As Sheridan ran after the guy who stole his comm link, I felt like yelling, “Don’t do it! It’s a set-up!” He seems so smart some days but others…well…
Lennier is growing on me. He’s much more independent and clever than I gave him credit for in the beginning. I felt for Delenn when Ashan sneers, “I answer to other Minbari, not freaks.”
Interesting to find out the Minbari’s attitude about lying.
Meanwhile, poor Ivanova is overseeing the establishment of the Babylon Five Emporium.
And Sheridan is being ordered around by a glamorous lawyer:
And hey, I just noticed on the TV.com page for this episode that the lawyer is played by the same actor who played Na’Toth last season! I hope she sticks around.
Ivanova: Another lesson?
Sheridan: Yeah.
Ivanova: What this time?
Sheridan: Beauty …. in the dark.
Ivanova: Ah, must be working. You’re starting to talk just like a Vorlon.
Weird when Kosh takes Sheridan down below. Kosh asks Sheridan “what is this place” yet if he doesn’t know where he is, how does he know where the entrance to that hidden room is? Don’t tell me.
When Sheridan asks what’s in the room, Kosh replies, “One moment of perfect beauty.” I love that phrase.
The whole scene with the hooded figures was bizarre. Who are these guys? Is there significance to the fact that Sheridan put his stat bar in the bowl? What would have happened if he hadn’t put anything in? Why did Kosh want Sheridan to do this?
Don’t answer me.
Love the scene between Vir and Londo, the extra glimpse we get into both of their characters,, esp. Vir’s. Poor Vir. And I’m SO GLAD that Londo comes through for him! And shows him some sympathy as well as helping make him look good in front of his family.
Vir: Back home I’m swallowed in silence and here I’m swallowed up in secrets. I’m caught between fire and flood, and if there’s a way out, I sure can’t see it.
Maybe there’s hope for Londo after all.
Now all he has to do is listen to Vir and not give in to the Dark Side! I’m still utterly convinced that there is more good in Londo than bad, and that he’ll eventually make the right choice.
Right? Don’t tell me.
Interesting to find out that Lennier lost family on the Black Star, which was destroyed by Sheridan.
I was very happy that Sheridan found a way to save Lennier and his family from disgrace.
[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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Love that episode… one of my favorites. Lennier’s my favorite character, too.
The last scene with the bear floating in space cracks me up every single time. I so totally want a Mini Me Londo!
Now you’ve seen this episode, I can comment on the fairly common sf device of the race that is billed as being “incapable of lying” but turns out to be capable of telling gigantic porkies whenever the plot demands it. Minbari are no exception.
Whenever Kosh speaks there are almost always two or more ways to interpret what was said. His script is deliberately written that way.
“What is this place?” could be a simple request for information - but then again, it could be a teacher quizzing a pupil, i.e. “What do YOU know about this place?” or even “What does this place SYMBOLIZE to you?”
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About that Teddy Bear - there is more to the story. From a JMS interview at a con:
JMS told the story about Peter David and the teddy bear, which has escalated since last I heard it. JMS hates cute things. And Peter David knows this. Now you have to realize, Peter David is a teddy bear incarnate, according to JMS. So Peter sends JMS this cute teddy bear with “Bear-ba-lon 5″ on the back and the initials J. S. for Joe Straczynski on the front. JMS calls Peter. “You fucked with me.” Peter replies very enthusiastically, “Yeah, ain’t it great?” JMS says, “You don’t understand, I have to get even with you.” Peter
begins to sound worried. “What are you going to do?” JMS added a few scenes to the next Peter David script that came through, which was “There All the Honor Lies” in the 2nd season. That was the one with
the Babylon 5 merchandising, and one of the items in the store is a teddy bear with the initials J. S. for John Sheridan. Sheridan gets hold of the bear and spaces it. JMS’ favorite part of the whole thing was watching the dailies when they filmed the episode. Out in space,
Keffer finds the teddy bear and it slams into his windshield, which is a separate element in the editing and has to be filmed separately against a blue screen. So when the dailies came in, there were shots against a blue screen of the teddy bear spinning around with a pole stuck up its ass, being slammed into a piece of plexiglass over and over again. JMS loved it. JMS grinned and said, “We’re a sick bunch!”
Well, that wasn’t the end of it. Peter David called JMS after seeing this and said, “Well, you declared war.” Peter David now has his own show called “Space Cases”. And in one of the episodes, what did they
find floating in space but a teddy bear? Of course, one of the lines on the show was, “What kind of monster would space a teddy bear?” But this wasn’t an ordinary bear. It was planted there in space by an evil race called the Straczyn, who want to conquer the galaxy but don’t have the budget. And it was carrying all sorts of viruses and other evil nasty stuff. When JMS saw this, he sent a message to Peter– “My serve!” JMS says he has a revenge planned that is “so wonderful
I can’t tell you because it would ruin the surprise. You will hear about it, it’s that big, you can’t miss it.” [Now I'm curious.]
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Let’s see, a few more tidbits. Re: the title:
“Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.”
- Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man” Epistle IV, 1733-34
Once JMS had decided to add to the script with the last scene with spacing the teddy bear, he decided he would do an additional bit - he wrote and inserted the “Perfect Beauty In The Dark” section.
Hvideo: OMG! I’d known about the first part of the teddy bear story, but not about Peter David’s revenge. That’s great!
There’s no significance to the stat bar, as far as I know. They wanted a token offering before they sang, so that qualified.
Terence #7: I disagree. The stat bar, as I see it, represents a major portion of Sheridan’s identity (i.e., EarthForce, officerhood, command), and it’s necessary for him to voluntarily relinquish it before he’s able to perceive and/or appreciate the beauty waiting for him. Letting go allows him space to grow, in different directions, which is what Kosh is teaching him.
And I agree with Bruce. I’ve always thought of it as a minor foreshadowing of something later, for which reason (no spoilers!) I declined to discuss.
I’ve been re-watching episodes during the past two weeks. After today I’ll be caught up and about 2 episodes beyond Debbie’s most recent post. Watching them in such close proximity really made me aware of how much plot/character info that JMS “seeded” in each episode. Of the nearly 40 episodes that I’ve watched only 2 didn’t contain major plot clues and one of those two still showed the depths of a major character! When days or months (in the case of the final episode of a season) pass between viewings, it is so easy to forget some of the undercurrents mixed into the episodes.