. It also may not be.
Looking ahead. The unrest on Mars mentioned will be seen more in the future. So will Psi Corps’ growing influence, as well as Bester’s animus toward the B5 crew. Also the casting of Macaulay Bruton as the guy in the tragedy mask is a tiny bit of foreshadowing.
Welcome aboard. Gregory Martin shouts his way through playing Ben Zayn who, despite being given an Arabic name, is played by a white guy from Hertfordshire. Frank Farmer plays Miller. Marie Chambers plays the dream image of Ivanova’s Mom, while Macaulay Bruton (who mostly plays one of Garibaldi’s unnamed security people) and Drew Letchworth play the “tragedy” and “comedy” figures, respectively, in Ivanova’s dream. David L. Crowley makes his second appearance following “Survivors” as Welch, making him officially a recurring character. He’ll return in “The Quality of Mercy.”
And this week’s Robert Knepper moment is the great Jeffrey Combs as Grey. I’d totally forgotten that Combs—who has played several billion roles on four different Star Trek series—appeared on B5 four months before his first Trek appearance.
Trivial matters. Ben Zayn specifically questions Sinclair’s decisions in “Midnight on the Firing Line,” “Mind War,” “Deathwalker,” “Survivors,” and “By Any Means Necessary.”
Garibaldi offered to buy Ivanova a drink in “Born to the Purple.” It was established that the Minbari insisted on Sinclair commanding B5 in “Signs and Portents.”
Although she is not seen, Lennier mentions that Shaal Mayan, from “The War Prayer,” is returning to the station. Because she was assaulted on that last trip, Lennier requests a security detail be assigned to her while she’s on station.
The chant Lennier does over the fuel injector (“Zabagabee”) is also the name of the best-of album by Barnes & Barnes, of which actor Bill Mumy is a member (along with Robert Haimer). Among Barnes & Barnes’ many songs is the classic, “Fish Heads.”
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“Do I have the colonel’s permission to speak freely?”
“Getting the truth is my job. I expect to hear it whenever you talk to me.”
“Well, in that case, I think this is the biggest pile of horse hockey I ever saw! Who the hell’s running EarthForce, Abbott and Costello?”
—Garibaldi speaking truth to power while referencing Abbott and Costello and Colonel Sherman Potter.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “I don’t like being irritated—it gives me gas.” Just last week, I was discussing how having a good guest star can make an episode sing, and this episode is a prime example of the reverse of that, as Gregory Martin is embarrassingly terrible as Ben Zayn. His bad acting is contagious, too, as this is also one of Michael O’Hare’s absolute worst performances. The shouting match between Martin and O’Hare at the episode’s climax is just awful, a master-class in ineffective overacting to no good end.
Not that the episode’s script helps matters. First we get a wholly pointless misdirect, as we’re not initially told who our mysterious antagonists are. Besides the fact that we already did this in “And the Sky Full of Stars,” the deception lasts all of half a second before we find out it’s an investigation by the “Eyes.” So why bother?
In the abstract, it’s nice to see that some of Sinclair’s unorthodox solutions to some of the station’s problems are coming home to roost—except they don’t actually roost, they just sit there for a bit and then unconvincingly go away.
So it’s bad enough that we’ve suffered through the terrible acting of Martin and O’Hare and a mediocre script, but then we get to the end, and it somehow all is settled, and I didn’t buy that for a second.
Yes, this particular investigator was compromised, and perhaps should never have been given the assignment in the first place given his biases. But Sinclair’s conversation with Miller makes it clear that this goes a lot deeper than one colonel and one cranky-ass Psi Cop. It therefore makes no sense, none, that Grey’s scan and Sinclair’s belting Ben Zayn would be the end of it. Quite the opposite, as Ben Zayn pulling a weapon and Sinclair’s punch would both require an additional investigation.
The edges of the episode are fun. I love the fact that Ivanova wins a bar fight all by herself. While it’s more than a little cheesy that Garibaldi happens to be restoring a motorcycle from the era in which the show is filmed, that subplot is kind of adorable, mostly due to Bill Mumy’s earnest enthusiasm as Lennier. And Jeffrey Combs is always worth watching.
Still this episode is a disaster. It’s nice that it acknowledges what came before, but it doesn’t really address it in any meaningful manner. It would’ve been much more interesting to have an investigator who had a legitimate gripe against Sinclair, and who had a legitimate case against him. Instead, they went for the cheap conflict and the cheap solution.
Next week: “Legacies.”
It’s not a good episode and it’s mostly Gregory Martin who drags it down. He’s way too over the top, and nothing about the way he plays the character suggests any qualifications for going up against someone who has demonstrated a clear talent for lawyering his way out of trouble. Poor choice on Bester’s part and you have to wonder how he rose as far as he did.
