Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I am the one who was,
Brent: And I'm Brent Allen, and I am the one who will be.
Jeff: and we're watching Babylon 5 for the first time For you, the one who is.
Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters. And our goal, our mission, our purpose here is to search for the important messages that Babylon five is delivering in its own unique way.
Jeff: And this is not Brent, a Star Trek podcast.
Brent: No,
Jeff: Not at all, because it's not. We limit ourselves on our references by playing the most exciting game. Maybe the second exciting game that we play here on Babylon five for the first time. It's called the Rule of three. This is a game that limits us to no more than three references to Star Trek total for this episode.
That's it. Three. One of those no substitutions. Exchanges are refund.
Brent: but if we make one of those references,
Jeff: We get to play everybody's favorite sound.
Brent: literally nobody likes that sound.
Jeff: I, I think there's two things we get a ton of feedback on in this show. One is what you're about to talk about. The other one is, yeah, can you get a different sound? For that, and uh, here, let me help you out. No.
Brent: We're we're four and a half seasons into a five season arc. Yeah. We're, we're not changing at this point. Oh, Jeff. Jeff. Jeff, Jeff. Hey, listen, along with our rule of three, there is another game we like to play. It's the most famous game that we play here. It's the game where we get to the end of the show and we predict what next week's episode is going to be about. Well, this is the part where we look back on last week and our predictions, and we see just how right or wrong they were.
That's right. It is time.
Jeff: Time to pay. The Piper
Brent: Jeff, what was your prediction last week?
Jeff: Byron is going to die. That will incite people into a war. The Phoenix won't be him himself, but his legacy.
Brent: I'm giving you, I've never done this before. Jeff. I'm giving you an I, you know, an I is.
Jeff: Is that an incomplete?
Brent: It's an incomplete because we don't know that that's what's happening just yet.
Jeff: We know that's they. They painted. Remember Byron everywhere?
Brent: But we don't, but we don't know that this is gonna launch something bigger or, or something like that. It might, we don't know that.
Jeff: They bombed the headquarters.
Brent: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We don't know just yet though. We, we haven't seen the full, the full deal just yet.
Jeff: I'll tell you what, I will take a perfect score with an asterisk. I will sa I will Sammy, soa this thing.
Brent: I will, I will 1000% give you that because I, I think you're, I think you're right because everything is, is leading towards that, so Yeah. I'll give that one to you.
Jeff: What was your guess?
Brent: Uh, it was, it was basically the end of the telepath war. This is gonna be part two of last week, and it was just gonna be this big, you know, Make it, make it something huge and be the end of the war.
That's what I thought it was gonna be.
Jeff: I'm gonna give you half a point with an asterisk, cuz this could be the end. Don't think it will be. Could be. Um, and yeah, it was a big old thing.
Brent: I,
Jeff: thing happened.
Brent: I think this was the end that I was expecting, but you said, you said something right before we hit record, Jeff, that has me three rethinking my, my ending feelings on this episode even right now as we talk.
Jeff: Oh, look at that.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: It's the power of conversation in discussion right there.
Brent: Jeff, let me ask you a question. How often have you walked into this show, thinking one way about an episode or having certain thoughts?
And by the time we were done with our conversation, you left having a different understanding or feeling about an episode.
Jeff: Oh, a good chunk of times. I think one that I think of really well is comes the inquisitor. I still, I still don't think that was a good episode, but what you offered in there, I see it in an entirely different light than I did before. I don't like it, but I thought the, how, the way you brought it up was like, oh, that's actually really, that's a cool way of seeing the episode.
It makes it better, but uh,
Brent: Was it a testing or a teaching?
Jeff: right, exactly.
Brent: Is that what you're talking about?
Jeff: Yeah.
Yeah, it was a great conversation.
Brent: you know, it's, it's actually fun. Um, one of the cool things about our show is, is it's evergreen, which means people come in and they can, they can start from the beginning at any time, and, and feel like they're riding along with us, or at least we try, we strive to make it as evergreen as we possibly can.
Um, somebody just, uh, like a, a new listener who's been listening through, they just got through that episode and they were talking about the whole teaching, uh, versus, uh, trial, you know? Um, so anyway,
Jeff: It's the, uh, it's the magic of making this show ever green. Sorry, I, I couldn't not,
Brent: You know, Jeff, you look really good sitting over there in your,
Jeff: oh, look at that.
Brent: well, Jeff, uh, for folks out there who may be wondering what the heck happened in this episode, I don't remember because it's been so long since I've seen it, or maybe they're going, yeah, I, I didn't see it. I just came across your podcast and you guys sound really good. You got these nice, cool melodic voices.
Remind the folks out there what this episode really was about.
Jeff: Well in this one we get right into it. There are three camps of Telepaths and the Mundanes caught in the middle on Babylon five. You've got Byron still leading his hunger strike, Thomas with his group that left Byron's compound leading the violence resistance, and you've got Ster leading his bloodhounds and PSYOPs out to wrangle them all up and in the middle, Lockley and Sheridan are trying to clean this whole thing up.
Early on, we find out that Ster and Byron actually go way back as a strong P 12. Byron was not only a psyop, but a member of Black Omega and a protege of Sters, like other side cops. He spent his days snagging blips and he was super good at it until one day ster did as ster does, and ordered him to not only snag the blips.
But blowed up the mundanes that were trying to protect and smuggle them too. He didn't want to, but he did, and that changed him into the plain flat pancake of a nonviolent failed cult leader that we know today. Outside of that, this Thomas dude grabbed some hostages from Med Lab, including Dr. Franklin and Garibaldi.
