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
Jeff: will be, and we are watching Babylon five for the first time for you. The one who is,
Brent: Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters who got together to watch another 90 sci-fi show that we've never seen before.
And we're taking all of those skills that we've learned as sci-fi podcasters, as Star Trek podcasters, and applying it right here to Babylon five, by which we mean we are searching for morals, messages, meanings, mirrors to society, hope for a better future that we as humanity can one day achieve. And we're seeing how Babylon five is doing that in its own unique way.
Jeff: It's really making its own Babylon five messages, not Star Trek messages. And that's important 'cause like Brent said, we are veteran Star Trek podcasters. And so to keep us honest, to keep us focused on the matter at hand, we play the rule of three. It's a fun game that limits us to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode.
That's it.
Brent: Three one of those trades, no substitutions, exchanges a refund. And if we happen to make one of those references, you're gonna hear,
because while this is most definitely not a Star Trek podcast, as we have now repeatedly said as possible, those references along with many others are gonna slip in. But we don't get the buzzer for all the others. Those are those, those we just give to you free. Uh, those can come fast and furious. Get it as you wish.
Jeff: Get it.
Brent: For that. Sorry. Just, just,
all right. We, we, we should get through this. I mean, it, it's a good reference. Does anybody want a peanut?
Jeff: Are you hearing what he is doing? Come on. Oh,
Brent: man. Oh, all right. Hey, uh, so that's, that's, I mean, really the buzzer's a game we play, right, Jeff? Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Just, yeah, it's fun. Just fun for us.
Maybe not so fun for the listeners out there who have to hear. I, uh, especially the ones that have the headphones in that are like deep in their head, and then
Jeff: we, well, it's cool. I normalize, so. Oh, you're
Brent: welcome. For the wonderful things we've done. Alright. Anyway, um, we,
Jeff: good Lord. This is, that's a nice callback from before, right?
I get the joke now. I get that.
Brent: Oh, listen, hey, listen. You know, that's not the only game we play here at Babylon five for the first time, Jeff. Really? Yes. We also get to the end of the episode and we play a game where we try, where we, yes. We also get, I told you guys, you're getting it
Jeff: all. Here we go. It's, it's fine.
It's gonna be an easy one.
Brent: You see, we also play another game when we get to the end of the episode where we try to guess what next week's episode is gonna be about based on title alone, not reading show descriptions, not looking at thumbnails, not having seen the episode before. And this is the part of the show where we play yet another game called Time to Pay the Piper.
And this is where we revisit that prediction from last week to see if we got it right. So, Jeff, what did you say? All my dreams torn a sunder was going to be about.
Jeff: Lando is gonna walk into the, uh, alliance session that he was not invited to and he's gonna profess the Ari's innocence. He's gonna be loud, he's gonna bloviate, he's gonna be Lando and it's not gonna work.
And it's gonna cause pretty much the Interstellar Alliance to begin to fall apart with Centara getting kicked out and all-out war
Brent: breaking out. Jeff, you had that at 98% until the all-out war breaking out. I'm gonna put an asterisk by that. I'm going to give you a hundred percent. I don't think I've ever given you a hundred percent.
Yeah, no, I'm giving you a hundred percent, but I'm putting an asterisk 'cause we gotta wait like maybe next week, maybe the week after to see if all out war breaks out.
Jeff: Yes. Fair enough. There's a good chance it doesn't, right? I mean, there's a lot of conditions around this. We'll see, we'll see. What did you think this episode is gonna be about?
Brent: Uh, well, I said that this was, um, sounding an awful lot like the alliance breaking up to me. Um, I said the centra we're gonna be charged with the attacks on the shipping lanes. I said Londo was gonna get railroaded. And my bold prediction was, Londo is going to not become emperor. Now, before you pass your summary judgment, let me make a case in a defense that Londo never really got to make in, in his defense, uh, this entire we're charged with the shipping lane attacks.
I think Londo very much got railroaded, um, and
he did not become emperor in this episode.
Jeff: So, So it's a hundred percent of, I'm gonna say 75% on this one. Because you took a big swing. You took a big swing and asterisk, right. It might pay off and we can come back and pop this one up. Listen, I,
Brent: it's still, it's still on the table for being out there. For sure,
Jeff: for sure.
What happens when you swing big like this, you sometimes gotta look a couple episodes ahead, but right now we're looking one episode Now in the moment, Brent, for the people that are listening to us talk about this and are confused, they don't understand about this alliance meeting or londo professing innocence, or people have never watched this before, or if they just need their memories jogged or anything like that.