Jeffrey Combs is terrific and probably does a better job of humanizing the Psi Corps than Andrea Thompson has. If this moves the story forward at all, it’s in showing Ivanova that there are facets to the Corps she hasn’t considered.
As you say, the ending isn’t really credible. At best, I suppose it could be argued that the investigation is so compromised that Sinclair and his supporters can turn any further pursuit of it at this time into looking like a political witch hunt. Better to wait for him to pull another stunt and go after him for that. But really it feels like a hard reset found at the end of most episodic television up to the mid-90s.
If he were human, Lennier would pretty clearly be on the autism spectrum.
Also, Ari Ben Zayn isn’t an Arabic name. It’s Hebrew. He even specifically mentions Israel. Still being played by an English dude, though.
The only hit I can find for the surname “ben Zayn” or “Ben Zayn” that isn’t this character is Abu Mohamed Mahrez ben Khalaf ben Zayn, a 10th century Tunisian scholar.
He does refer to fighting in Israel (and on New Jerusalem), which does suggest a Hebrew connection, but of course there are also Arabs in Israel. Maybe it’s intentionally non-specific. For what it’s worth, JMS seems to have thought it was a “Middle Eastern/Arabic name.”
Of course there are quite a lot of English dudes who are also Israeli or near-as-dammit. They even tend to cluster in north London and Hertfordshire. (I went to a catchment school for — well, I’d say “such people” but I’m more than half one myself, people like me — and it’s hard to think of people I knew there who didn’t have Israeli relatives a hop or two away.)
So I found that part totally believable. A shame he was such an obvious hooting VILLAIN whose evil plans could be solved by having two of his underlings, uh, assault him. Because that always works.
Which is why I felt Garibaldi calling him “Ben Hitler” was in very poor taste.
To be fair, Hebrew and Arabic are both Semitic languages.
The script could have been tighter if they really got into the corruption of several of Sinclair’s actions, instead of just Bester trying to get revenge. Have Ben Zayn also being sent there by the Senate because of Sinclair’s actions from any means nesscarry, have Bester send a psi corp agent who isn’t a decent guy, have Zayn try to actually try to corrupt Garibaldi, like telling him that Earthforce is trying to bring more authority and order and make him question Sinclair’s actions. There is so much that the could do here. I do like Grey trying to convince Ivanova that the psicorps isn’t so bad and that she’s having serious nightmares. That’s good foreshadowing. I also love that nightmare.
Keith does too good a job on these reviews and has already said most of what I would have wanted to say about this episode – mainly that it just isn’t as good as it could, or should have been. It should be ramping up the political tension arising from EA’s drift into authoritarianism. But, as with By Any Means Necessary, the EA rep is a clown – and not the scary kind – so the whole thing falls flat.
A few other thoughts:
For a 300 year old bike, those parts sure look clean and shiny. And I guess Kawasaki printed its user manuals on archival paper.The B5 universe has machine translation for at least some alien races. But apparently written Japanese is impossible to decipher. And apparently during the 5 years that Garibaldi has spent collecting parts for his bike, the possibility of hiring somebody to translate the manual for him never occurred to him. Maybe trying to parse the Japanese instructions was part of the fun?Garibaldi covering up Ivanova’s bar fight is one thing, but referring to the victims as “trash” (as in “Clean up this trash”) was,,,, a choice.Honestly, the main take-away that I’m coming up with now is that the Command staff engages in a lot of self-preferential treatment, and gets away with it primarily by virtue of being the main characters. As Keith suggests, if their enemies in EarthGov were actually competent, it shouldn’t have been hard to actually nail them to the wall. Fortunately, they aren’t.Putting Bruton in the tragedy mask was definitely intended as foreshadowing – JMS said so at the time. But even knowing that it is him, I don’t really recognize him in the scene. Does foreshadowing count if you can’t tell it is there?
Sorry for the formatting. There were supposed to be some bullet points in there.
Garibaldi’s line about how he acquired the manual implies that it was very recent, so perhaps he simply had not had time yet to translate it. The better question is why the B5 chief of security was involved in a blackjack game with the type of people who might need to pay in merchandise rather than credits…
Hey, a cop has to find his canaries SOMEWHERE.
And the Sky Full of Stars established that station personnel are allowed to gamble at the casino, up to specified limits. Whether this particular blackjack game took place in the casino is… not specified.
Some useful world-building here. The demonstration that decisions from prior episodes would have lasting consequences should have been powerful. What a wasted opportunity.
The shots with Sinclair in front of his own images from multiple angles were well done, conveying an unsettling sense of scrutiny. But when the cinematography is more effective than the actors in organically establishing a key aspect of the A-plot, your episode has serious problems.
“Who the hell’s running EarthForce, Abbott and Costello?”
