(Update: I’ve fixed the header to read “Season 1″ instead of “Season 2″.)
Wow, all kinds of familiar faces here. Like Sebastian from Blade Runner! He makes a pretty good bad guy. And David Warner (seeing him always reminds me of one of my favourite movies, Time After Time).
Sinclair: “It’s hard to spend your whole life looking for something and never find it.”
Because I was used to seeing David Warner always play nasty guys, however, I kept expecting him to reveal himself as a villain, and surprised to find out I was way wrong.
I -really- like Jinxo. What a fascinating character. At first, I thought he was just another petty criminal but he turned out to be so much more interesting, what with his Babylon Curse story and then his gradual choice of the Good over the Bad. I hope we get to see him again.
Interesting to find out a bit more about the destruction of the other Babylon stations. I did wonder each time I heard the opening narration: “last of the Babylon stations…” I hope we eventually get to find out exactly what DID happen to them.
Also interesting to hear Delenn hope that the religious and the warrior castes of Minbari would never be in agreement again.
I was all excited when I saw Kosh open up his environmental suit to feed on that poor woman near the beginning of the show, thinking that yay, we finally get to see what a Vorlon looks like! But it wasn’t Kosh after all, but a Feeder.
I was curious, though, about how Gajic got the creature to withdraw. Did Gajic have some special powers? Was it the staff? Does Jinxo/Thomas inherit those powers? Don’t answer those questions.
Above: another food scene, yay!
Below: heh, I liked that brief exchange in the courtroom where a man is suing aliens for abducting his great-grandfather. 
Next episode: Eyes.
I’m reading all your comments; thanks so much for all the extra insight! I’ll address some of them specifically in a “mailbag” post sometime soon.
[For those who comment below: As the title of my blog indicates, I'm watching B5 for the very first time so PLEASE refrain from posting plot/character spoilers about upcoming episodes, or including links to pages with spoilers (unless you warn readers that they contain spoilers). Thanks so much! - Debbie]
15 comments ↓
Weird, I never think of William Sanderson as Sebastian from Blade Runner. I always think of him as Larry from Newhart. “This is my brother Darryl. This is my other brother Darryl.”
I think this is the first time we see the “A” and “B” stories in a B5 episode come together.
From jms and the lurker’s guide
The suing the alien scene was his addition to the episode written by Christy Marx. It was coming up a bit short of time.
–
I’m glad it was, as it set up more ‘ordinary’ life on B5 with the judge/ombudsman and court getting a little more time.
Speaking of time, again according to jms/lurker’s guide. They used the term ‘cycles’ as in Jinxo being given 300 cycles to come through. jms explains the script was written and produced before he and the production staff decided to put B5 on Earth time.
My own calculation and fan-speculation, if a cycle is one turn of the station, then a 5 minute cycle (12 per hour) would make Deuce’s deadline 25 hours.
Deuce = William Sanderson, who, despite a long list of credits on imdb, will be remembered by me as Larry, brother of Daryl and the Daryl on Newhart.
Debbie - you put a label on this one and the previous one as being season 2, not season 1.
Anyway - this episode is another example of giving more info on something first mentioned in the pilot. The pilot (The Gathering) just gives a very sketchy line (not relevant to the plot of the pilot) about the first three stations being sabotaged and that the 4th one disappeared. Here we learn some additional details. Later on we learn even more.
Just remember that The Gathering is the pilot. In The Beginning was a flashback movie that you weren’t expected to view (and understand) until you had seen several more seasons. Without checking I’d say it was released somewhere in the season 4 or 5 timeframe. Or maybe it was released after the entire 5 season run, I forget.
We find out what happened to Babylon 4… well, half of what happened, anyway, in “Babylon Squared”.
The story of the Babylon stations … it’s a bit like the story of the castles in the swamp in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
“Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ‘em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp…”
Actually very much like that. Well, except possibly for the swamp bit…
I’m surprised Debbie didn’t comment on the classic Ivanova observation: “No boom today? Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.”