Can you walk us through and All my dreams torn a sunder.
Brent: Well, it's a somber night in the Sheridan Delin quarters. She sits up staring at a candle, contemplating he's having trouble getting ready in the morning. You see, this is the day that they will bring formal charges against the Sari Republic and it's sickening to them, but they have to get to the bottom of these shipping lane attacks, and they have perhaps unwisely promised the member Worlds of the Alliance that they will support any action that the members choose to take against the guilty party.
As the council is convened, Londo is confined to his quarters. While the council hears the testimony of the witnesses, Londo and Veer are getting copies of the evidence to review for themselves. When Londo is finally brought before the council, he tears the evidence up in front of the member worlds claiming that the evidence is circumstantial at best, that there's no real proof.
The cent are behind these attacks. That is until Lanier shows up with a P. Well, that is until Lanier shows up with the pss did resistance. It's the video footage of the Sari Warships warships that they don't have registry numbers for attacking the shipping lanes. Wado retires to confer with his government, but it's too late.
John and Delin unilaterally pass a summary judgment on the sari before they can actually give a defense. Sari Prime is to be cut off from the alliance, a blockade established until they acknowledge, apologize, and make reparations for the attacks on the shipping lanes. This doesn't sit too well with the Centara, who still categorically deny their involvement.
The evidence is falsified. They say perhaps it's fabricated or something else because they insist they just didn't do it, and that's when the Regent issues an order withdrawing Sari Prime from the alliance. Not recognizing the legality of the blockade and promising warships to protect their shipping and transport vessels, who they insist will be moving freely about the galaxy and a full on defense if any of their ships are fired upon.
With that, Londo is gonna depart as soon as possible for Centa Prime never to return to Babylon five. But Vere Vere's gonna stay behind, so that's nice. Kar decides to go with Lando who's gonna need his own bodyguard now more than ever, and so that he can mess with him on the flight home. Jcar is treated not even as being a person when he arrives on Sari Prime, particularly by the defense minister who continues to deny the attacks are their fault, but he's also acting kind of shady, and he's not even letting Lando see the Regents and he's not letting veer.
Talk tolando over the comms channels. When Veer tries to call in as tensions rise and hostilities worsen, the defense minister even throws Jcar in jail for being a danger to the war operations and Londo protests. He's not going anywhere without me, and so Londo goes to jail too. In trying to prevent this all-out war from happening, Sheridan comes up with a plan to use the White Star Fleet as a buffer between the Alliance Blockade ships and the Sari War vessels.
The only problem, there's not enough of the fleet to cover everywhere, all at once. So instead, they're gonna have some folks out there monitoring the Sari movements, and then they're gonna relay that information back to Garibaldi, who will be on the station, who will then relay those coordinates to the fleet so that they can get ahead of them and be there to stop these movements and stop the war I.
Unfortunately this doesn't work because once again, Garibaldi is passed out drunk in his quarters when the call comes in. Despite having already been confronted about this very thing by Zach, this lapse results in the Sari protecting their vessels from the blockade and firing on the nearby alliance.
Blockade Ships, which ignites more open hostilities among the member worlds. So much so that vere has to be moved to a safe house or safe quarters out of fear for his own safety, which is well founded because on route he and Franklin, who is escorting him, get jumped by a bunch of Bakari looking to take out their frustrations on veer in the council chambers.
It's pandemonium and Sheridan realizes that these members of the Alliance never really wanted peace. They never really wanted cooperation. They only wanted war. He curses them for it and curses himself for falling for it back in their quarters. Delin is again contemplating the candle, and Sheridan joins her and she says, one of the most profound things I've ever heard on Babylon five, that at our core we are all the same.
It's our egos that have driven us to think that we are better than one or the other, and that life is precious, unique, like the flame, and once extinguished is gone forever. Jeff, what did you think of this episode? All my dreams torn us under.
Jeff: Here we go, right, the Telepaths are heading out on Narn ships last week, now heading into most likely outright war with the sari.
We've got everything that they served up in deconstruction of falling stars. Here, you know, we got, uh, Elida stuff is gonna intersect at some point, likely with Bester. That's gonna ignite into the telepath war. And then we've got the start of what we were told, and that is gonna be called Thera War. So this is it.
I think this, from this point forward, it's go, go, go. This is Thera war? I think so. Okay. I'm still not clear on the whole like who the aliens and dark minions and servants are, but they called it Thera War and we saw DRA one time.