I would say it’s more Three Stooges.
IIRC the script was a rush job to get the season to twenty-two episodes (notice it’s the last in production code order), and hoo boy does it show. For a story that’s suppose to be about the consequences of your actions coming to bite you in the hinder, the resolution is way too pat.
I’m not sure what to make of Grey. I get the impression that we’re suppose to regard him as sympathetic. But thanks to the casting of Jeffrey Combs, he comes across as a socially awkward creepy creep. Then again that may have been part of the point.
Of course Gregory Martin’s performance as Ben Zayn is the low point. I would say he surpasses Malcolm Biggs as a panto villain, at least partly due to his Otto Skorzeny scar.
In fact, he’s so camp in his villainry, that he inspired three riffable moments.
[as he announces that he’s taking command of the station and what else he plans to do]
That’s right! I’m the god!!! I’M THE GOD!!!!!”
[as he tells Sinclair that he confined to quarters]
And no supper for you, young man.
“I got this leading people into battle, Sinclair.”
You got it playing with a Slip ‘N Slide.
Can’t disagree, this is not a good episode for all the reasons you list. It’s also not memorable in any way. It is an episode that when I see the title I go Huh?.
I disagree that it’s not memorable in any way: this is one of the few episodes I remember from my attempt at watching B5, but it’s not for the ‘A’ plot. It’s the Garibaldi/Lennier bike ‘B’ plot. The ending of that is probably my clearest recollection of my watching…which really does tell you how hard I bounced off B5! (I made i through s1, told the friend who’d loaned me the DVDs I hadn’t really enjoyed it, she said s2 was much better, I dutifully watched s2…and decided that was enough.)
Well, I didn’t feel that the episode would be that tragically bad. Sure, the story wasn’t brilliant, but it felt similar to drumhead and other TNG episodes that were also weak.
But! I didn’t recognize that it’s Combs (i rarely see him without tons of makeup), but i noticed the scene in the CnC between him and Ivanova – first i thought “wow, that guy is almost as convincing evil guy as Combs….” and then…”Oh wait, is it him actually?” That scene was brilliant assuming that he is a totally evil guy, but turned out that what he said there was genuine and honest – well, i didn’t buy it for a second. I thought it was brilliant acting, but when it turned out that he’s actually a decent guy, i was like “wait, what? so why the deceptive scene in CnC???”, so i’m still confused by that. :D
Other than that the shouting scene was indeed embarrassing, but other than that the bad acting didn’t disturb me that much in this episode.
More than “The Drumhead,” the weak TNG episode “Eyes” reminded me most of was S1’s “Coming of Age,” where the B-plot (or is it the A-plot? both are abysmally boring) is about Cmdr. Remmick interrogating the 1701-D crew and Picard about various decisions made during early S1 episodes.
Hmm, that’s a good point. “Coming of Age” also works as an analogy, and it’s the weaker of the two TNG episodes. Although the one respect in which “Eyes” is closer in story terms to “The Drumhead” is that Quinn and Remmick weren’t actively looking for an excuse to drum up fake charges like Ben Zayn was, but were sincerely investigating a real conspiracy and trying to determine whom they could trust. Of course, Admiral Satie was sincere in her own way too, but she was blinded by paranoia and defaulted to assuming the worst.
Another, more metatextual similarity is that “The Drumhead” and “Eyes” were both written as money-saving bottle episodes, and “The Drumhead” was written to avoid doing another clip show, while “Eyes” was considered as a clip show but couldn’t afford to be.
I’ve rarely seen “The Drumhead” described as weak.
I didn’t think the scene in C&C was meant to be deceptive; it was meant to show the clash between two characters’ opposing worldviews, Ivanova as a military officer who fiercely mistrusted Psi Corps and Gray as a Psi Corps member who deeply respected the military and wanted Ivanova to think well of him. It may have been ambiguous whether Ivanova and we should trust Gray or not, but ambiguity is different from deception.
You are right, deceptive was not the best use of word.
Regarding Drumhead, what about here: https://reactormag.com/star-trek-the-next-generation-the-drumhead/ ? it wasn’t a favourite of mine either :)
Yes, I remember Keith had a low opinion of it, but I was surprised by that, since I’ve usually seen it praised as one of TNG’s best, and I agree with that assessment.
I have to say that I like how differently people see the same story/episode. :) The reviews are great, but I like the comment section more and more here. :)
The love people have for “The Drumhead” remains utterly incomprehensible to me, as I explained in my rewatch, which I stand by.
Though it’s better than this episode, mostly because Jean Simmons >>> Gregory Martin.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I wasn’t aware of Tor or the TNG rewatch at the time. But I liked “Drumhead” a fair bit when I first watched it on DVD.