He makes his demands that are basically, Hey, let us go, give us safe passage and then let's sit down and you know, have a civilized conversation about giving us a home world. If you don't do that though, we will kill the hostages. This leads to a familiar scene, one that we saw, I don't know, it feels like 47 weeks ago, where Garibaldi is clutching an old gateway monitor.
While Sheridan tells Thomas he won't negotiate with terrorists, first time we saw this, we thought Garibaldi got blasted, but no. Byron non-violent Byron Blasts Thomas. He has become that which he hates. Oh, poor Byron.
Personally defeated. He makes an offer to Sheridan an unluckily, arrest the violent people, including himself, and let the rest go. Just take the S cops off the table after conferring with earth gov, they agree. Hooray. The day is saved until the day gets really weird. Pester and his bloodhounds intercept them as securities arresting Byron's offenders, and he throws a fit.
When a Byron's dudes takes a shot at ster and all hell breaks loose, some tes go down, a chemical spill starts pouring out, and then the shooting stops despite Sheridan trying to stop, Byron and even Lida, trying to talk some sense into him while everybody else just stands around watching. Byron decides that, well, I, I got no choice.
And he shoots the chemical spill blowing up the telepaths except Lita, who agreed to leave. That's kind of it. Byron and the violent telepaths are suddenly dead. Even bests confused at what happened. He basically tells Sheridan that the real enemy are the mundanes, and then he takes off, lead us, sees all the surviving telepaths off with a message that we'll hear, echoed in a news report that says the Cycore headquarters on Earth got blowed up with the phrase.
Remember Byron left at the scene. Luckily though, ster got more out of his visit than watching his old protege shoot a puddle. He got to spend some time with Garibaldi and it went down exactly how he wanted it to. Garibaldi had his PPG charged and aimed ready to unleash hell on him for the hell that he put him through.
But he just couldn't do it. You see, ster Asimov, him First Law Garibaldi cannot harm ster or through a failure to act, allow him to be harmed. It's a hard coded neural lock. He asks Franklin for help, but that whole being hostages thing kind of, kind of got in the way of that. So the episode ends with him taking a drink of afterburner whiskey.
Brent Garibaldi fell off the wagon in this one. How did you do with Phoenix Rising?
Brent: You know, Jeff, for an episode that was supposed to be this big climactic battle is what it, it's really where it felt like this, this episode was gonna go. Like, I had so much hope for this episode, this big, legendary telepath war we've heard about. It's been, it's been spoken of 500 years in the future as being this big flashpoint, this turning point, this whole episode, like the rest of the Byron episodes fell so flat.
It was so just, ugh. Normally Walter Canid comes in as bester and elevates an episode, and my God, if he elevated this episode, how low was it before him? You know? Um, so much of it was hokey. There were acting choices that were awful. There were, there were plot pieces that just didn't make sense. The logical flow of things.
Things were predictable. Characters were acting out of character just to service the plot. Uh, it, it just, so much of this episode was just, ugh. And again, it, you know what it is, you know, the biggest sin, I think it committed, it didn't live up to my expectations,
Jeff: a big sin.
Brent: although, to be fair, my expectations have been set.
Because of how good Babylon five as a show has been, and this is not measuring up to where we've been. It's easier, I think, to give Grace to the earlier seasons where the show hasn't hit the mountaintop yet, but once the show hits the mountaintop and then the other seasons are lower, it just makes those EP, those episodes harder to, to swallow.
And I think that's where we are right now. These episodes are just hard to swallow. How about you, Jeff?
Jeff: He just said is interesting cuz one of my first thoughts was this was an okay episode of tv but this is Babylon five not just tv. And fine isn't good enough for B, you know, for Babylon five. This episode just didn't make any sense, like, He didn't want to talk and then he didn't want to talk, and then he got his way, and then somebody on his team went off script.
So I'm gonna blow everybody up like it just like last week where his string of logic, I think it was last week, just completely fell apart. Same thing like his act, it, there's no cohesion through, through his thinking on this at all. This is one that some of, uh, some of my people out there are gonna understand.
I think this entire storyline, and Byron specifically, is the initial release of mass effect Andromeda. Just without the cool combat system and the profile thing that came in, like it's full of bugs, there's inconsistencies. I don't know, like it's clear that there's gonna be more of this telepath stuff and I, it is not possible for me to care less about it.
I just don't care. We. We know it's gonna be fine cuz Deconstruction of Falling Stars told us. So can we just wrap this up next episode and pretend it never happened?
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: Wow. This has been a rough, rough string of
Brent: Yeah. You, what you just said there, Jeff, is the cardinal sin of television. It was boring. It didn't, it didn't make me ca I didn't care. I just didn't care. You made me ambivalent to the whole thing.
Jeff: the peak, let's just cut right to the end. But the peak when Byron and Lita are holding each other in this impassioned, go save yourself. I'm, I'm just looking at the whole thing being like, who are these people?
Brent: You know what that felt like to me? And I, I, and I don't mean to, to gender fi something, this felt like a, a chick flick on a lifetime special.
Jeff: Wow.
Brent: You know what I mean? Like, I was just like, this is, this isn't sci-fi. This isn't, this isn't the, the. Political commentary we've come to know from Babylon five. This is, this is just dumb and, and
Jeff: garbage sitcom romance.
Brent: but it's not, even if it was sitcom, I'd be laughing at it.
It's not even that, like this is the, I'm sure this is tugging at some heart. Ch I mean the score and the, this is, oh, it just, you know, and I'm sure there might be some people out there who are really touched by the whole situation.
Jeff: The thing is though, it's not even Lita, like that's not the character of Lita that we've seen up to like in that moment.
Brent: so betrayed by, by this writing.
Jeff: very much. It's just e everything she says in that moment, it's just this isn't who she is. And, and, and Byron can be anybody cuz he is been six different characters in the time that he's been on here.
So fine, fine.