Brent: I was gonna say, I think Thera are the, the a, the minions and the, the, the allies, or at least they're one of the chief races.
Jeff: One of them. Yeah. We, we
Brent: know that the Rock are the ones who are really behind the shipping lane attacks and that they're using sari ships. Yeah. Like this is a thing we have established, we as the viewers know this, right. I'm not making that up. Okay.
Jeff: Yeah. I don't think it's been like blatant crystal clear, but the, I mean, it's.
It's addition and subtraction math, like this is third grade arithmetic. Yeah.
Brent: To get there. I, I thought that's what we really determined when Londo and Jaar went back to Sari Prime the first
Jeff: time. Yeah. They put all the pieces in place, right? Like Yeah. They're watching all the logistics they're doing. I mean, it's literally one, yeah.
One baby stepped Oh, it's the, the dark Minions or the DRock or whomever. Gotcha. I loved so much of the in it's an, it was is an intense episode. Yeah. This was good. It's had some amazing monologues in it that were just powerful. I think what really works for me though, in this one is, I've mentioned it before, Babylon five and it's stories work because of the characters and how well developed they are and how connected we end up to them.
Mm-hmm. In this one, and honestly in a lot of this, so much of this series, Londo is the center of the universe. Everything is happening in orbit of Londo. And we talked a little bit last week about like, if it's a Sheridan, Sheridan and Delaine or Alondo Jaar episode, it's good. Yeah. And the reality is if Londo is the center of the universe for our story, we've got a good story.
We've got a good episode. Not Byron. Not Byron. No, no. In fact, antithesis is the word that comes to mind
Brent: there. Not King Arthur. No. Oh, I for,
Jeff: I actually forgot about that. I'm so, lemme lemme, lemme dig that old wound up there, you know, total aside, but. It was a week or two after we watched that one. I, uh, for the Star Fleet Leadership Academy, I actually took it.
I talked about, it was a Deep Space nine episode, and I was like, and it was a dumb episode. And I'm like, this is a serialized show. Why are you wasting time like this? And then I did a drop from the, the Avalon.
Brent: I remember that, that was, I thought
Jeff: that was hilarious. Our, our good dear friends, the Yum Yum podcast picked up on that made comment.
They called,
Brent: I think that's where I found out about was I saw them comment on it. I was like, because I hadn't listened to it yet. And, and I was like, oh, I've got, I'm one of those to this. That was great. Hey, by the way, if you folks aren't listening to the Star Fleet Leadership Academy, go over and do that.
You can find that wherever you get your podcast. It's a fantastic show. Even if you're not a Star Trek fan, although you should be. That as well,
Jeff: should be. Thank you. But you think about Londo, like I was, I was brought back to him complaining about the Centara becoming basically a gift shop. Open on earth standard time.
Mm-hmm. All the way now to him being imprisoned by his people trying to stop an intergalactic war. Mm-hmm.
Brent: Wow. I
Jeff: loved it, but, and I think people are gonna hate my butt. Mm-hmm. I kind of hate that so much of Jaar in this episode, especially his stuff with Londo, was mostly played for laughs. Mm. I think it lessened his character.
I think it was meant to relieve some of the intensity in this episode, and it did not like it. I found it annoying. I found it kind of offputting. Um, didn't like that at all. Um, There was stuff he did that was played for laughs but was in the face of the centara. And we talked about that before when they went last time.
I think that works. But there's other stuff he did on Babylon five that we can dive into is just like, really, really, but the one that's gonna fire people up my butt that people are gonna really not like. I brought it up last week and this week it happened again, but dude, Mira Ferlin, great lines, well-delivered lines.
But like, I desperately wanna blame the, the directing on this one, but her acting the scenes with her just pulled, pulled me outta the episode. Hmm. Ruined this episode for me. There's the forced laugh cry thing last week up to uh, when she's gonna hug Londo. And this one, when she was like trying to look prayerfully, trying to look prayerfully intense, you know, with the candle there.
It just, it did not work. And what it reminded me of was war Without End. When we got that incredible scene, she's holding her hand up to the candle and she's like, mm-hmm. We are the gray, we stand between the candle and the star. And there was intensity. Mm-hmm. And there was motion, you know, 'cause she knew, she knew that Sinclair was on the station.
It was a big deal. And it was short. It was to the point, this one just drug on. And I didn't buy it. I didn't believe that she believed it. And it really took two very intense scenes, the one in the beginning with her, and then the one in the end when, when Sheridan sat with her and I, I, it, it kinda ruined the episode.
