I can’t believe that THIS EPISODE was the last in the season! AUGH! I think my eyeballs are going to explode. AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHH.
But before I make a mess, I’d better hurry up and write this episode report…
I found Anna way too creepy to be sincere. I notice they changed the flashback to Anna’s video message to Sheridan to show Melissa Gilbert instead of that other actress.
Interesting to read your comments that Melissa Gilbert is Bruce B’s wife in real life.
Will Sheridan ever completely trust Delenn again? 
He leaves that farewell message to her saying he loves her, but it will be interesting to see what effects her breach of trust (breach of trust in his eyes, anyway) has on their relationship in the future.
Though if he’s dead, it won’t matter much, will it?
Sheridan asks Garibaldi to process the crew of the White Star, for example, despite the fact that Delenn vouched for them.
Meanwhile, Londo is still confiding in Vir. Londo has been promoted, but tells Vir it’s a punishment, not a reward, that he’s being closely watched. And then that intense guy (reminds me of Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation) warns Londo to leave the station for his own safety.
Sheridan decides to go back to Z’ha’dum with Anna despite finding out Franklin’s scan results:
Anna says the real name of the Shadows is over 10,000 letters long. Yikes!
What the heck?? I assume this vision of Kosh was all in Sheridan’s head? Maybe from the “piece of Kosh” that Lyta was talking about?
“Do not go to Z’ha’dum or you will die”, Kosh tells him, and I recall that Delenn had begged Sheridan not to go to Z’ha’dum.
Sheridan’s videotaped message to Delenn was interesting for several reasons. One: I’m glad he still trusts her to the extent of wanting to send her this message!
Also if his theory’s right, his going to Z’ha’dum may have changed the future — which means that Londo may not end up the pitiful wreck he seems to be in flash-forwards and visions. Which means that he and Vir may not end up as emperor after all. Which means that Sheridan and Delenn may not end up together with a son named David.
Justin’s character is fascinating and disturbing; he seems like someone’s kindly old grandfather, reasonable and looking out for everyone’s best interest. But then you start listening to what he’s saying.
*shudder*
Also intriguing to find out more about the Shadows’ side, in the voices of Morden, Justin and Anna, that conflict between the races is “good” and fosters growth.
How horrible to think that Anna was put into one of the Shadow ships. No wonder she turned out so twisted.
But then Sheridan fights his way out and we find out what he had been planning: to load the White Star up with a thermonuclear weapon and crash it into Z’ha’dum.
!!!!
The Kosh voice in his head tells him to jumps, so he does.
BUT WHERE DOES HE GO? WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM?!?? Back at B5, Ivanova tears up (obviously her latent telepathic abilities kicking in) and whispers, “He’s gone!”
WHAT DOES SHE MEAN??????? Dead gone? Or gone where her telepathic powers can’t reach?
Don’t tell me.
I somehow think we’re not going to see Anna again anytime soon.
And then…THEN! Garibaldi’s ship ends up inside a Shadow ship! ACK!! Is he still alive? Is it bad that he’s still alive? Is he going to be changed like Anna was?
??!!!!??
DON’T TELL ME BUT AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH
GARIBALDI BETTER BE OKAY OR I’M GOING TO BE VERY UPSET. I’M SERIOUS.
G’Kar’s voice-over at the end is brilliant.
Sheridan: And finally — I heard what you said when I left. And I want you to know … that I love you Delenn. Goodbye.
AND THIS IS HOW THE SEASON ENDED? HOW DID YOU ALL STAND IT?!???
Next episode: Season FOUR.
[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]
25 comments ↓
“AND THIS IS HOW THE SEASON ENDED? HOW DID YOU ALL STAND IT?!???”
Not without cursing JMS
I’m surprised you didn’t mention G’kar’s wonderful voice-over at the end of the episode, given your usual appreciation for that sort of writing:
„It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused, suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both! … G’Quan wrote, ” There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair! Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams! Against this peril we can never surrender!“ The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.“
Oh, just saw you did mention it - my mistake
Ah, yes, that super-cliffhanger! I first watched B5 on borrowed tapes. Otherwise I don’t know how I could have stood the suspense.
The Shadows’ philosophy always reminds me of Ayn Rand. Cooperation is weakness; there is only one goal (which we call winning); only the strongest and best survive and win. It works, in that it does produce individuals and races with a certain sort of strength, but it is also very narrowminded.
