“Objects at Rest”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by John Copeland
Season 5, Episode 21
Production episode 522
Original air date: November 18, 1998
It was the dawn of the third age… Sheridan is restless, unable to sleep as he prepares to leave with Delenn for the new IA capital in Tuzenor on Minbar. He finds Lochley in CnC, equally restless, and they have a nice moment where she admits the station is growing on her and he thanks her for taking over.
He also asks that, when he and Delenn leave, there’s no fanfare. They just want to exit quietly and discreetly.
Vir sees Ta’Lon ringing G’Kar’s doorbell, and the Centauri explains that G’Kar left several days earlier, with no plans to return. Ta’Lon is confused, as G’Kar summoned him. He breaks into G’Kar’s cabin, but as soon as he enters, a message for him from G’Kar starts playing. G’Kar wishes Ta’Lon to replace him as Narn’s ambassador to B5. Narn needs someone with equal doses of strength and spirit, and G’Kar’s reputation has made him far too much spirit and left him with little strength. While he’s sure that Ta’Lon doesn’t think he’s ready for the job (and Ta’Lon says as much), G’Kar assures him that G’Kar himself felt that way when he got the gig. He’s confident that Ta’Lon will grow into it as G’Kar did.
Franklin meets with Hobbs in the Zocalo to offer her the job as his replacement. When she points out that there are other more experienced doctors (who are such hot shit that they’ve never once been mentioned or seen in five years), Franklin counters that they’re all specialists, and he needs a generalist. (Why he doesn’t mention that Hobbs has already had the job while Franklin was on walkabout in season three is left as an exercise for the viewer.) She accepts.
As Delenn is packing, Lennier arrives. He was able to take a working vacation from Ranger training to help Ranger One relocate. At one point, he looks longingly and disapprovingly at a picture of Sheridan and Delenn together.
Halloran gives a report that things are generally quiet—just a minor disagreement between the Drazi and Brakiri—so Sheridan and Delenn should be able to transition to Minbar without any problems. Sheridan then explains to Lochley that Halloran will remained stationed on B5 as that’s a better location from which to do her job as the head of covert intelligence.
On Mars, Garibaldi meets with a bunch of Edgars Industries employees. They’re all troublemakers and malcontents and firebrands. They assume they’re being fired, so they’re rather gobsmacked when Garibaldi informs them that they’re the new board of directors. He expects them to be brutally honest with him.
On B5, Franklin boards his shuttle for Earth. ISN has picked up that there’s a White Star coming to B5, and speculation is that Sheridan and Delenn will be moving to Minbar. Lennier informs Sheridan and Delenn that their stuff is on the White Star and they can leave any time. While Delenn gives their quarters a final once-over, Sheridan thanks Lennier for coming and offers to have him over to visit any time. Lennier accepts the invitation in a way that makes it clear that he will never ever take him up on it.
They head to the docking bay only to find a huge crowd waiting for them. Everyone saw the ISN report. Delenn gives a speech about how there is no Minbari word for “goodbye,” as the Minbar mindset allows for the possibility of meeting again, some day, some way. She won’t say goodbye now, either, but instead, “Until we meet again.”
Allan sees them off at the docking bay. Sheridan is grateful that not all of the veteran staff is leaving.
On the White Star, there’s no captain on the bridge. Lennier explains that the captain remained on B5 so Sheridan and Delenn can command the flight. Sheridan orders that they match rotation with the station, putting their nose facing the CnC window. They see Lochley, Halloran, Vir, Allan, Ta’Lon, Hobbs, and Corwin in CnC. Lochley salutes Sheridan, who returns it.
Then they head to Minbar.
En route, Sheridan is restless, so Delenn suggests he go for a walk. As he’s walking, he hears a commotion—there’s a coolant leak. A Ranger is trying to get it under control, and Sheridan rushes to help him. Unfortunately, the area is sealed off to protect the rest of the ship, trapping Sheridan and the Ranger. Lennier comes by and Sheridan urges him to override the controls to let them out.
Instead, Lennier turns and leaves them to die. After a bit, Lennier experiences tremendous remorse and runs back, only to find that Sheridan has used the Ranger’s pike to get the door open. While Sheridan and the Ranger are treated, Lennier buggers off in a fighter, disappearing into hyperspace, promising Delenn that some day he will earn her respect back. Sheridan is pissed, even more so when the report comes in from Minbar that authorities there have read Lennier’s diary as part of what is now a criminal investigation into his behavior. Apparently, his love for Delenn was even deeper than they all realized, and he did not approve of her marriage to Sheridan at all. Sheridan agrees not to speak of it, or the coolant leak. They will say nothing of Lennier and if anyone asks about his cough, he’ll say he caught a cold.