Wow. For me. Yeah. Because I think those are supposed to be big, you know, pull in the tent moments for this episode, and I'm just like, I, I don't buy it.
Brent: Folks, I'd just like to remind you, you can send your emails to Jeff at Babylon five first. That's the number five and the worst. Remember when
Jeff: they hated you?
You remember that? Like this days? Yes,
Brent: I do, because I've gotten some of it over the last few weeks, given everything we've gone through so far in season five, but yeah, yeah,
Jeff: yeah. But no, it's, uh, it took me out a lot of the big moments and it's too bad. I mean, and, and, and we'll talk through them and it's there, but I just, I don't know.
We, we've talked a little bit about the character of Delaine and some of the inconsistencies and some things there, but in these last two episodes, it's really been either the acting, the directing, or a combination of the two that just isn't, isn't doing, doing the character any favors. What about you?
What did, what did you first hit on this one? Um,
Brent: Jeff, this was a phenomenal episode for me. Yeah. All the way through. Um, before I give my thoughts, I would just like to say that I hear your experience. I appreciate that, and I accept that as being your experience of your first watch through this series.
Jeff: Wait, so are you, I just wanna be clear. Are you saying that my watch mm-hmm. Can be different than your watch or someone else's watch? Yes. What?
Brent: Yes, it can what? Yes. And I can actually respect that and honor that. Yeah. Yeah. I
Jeff: can, I didn't know that was a thing you could do in 2024. Wow.
Not no cynicism here at all. At all. After five seasons of it, like,
Brent: uh, that being said, Jeff, I think you're bonkers. No, I loved this episode. This was a phenomenal episode, and I thought Mira Furland gave a super strong performance. That was laden with meaning. I will, I will agree with you that I think particularly in the, the opening sequence, her and Sheridan seemed a little overly emotional about this whole situation.
You know, like, yeah, it sucks, but like, I, I get the idea, like their dreams are being torn us under this dream of this alliance, this dream of this United Federation of planets. That's all gonna live peacefully and we're gonna work together and we're gonna rise above the stupid stuff that separates us, that, that is literally in jeopardy as of this morning, and they've gotta be the ones to go deliver this news.
Yes, yes. I fully acknowledge that. It just seemed a little over the top to me. Like when he's drop, he's putting on his shoe. And he just drops his shoe and his hair is kind of floppy or what, you know, and it was all slowmo when it came down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, you know, I'll, I'll chalk that up to editing.
And you know what, you know what? That wasn't, that wasn't somebody, uh, walking around with their hands, held up with a sword, and then in their imagination there was no sword. And then getting stabbed in the back for no apparent reason, and then screaming out in pain in real life. Like it wasn't, it wasn't that level.
Yeah. To me. But, uh, all that said, this is exactly what I wanted from season five, this episode, um, where we, not just this episode, but where we are, combine this with last week with obviously where we're going next week. Mm-hmm. And, you know, for the, for the weeks after, uh, this, Jeff, what we're getting right now, what we're in the middle of, this is what we've been missing in season five.
Totally. This is what you and I have been complaining about. It seems like for the last 13 episodes, you know. This is what I expect of J M Ss in his writing. Like I'm sitting going, J m Ss writes better than this. Like, I'm mad about the first half of season five because I know he can do better. Right.
We've
Jeff: seen it many times
Brent: over. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was such a good episode. Uh, first, let me say this for, I guess it's like the third thing I'm saying, whatever. Uh, when we said this last week, and I wanna reiterate it this week, what you said, the show is better when it's Sheridan and Delin at the center of the episode.
Also Londo and Jaar. I like what you kind of said about really it's even just Londo. If Londo was at the center, we're good. I might push back on that a little. I still think it needs to be these guys all like this needs to be the crew that's front and center with which like it's gotta be Sheridan. They can't just be paper pushing in the background like they have been for so many episodes.
Yeah. This may explain why I think season five has been so bl. Is because those four have, except for a very handful of, you know, rare times have been shunted to the side while we get all this, all this other stuff and now they're back in it. Um, I did make this bold prediction last week that Londa was gonna lose his emperorship.
And while that may not have come true in this episode, I'm just gonna say it did end with him in jail. It did, yeah. It did end with him in jail and, you know, can a person in jail become emperor? Well, especially,
Jeff: it's like I'm not clear on Sari politics 'cause it was rumored he was going to be the next emperor.
