Some familiar faces in this episode: Adrienne Barbeau as Amanda Carter, and Jessica Walter as Senator Elise Voudreau. I had to look both up on IMDB before remembering where I saw them before - Barbeau in Maude, and Walter from Arrested Development.
Interested to see the Senator pressure Sheridan to spy on civilians. “Practicality is more important than principles if lives are to be saved.” Whoa.
Garibaldi: Captain, I sure would like to know where you are going with this?
Sheridan: Someplace very dark. I hope to God I’m wrong.
I liked finding out more about Sheridan, that he was involved in the first contact with the T’Kar (sp?), and also that he “collects secrets.”
I’m intrigued by the whole Mars conflict, and Babylon Five’s role.
It looks as if there’s undeniable chemistry between Talia and Garibaldi. I still don’t completely understand why Garibaldi doesn’t properly appreciate Ivanova! Argh. Especially now that Ivanova’s starting to wear her hair down more often!
Good to find out more about Psi-Corps; it sounds as if the Psi-Corps people are going to play more of an important role in upcoming episodes.
Why doesn’t Talia tell anyone that she saw a Psi-Cop in her vision of the operation done on Abel Horn? Looks like Ivanova was right when she said that Talia was very loyal to the Psi-Corps…but why lie to Sheridan? Don’t tell me.
Hm…and the first time we hear about “Bureau 13,” too, whose headquarters appear to be underground on Earth beneath the “San Diego Wastelands.” Wow…sobering first glance at this area on Earth.
Sheridan: For the past six years there’ve been rumours about a rogue agency operating deep inside EarthGov. A dirty-trick-squad, dealing in black projects, and star-chamber justice. It took me three years just to get a name: Bureau 13. And the man who gave me that name died soon after. I’m convinced they exist and they are behind this incident.
Who is this mysterious woman giving orders to Abel Horn? From the last scene, it seems that she must have been part of Project Lazarus herself. But where did she come from? What are her motives? Don’t tell me.
More and more mysteries…
Next episode: Soul Mates.
[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/hints about upcoming episodes, or including links to pages with spoilers (unless you warn readers that they contain spoilers). More info about spoilers here. Thanks so much! - Debbie]
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Bit of trivia about the “San Diego Wastelands”: JMS used to live in San Diego and he hated it so much that he made it an uninhabited nuclear wasteland in the B5 universe. His little revenge. There are mentions of it prior to this episode, you can see articles in various newspapers giving updates on the status of the San Diego Wastelands. Also I think once or twice on an ISN broadcast.
Did you catch the in-joke about Amanda Carter’s great-grandfather John being the pilot on the first colony ship to Mars?
Some intentional references, some not.
According to Isogi, Ms. Carter’s great-grandfather John piloted the first colony ship to Mars. “John Carter of Mars” is a classic SF story by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
That looks to be an intentional reference.
There was an unintentional reference to an existing roleplaying game called “Bureau 13.” Per JMS
“No, the Bureau 13 rpg precedes our show; we weren’t aware of it at the time we did the episode.”
The following is very slightly spoilery regarding how B5 changed when they found out about the RPG.
Per JMS again:
“We hadn’t heard of the Bureau 13 game when we did the episode, it was just something we came up with ’cause it sounded neat. Later, we found out there was a game by that name. At which point I decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate to use that name again, and had a good conversation with some folks at the game company about it. There was no problem, I just didn’t want to walk on their turf intentionally or otherwise. Logically, any secret group is going to change its name from time to time *anyway* (it’s not like they’re in the yellow pages or anything), so the organization would remain under varying names.”
Many of us watching the show the first time around were puzzled because although there was more covert ops and dirty tricks stuff going on (I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that much, it’s been a continuing part of the show since day 1), “Bureau 13″ was never mentioned by name again in the show. So you never get hard evidence if some covert op organization shown later is a direct descendent of Bureau 13 or had some other origin. Still, while “Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence” is a truism, most of the time the presence or absence of evidence would be a deliberate choice of JMS for storytelling purposes. In this case it wasn’t. It was imposed from the outside by real world concerns.
The chemistry between Garibaldi and Talia was greatly helped by the two actors having been newly married at the time
*rolls on the floor giggling about Garibaldi, Ivanova, and Talia*
Of course, I’m not going to tell you why.
Another Adrienne Barbeau vehicle is the one I primarily remember her in: Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. It is a funny (I hesitate to call it comedic; it’s grade-C comedy, but funny despite itself) adaptation of Heart of Darkness, and I recommend it highly. (Sometime when you’re not in the mood for anything heavy to watch.)
I think that by now we’ve heard “The Corps is mother; the Corps is father.” (Probably from Bester.) (If we haven’t, yet — I’ve run a bit ahead in rewatching — that motto really ought to come as no surprise.) The loyalty instilled by the Corps runs VERY deep, though as we have seen (with Ironheart) when it breaks, that energy seems to swing 180 degrees and cause passionate issues with the Corps.
Tirtzah: Heh, thanks for the trivia about JMS and the San Diego Wastelands.
Terence & Hvideo: No, I missed the reference to John Carter.
Hvideo: Ah ok, so Bureau 13 isn’t referenced again in the series.
mandragora: Oh right! Terence mentioned these two actors got married; I’d forgotten about the timeline.
That indeed explains some of the chemistry.
Bruce: “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death” is one of the most brilliant (or terrible) movie titles I’ve heard.