Though part of that praise for me happened because I watched the episode around 2003 or so – in the midst of post-9/11 hysteria and anti-muslim sentiment. So the notion of Tarses being secretly part-Romulan due to heritage alongside the outrageous witch-hunt promoted by Adm. Satie and company throughout the episode always resonated with me. But in retrospect, an episode like “The Wounded” that same year touched on a lot of the same themes and worked far better.
Well written, you said most of what I would.
One good part of this episode: We see once again that Garabaldi doesn’t watch his back. He goes into the quarters of Zayn and Grey alone, despite having a whole staff. He doesn’t know Zayn is out, then when Zayn does come back, has his back to him. He’s lucky that these people weren’t physically dangerous, because if somebody wanted to shoot him in the back, they could. That will probably be important later.
What really struck me is that when Garabaldi finds a tipsy/possibly drunk Ivanova in the bar, his solution is to give her an *oxy* so she can pull it together. Pop a pill to counter your drinking is definitely some alcoholic logic. Speaking of, Zayn’s low-key taunting of Garabaldi on that topic is one of the few things that actually works rather than being cartoonishly goofy. (“Fix you a drink?”/”I don’t drink.”/”Really? Good. It’s a vile habit when abused.” is twisting the knife and they both damn well know it).
Co-signing the bad acting; I also wasn’t really that crazy about Claudia Christian in this episode, about half the time she came off a bit flatter than I think was intended. Makes me wonder if this episode was rushed or the director just did a poor job getting good performances out of the actors.
I also had to laugh when Zayn relieves Sinclair of command, orders him not to have contact with the rest of the command staff including Garabaldi, then leaves… with Sinclair and Garabaldi still in the room who of course immediately start talking to each other. What? Reminds me of the pilot where Sinclair is in theory no longer part of the investigation, then continues to lead the investigation.
It’s bizarre that Talia didn’t make an appearance. Surely they’d want to scan her to see if she knows anything or at least talk to her. I guess she was off station with Delenn.
Oh, it’s better than that — Ben Zayn specifically asked Garibaldi to escort Sinclair to his quarters after telling Sinclair not to talk to the command staff. Uh huh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
It is quite convenient that Ben Zayn has no back up, isn’t it?
He thought Gray was his backup. Turned out, not so much.
Hmm, I actually kind of liked this one despite Ben Zayn’s over-the-top mustache-twirling, because I felt the Ivanova/Gray and Garibaldi/Lennier parts were very effective. I may have teared up a little at Ivanova talking about feeling her mother’s love for her directly. But yeah, the show’s guest-casting problems persist, and the climax was way too melodramatic and pat.
It was a little disorienting seeing Jeffrey Combs playing a character who turned out to be a pretty nice guy. Even at the time, it was against type for him. But that kind of worked, because we were supposed to see him as antagonistic until he turned out not to be.
The motorcycle being from the 1990s and implausibly new-looking was contrived, but apparently necessary; JMS says that they didn’t pay Kawasaki for a product placement, but went looking around for anyone who could lend them a bike they could disassemble, and Kawasaki happened to advertise on PTEN shows so there was a relationship there.
I’m not convinced that Lennier actually learned Japanese, given that the way he pronounced Doumo arigatou sounded like he learned it from “Mr. Roboto” rather than any actual Japanese lessons. Japanese doesn’t really have stressed syllables, but insofar as there is an emphasis, it would be on the ri rather than the ga. Also, it’s only semi-formal; I think with Lennier’s usual level of courtesy and deference, he would’ve used the more formal Arigatou gozaimasu, or the extremely formal Doumo arigatou gozaimasu. Lennier may have had the manual machine-translated and picked up a few words along the way.
Maybe he just likes Styx.
Gee, I wonder where he picked up Styx.
GUARDS! SEIZE HIM!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“The Tower or the block, m’lud?”
According to Stracynski (on the Lurker’s Guide to B5), this was always designed to be a cliff notes episode. That is why we have a plot where Ben Zayn brings up all kinds of events we’ve already seen before, as he tries to take Sinclair down. Not that this plot is any good. In fact, it’s lazy. But at least we didn’t get a clip show instead. Imagine if B5 had gone the direction of TNG’s “Shades of Gray”. Clearly a bottle episode.
Needless to say, Zayn is a tiresome walking, talking cliché. One wonders how he was able to convince Earthforce higher-ups to lead the investigation into Sinclair. Bester’s influence must be quite extensive, because it’s the only thing keeping the story’s logic from collapsing under its weight. I like to think no self-respecting officer would take a loud, snarling, has-been like him seriously.