It was never guaranteed outside of what Lady Morell said, you know, you will be emperor. Mm-hmm. But mm-hmm. To your point last week, we know the future can change. Yes.
Brent: And uh,
We know that Londo doesn't want it. Exactly. We know there's, there's so, there's so much about all of that. Uh, Jeff, I wanna make another bold prediction about tonight. Okay. This one's not gonna have to wait weeks to pay off. This will be wrapped up tonight and it will be definitive one way or the other.
Jeff, you have the rankings later on tonight, and I predict that this ranking, the question of where this episode falls in the ranking is gonna ba be based around this question. Was this episode better than, or worse than the very long night of Londo mal? That's right. This is either our new number one or number two.
It's one of the two. That's my bold prediction. You save it. No, I'll
Jeff: just, what I will say, I'll just say that there were parts of this episode that were definitely some number two. Because that's 'cause I'm 12 and I make jokes like that
Brent: and I'm 13 and I still laugh at them. Uh, that said, I know we're gonna dive in, we're gonna discuss everything about it.
So let me just say this from the outset and I want to declare this. I am team Londo on this one. He was right in everything he did and everyone else except Jaar was wrong. And we'll talk about that, I'm sure, probably like right now. Jeff, where would you like to go with so many of the pieces of this episode
Jeff: to discuss?
I'd like to talk about a new T-shirt design that just says Longo was right. Yes,
Brent: yes. I just, you know the, have you seen the, it it's inland's quarters. There's like a picture on the wall that it's the hair crest, but it looks like a 1960s Woodstock. Yes. Uh, thing, you know what I'm talking about? Like, it's, that picture right there with Londo was right?
Jeff: Yeah. One Sari are innocence. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Let's dive into the Garibaldi stuff. Um, oh,
Brent: okay. Because I think it's huge, like lost over it in the, in the,
Jeff: yeah. I think it's huge. It's also not a lot, um, but it's massive. I wanna start out talking about Garrett Baldy. I wanna talk about Zach and talking about Zach.
I wanna talk about Jeff Conaway. Do it. So this episode aired, I looked it up. I don't often look this up, but on this one I did because, oh my gosh, this one hit right in the feels for me. I'm a Jeff Conaway fan. I have made that clear. I think from the second we first saw him on the screen
Brent: and we were still calling him Knick because we didn't know what his character's name was and we didn't care because he was just knick.
He's knicky.
Jeff: Yeah. So this episode aired June 10th in the, in the United States, June 10th, 1998. Wow. Jeff Conaway died May 27th, 2011, almost exactly 13 years later. And he died from complications related to overdose. Um, oh no. Opiates, cocaine and some alcohol. Yeah. He was involved with, uh, celebrity rehab. Dr.
Drew Pinsky was giving him a lot of care, um, surrounded by a lot of people and was chasing sobriety again. When, when he, uh, when he died. If you go back and watch into the old celebrity rehab stuff, it is heart wrenching. He is a broken, broken man. And, uh, yeah, it's hard to watch, but when he, Jeff Conaway, who was in recovery at the time of this, he was living a very healthy life at this point.
Yeah.
Brent: He looked so good. He looked, and that's not his makeup. Like so good. Looks so good. Yeah.
Jeff: Healthy, thin and fit. Looked happy, a great job. You know, like he regulars in the opening credits. But for him to look at Michael Garibaldi at Jerry Doyle, two, two people to have addiction, to look at him and to speak those lines, to toss those oranges at him, do that whole thing.
That wasn't just, that wasn't acting, that was from the heart. Mm-hmm. I'm almost positive that someone did that for him at some point before that, you know, and it's just, I was, I was, I was floored by that
Brent: scene. Yeah. I, I don't think you could do that scene with two actors who have not lived that in real life.
Not to that level. Those two guys, uh, Jerry Doyle and, and Jeff Conway. I. They freaking nailed that entire, you could feel every bit of that. You could feel every side of it. You could smell the alcohol coming off of Garibaldi. It's the first time,
Jeff: first time anybody finally acknowledged it. But you could, you were in that moment.
Yeah.
Brent: Like you, you were just, I mean, you saw the look when he sets that, that p p g down on the table and he is like, look, if you wanna hurt me, here's a cleaner way to do it. Maybe you just wanna do it on yourself. It'll be quicker, cleaner, and you're gonna take a lot less people with you. Yeah. Oh wow. You know, and, and, and then you even get to thes spot, like, are you gonna turn me in?