Brent: yep. I will say this about Byron. If I, if I could, if, if, if I would've known before this moment. I would've, you know, charged up the tacky on beam and sent these vibes back in time to jms. Do you, do you know what would've made all of this so much better
Jeff: Hmm.
Brent: is if they would've given this, the Avengers Infinity War treatment?
Do you know the biggest problem with Marvel movies?
Jeff: I'm curious what you think.
Brent: Villains? The villains are the biggest problem with Marvel movies. You wanna know why? Because they're underdeveloped.
Jeff: Who cares?
Brent: there's no reason for them to be doing what they're doing. They're just doing it. And our heroes have to go fix it, right? Like, that is, that is consistently, especially through those first three phases of Marvel, if you guys understand what that means, they're, they're just awful. Ronan was one of the worst, just som you know, the, all the, the Iron Man villains are just awful. The Ant Man villain, like, they're just bad.
Jeff: Then you get to Infinity
Brent: Then you get to Infinity War where you have Thanos. And let's face it, I know that Infinity War is called Avengers Infinity War. Infinity War was not about the Avengers. The Avengers were such a minuscule part of that episode. That episode was about Thanos. That was about the villain that episode gave.
The villain, his backstory, gave pathos, made us understand where he was coming from, made us look through his eyes and see what the issue was, and understand why he's doing what he's doing, so that when he takes the actions that he's taking, we'll understand it. He can act out of character because we understand that he is now a bigger, faceted character.
If they would've taken a single episode. Imagine this, Jeff, a single episode that really didn't focus on Sheridan. Delin. Ivanova. Oh wait, Ivan's gone Garibaldi, uh, didn't focus on any of those, but just focused on Byron and his backstory with investor and where, where that led him to this path. If we would've gotten that, let's say episode four or five, six might have been a little too late, but you know, relatively early and let that recolor, everything we've seen so far, this could have been such a way more compelling deal.
I thought that the guy that played Byron, this is pro, when he was, when he was doing the stuff against Ster, when he was acting against Ster, that is the best acting I have seen that actor do as Byron. It is. It is one of the few times I didn't want to just. Uh, grab a pillow and lay down and take a nap when he was on screen.
Jeff: Well if you look at his I M D B page, the guy, I mean, he is ubiquitous. He's everywhere. He's super prolific, voice actor in a ton of stuff. Like the guy's got a ton of work, I think like, and I agree. Him and Ster was great. And what it says is, Dude, what? Rowan Atkinson or whatever his name is, he's bringing the goods, but between the writing and the directing, you, you, you get a pancake with no butter or syrup.
They didn't even put vanilla in the batter, you know, it's just,
Brent: You know, Roan Atkinson would've been brilliant in this role.
Jeff: yeah.
Brent: Bring in Mr. Bean. Like,
Jeff: I don't know what this dude, the actor's name is, but it's something like
Brent: it's like Robin something or other.
Jeff: Yeah. I'm just, that's my wishful thinking on that. But, you know, I don't remember if it was Game of Thrones that did this or which, which one of the like more modern, um, you know, big TV things. But they would do that where they'd be an episode that actually happened like nine years ago.
And just like Regent Verini, those scenes on Sari Prime were so compelling because we know that he's got dude on his shoulder telling him what to do. No one else knows that. And if we got that episode of Black Omega Squadron, uh, Byron Investor out. Getting blips and doing this stuff, and we knew that, but Lita and no one else knew it, that it would've been so much more compelling.
And then when he shared the story, he's opening his heart. It would've been this warm, amazing moment of connection, but instead it was just like, oh, of course. Of course you've got a connection with ster because why wouldn't you?
Brent: I mean, and maybe we would've understood some of the brokenness. Of where he jumps back and forth to. We're telepaths we're awesome, and we just wanna be better than everybody else. And, and even at their expense, we're just gonna do this too, actually. I don't want to kill the mundanes and we're not gonna do this, and we're gonna be better by it, but we are better than all of you guys out there.
And we're so, so mad at you guys, and we're so pissed off, like it would've given us this, this reference point for frankly why he's so confused, why he doesn't really know what he wants or where he's going, why people are rallying around him. Oh yeah. Also, you know, the best part of the entire tri trilogy of prequel, uh, movies from Star Wars.
Jeff: Hmm.
Brent: the relationship between Obiwan and Anakin.
Jeff: Oh yeah, yeah,
Brent: You know what I mean? It's, it's that, that tension that, you know, something is gonna happen because they're gonna be on opposite sides by the end. To know that that's what's happening here with Ster and, and Byron, and, and to see that coming, like it just would've improved the whole thing.
Jeff: Well, they had the episode when ster first came on board. We even had the conversation. I was like, is there a relationship?
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: these two. It's so personal, and so the next episode, tell the story. Just go in, but it's just boop boop. I think that's one of the things is Babylon five planted seeds. I remember, gosh, it was the early in the third season, I think I gave this metaphor of like when you, you know, lay grass seed down you, not when you're putting sod or turf, but putting the stuff and you lay it down.
You work super hard. You plant all these seeds, you water it in. You look at your work and you're like, it's a field of dirt. This is dumb geometry of shadows here, right? Like, what is this? Then you come back a season later and you're like, look how beautiful. Oh my God, this is incredible. They tried to do that in like the six episode arc without ever watering the seeds.
Brent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because then we get something like here where he's, he's, he's turned into Gumby. All of a sudden he's concerned about the Mundanes, he's concerned about normal people and he doesn't want to hurt them. And he like, what? No.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: I don't know. I just, people out there are probably firing up the keyboards telling us why we're wrong about all of this and how they, he, they have seeded it and all this sort of stuff.