But take Zayn out and refocus the plot, and we almost get an excellent episode. Harriman is the best ‘normal’ Psi Corps character the show has (until we get to Crusade‘s Daniel Dae Kim character). He seems genuine and respectful, and yet there’s this unsettling vibe where it seems he might be reading everything you’re thinking and you have no idea. Almost as if he’s backstabbing you without you realizing it. Jeffrey Combs is that good in making him seem like a truly good guy with something truly dark hiding beneath that innocent face. And for what it’s worth, DiTillio tries to make him sympathetic. It makes for some riveting Ivanova material, which is always welcome.
The bike subplot is adorable. Bill Mumy always makes the best out of these, with Lennier trying things that are way out of his depth and succedding brilliantly. And Doyle’s facial reactions do the rest.
Ben Zayn twice claims that Sinclair has no leadership ability. But his theory is that Sinclair has suborned the entire B5 Command staff, to get them to betray Earth (somehow). My dude, that implies some leadership skills.
This is not Larry DiTillio’s finest character work.
That said, I agree with you on Harriman Grey. I hadn’t really though about that line between sympathetic and creepy, but you are quite right that it does a great job of infusing some depth into the Psi Corps.
Politicians of both parties will alternately present their opponents as being either devious blackguards who would go to any lengths to subvert all that is good or bumbling incompetents who couldn’t find their hinders with both hands and a native guide (depending on which works better with the narrative they’re trying to push), often without recognizing the inconsistency.
Is this the first time we’ve seen a subplot focusing on one of the ambassadors’ aides without the ambassador being in the episode?
I think so. The next one would also be Lennier’s, I believe. His poker game with Londo on “The Quality of Mercy”.
EDIT: there is also Na’Toth’s solo appearance on “Legacies”, which I believe lacks G’Kar’s presence. But in that one, she’s really servicing the Alisa Beldon B plot.
I wonder if reworking the script and making Grey be the real “Eyes” would have worked better, with him quietly getting information about the officers while Zayn is blustering about.
That would have been much better, and Lord knows Combs can play a schemer.
Sure, Gregory Martin plays Zayn like a cartoon villain, but I don’t entirely blame him, because Zayn is written like a cartoon villain, and Martin is made up to look like a cartoon villain. Plus, when an actor goes so over the top it’s down to the director to tell them to dial it back. That being said, his performance does drag down what was already a poorly written plot. The subplot with Ivanova and Grey was more interesting (though I’m not crazy about the trope of characters violently taking their frustrations out on randomly annoying people), and the bike building bit was fun. Lennier isn’t a character I’ve payed much attention to so far, so it’s nice to get to know him a little bit.
His surname is Ben Zayn, not Zayn.
And considering that Jim Johnston also directed “Soul Hunter,” “Survivors,” and “By Any Means Necessary,” it doesn’t seem like getting subtle performances out of guest antagonists was one of his strengths.
“(though I’m not crazy about the trope of characters violently taking their frustrations out on randomly annoying people)”
I’m not either, but it kind of seemed like self-defense given how those drunks were hitting on her. I doubt she was the sole instigator of the fight.
Speaking of annoying tropes, I’ve never been fond of the tendency of fiction to show internal affairs investigators as witch hunters resented by the members of their organizations. Any honest member of an organization should welcome a system that keeps it honest, that safeguards against corruption and abuses. Someone has to watch the watchers. Powerful groups like the police and military are the ones that most need to be held to the strictest ethical standards. So painting IA as the bad guys is a trope that really bothers me.
I’m sure it was supposed to be interpreted as self defense. The guy put his hands on her. But that’s generally how the trope works. Otherwise it looks like assault. I just don’t care for the implication that getting into a fight is a positive form of self care. Between all the issues its command staff are carrying around, this station could really use a therapist.
I really don’t think it was meant to be positive. It was meant to show how traumatized Susan was by what PsiCorps did to her mother. I mean, she literally woke up screaming from a nightmare about it. She wasn’t coping well with any of it, and that was the point.
I think the tone of the scene showing the aftermath of the fight was pretty clearly attempting to communicate that it made her feel better, and that the audience was supposed to be amused by that.
Wow, I didn’t get that sense at all. I just watched it again, and it played as a pretty serious scene — Garibaldi was approaching her warily as if she were dangerous, trying to talk her down and convince her to listen to reason and come along quietly. He offered to recite “a few choice passages from my favorite reading,” which sounds like a recovering addict offering the benefit of his experience to counsel her through a rough patch of her own, though I’m not sure if that’s what he meant. She did laugh a little, but it was more like a cathartic release as she calmed down and a gesture of appeasement to Garibaldi than a “Hey, audience, this is funny” kind of thing. The music was also fairly tense and serious throughout.
Okay, I just rewatched the scene and I agree it is played as more serious than I first gave it credit for. I guess it was the utter lack of consequences and the fact that Ivanova was all smiles a few minutes later at the end of the episode that made me remember it as more lighthearted than it was probably intended to be (that and Garibaldi’s wisecrack, but that’s his primary form of dialogue).