Remember that Kosh had told Sheridan that if he went to Z’ha’dum he would die, before we lost Kosh. I always thought it was that piece of Kosh asserting itself and reminding him of that.
Yes, I hope Anna has some SPF 1,000,000,000,000 and gets it on pretty quickly, or she’s got a problem.
I think this episode was actually delayed by several months, so when it came out the wait for season 4 was reduced. Or the start of season 4 was delayed, so it was longer.
Man, it’s been a while.
I had my own theory about the Shadows: that they were a soldier-race created by the First Ones to fight in some war and left behind, and that what they did was create wars between species so that they could fight and thus fulfil their programming. I wasn’t too keen on the real explanation at the time, but it’s grown on me since.
How we survived that season finale? Well, we had to…
and survived…
And if you think your head/eyeballs exploded watching these episodes - the 4th season will switch up into high gear, so better start covering your couch with protective covers…
Do you know Yooh&Katy’s B5 songs “Hooked for Good” (spoiler-safe) or their “Spinning Tower” (mildly spoiling hints before season 5)? Both are on their “Witch Way to Reality” CD.
http://filk.de/jukaty/tapecd.html#witch
This is the second episode to make me jump to my feet and yell at the screen (the first was when Delenn saves the day in “Severed Dreams” - but that was happy cheering).
then I sat, numb, for a few minutes.
And then G’Kar started talking, and I came all over gooseflesh.
I almost didn’t want the next season - the intimation of so much bleakness was chilling.
I *love* this show.
I think it was only a week until the beginning of season four (because the last five episodes of season 3 were delayed until the fall in North America) but I remember being pretty upset for that whole week.
I think that’s the only time a cliffhanger has ever affected the way I was feeling in my everyday life.
Yes, Lyanne. I just checked the B5 air dates at http://www.epguides.com
And now that I am reminded, I do remember that this episode was not the season ender for American fans.
I remember it being “in the middle” of the season.
War without End #2 was shown May 23, 1996. Making it the “season-ender” for that year. And that was an interesting place to stop, the 2 mind-benders (wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimy; eh, mixing my fandoms!) A lot to think about during the summer.
Walkabout was the first episode to air in the fall, on Oct 3, 1996. And Z’Ha’Dum was a Halloween present! It aired on 10-31-96. At least it wasn’t an April 1!
#9^ Yes, I tracked it on The Lurker’s Guide, the final five episodes of Season 3 aired after 19 weeks of repeats and three-peates. Season 4 started the next week (11/04/96). Meanwhile, those 5 aired in the UK about 6 weeks ahead of the US broadcast. I was one who was the benificiary of tapes sent over and had a viewing party with freinds about 3 weeks ahead of US finale. Yes, we thought that was quite a cliffjumper ending to the season (and what’s with Sheridan and his jumping habit on season ending shows); now leaving us with several weeks to wait for the new season. The UK may have had half a year to wait for Season 4 to start. In spite of having the tapes on hand, I did wait to view them with freinds a few days later.
Now, who Passed Through Gethsame?
“AND THIS IS HOW THE SEASON ENDED? HOW DID YOU ALL STAND IT?!???”
You know, I really don’t think you’re getting the full Babylon 5 experience unless you spend the next 72 hours bashing your head against a wall. At a minimum.
And yes, isn’t this officially the greatest show ever? I cannot even imagine the scriptorial cajones it took to pull this whole thing off. JMS is a madman / genius / sadist / God.
“Sheridan asks Garibaldi to process the crew of the White Star, for example, despite the fact that Delenn vouched for them.”
But that was to get them off the Whitestar so he could take the ship alone with Anna. I guess he believed Kosh’s warning and decided not to take any crew with him, believing that of the “good guys” only he would die.
Also Sheridan had Garibaldi plant those bombs on the Whitestar for him. He knew pretty well what was going to happen. It’s something you can miss the first time around as the instructions aren’t verbal but on the er… electronic note pad he hands him. Then they talk in code, about the weather.
This season finale made me totally nuts for the entire week until the season premiere. At least it was only a week. When show the series to my friends I have often made them wait at least one day to see the next episode. To experience some of my pain.
I always like to say that the Shadows are Social Darwinists gone horribly wrong.