Yeah. We didn't, we
Jeff: If they did, they weren't good seeds. Here's the seed they planted that paid off, and I was so upset when it did. It's that stupid song they sang. I'm like, you're really, we're gonna sing that. Oh my God. Oh my God.
Brent: yeah, yeah. But, you know, and then, and then he, you know, he goes to off himself and I'm sitting there going, is he really gonna kill himself? Like, are they gonna go down that route? Cause I thought he was going to eat that P P G.
Jeff: Same.
Brent: Like I really did,
Jeff: He was holding it up the
Brent: are they going to show him do that?
Like, oh my gosh, this would've been, and then nope, it's a chemical spill and he shoots the chemical spill and kills the four or five people around him that, you know, also did the, the damaged stuff. Like we are who we are, we're, we're the animals now and there's no going back. I'm like, yeah, there is. What do you, he's concerned he's, oh, that's the other thing.
Imagine this. He feels so much guilt over what he did with, with shooting those people, that all of this is about the single thing of him searching for his own redemption,
Jeff: yep.
Brent: that that makes this more compelling,
Jeff: His, his whole line was that all the others, you, Lida, the others are my redemption for sins past. I think let, we're talking about betrayal of character. This whole end, betrayed everything we learned from passing through Gethsemane on that, you know, you can find redemption. God Sheridan is telling him. Bro, it does not have to end like this.
Lita is saying it doesn't have to end like this. Sters literally staring at him. Like, what are you doing? Like every single person is there saying what? Except for the telepaths around him who are just like, what I, I wonder what you're gonna do is
Brent: Yeah. And then, and then everything comes out at, remember Byron, remember Byron as if like, he's like, no, no. Jeff, I do need to pause just for a second. I'll be 30 seconds. Gimme just one moment.
Jeff: So
Brent: See you guys get the behind the scenes version, told you anyway. Uh, what were you saying?
Jeff: the pirate's terrible.
Brent: Byron's awful. But he's gone.
Jeff: Trying to see if I,
Brent: you know how this whole thing ends. We got our wish. Byron's
Jeff: did, yeah.
Brent: We don't have to deal with him anymore. We might have to deal with a fallout, but we don't have to deal with him.
Jeff: But he's not there. I think one of the big things that, that was said in the whole thing though, is when, uh, like Sters just blown away literally. Ha ha. But he's just like, I don't, I don't understand. I mean, we gotta focus on who the real enemy is and Sheridan's like, Us the mundanes and ster just totally blows past.
He doesn't even acknowledge it. It, it was such a power move by Ster where he's like, I'm so far above you, president Sheridan. I'm not even gonna acknowledge that you just called me out on exactly what it's
Brent: I got a question about SCO
Jeff: okay.
Brent: investor goes through this whole spiel about, uh, speaking to his fellow people at the beginning of the episode. These are our children. Don't forget, even though we're on other sides, these are our people. These are our children. The core is mother, the core, his father. We've gotta bring them home alive. Right?
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: Um, and then later he's talking to, was it Lockley? I think he was talking to Lockley where he talks about how every species out there that has Telepath says, had to do something with them. They all use things like drugs, religion laws, extermination to control them. Earth uses sco. Cycore is an organization that you, that they bring them in, they teach them how to use their gifts.
They give them rules, they give them boundaries. They set them up, they release them to be of service to the community, to be able to make a living. From that they're not just sponging off, off of, off of, uh, the world. They have the ability to, to make a good living and make a good life for themselves. Yes, there are rules that they have to abide by.
Uh, yes, Cycore certainly has some shady underpinnings as far as their, their political ambitions and stuff. But investor basically says like, yeah, you may not like what we do at Cycore, but it's like the best thing out there that's going for Telepaths. Is he Right? Is Cycore actually like when you consider it, is it really the, like one of the best methods for, for what they've gotta do?
Jeff: I think it's tough to tell because our other examples are the cent and the minbar and they kind of do their thing, right? Like it doesn't
Brent: just let them be in in society? Yeah.
Jeff: yeah. Maybe there's some religion, you know, around, around stuff. And I mean, what we don't know, like maybe are, are all Minbar Telepaths religious cast, right? And so there's some strictures or whatever.
We don't know the cent. What I know about that is we saw in passing through Gethsemane that like dude can just head down below and hit Brother Edward with something like they're out doing whatever. I. I don't think it's true. I don't think it's the best going, but, but I also think like so many things that are organizational, you know, like, like Sitecore, if it were done right and altruistically, it's pretty great, but you get the wrong people and power and without the checks and balances that are necessary and when you end up with what we have
that we've seen now,
Brent: I was gonna say, and then you get something that actually started altruistically that is no longer altruistic
Jeff: yeah, it gets all manipulated and twisted because of people you know and looking, looking at you Catholic church right now, like
Brent: Yeah. Yeah, it happens. Um, also speaking of ster, I very much appreciated the cold open of this episode is for like, last week we had the, the monologue by, uh, Lockley. It, it was the, Hey, let's catch you up on what's going on if you haven't been around. Cuz now we're on t and t All of a sudden this episode was the exact same thing.
But you know, you know what this, you know what this opening was,
Jeff: Huh.
Brent: this episode, this opening was last time on Babylon five without being last time on Babylon five. Like,
Jeff: Let's just cut in real quick with a Previously on Babylon five.
Brent: right, exactly. It, it just, it was that without being that, you know, and in fact, I love best. He says a few words for those of you who've just arrived, I wish he would've just looked into the camera when he said it,
Jeff: Right.
Brent: you know?
Jeff: Totally on point.
Brent: Oh man.
Jeff: the best investor we got was with Garibaldi in this one.
Brent: Two dudes in a room talking Absolutely. Garibaldi, uh, gets as oved. He said,
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: I gotta, I gotta tell you about this, Jeff.