Oh, you are, you are. Are you gonna turn me in? And he is like, no, I'm not gonna turn you in. He's like, I just need some time. Oh, we've been there, right? Uh, I'll, I'll give you the time. 'cause I mean, we have been following Aldi's relapse into addiction. We saw lease confront him with it last week. This is the first time Conway's done it though.
Yeah. Or I'm sorry. Uh, uh, Zach has done it right
Jeff: direct. He, he's pulled the whole like, dude, it's 10. We were supposed to meet at eight and like, what's going, he's called him on it but not, not
Brent: direct like this. Yeah. I mean, to even be able to do something as sneaky as, Hey, lemme toss you a couple oranges 'cause I'm gonna test this.
'cause like he wa he knew as soon as he walked in, he knew it was not something he just discovered. It's, you know, uh, and I'll tell you what, he had better proof that Garibaldi was drunk than the council Chambers had. That the sari were responsible for the shipping. A
Jeff: hundred percent. So, I mean, uh, yeah, I mean, we've gotten to the end of this episode.
We'll get there. I'm still not convinced the defense minister is wrong.
Brent: You know what I mean? Put a button in that 'cause I wanna come back to that. Okay. 'cause I don't wanna be done with the, the Zach Garibaldi stuff. Yeah. Here's a question. Uh, is this whole war actually Zach Allen's fault? He let Garrow Baldy stay in his position.
Oh, wow. Wow. I'm gonna, by the way, I'm gonna answer no, because you're not responsible for other people's actions. Right. It is not my job to police you, but if you're a literally is his job to police stuff. But, uh, right. But
Jeff: no, if you're a human being though, yeah, that's, that's a question. You sit in your quarters one night and you're just like, oh my God, I had a chance to stop this from happening.
Yeah.
Brent: Because Garibaldi went and got drunk again and missed, missed the call when he was supposed to be doing something really, really important.
Jeff: Yeah. What did I say? Three episode radius on these things and nailed it in one and
Brent: Wow. Well, I mean, I mean, the next, I mean, at some point Sheridan's gotta confront Garibaldi over this.
Right. He got
Jeff: off pretty easy in this, 'cause he started to, I think Sheridan started to call him on it, but then all hell came running into the, into the alliance chambers.
Brent: Yeah. Well, I mean, but a comeuppance is coming like it has to. Yeah. You know, I, I don't think J m Ss is gonna let us limp out on Michael Garibaldi going through his entire story to end it with him in addiction.
Unless he is going to turn into a tragic character. And I just, I don't know that I see that for Garibaldi, but, oh, we got
Jeff: six episodes left, Jeff. Yeah. I mean, a lot could happen in that time. Uh, yeah. I, I did think though, it was weird with the plan, like, Sheridan's plan, Sheridan's not, this isn't his first rodeo.
Right. And you're gonna put all your eggs in the Garibaldi basket. Like, like honestly I was thinking, well, you're gonna make,
Brent: you're gonna make him a linchpin is really Yeah. What you're
Jeff: doing. And I was thinking about just the logistics of the whole thing. 'cause you've got people out all over the galaxy mm-hmm.
Watching for this stuff to happen. Right. Picking up the commu, all this stuff. We're talking 24 hours a day. Was Garibaldi just supposed to sit and wait looking at the
Brent: calm thing? Like Yeah, that's a good point. You can't have, that can't be just a one person job. 'cause what if he's in the bathroom? Yeah. I mean, we know they don't go to the bathroom in Babylon five.
They just go there to talk and kick people out. Right.
Jeff: Smell the prah. Walking, walking outta their, their stall. Right, right. But still, I get, yeah, just the whole thing from the setup last week to then Sheridan throwing the softball pitch and it coming, it was just like, of course, of course this is gonna happen.
We saw it coming last week. Yeah. I do think they had a massive missed opportunity here that I don't know that I can forgive, to be honest. This as a
Brent: production
Jeff: or in, in the story itself. Okay, what are you talking about? Huge missed opportunity that frankly might actually impact my ranking. And you'll see what we get there.
It was white star. Uh, so the white star goes and sees the thing and starts blasting Garibaldi, right? This white star 43. White star 43, we got this thing you're gonna whip out White Star 43 when literally right here, white Star 47 is staring you in the face. Come on.
Brent: 40 anything. And I'm like, come on, you've got to, it's gotta be
Jeff: 47 and if you're gonna have 47 go hitchhiker and call it a 42.
Right? Like there's, you got two options. Don't, don't get, don't get smart here.