Upon arrival on Minbar, they have a guest: Mollari, who has come on an official state visit. He joins them for dinner, explaining that his harsh words on Centauri Prime were in order to fire up his people for the long rebuilding process. He still considers them his friends in private, even if he must excoriate them in public. He also has a gift for their unborn child: an urn, which he says is traditionally given to the heir to the throne when he comes of age, but Mollari has no children, nor any plans to sire any, and he says they’ll likely abolish the office after his death. It should be given to their child at age 16.
After Mollari departs, the Drakh inform him, through his Keeper, that he has done well, and they will reward him with an hour’s respite from them. The urn, we soon see, has another Keeper in it, one which is obviously intended for Sheridan and Delenn’s child.
That night, Sheridan records a message for his child to hear in the future. He only has two decades of life left, so he wants to give as much to his offspring as he can. Delenn comes in at the end and provides the quote from his father before Sheridan gets the chance to say it: “Never start a fight, but always finish it.” Then they go to bed together.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan records the first of what one assumes are many many recordings for his kid, since he knows that the most time he’ll have with the child will be two decades.
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi’s method of choosing a board of directors is unorthodox to say the least, especially since boards of directors are usually people with a financial stake in the company…
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn moves back home to Minbar permanently, makes a lovely speech to the B5 crew, finds out Lennier is an even bigger shithead than she realized, and senses something wrong with Mollari, but can’t put her finger on what.
Never work with your ex. Lochley says that she’s come to like serving on B5.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari is very much under the thumb of the Drakh, as his trip to Minbar is primarily so that he can set up Sheridan and Delenn’s kid to have a Keeper, and thus put him under Drakh control.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. Ta’Lon is one of the few Narns G’Kar has complete respect for, so it’s not surprising he was tapped to replace G’Kar.
We live for the one, we die for the one. While the focus is on Sheridan being trapped in the chamber with the coolant leak, nobody even mentions the Ranger who found the leak and who almost died. Poor bastard…
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Lennier is so in love with Delenn that he’ll commit manslaughter on two people, one of whom is a fellow Ranger. Sure.
Looking ahead. Allan muses that he’ll probably still be on B5 when they turn off the lights. The finale, “Sleeping in Light” (which had already been produced a year prior to this), will establish that Allan will, in fact, be on B5 when they turn out the lights.
Welcome aboard. It’s a recurring character roundup! Back for their final appearances on the show are Marshall Teague as Ta’Lon (back from “The Ragged Edge”), Jennifer Balgobin as Hobbs (back from “Walkabout”), Simon Billig as a never-named Ranger (back from “The Fall of Centauri Prime”), Joshua Cox as Corwin (back from “Movements of Fire and Shadow”), Marjorie Monaghan as Halloran (back from “Objects in Motion”), and Maggie Egan as Jane the ISN anchor (back from “Rising Star”). Teague will next appear in Crusade’s “The Long Road” as Captain Daniels, Cox will return as Corwin in a couple of the movies, and Egan will return as Jane in three episodes of Crusade.
In addition, the crowd scene in the Zocalo that saw Sheridan and Delenn off was populated by members of the crew and actors who appeared out of makeup (such as Peter Jurasik).
Trivial matters. This was the last episode of the Babylon 5 TV series to be filmed. “Sleeping in Light” was originally produced to end the fourth season when the fifth season was in jeopardy, then punted forward when the show was picked up by TNT.
This is the final appearance on the show of Mollari, G’Kar, Lennier, Lochley, Corwin, Ta’Lon, Halloran, and Hobbs. Lochley and Corwin will next be seen in River of Souls, G’Kar will next be seen in Legend of the Rangers, and the others will all appear in The Road Home, though in the case of Halloran, Ta’Lon, and Hobbs, it’s a very brief cameo re-creating their final appearance in this episode.
Both River of Souls and The Road Home pick up shortly after this episode.
We saw G’Kar start the recording he made for Ta’Lon in “Objects in Motion.” The ghost of Morden predicted that Lennier would betray everyone in “Day of the Dead.” Mollari made a fire-and-brimstone speech excoriating the IA in “The Fall of Centauri Prime.”