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: I'm getting kind of sick of the name Asimov.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: It seems, I think maybe I've just heard it in so many different places and so many different people reference it. And I, I understand the reverence that people have for Isaac ov and what he's done for science fiction and what, what he means out there. But holy heck, everybody talks about him. You know, it's like everybody has this reference. We had, we've had the ship, the Asimov this entire time keeps coming back. It's like, I as him off you, I as him off. Like, really? Come on, dude. Like, like, we got it. Like, I understand. We've all seen the movie iRobot by now.
Like, like we got it.
Jeff: Yeah. I mean when that finally, that that idea of Isaac Asimov that Will Smith was finally able to make reality, I mean, I don't know whatever came before that, but thank goodness for Will Smith and his early two thousands bringing what should have been powerful literature to the screen.
Brent: Yeah. And you know, honestly, iRobot is a, I think it's a, that's a movie that the more you watch it, the more you see it, the more brilliant it actually winds up becoming. Now I can't, I can't do anything to compare it to the novel. And if you compare it to the novel, it's gonna fail in almost every aspect.
But if you take it as a film anyway, uh, he talks about the rules.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: He, he turned, uh, Garibaldi into a robot and inserted two of these rules. Now, he said, I gave you two of the rules. There are three rules. But actually he only gave him one rule that just has two facets to it. Just to be, just to be clear, um, the rules were you cannot kill your, you cannot.
Kill me or through an action, allow harm to come to me. Now, Asimov's rule is a human, but still, I forget what the second rule is. But Jeff, I noted there was one rule specifically that, that ster did not implant in DA into Garibaldi. He did not implant the one that says You're not allowed to hurt yourself or through an action, allow harm to come to you. I forgot about the middle rule. So I was thinking like, oh, he got two of them and he left this one off. And I'm sitting here going, and it was so like there that I'm going in this moment, what? What is this? Nine minutes into the episode, and I'm thinking he didn't give him the limit to not hurt himself or bring harm to himself. This is a setup for Garibaldi to either kill himself or. Drop back into his addiction,
Jeff: Yep.
Brent: like from right then I was like, he's gonna drop back into his addiction. And sure enough, by the end of the episode, Jeff, I was heartbroken to see it happen. I also was not surprised. I'm never surp.
Jeff: I was actually encouraged,
Brent: Oh yeah.
Jeff: like so, and I don't know this, this, and I might be way off on this, but like I watched it happen and there was a big part of me just like, no, no, don't do it. But another part of me being like he gets it. There are things in our lives that are bigger than us and, and hopefully for most of us out there in the world, we don't have to face these things ever.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: But Garibaldi has a couple of times, and this is one of 'em, and what he knows is there's this narrow block that is hard-coded into his system. I don't know about you, Brent, but what I've downed stuff probably not nearly as potent as an afterburner whiskey, which is a really cool label on that thing. Anything blocking my neural stuff kind of disappeared and went away. This wasn't Garibaldi getting upset, being depressed, feeling defeated. This was Garibaldi saying, if I take this stuff down, it'll bring the Neal block down with it, and I can take out ster. He's willing to sacrifice himself to take him down, and I get it.
Brent: It it is the alcohol supposed to bring down the neural block?
Jeff: That's my guess.
Brent: Maybe. I mean, the, the only thing that I hate about that is just from a literary standpoint. We already have alcohol brings down the guard of the watchers,
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: and now we're gonna bring, use alcohol to bring down the guard of the
Jeff: But
Brent: And I, I would hope that that would surpass being in a drunken state
Jeff: But think how cool, not cool, that's really the wrong word. Think how powerful that is though from a literary sense. Step back from alcohol as the tool and think of the people being impacted. You've got Londo who the first season was, I mean, he literally would go in the bar and drink other people's drinks that they'd left behind.
Like, dude sucking this stuff dry. And then you've got Garrett Baldy who's not just a, like, he is in recovery, he is not drinking this. They both have to come to a place to use this tool from their points of completely different perspectives, points of view and experience. I think that's a very powerful storytelling tool if they choose to use those against each other.
And for it to be Londo and Garibaldi, right? Who had the uh, Hey, let's have a drink. Even a chemically inoffensive one, you know, like they've intersected on this alcohol thing a number of times. I think there's, I think it's pretty great actually.
Brent: I gotta be honest with you, I, I really hope you're right and I don't think you are, but I hope you're right because I would much rather have this be an intentional action by Garibaldi to defeat this thing than a guy who had a perfect storm of situations come up. That is a formula for an addict falling back into their own ways. And I, that's, that's the way I read it and that's the way I'm gonna stay with it until we see different, and I hope you're right, Jeff, but I really think that this, that what's being happening here and what's happening here is Baldy is falling off the wagon and he's succumbing back to his old ways and his old addiction.
And it never surprises me when an addict goes back to those ways. It breaks my heart, but it never surprises me. Um, cuz it's, it's always there, it's always a presence in that person's life. And it's a continual fight. Like it's, it's not a surprise.
Jeff: If this was third or fourth season of Babylon, five, I would tell you flat out you are wrong. This is deep and they're doing some stuff. But so far, halfway through the fifth season, there is no evidence that the writing is gonna be depth, have depth or be complex here at all.
Brent: You ain't lying.
Jeff: Yeah. And hey, sorry people I know like that's almost blasphemous, but outside of the very long night, Orlando Malari.
Tell me I'm wrong
Brent: There's been a couple of good episodes. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff: One thing I noted when he was talking about the Asimov though is, uh, pre-and cyber, cyber ISTs used these rules. So there was a ban on robots in Earth's history. That's the story
Brent: I missed that line and yeah, that's, is that gonna come back or is that just a cool line that, that dude wrote?