Not funny, no. But it does seem to me that the incident is portrayed as inconsequential – a bit of light recreational violence to blow off some steam. Now that you’re done beating on the civilians, can we get back to the important matters at hand?
Watch the scene again, the wary look in Garibaldi’s eyes as he approaches her. Even though she’s his friend, he’s looking at her like a security chief sizing up a potential threat, and he talks her down. There’s nothing “light” or “recreational” about it. He’s doing his job by de-escalating a dangerous situation. And when she does calm down, she expects to be court-martialed for her actions. The main reason Garibaldi doesn’t follow up is because the situation with Sinclair is urgent.
It’s true that the episode fails to give this any followup or establish any consequences for her actions, but that scene is definitely not playing it as humorous or recreational. It’s of a piece with the rest of the episode showing how deeply troubled and frightened she is by the prospect of being scanned.
I might accept that if Garibaldi showed a moment’s concern for anyone in that room other than Ivanova. But he doesn’t. He’s there to help her out, which is fine as far as it goes. But that’s not how to treats other similar threats.
But that’s the point. He’s concerned for Ivanova. He’s not congratulating her or amused by her actions. He recognizes that she’s as screwed up and broken as he was in the past and needs a friend to talk her down before she does something even more self-destructive.
This sub-thread started with a reference to the trope of characters taking their frustrations out in violence against arbitrary bystanders. Sure, there’s a reason, but the point I thought we were discussing is that script implicitly says this is an understandable and essentially normal way for characters to deal with their emotions, as long as it isn’t too inconvenient. This is not the only such moment in the show.
And that’s exactly what I’ve been refuting. The scene is absolutely NOT saying it’s “understandable and essentially normal.” This is not Kirk beating the tar out of Finnegan to a jaunty Irish jig. It’s a tense scene with tense emotions and tense music, the culmination of Ivanova’s building distress and terror through the episode at the prospect of being mind-scanned. It’s not a healthy release, it’s a symptom of the problem. It’s an act that Ivanova assumes has ended her career, and the only reason it doesn’t is that Garibaldi covers for her. That doesn’t mean what she did was right, it means that Garibaldi sets it aside because of the more urgent issue with Sinclar, and it probably means that Garibaldi is willing to be a little corrupt to protect the people he cares about. Which I think is foreshadowing for his future arc, though I don’t remember well enough to say for sure.
Ok, then I just don’t agree with your implication that Garibaldi (the head cop) covering for her and dismissing the damage caused as inconsequential does not normalize her act.
Just because a character does something does not mean we’re expected to endorse it. Good stories aren’t just polemics where characters are puppets for the author’s moral messaging, but are explorations of flawed and complex characters making choices driven by their own personalities and values, which are not always meant to be admirable. All I take from that scene is that Michael Garibaldi is a guy who’s done some less than exemplary things in his past and is thus not inclined to condemn Susan Ivanova for going through a rough patch of her own. His reaction is his reaction, not an instruction to the audience of what we’re supposed to believe is right.
With respect, stories give lots of cues about which actions the audience is supposed to endorse and to what degrees, including how other characters react to those actions (or don’t). In any case tropes are about the ideas communicated by patterns of stories rather than single instances. B5 has some nuance in its treatment of power and that is one of the reasons why I like it. But this episode could have explored Susan’s trauma without reinforcing the idea that people in positions of authority can flagrantly abuse that authority because they are having a bad day. In fact, it had already done so.
Yes, the scene has some tension and drama. But it is drama that comes without any consideration of the impact on anybody other than Susan. It is unnecessary and a bit lazy. We already knew what the stakes were for Susan. If she needed to be talked down from some self-destructive act, there were other options that wouldn’t have needed to use bystanders as props. She could have tried to kill or incapacitate Harriman. She could have tried to flee the station or claim asylum from one of the ambassadors (except those options would have been ruled out by budget constraints).
You read more criticism or self-awareness into the scene than I do. That’s fine. My objection is that it chooses to depict an abuse of power as a spontaneous crisis reaction, in an episode that is supposed to be about the consequences of questionable decisions, but doesn’t seem to even realize it has done so, let alone investigate that thought at all. Maybe Di Tillio was entirely aware of this and wanted to provoke exactly this line of thought. But, if so, I don’t see that commentary coming through on screen.
“With respect, stories give lots of cues about which actions the audience is supposed to endorse and to what degrees”
Yes, which is why I mentioned the music in the scene, which conveyed tension rather than humor or a pleasant release. And there’s also the entire preceding story showing that Ivanova was deeply distressed and terrified, including the part where she woke up screaming from a nightmare. In that context, it’s clear to me that the bar fight is being depicted as a consequence and symptom of her distress, not a healthy release of it.