Justin is a middle man. See also: Sheridan’s dream.
I do believe that some of us mentioned that there were some more “Explody-Head” moments to be expected as the show went on.
Actions have consequences.
People change and grow.
No one is safe from having Bad Things happen to them.
JMS said that this show/novel has Introduction, Rising Action, Complication, Climax, and Wrap-up. Care to guess where we are now?
I stood it by being horribly distracted, for a whole day. When Wayne and I watched B5 it was on space (I think) daily. We were taping it so we could watch it when Wayne got in from work. I’ll confess that I cheated, with full co-operation from the kids. Wayne has no idea.
Imagine if this was the series ender. Now that would have had hordes of people baying for the network’s blood. Or JMS’s. Probably both.
As it was this was only a taste of Season 4, which is unique in my experience for any science fiction series’ season in that I think every episode in it is great. Season 4 gives up all pretence of standalone episodes and is really one long, long story.
There’s a sense of urgency, and desperation and a headlong rush into oblivion… and it was really because Season 4 was, at that point, likely to be the last, and JMS had to finish telling the main story he wanted to tell. And it works so much the better for evoking that feeling that it’s all going to end.
In fire.
Terence, I was online back then and so was JMS…. Yes, people were screaming and moaning at him.
But you are also correct that Season 4 was just….WOW! It was worth the wait.
Deb, I don’t know how much you want to avoid spoilers, so you may not want to look at the DVD box and it’s artwork (?take off glasses to get out and load the disk?) and skip the main title sequence and skip to chapter two after the recap and tease. Then go back after watching the episode because the main title sequence is excellent! (I’d use more exclaimation points, but the supply is running low around here.)
If you have a good memory and sharp eyes/ears, you may have noticed that Justin was played by the late Jeff Corey, a longtime character actor in TV and films (as well as a TV director, of several episodes of Night Gallery among other shows). He played Plasus, the recalcitrant head of the Cloud City government in the episode of the original Star Trek series, “The Cloud Minders,” among many other roles in genre shows and films. He died in 2002 at age 88, sadly not long after his B5 appearance, of injuries sustained in a fall.
And those of us who watched B5 in first-run felt very much the way you do now…and I have no idea how I managed surviving other than through sheer cussedness. It’s a mark of how much JMS and his team had gotten us to care about these characters and this story that this episode drove us all so far up a wall. And if you think he’s a genius/sadist/God now, just you wait for what they serve up in Seasons Four and Five…!!
Before I forget, I don’t think that this is a spoiler…….
Anna + Atomic Bombs + Ground zero = not seeing Anna again.
You are lucky, in Germany this Episode was send on 23. Februar 1997 and the first of Season Four on 23. Mai 1998
This episode resulted in our favorite watching-at-home moment from the entire series. Harold & Becky had invited the locals (me, Crystal & Steve, and Keith Glass) over to their place to watch Z’Ha’Dum (after reviewing the previous 2 or 3 eps on tape). We watched the episode twice that night–once live, with no comments allowed (except for laughs or gaps), then immediately again on tape, this time with commentary allowed.
The second time through, when Sheridan opened fire on the Shadows on either side of Justin, the entire room, in unison, broke into “I shot the Shadows…” (ttto “I Shot The Sheriff”).
Half the room then continued, also in unison, with “But I didn’t shoot the middleman…”
Then we collapsed in laughter.
During an appearance at Chicago Comicon July of ‘96, JMS teased the crowd with the knowledge that the Shadow’s reasons would be revealed in this episode … and that he guarantees at least half the people in the room would agree with them.
And I did find myself towards episode’s end kinda nodding my head thinking, they do make a valid point. It’s like that Orson Welles line in The Third Man, “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and what did that produce - the cuckoo clock!”
I’m downloading a torrent with the full episodes and I’ve just watched this last episode of season 3. I had released season 4 for download, but I set high priority to the wrong episode, so the first one around 30% of completion along with all the others. That means it will take a couple of days before I find out how Kosh saves Sheridan from this second fall. But Bad Anna’s scream at the flaming White Star was worth it all. I had seen it on YouTube but by then I didn’t know anything about the context. Cool!
Funny thing is that I saw The Gathering on VHS back in 1994 or 95, and then only some sparse episodes after that. Took me 15 years to get back to the story. Life is surely a short trick.
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