Jeff: It'd be neat. I mean, I, for, for, I got a mass effect one, I'll get a dune one that's very erian jihad kind of a thing where they take down, you know, all the thinking machines. That'd be cool. But I'm like, we know there's some offshoot stuff, you know, out there from Babylon five. It would be cool if there was a little story about like when the robots rise, you know, rose up and what we did to take him down.
Brent: Can we, before we move on, can we just take a moment and give ster all the credit in the world for doing this? When he re reprogramed, deprogrammed Garibaldi, like knowing that this could come and this, this could happen. And he set that up and, and I thought, Walter Kanick, he played this to a t. He's like, oh, oh, oh.
I'm so surprised. Oh, he close his eyes, he opens one at a time and he goes and he sits on the couch and has his own little drink and leaves the glass there, an empty glass right next to his glass, and he's just like, yep, better luck next time, pal. And, and, uh, you know, Mike, uh, uh, Doyle. Jerry Doyle. Thank you.
He, he's sitting there just, he's holding the PPG and he's shaking in his hand cause he can't make it happen. And then he eventually just out of frustration, shoots the TV monitor. Like it was such a good scene. Such a good scene for otherwise blah episode. Um, changing topics.
Jeff: well before, before you change topics there. Um, I think, what was it? It it recolors? Um, was it between the darkness and the light when, um, When Garal and we found out Ster was the one who programmed Garibaldi, but they're in that train and Sters like on one hand, I can kill you on the other hand, I can just let you go.
And he is toying with him. It recolors that whole scene cuz he knows, he knows he's gonna let him go and he knows he is gonna cat and mouse him into like, he's playing out this scene that we saw right here in that moment in the train where he is like, oh, this is gonna be so much fun to make this thing happen.
And it, it just, it made me see that, that whole thing in a really different and really fun light, fun light in a horrible, horrible way for Garibaldi.
Brent: Best or just toying with the mundanes minds,
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: you know? What did you think, Byron? Being a a p 12 being super powerful? I don't think I ever got that. He was that powerful.
Jeff: Oh, I got that. Especially back in a view from the gallery when, um, I forget if it was Beau or Mack, but they were like, Hey, I really wonder what it's like to be out there in the star fair. And he's like, oh, is that what you really like? You're there. He did some pretty cool stuff, like beyond the line of sight stuff that, that we generally need.
Brent: Yeah. Makes me wonder how much he has impacted his own telepaths around him. Yeah. He like, he gets into it and then he like sort of almost infects what they have going on if he's that powerful.
Jeff: He, uh, he follows the Secret. He has got a little vision board and he makes his brain waves. Yeah.
Brent: So I've, I've got two more things on here. I don't, I don't know about you, but one I want to discuss this idea of Sheridan coming to a spot where he comes on TV and he goes, it is not our policy and it will not be our policy to negotiate with terrorists for the lives of hostages. It made me stop and think for a moment, cuz I've never really thought about it before. I understand the idea of the policy. If we don't negotiate, You know, we've, we've always heard that like America has a no negotiation policy. We don't negotiate. I think we've seen that not be true over,
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: we do negotiate
Jeff: Pretty
consistently
Brent: yeah, actually. Uh, but just that, that concept, like we don't negotiate that. Um, I understand the need for that policy. Like I get it. I fully get it because as soon as you do, then that becomes the go-to for everybody who wants to twist your hand. And if they know that they can eventually get you to give in because of that, then it doesn't stop. Like, I get it, but he added the line.
We don't negotiate with terrorists for the lives of hostages. And I'm like, dude, there's something so cold about Yeah, kill him. We're not negotiating with you. I think the, the understanding is, is if you have our, per our people, we're gonna come in and get them.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Like, we're not gonna negotiate with you, but we will come get them. We've also seen in real life, now that they can have our people and we don't go get 'em.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: We just let 'em stay while they try to negotiate and figure it out, and diplomatic channels and whatnot. So, I don't know, it just, it hit me kind of in a new way, hearing him say, we don't negotiate for the lives of, of hostages.
I was
Jeff: I have some head canon around that, cuz there was this scene where he and Delan were talking and she, and he was like, Dude, Garibaldis been here from day one, like he's the most senior staff of the, you know, the command team. Like, he was kind of building up like, this is a big deal and I don't want to be the one to make this happen.
And there's two parts in it that, that tell the story for me. One is I think that he was sending a message to Garibaldi that like, sorry bro, like this sucks and I hate to do it, but here it is. So he is being very explicit. But I also remember in deconstruction of Falling Stars and even hear like his voice was really gravelly when he says that.
And, and it wasn't even him being tough, it was just, we do not, it was very non-shared in voice tone, I think. I think he was broken down. I think he'd been like crying and upset. I think he was broken around sacrificing Garibaldi for this. Maybe even Dr. Franklin. I mean, Franklin was there, but the real focus was on Garibaldi.
And when he came on to say the thing, he had steeled himself. He was gonna stay stern and say this and be like, we do not do this. And I'm playing a part right now to tell you that that's just my story that
Brent: If, if that's the case, that is an incredible level of acting on the part of Bruce Bruce Box Lightner.
Jeff: which we've seen time and time again.
Brent: Does Bruce box lightener smoke?
Jeff: I don't know,
Brent: Because it also seems like that could be, like, he'd just come off a cigarette break.
Jeff: Sheridan might have, I dunno if Box Lightener does or not, but he could have been like, oh my God,
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: don't know. I gotta do something.
Brent: Yeah. You know, speaking of people's voices, and I'm sorry I, I don't mean to bag on people, but
lock Lee's voice just gets on my nerves. There's something about it, there's just, there's a temper to it that mellows the whole thing out and doesn't make it, doesn't give it the punch. You know, Ivana had like a punch to her voice, you know, uh, you know, captain Lockley, uh, she just, there there's this, I, I, I don't know, like, it just, it's just, it's weird.