“But this episode could have explored Susan’s trauma without reinforcing the idea that people in positions of authority can flagrantly abuse that authority because they are having a bad day.”
And I don’t think that’s a fair characterization. Consider that there was essentially no other action in the episode; it was all people talking, aside from the climax with Ben Zayn drawing his gun and getting punched. B5 was expected to be an action-adventure show, like most science fiction TV series over the decades, so there would’ve been pressure to work in some kind of action into every episode. They also needed a reason to keep their stuntpeople gainfully employed. Was the fight scene gratuitous? Yes, somewhat. But no more so than half the fistfights in the original Star Trek. They needed an action scene, and they needed an external way to illustrate Ivanova’s internal turmoil, and this was how they solved both issues.
And again, just because Garibaldi lets Ivanova get away with it without consequences doesn’t mean we’re supposed to think her actions were okay. It means he recognizes that she did something bad because of her deep distress and thus didn’t blame her for it. This was far more than just “having a bad day.” It’s a childhood trauma so severe that it causes the most calm, reserved, self-controlled officer on the station to wake up screaming from a nightmare.
Just a reminder to keep things civil, especially when someone is trying to agree to disagree. There’s no need to be rude; let’s move on.
I think you are making my point, and you think I am making yours. So perhaps we have exhausted this particular topic.
Lennier and Vir don’t really get that much this season, but both of them are hidden gems of comedy gold and great acting, if you pay attention to them
IIRC, Lennier was the role that cemented Bill Mumy’s reputation among genre fans as more than just the kid from Lost in Space.
Or Anthony Fremont and his corn field ;-)
“despite being given an Arabic name, is played by a white guy from Hertfordshire”
As others have noted, it’s a Hebrew name.
Being in the DC area I know several people with Arabic names who are not Arabic, and with local accents too. It’s apparently expected, at least in some sects of Islam, for a person to change to an Arabic name when they convert. Many African Americans with Arabic names because of this, and some extremely white people as well.
Sinclair’s punch of Ben Zayn is amazingly bad. Looks like he missed by about a foot…
I think Keith’s complaint was that if the character had been written as Arabic (although he wasn’t), then casting a white actor in the role would’ve shut an Arabic actor out of a job opportunity. It’s not about whether something is explainable in real life, it’s about whether or not the casting process is inclusive.
(Although it seems that a lot of the time, Western productions cast South Asian actors to play Arabs because they assume audiences won’t know the difference, e.g. Naveen Andrews in LOST.)
Hi, Naveen Andrews was playing an Iranian in Lost so not an Arab. I know that you would want to get that right even if Lost didn’t give a damn.
Oh, right, sorry.
DiTillio’s script book intro has some useful context for this episode:
JMS was extremely ill (unable to write) so producers Netter and Copeland asked DiTillio for a script FAST. They had no money left, so no action and only two guest stars. (DiTillio says he couldn’t even use clips from some past episodes b/c they had no money to pay residuals to writers.)
On Gregory Martin’s performance, DiTillio quotes director Jim Johnston as saying “He’s playing every line like he’s doing Macbeth,” and says there were major delays in shooting as Jim tried and failed to reign him in. Martin was going through a messy divorce.
”Odd fact — We actually auditioned an actor for this part who gave an absolutely terrific reading. I don’t recall his name but he was a little person and though the reading was awesome, we had to factor in that in the final scene Sinclair wouldn’t look very heroic punching out a guy who was 4 feet tall. For a while we considered casting him as Harriman Gray but Jeffrey Combs was just too good not to use.” I wish DiTillio had written out the punch instead.
I can’t find anything to corroborate this memory, so maybe it’s time playing tricks on me, but at the time, fandom felt that the rushed script was due to not only JMS being ill, but the fact that this production spot had been reserved for a possible Harlan Ellison script that of course Harlan never had time to write.
For most of season one, there was a general belief that Ellison was going to write one or two episodes, but it never came to pass.
I’d read something about the constraints of this episode so I was expecting much worse than what we got. It is the motorcycle episode. The B plot was somehow decent if under polished. Lennier is so very religious caste about the motorcycle but immediately understands how he screwed up.
Coombs did his usual good work. The mix of a nice (?) guy in a sleazy job was well done.
I figure the only way the A plot makes sense is if Bester was playing a deep game to destroy ben Zayn and neuter or delay the push against Sinclair. It’s something he could do but I have no idea what his motive would be.
There’s broke, and there’s “so broke we can’t even afford a clip show” broke. Yikes. I’m not sure the four foot guy would have worked regardless– TV is a visual medium and it’s too hard to make a little person look intimidating for a guest shot. I might have put Combs as Zayn and the little guy as Gray though. It would be an additional reason he couldn’t serve in the military; in real life, the military has height minimums and maximums because it’s impractical to make everything accessible to little people/make stuff big enough to fit a few outliers. I imagine Earthforce does something similar.