Brent: This, I can, I can see j m s not doing 47, but 42. Like he's a Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy guy.
Jeff: I, for real. It's like, come on. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. That's pretty much what I got on Garibaldi.
Brent: Um, I will, I will say this one last piece for Garibaldi and this kind of circles back around. To the way that Zach wound up treating Garibaldi. Zach did. To Garibaldi exactly what Garibaldi did to Franklin. Mm-hmm. Right. Including not turning him in. Yeah.
Including allowing him space to do what he needs to do. Confronting him with the truth, the differences. We see what happened with Franklin, that's what sent Franklin off on walk about Garibaldi, went and got drunk and started a war. Yeah. You know? Um,
Jeff: and all those years. All those years. I was like, to hell with Franklin.
Do you remember our season one wrap up? I said Garibaldi was my favorite character. Mm-hmm. And right now, keeping the, the, the score sheets. He's worse than Franklin
Brent: right now. He is right now, but he's in the middle of his addiction right now. You know, so Franklin's not Actually, can we talk about Franklin for a moment?
Dude. Dude can, alright, not only can he fi, I mean, look, it was a sucker punch that he threw, but it was
Jeff: a hell of a sucker punch, man. I feel like, uh, I feel like he does tibo in his spare time. 'cause he just, he just whipped that out. Just boom.
Brent: Um, he, he is sent to deliver veer to safety. Okay. Why Franklin? I know that should have been Zach in the guard, right?
You think like, like, but but who knows?
Jeff: Maybe Franklin, maybe he's been training, right? And he's just like, come on boss. Put me in. Put me in. I'm ready for this.
Brent: There you go. Put me in coach. Um, you know, but listen, the whole idea of veer needing to get to safety 'cause bad stuff is possibly gonna happen to him was absolutely correct.
Although my thought was can't they just lock
Jeff: the door? You'd think? Yeah. But also, I mean, I don't know, I apparently you can shoot PPGs through the door. We've seen that before. So I guess, I guess I just hope they put him up in like a decent place. You know? He is not, not stuck bunking with somebody or I don't think he would do well in that situation.
Like, like Groose. Yeah, exactly. He's not good. What was that dude's name? What was that big guy's name? It was big, wasn't it? Was it just big something? I don't, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I don't, I don't see, I don't see him shining the way Kemmer did, uh, in that Was that Keffer Keffer? I was getting Leon, I got Leon Kemmer and Keffer up.
Brent: Right, right. Well, they, they both had about the same impact on the show,
Jeff: so, oh, you know what though? Here it, his seasons later, we're still talking about 'em. It is true. Something true that it's true.
So with the alliance stuff and throughout the episode early on, and then at the, the, the tap, the, the, the cap at the end, there's a real big heavy emphasis put on the promises that Sheridan made. Yeah. To me. Um,
Brent: oh, go ahead. No, no,
Jeff: please, please, to me, I, I, I don't understand the Interstellar Alliance and so, so help me out here.
Like, they were the league of Non-aligned Worlds. So this group that came together, they had one collective vote up against the, uh, Babylon five Advisory Council of the Big Six, right? Yeah. Five or six? Six. Five. It was five. It was five because there were six votes, right? Total. Yep. Yep. So, That's how it was set up.
You know, this, this council up here's got most of the power, and you have a say so now it's new, it's all different. We're the Interstellar Alliance and now we have a whole group of you that don't even necessarily have a vote because there's this Alliance advisory council and really just a supreme ruler of that advisory council that just kind of calls all the shots and then yells at you when you don't agree with the decision that they've made.
Mm-hmm. Like I think this is just a prof, a dressed up version of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds that's not working out for everyone else. And it, I can totally understand why this bit of pressure is completely making it fall apart.
Brent: So, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use the comparison that I'm sure most of our non-American friends are probably not going to understand, and probably, frankly, a lot of our American friends are also not gonna understand, but I'm gonna use it anyway.
I think we are simply in the early days of the formation of a new nation. And this is what it was like for the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution came about. Mm-hmm. You know, and for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about in America, shortly after, uh, we had our, our revolutionary war, uh, or the little, little, uh, hissy fit as our British friends might call it, um, we, we had this very loose organized, not really organized very well, uh, form of government that didn't work.
It was an, it was, it was an awful form of government. There was no cohesion whatsoever. And they eventually did away with that and came up with the actual constitution, which did bring some cohesion. Mm-hmm. And allowed the, allowed the nation to, to prosper and. And go forward. And they based a lot of it off of, um, a lot of Native American ideas, a lot of Greek ideas, ancient Greek, ancient Roman type ideas.