The idea of the “true seeker” who devotes his life to search for a means to help others, and what faith can accomplish, is quite an important theme in B5. The Minbari understand this better than the Humans, who don’t take Gajic quite seriously. Like Gajic, Jinxo also had a mission - to protect the station. Note that Delenn thinks Sinclair is a “true seeker”.
Since you’ve mentioned you find the food scenes interesting a couple of times, there was one in the very first episode, “midnight on the firing line”, which introduced the galactic delicatesse “Spoo”. This is one of the running jokes in the B5 universe - you might be interested in checking out this funny little tidbit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoo … there are some very minor spoiler in the section “Spoo in the series”, but nothing really important.
One of the things I really like about B5 is the realistic touches. Not only do they actually have toilets, unlike a Certain Other Show, but people are actually see using them. The same with food, peaple eat, and eat some things which are strange in other cultures (and there are also hints that some of the ‘delicacies’ may be jokes on the foreigners).
I really ought to start re-watching the series *g*…
Shane: RIGHT, I remember Larry from Newhart!
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve just seen Blade Runner more recently (and several times since Newhart).
A_Tim: Thanks for explanation of the term “cycles.” I was wondering about that.
Hvideo: Thanks for pointing out my title typo! I’ve fixed that. Jeff and I are definitely going to watch the pilot after we’ve finished Season 1.
Phil: Thanks for that helpful analogy.
Terence: YES! I loved that quote. I was just very tired but wanted to post that report before I went to bed. I keep finding so many great quotes throughout each episode. I’m always briefly tempted to write each down, but decided not to interfere with the storyflow (since I’d have to pause the DVD and Jeff would also kill me) and just remember what I could late.
Chris C: YES! I totally agree with the realistic touches that B5 has that Star Trek doesn’t.
The reason the feeder recoiled from Gajic is left to the viewer’s interpretation. Mine was that someone who refuses to be afraid of it doesn’t “taste” right.
Completely non-spoilery but possibly of interest: Gajic is surnamed after Mira Furlan’s husband Goran Gajic who was a film director in their home country, the former Yugoslavia.
I had no idea Time After Time was one of your favorites; it’s long, long been one of mine. (Malcolm McDowell before he got typecast as bad guys and went all white-haired! David Warner beginning his own typecasting as baddies! Mary Steenburgen before she got stupid and married Ted Danson…uh, sorry, where was I?) David, happily, has gotten past the label; he also played Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI, an ambassador in ST-V and Bob Cratchit in the Hallmark/BBC version of A Christmas Carol with the late George C. Scott.
And yes, you will learn what happened to the other stations before B5. (Four lost and the govt. funded a fifth? Only on TV…) You’ll also find out just why Ivanova so loathes being scanned (it’s not just because of what happened to her mom). And some other things you will learn about our dear Susan later on will make you look twice at Garibaldi’s attempts to date her…but enough evil hinting for now.
I had the same reaction as you, Debbie, to David Warner. I didn’t remember him from “Newheart” but I did remember “Time After Time.”
Ah, the Ivanova koans! IIRC, “Boom” was the first one that went viral through the JMS ‘verse.
Spoo. On a health kick once, I started eating hot grain cereal, again. I’d add nuts and fruit. One day, I added frozen blueberries. It was quite delicious and quite decidedly blue. Husband took one look and shouted “Spoo!”
Note to my fellow commenters: IMHO, I think some of us are getting too close to spoilers, though we don’t intend to. Debbie will have to answer what is or is not a spoiler, but when I was a virgin, I would have considered “you’ll learn about that later,” a spoiler. The whole point of the virgin experience is to catch or not catch whatever happens the first time around. Underlining something as important, or foreshadowing is spoilerish.
Remember the first time you watched it. All you could do is speculate and all you had to base it on was the portion aired. We didn’t say “this is important,” but “I wonder if this is important? How will it play out,” our first time through.
Just my opinion, and just a thought. I’m going to keep a tighter leash on my typing fingers.
heh, I liked that brief exchange in the courtroom where a man is suing aliens for abducting his great-grandfather.
That was one of my favorite humorous scenes in the entire series!
David Warner is also playing Steel in the new audio plays based on the old series “Sapphire and Steel” (David McCallum was Steel in the original series).