Several short stories were published in both Amazing Stories and The Official Babylon 5 Magazine in 1999 and 2000, most of which took place in the two-decade gap between this episode and “Sleeping in Light.” Four of them were written by J. Michael Straczynski: “Shadow of His Thoughts,” which focuses on Mollari shortly after his coronation; “Genius Loci,” which looks in on G’Kar and Alexander on their journey after leaving B5; “Space, Time, and the Incurable Romantic,” which takes place three centuries in the future, and bizarrely follows up on the Ivanova-Cole romance; and “Hidden Agendas,” which takes place in the middle of the fifth season and has Captain Ivanova returning to B5 for the first time as a ship captain. The other two are “True Seeker” by Fiona Avery, which involves the Narn as well as Alisa Beldon from “Legacies”; and “The Nautilus Coil” by J. Gregory Keyes, which focuses on Garibaldi and Alexander and ties into Keyes’ Psi Corps trilogy.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“There are moments when we all become someone else, something other than what we are. It only takes a moment, but we spend the rest of our lives looking back at that moment in shame.”
—Delenn discussing Lennier
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Home is not a place, it’s wherever your passion takes you.” The endless denouement continues!
Seriously, it’s epilogue after epilogue after epilogue, and it’s really getting wearing. This episode at least has some excitement with the coolant leak, but it’s ruined by the continued character assassination of Lennier. Turning him into a toxic man-baby was certainly a choice, and it was annoying enough watching it happen to a character who has been previously defined by quiet dignity. Having it take a turn to attempted murder just makes it worse.
It’s nice that they got Marshall Teague and Jennifer Balgobin back to reprise Ta’Lon and Hobbs. Ta’Lon has been a fabulous character since we first met him way back in “All Alone in the Night,” and Hobbs proved herself to be way more competent than the guy she replaced (a low bar to clear, admittedly; for starters, Hobbs isn’t an addict…). I’m still not clear why Hobbs was so confused about being tapped to replace Franklin when she’d already done it before, but whatever.
Sheridan and Delenn’s departure for Minbar is nicely done, from the big goodbye to one final Delenn speech to the salute to seeing the new guard, as it were, standing in CnC. It’s especially interesting to see that none of the people we see in CnC at the end was on the station in “The Gathering”—indeed, only Vir and Corwin were there in the first season, but Vir didn’t arrive until “Midnight on the Firing Line,” and we didn’t see Corwin until “Signs and Portents.” While some of the personnel changes were dictated by external circumstances (the departures of both Claudia Christian and Michael O’Hare), the show still does a good job of showing that things are never constant. In a medium (a weekly TV show) that rewards maintaining the status quo, it’s good to see that the regular changes that would be part of a milieu like this space station are being shown.
There are some head-scratchers here. Halloran says that everything’s quiet, which is a neat trick given that they just fought a big-ass war against the Centauri. There should be a ton of relief efforts and repairs and such going on, not to mention collection the reparations from the Centauri, which has to be fraught. (That it’s not brought up at all during Mollari’s visit is also annoying.) Lochley says that Delenn came back last night, which doesn’t seem to have left enough time for Sheridan and Delenn to do the ten-mile walk across the station and back that they went off on at the end of last episode.
Overall, it’s hard to get too worked up about this episode because it’s yet another epilogue, and it’s just gotten so damn tiresome.
Next week: “Sleeping in Light.”
The only thing I really remember from this episode is Lennier, and even that I had slightly wrong. In my head, his betrayal was more of a parallel to his rescue of Londo back in “Convictions,” but with Lennier saving himself rather than selflessly helping Sheridan. That would have been more interesting and somewhat less of a character assassination.
Really, there had to be a way to have Lennier go off on his own because he can’t handle the situation without completely wrecking everything he’d been before. Bill Mumy had every reason to be unhappy with what was done to his character. Also, his expression when he decides to go back and save Sheridan looks less like remorse and more like “Damn, I forgot to unplug the iron.”
Agreed, Lennier leaving Sheridan to die, even briefly, seems way out of character. It’s a big leap from jealousy to homicidal jealousy, and you’d think someone who’s spent his whole lifetime learning self-discipline would be able to contain his feelings better.
I was also distracted by the inconsistent size of Lennier’s hologram when he talked to Delenn. From the camera angles facing him and from the side, his holographic head and shoulders seemed full-size compared to Delenn, but from behind him, his image was smaller than Delenn, the opposite of how it should’ve been. But as much as I hate the trope of midair holograms (what are they supposed to be reflecting off of?), I like it that at least this hologram was opaque, since I’ve never understood the sci-fi conceit of everyone using translucent images. Heck, modern LCD screens are already transparent, and they need to have opaque backings put on because nobody wants see-through images.