It's an observation. It's our job here to. Document our thoughts, I guess on, on this as a first time watch, like I'm, I'm not calling her out. I'm not saying she's bad. I'm not saying she's awful. I just, there's just something about it that just doesn't, doesn't get it for me.
Jeff: two words come to mind for me? Clinical and wooden.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: It's, and, and not wooden, like absolutely nothing at all going on, but just a very, uh, a very clinical line delivery. I haven't seen anything else that Traci s Coggins has ever done. I've never, I'm not aware of anything else, but, uh,
Brent: I, can I give you the biggest sin of what it really reminded me of?
Jeff: yeah.
Brent: Leona Kimmer?
Jeff: Oh,
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: No, dude.
Different, different ballgame. Totally
Brent: I don't know. I don't know.
Jeff: Because I think that when, when I, when I hear Lockley speak and I hear you, right, like there's definitely something in the delivery of her voice that is, um, just not right. It's line read, right? Like there's a definite line read to what she does, but it's an affect I can understand as someone who is still new to a command of this level who's putting together a certain, trying to build her own gravitas almost that it, were not succeeding, but trying.
Brent: yep.
So I guess the final thing for me on this is we gotta come down to what this episode meant. What this epi, the purpose. This episode serves it. It can't just have been the end of the telepath war, which is what I was really thinking. You said something earlier to me today and I was like, oh yeah, you're probably right.
We get this whole scene at the end with Lita. Who has received the memories and now she, she, she is going to embody them and she's gonna be the one to take it to the next level. And she's gonna be the one to ratchet it all up and it's gonna be in his name. But she's received this, oh, by the way, she's also been jacked up by the voor lawns.
Just reminding everybody about that as well. This sounds very, um, what was his name? Jeff. Oh. Tall years old boyfriend that gave, made her all jacked up. Ironheart?
Jeff: Nope,
Brent: Nope,
Jeff: Nope. Um, stoner. Matt Stoner.
Brent: nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. The guy who ascended and gave her like the extra special
Jeff: that was Ironheart.
Brent: Iron Earnhardt. Yeah. Yeah. It, it had that kind of a, like, I'm gonna amp you up. So now it's not just Lita, it's not just the VLANs, it's Lita the VLANs. And Byron now living in her, embodying her as she, you know, we're gonna do this for Byron and in his deal.
Um, but here's the question. Was this the end of the Telepath war or is this the beginning? Is Lita gonna take us down a line where this really ratchets up and really turns into something? And if so, why the hell did we have Byron for 11 episodes? It could have been done in three.
Jeff: Yep. And this is the, this, this is the beginning. I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna guess four more episodes of this.
Brent: Or? 10.
Jeff: Oh God.
Brent: All right, Jeff? Uh,
Jeff: Four is four more. Four is five More than I can handle on this. Like
Brent: yeah, I, I mean, do the whole thing with Byron. Let it get to where it gets, and then move on to this if this, and I hope that this is gonna be cool what we're getting ready to get into that all of this has just been prologue for, for what's getting ready to happen. It really could have been three episodes, maybe four with Byron.
Anyway, with that being said, Jeff, we have reached that part of the show where it is time to boil it all down and see if in this particular episode, were there any of those deep moral messages? Is it holding up a mirror to society? Is it giving us hope that we can be better in the future? Is it that Star Trek message that it's not a Star Trek message?
It's just a message that Babylon five is delivering in its own unique way? Jeff, you're gonna do that. You're gonna break this down in those terms by rating this episode on a scale of zero to five white stars. As to how strong that message is and how Babylon five was that message. Jeff, what do you got for us this week?
Jeff: This episode was its own worst enemy. Like there was an attempted message in here about becoming a thing you swore that you would never be, but that kind of literally blew up in everyone's face. They also tried, and I copied these lines down. I tried to teach them to show them there's another way than violence.
Did I fail that badly? The answer is yes. And then Lita says, you can't change human nature, Byron, then there's not much point in living is there? We can't hope for something better, something noble. At least something kinder. Yeah, that all fell apart, right? By saying like, this was all his dream. He never actually did any of this.
He didn't teach anyone non-violence. It propped up these ideas and over these last string of episodes have been trying to show it to us and it all fell apart. This is a zero white star episode. In fact, I would almost say this is a negative white star episode because it sh shot itself in the foot so blatantly on some really cool ideas that were there, but just complete failure and execution.
Brent: I can't argue anything you just said. I just, I can't, I can't,
Jeff: Well, I'm itching for an argument here, so, uh, let's see if we get one, because Brent, it's your turn to rank. This episode, we are creating the definitive ranking of all of the episodes in the fifth season of Babylon five. Our current top five has the very long night of Lado malaria in the top spot, no compromises in number two, then learning curve, a view from the gallery and rounded out with Day of the Dead.
Brent, where are you gonna put Phoenix Rising.
Brent: It's not in the top five.
Jeff: Dang
Brent: It's, it's, it's not,
Jeff: go for it.
Brent: it's not even close in the top five. My question is, is I, I'm thinking it's in the bottom three. Just where in the bottom three is this the worst episode of the season so far that would make it worse than Secrets of the Soul? I'm looking at my notes from Secrets of the Soul, and here's what I said.
I said this was an incredibly weak episode. It was eye rolling in so many ways, but it said a lot about that was the hayak at the Hayak do and everything that it had going on. I think it was a really poignant episode, even if the episode itself was rather weak above that is strange relations in our, uh, what would that be our number nine spot.
