Hey, it’s Michael York!
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I suspect everyone around my age has a “defining” Michael York role. For me, it’s a toss between his role as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, and when he played the lead role in Logan’s Run.
I loved the scene in this episode where Marcus first meets the Arthur character when he first arrives (via the ship “Asimov,” heh) and is surrounded by security because of the sword he carries. Hearing Marcus and Arthur speak to each other made me want to see them both in a Shakespeare play together.
*swoon* (Yes, I had a thing for Michael York when I was much younger…)
But I digress…
Fun to get another glimpse into day-to-day life at B5…the mail room this time. I don’t think we ever got to see the mail room in any of the Star Trek episodes, did we?
Garibaldi: What are you so nervous about? We went up against entire earth alliance and two carrier groups!
Security Officer: Yeah, but – this is the post office! This could get us in real trouble.
And they have fabric sales! As a new sewer, I found this intriguing and amusing.
Yay, another episode with the charming Marcus, who tends to the poor and sickly as he quotes Dickens and life wisdoms.
Marcus: I used to think it awful that life was so unfair. But then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and that all the terrible things that happen to us come because we deserve them. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and discomfort of the universe.
Interesting to find out more about the pin that all the rangers wear, with the human and Minbari figures. Also to hear more about what Marcus learned from the Minbari.
Marcus: They taught me how to live, how to breathe, and how to die. And they taught me terror…how to use it, and how to face it.
Franklin: I think I’d like to hear more about that.
Marcus: No, you wouldn’t.
Ooo, I hope we get to find out more about the experience Marcus had with the Minbari.
Also amusing to hear the theories about the Vorlons and their possible role in the Arthurian legend.
Brings intriguing and somewhat disturbing images to mind. 
But I’m digressing again…
Hey, what was G’Kar buying in the scene above? Don’t tell me.
LOVED the scenes where G’Kar leaps into the fray to help Arthur battle the bad guys, and then gets happily drunk with him afterward.
It’s a joy to see that G’Kar has not lost his sense of playfulness despite all that has happened. I’m not sure if I can say the same about Londo.
Don’t tell me.
So looks like the new Babylon Five treaty is going to work, except for the Drasi. It’ll be interesting to see where this plot thread goes.
I enjoyed the whole Arthurian slant to the episode but couldn’t help thinking, “What’s this got to do with anything else in the series?” But then the pieces gradually fell into place…I admit I was relieved that Arthur wasn’t the real Arthur. That story’s been done so many times already (knight out of time, etc.).
Though the truth was heartbreaking.
So Arthur was really David Macintyre, the gunnery sergeant who started the Earth-Minbari war. Holy cow.
To know that you were responsible (however indirectly) for the deaths of so many…it’s no wonder that he went a bit mad for a while. 
How extraordinary and fitting that Delenn was The Lady Of The Lake.
Also how fitting that David/Arthur go to Narn to help.
A good episode, but I’m anxious to get back to the bigger story.
Next episode: Ship Of Tears.
[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]
11 comments ↓
We were talking last night about scenes in B5 that always make us cry? That scene at the end when Delenn comes in to take the sword from David? Always makes me cry. And there are layers to come that make that scene even more moving.
And I really love G’Kar in this episode. Just his joy in the nobility of the adventure, almost relief in the black and white sense of right and wrong offered by “Arthur”, so missing in his dealings with his people and the Centauri. It’s great fun to watch.
And I want a Ranger brooch.
I bawled during that Delenn scene as well.
I want a Ranger brooch, too!
I’m right there with you on the Michael York crush. Cabaret, Logan’s Run, The Three Musketeers, Romeo and Juliet — ooooh.
Who’s to say he wasn’t “really” Arthur? If people are still looking for the grail out there, why not? I’m with Marcus on this. Just because he hadn’t quite got all his selves meshed right–and who here hasn’t had that problem?–doesn’t mean the selves aren’t real.
I don’t have access to the exact quote, but G’Kar’s ~…and they made such a satisfying ‘ThumP’ when they fell~ is one of those fan remembered lines.
Interesting how you are picking many of the same screenshots as did those who put together the sysnopsis on The Lurker’s Guide.
Yes, there is a another layer to come, a flip-side, of this story of David McIntyre the Gunnery Sergeant on the EAS Prometheus and the spark to the Earth-Minbari war and whose pain also needs to be lifted.
Was David/Arthur making his own pass through Gethsemane, but this time found someone else to forgive his sins of his world?
Ranger brooch on eBay: auction ends in approximately 25 hours from this posting. Buy It Now price of US$30; current bid $24.99.
There are two others available; I searched “Babylon 5 ranger” and ignored the “B5: Legends of the Rangers” DVDs. This is just the one whose auction ends first.
G’Kar aiding Arthur was one of the great moments in a series filled with them; it didn’t make G’Kar human, but it showed clearly what he and the best of humanity share. There was nothing forced about it, nor about the idea that he and Arthur would get drunk together afterward.
And yes, you’re exactly right about that much pain and guilt being more than enough to drive even a strong man mad. I can’t even imagine it, though I wish certain world leaders could.
The name “Asimov” is used at least once more in the series, and the next time it’s used is one of the great moments in B5.
Logan’s Run for me. And yes, I’d love to see him and Jason (Marcus) do Shakespere together.
I love G’Kar, and see his interaction with Arthur as being perfectly in character for him: he wants to be a knight, and believe in nobility and chivalry — and yes, to get drunk with his peers and his king afterwards.
I’m with Zander and Marcus on this, there’s nothing to say that he isn’t the ‘real’ Arthur. Indeed, by Minbari philosophy he could be an incarnation or the original (and perhaps Delenn was the lady of the lake in an earlier incarnation, if Minbari souls are reborn as human why not the other way round?).
“By G’Quan, I can’t recall the last time I was in a fight like that! No moral ambiguity, no hopeless battle against ancient and over whelming forces! They were the bad guys, as you say! We were the good guys!”
Characters complaining about the universe JMS placed them into here?
“A good episode, but I’m anxious to get back to the bigger story.”
I hope your seat belt is tightly fastened because you’re about to get just that. There’s very little in the way of breather episodes for a while after this one.
That photoshop with Kosh lurking in King Arthur’s court is hilarious.
The design of the Ranger brooch always brings up a nagging continuity problem in my head, but it’ll become clearer after a future two-parter. If I remember, I’ll bring it up again.