I’ve seen Little Person actors who could be pretty intimidating, like Peter Dinklage and the fellow who played Dan Fielding’s boss in the original Night Court. I don’t see why height has anything to do with it, since Ben Zayn’s intimidation wasn’t about physical strength but a conflict of personality, as well as his military authority.
And I don’t buy that about the military, not when it comes to a space military in the future. For one thing, Little People would be good astronaut candidates because smaller people would require less fuel to accelerate and a smaller quantity of life support materials to sustain. In space, being big is arguably a greater disadvantage than being small. For another, presumably future technology would be more advanced and thus more easily adjusted to be accessible. Practicality has always been a lousy excuse for excluding people — if your equipment can’t adapt to them, that’s a failure of the equipment and it should be redesigned. And the more advanced technology gets, the less plausible the excuse becomes.
That’s quite the interesting info. It fits with what I previously assumed and from what I’ve read over on Lurker’s. Essentially a money-saving bottle show, but with the grace of not actually being a clip show.
And yeah, they should have rewritten the punch scene.
“I wish DiTillio had written out the punch instead.”
Good point. They rejected the actor because he didn’t fit the ableist norms, rather than adjusting the norms to accommodate the actor. Textbook systemic discrimination, the failure to question the norms that create obstacles to inclusion.
As an additional thought, the only way to have made Ben Zayn even more cliché in his hostility towards Sinclair would be a revelation that he had once lusted after Catherine Sakai, only for Sinclair to snatch her away.
Keith, autocorrect seems to have altered Bruton to Burton in the “Looking Ahead” section.
-Proofreading Grenadier
Updated, thanks!
For 25+ years, I’ve assumed that “Internal Investigator” (as Ben Zayn refers to himself) = “II” = “I’s” = “Eyes”, but apparently according to the Babylon 5 Wiki, ‘Due to its acronym (EIA), it is commonly dubbed “Eyes” by Earthforce personnel’. I like my derivation better.
And regarding Ben Zayn’s makeup, I seem to remember reading (years ago) that the actor really does have a scar, and it was enhanced for the show, but I can’t find that reference any more.
It’s been interesting—I’ve always known Season 1was weaker than the following ones, but during this re-watch there have been several episodes that I remembered as being better. This was definitely one of them.
I have been staggering through this rewatch. I keep desperately hoping to see a reason to keep watching. I’ll admit I’m already further in than I ever gave originally – gah, This really is just not a very good show by my tastes. IMO & all that and yeah, I’m also a weirdo that didn’t care for “Outlaw Josey Wales In SPAAAACE” aka Firefly either so I do understand that my taste is suspect.
There are so many little tid bits that I’ve watched from later seasons that I kept wondering if I really just gave up too soon. But I really am coming to the conclusion that they may have an occasional flash of delicious dialog but good episodes are insanely rare and the vaunted plot arc plods like a dinosaur.
This episode was just silly and pointless. Literally the only thing that made any sense to me was Lennier getting into the Ninja because that’s the kind of thing my son would do. The rest, at it’s best, was meh.
Seriously, does the next season actually get better? Or should I cut my losses yet again and go rewatch Prodigy & DS9?
I would recommend persevering. The show really does get better in season 2. I can’t speak to whether it will improve enough to get you to like it. I can say that, 30 years ago, season 2 got me to stick with the show when I was ready to give up on it. (And I only stuck with it through season 1 out of stubbornness and the fact that many of my friends were watching it. And kept insisting it was brilliant, which mostly made me think they were insane…..)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I would say don’t expect too much of season 2 although it is more interesting on the whole than season 1 and has a few outstanding episodes. You do need all the set up to enjoy the truly wonderful parts in S3 and S4. It really is worth it. Keep watching!
I’m sure I’ll keep trying. But so much of the show seems to be one liners.
Take “The War Prayer”, the only thing memorable is Londo saying ‘My shoes are too tight. But it doesn’t matter, because I have forgotten how to dance.’
The occasional witticism is nice but it’s not the only thing that matters.
At least this one wasn’t as horrible as the boxing episode but is that much of a goal?
It does get better with season 2, but it doesn’t become an entirely different show, so it depends what’s making it hard to watch.
The actors all get better in the second season. The threads running through the series become more overt as well and you start to get a sense of where the show is going. But the way it’s written and directed doesn’t change dramatically.
(I’m not a huge fan of Firefly either, so I know where you’re coming from.)
I would say that the second season definitely kicks things more into gear, especially starting with “The Coming of Shadows”.
At least give the new B5 commander a try in season 2.
This one was just a hideous mess, with military people acting like no military people ever acted in the history of military people.