And, um, this was another Bester episode, and Bester couldn't save it. It was just Telepaths being telepaths. Jeff, I think I would actually, if I could, I would put Secrets of the Soul Above Strange Relations, but I can't do that yet. We're not at that spot. We'll talk about that when we get to our season wrap up.
But Jeff, uh, to me, this episode wasn't a great episode, and it didn't say pretty much anything. Secrets of the Soul wasn't a great episode, but it had a lot to say. So this one goes below Secrets of the Soul. This is number 11.
Jeff: I was hoping for an argument, but you're not gonna get one from me.
Brent: But again, but again, you know, what I'm not doing is I'm not placing this at number 21 or 22 as of right now. Like, I'm not, I'm not throwing it all the way down there. We've done that before.
Jeff: We have, and that's not even, that's not even necessarily on the merit of this episode. It's on what we are coming to expect from future episodes.
Brent: It's gotta get better, right, Jeff? Right.
Jeff: We keep saying it, but you know what? Let's notch another one down. That's it for Phoenix Rising. Next week we're gonna be watching the Ragged Edge for the first time. We've never seen these episodes before. We avoid thumbnails at all costs, no spoilers, no descriptions, and the fun game we love playing. To wrap up each episode is where we guess what the next episode will be about based on the title alone.
Brent, you get to go first. What do you think the Ragged Edge is gonna be about?
Brent: I have no idea. We've, we've wrapped up this, this storyline. There's the Lita thing. I don't think we're gonna revisit that for a while. Uh, you say ragged edge. The only thing that I think about in terms of anything having to do with this is Garibaldi going back into the bottle and getting ragged. Right.
Um, But I feel like that's too loose of a, of a thing. So yo, this bug, Gar Baldi being back in the bottle. Like I've got, I've gotta, I've gotta make a Brent prediction for what this is gonna be. So buckle in. I have no reason to predict this. You ready for it? Here we go. The ragged edge. This is so stupid. Uh, the Ragged Edge, remember this is on t and t.
Remember what happened with Penn and Teller a couple weeks ago? The Ragged Edge is a very popular musical band that is super huge among the Interstellar Alliance, and they're coming to Babylon five to put on a show. And while they're there, stuff happens. That's like really important, but that's gonna be the ragged edge, is it's this, this musical band that comes to Babylon five that's like, and it's gonna be somebody like, Maroon five, or it's some popular, you know, late nineties, mid nineties, t and t's forcing it on the, on the show, uh, to do it.
And, um, these guys are gonna come and see what it's like in the Alliance on Babylon five.
Jeff: If Mark McGrath and Sugar Ray show up on Babylon five I, I might, I might never watch this show again.
Brent: That's all I, I mean, here's the wheel of possible episode topics we could have. Let's spin it and there we go.
Jeff: I think that Garibaldis gonna get blitzed and it's gonna, and he is gonna go after ster, it's gonna take him to Mars
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: and he is gonna have some comeuppance when he runs into lease. Remember that lady he married a little while ago? Lee Hampton. Edgar's Garibaldi. She, she's, he's gonna be all,
Brent: she kept her first two names, didn't, didn't go with Garibaldi.
Jeff: She's like, I'm just gonna keep, keep Hampton Edgar Edgars.
That seems to be, seems to be better, but, uh, yeah. And, uh, so he's gonna come face to face with her drunk, and then that's gonna be like the, you know, the a, a moment and lead to some stuff with ster. But I think the important part of it is he's gonna end up on Mars. Then the other side of the story, telepath war, right?
Stuff going wild on earth. Uh, we'll get the fallout, literal fallout from the bombing of the Cycore headquarters and, uh, rising violence all in the name of Byron. And I
guess we're gonna find out. I don't know which one of these two episodes I dread more, yours or mine, but we'll find,
Brent: It's not mine. For the record. It's not mine.
Jeff: do you know, I,
I'd put nothing past it at
Brent: Yeah, I dunno. I have no idea. I
Jeff: Oh my God.
Brent: the idea that t n T is forcing popular music folk or whatever to be pushed into the show somehow, some way, like that's totally plausible.
Jeff: Please do not tell us now. We'll find out right here. Next week when we watch the Ragged Edge. Thank you everybody for joining us for this conversation. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. Listening. Leave us a rating and a review and please share this with someone who either already loves Babylon five, or is just about to fall in love with this series.
So, until next time.
Brent: Hey Jeff.
Jeff: Yeah, what's up?
Brent: Question for you.
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: We talked a bit earlier about how they could have made this whole thing better if they would've given Byron like his own episode with his own backstory. So here's my question for you. What is your super villain backstory?
Jeff: Really,
Brent: Yeah, I.
Jeff: so, um, well, lemme paint a small picture for you. Right. So it's a beautiful summer day, probably right around, this would've been about 19 97, 19 98. I am deeply. In love with this woman that I've known for a couple of years. We're sail, we're rowing, we're kayaking, I guess is what you call it. We're in a big nice lake.
We're kayaking. I think everything's going amazingly until she tells me about this other guy that she just met. And things are great, and we're in the middle of a lake and I'm looking around and I'm just like, oh my God, my heart is breaking. It's horrible. So as I'm choking back the tears trying to say, yeah, that's cool, that's cool.
Slowly roll us back to shore. As we're kind of coming and packing everything up, this is where it gets kind of weird. So just follow along. This group of ninjas come out of nowhere and they're just like, bro, we heard what went down out there. We can take care of this for you. And I'm like, no, no, you can't do it.
We no one will know. It'll be quiet. We'll slip her. I can't believe I'm sharing this on. Oh my God. I couldn't believe I was even considering, but I looked at him, I said, do it. And Brent, that day, the trail of blood between then and now. Hey, what about you? Uh, what's your super villain story?
Brent: Dude, I don't really have one. I was just trying to kill some time till we could get the hell outta here.