One detail not remarked on in Keith’s review: Londo pressing Sheridan about whether he had alcohol was no doubt because he was hoping to get drunk enough to put his Keeper to sleep so that he could tip off Sheridan and Delenn. Too bad for him, and for the galaxy, that Minbar is a dry planet.
Incidentally, why the heck would Ta’lon expect Vir to know if G’Kar had left him a message? Vir wasn’t his secretary.
My favorite parts are the final salute to Babylon 5 and Sheridan’s video to his child at the end. I don’t mind rewatching it just for those moments. The salute in particular always gets to me. I think the theme, borrowed as it might be from “Sleeping in Light”, hits very well.
But damn, I wish something more substantial had been done with Lennier’s “betrayal”. The way it was foretold, it sounded like something that would be a lot more extensive in terms of betraying the Rangers. But having Lennier leave could have been accomplished without this whole mess, just based on his feelings. The first time, he left Babylon 5 because Delenn married Sheridan. With them moving to Minbar, that could have been a reason to go elsewhere. And he was already on a “mission” to prove himself to Delenn. His eventual fate didn’t need this on top of it.
Here is the thing about Lennier: I don’t think he ever intended to sacrifice Sheridan. It was a spur of the moment situation. He saw Sheridan and the ranger, and he was going to save them.
But he froze.
I don’t think even Lennier himself expected to freeze like that. It almost looks involuntary. And the moment he did that, the worst side of him was now fully exposed to Sheridan of all people. And the moral ethical side of Lennier had no clue how to handle that situation (let’s not forget Lennier was essentially a Minbari monk thrust into a universe where he had few social skills to handle). Thus he fled.
And he couldn’t leave them behind either, so he came back. But the damage was done. Even if Sheridan hadn’t freed himself and the ranger with the pike, Lennier would have still had to deal with the fallout of his brief mental slip directly with him. The shame of that brief freeze damned him and informed his decision to flee.
I think Delenn’s account of Lennier does a decent job filling in the blanks. He became someone else, even if only for a milisecond. And that milisecond was more than enough to drive him away from everyone. I think it’s a sad outcome, but not an unexpected one. Ever since we’ve learned just how deep is Lennier’s love for Delenn, we knew this had potential to become a reality.
The real tragedy to me is that we never get to see him struggling to redeem himself for this moment. The choice to frame the series finale as a 20 year epilogue down the line was certainly a choice that would inevitably rob viewers away from some pivotal character and plot momens during that period.
Londo’s appearance on Minbar reinforces this. More than not getting the Telepath War movie, I wish we could have gotten a movie or an episode focusing on the events that led to Sheridan and Delenn being imprisoned by Londo and the Drakh. For that matter, I wanted to see the fusion bombs going off on Centauri Prime – it’s clear those fires we see in Sheridan’s future aren’t the byproduct of Narn/Drazi bombings 15 years prior. I wanted to see David as a ranger and whether the Drakh keeper took ahold of him or not. And I figured Lennier would have played the perfect role in this situation, saving David and atoning for his shame as a result of that original sin.
But from what I understand, Lennier was actually meant to die during the Telepath War events, probably connected to Lyta’s own demise. And choosing not to show the Sheridan/Londo/Drakh situation down the line is certainly a choice in itself. Some mysteries being better left untouched. But it would have been the perfect coda for Lennier.
The rest of the episode is a decent set of goodbyes. Ta’lon gets a heartfelt G’Kar speech. Lochley has become an almost worthy successor to Sheridan and Ivanova. And we get the iconic salute (we hadn’t seen the main cast standing on CnC facing the camera since season 2), and our first exposure to Christopher Franke’s heartbreaking score for “Sleeping in Light”. Most of these feel earned.
Now whether the epilogues are drawn out or not, well, I recall this same grumbling back when Jackson’s adaptation of Return of the King hit theatres way back then. And the opposite problem can just as easily happen, when a show clearly rushes through goodbyes without giving us some outcomes and resolutions. The DS9 finale has some of those issues here and there.
Lennier’s split second decision is unquestionably less bad than Delenn’s own moment of weakness which nearly led to the genocide of humanity.
I do find myself wondering why people who give her a pass are so harsh with regard to Lennier. Perhaps because the “incel” angle on what’s a very old plotline gives it such ugly overtones. It’s also possible that people genuinely believe that there’s such a thing as a “good person” or a “bad person” and not a person who makes choices, or sometimes doesn’t make a choice. Lennier usually makes good choices; he starts making worse choices because of something between him and Delenn that he defines differently than her, but it’s clearly that this moment is a lapse, not attempted murder.
I think the “discovery” of his diary entries is heavy-handed and far worse in terms of character assassination than his moment of indecision. But yes, omitting the rest of his story doesn’t help matters, and why JMS thought he needed to continue Cole’s story and not Lennier’s is an open question.
I think the difference is that Delenn was motivated by grief and loss, which is a more sympathetic motive than jealousy. Also, Delenn’s choice was better set up and justified by the story, so it felt like an organic outgrowth of her character at that point. What JMS has done with Lennier over the past season or two just feels like a mishandling of his character, and the sudden escalation from unrequited longing to leaving his rival to die is unconvincing.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, from what I’ve seen The Road Home takes place during this episode while they’re travelling to Minbar.
The early parts of The Road Home take place simultaneously with this episode, but the main action of the movie is after the end “Objects at Rest.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
For as much as I’ve appreciated the goodbyes, I’m finally getting tired of the denouement here.
Younger me thought that Garibaldi replacing the board with outspoken employees was great. Older me thinks that staffing the board of a megacorporation with people who it sounds like were mid-level employees at best (completely ignoring that that’s not how boards work) is a great way to fail. They might or might not have valid critiques of how things are going in their departments, but I suspect that doesn’t translate to board-level concerns. At least they won’t be toadies who never tell the CEO no, and that’s something that could stand to be more true in real life.
Younger me liked Lennier’s moment of weakness. Older me thinks it completes his character assassination, and that the whole situation was remarkably contrived. The weapons system (I guess a small, empty room with a hole in it houses the weapons system? Sure, why not.) has a coolant leak, which is noticed by one guy before any kind of automatic sensor sees it, and he decides to deal with it instead of actual trained people, and Sheridan just happens to be passing by at that exact moment, and there are no respirators or SCBA around if a leak like that is likely or possible, and the sensors finally lock the two of them in at just the wrong time behind a glass door, and… If this is Minbari engineering, I’m amazed they ever made it off the planet.
I’m of two minds about the final shot of everyone in CnC. On the one hand, it really is a nice passing the torch moment. On the other, it’s so very contrived (there’s that word again) that everyone is there for the class photo. On the whole, especially given the type of TV show this is and the type of writer JMS is, I like it, but it still nags regardless.
It would have been really nice to see Lochley in more episodes than we did. We barely got to know her (and the coy dancing around which side she was on was not getting to know her), and then by the time she starts to actually develop some character the entire show is over.
General thought about the show that isn’t specific to any one episode: with the way JMS writes and some of his comments about the way he wants to tell his story, I can see why he and Harlan Ellison got along so well.
The staffing decision (and this is presumably the executive board and not the board of directors, but who knows) isn’t a good one but it’s absolutely the kind of long-odds play that Garibaldi insists on making. It also plays into the likelihood that Garibaldi doesn’t want any of the other executives to be better at the job than he is.
The dilemma is very contrived, yes. It’s a wonder JMS could still assemble sentences at this point in the show’s run.
As for the “goodbye salute” moment, 100% these characters would deliberately come to the CnC in the hopes of seeing the White Star off. In some ways I find Franklin’s departure more moving, even moreso than Lyta’s. Nobody there; Franklin, a guy who spent years as a traveling doctor, off to a permanent position back on Earth, just away.
Lochley at least gets more moments in Crusade and the ill-favored Lost Tales, and pretty good ones, too.
Garibaldi’s method of choosing a board of directors is unorthodox to say the least, especially since boards of directors are usually people with a financial stake in the company…
As a young man, I loved this scene. Now that I’m older and
wiserless dumb, it just seems childish. So the old board was bad, it doesn’t follow that every malcontent mid ranking employee is any good. If they’re stuck in a bad job but qualified for this high level work, then why didn’t they go somewhere else or start their own company? Plus, the ability to get along with others and build consensus is a skill. He’s intentionally selecting for people who don’t have it. It’s possible Garabaldi found some diamonds in the rough, but far more likely that this backfires on him. And, by the way, it’s a hell of a thing to put these people in his orbit while he’s simultaneously building Lyta’s secret arsenal behind Earth/PsiCorp’s back. Hope they don’t dig too deep into what he’s up to!Well, Garibaldi is entirely unqualified to be CEO, so the company will probably have a very sad future. But, at least there is symmetry.