Um, and, and went forward. I think we're seeing the Interstellar Alliance in those article of Con of Confederation days. Okay. Where they're still trying to figure this out. Like they're literally learning on the job. Because I think you're right, it, the idea of the Alliance was not to be the league of non-aligned world.
These, this is now the league of aligned worlds. Mm-hmm. They are aligned, but everybody's still kind of acting like they're not, you know, and they're gonna have to go do some stuff. Let me point to something else That's right. Along the same line, Sheridan gets up there and says, we'll support whatever decision you, the membership worlds decide is appropriate.
That is awful policy. Yeah. That is Hor and Sheridan says it at the end. I regret doing this and saying that we would do this. Yeah. And you've gotta learn it. Yeah.
Jeff: Like, here you are.
Brent: Like, it sounds good. We're gonna be this democracy. Everybody's gonna have a say. We'll support what you guys say. You guys will be up for your own deal.
You'll still be able to be independent, but we're gonna kind of do our own, we'll, we'll do a thing together. And then Sheridan gets confronted with what that really looks like. And he goes, yeah, we can't do that. I'm not sending the white star fleet out there. Oh, well actually I need to now put 'em into a buffer zone.
Yeah. Um, and, and yeah, like that was a horrible, horrible deal, uh, to say they actually need like a prescribed, here's what we will do. Yeah. Not just, we'll just go with whatever you guys say.
Jeff: Whatever. It's cool. Yeah. We promise, we promise. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, I think the bottom line. I, I agree. That's, that's a really great assessment, but the bottom line is it's not working.
Correct. Correct. And this sham, this sham of a hearing just underscores it, this like, the second they brought Franklin out to testify about the, the, the gun pattern stuff. The rods and
Brent: the cones.
Jeff: Yeah. Which, I mean, they backed it up with some stuff and it was like, okay, but like, what, what,
Brent: what are you doing?
Yeah. So I, one, I kind of understood what they were talking about because, um, measuring frequencies and stuff and, and finding patterns. That's how we know like what's going on on planet's far away because we know. Where certain gases and certain tempera, like where they hit frequencies. And when we see those we're like, oh, that's what's going on out there because of that fre anyway.
Like that's a legit science
Jeff: thing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, i, I don't poo poo on that at all.
Brent: But it also depends on every alien species, rods and cones acting the same as ours do in humans. Um, and here's a, okay, let's talk about this trial quote unquote trial. It's not really a trial, although they very much treated it like a trial.
Okay. Um, Franklin comes out and says, here, here's the evidence that Franklin basically says it was sari weapons. Yep. That's all he said. It was sari weapons. We can confirm that it was sari weapons. Okay, cool. Garibaldi comes out and he says it was also sari weapons. Also, there's this one little thing where they did attack a sari ship, but there was really nothing going on with it.
And so circumstantially, we can conclude. They just did this to throw us off the track.
Jeff: Well, in my, in my favorite part of Garibaldis, uh, testimony, there's a button. Yeah, you got a button. So, I mean, there you go.
Brent: Yeah. I pulled this button off a guy that attacked me. And so that means that the cent entire involved.
No, that means somebody planted a button on you, dude. Yeah. Or was wearing
Jeff: an old jacket, like went to an army surplus store. Yeah.
Brent: Or maybe it's a tari who's mixed up with a couple other people and that just happens to be the guy you pulled off. Like that is, that is not evidence, hard evidence that links actual, that says the Tari government has done this and they failed in, in provi.
They kept talking about proof. Even the video that Lanier brought in. Yep. That certainly looks like the worships. But, uh, Jeff, it was you who said it last week, I think. I didn't see who was driving those worships exactly. And Lanier came out and said, he is like, we don't know what, we don't have the register.
Something to the effect of, we don't have the registry numbers on these ships. Meaning we didn't know where these actually belonged, but they look like Tari ships to us. Yeah.
Jeff: The, the, the defense minister, I mean, he brought such a, you know what, we had a whole bunch of stuff laying around from the Narn stuff.
What's stopping them? What's stopping some pirate or some raid to come in and do this? All they proved in
Brent: the whole Londo, I'm sorry, to, to, to add onto that. Londo was like, we've been supplying your worlds with our weapons for years. Exactly. All you did was show that it was our weapons. This
Jeff: isn't us. It's literally the only thing they proved was that, was that Yeah.
Centara material was used
Brent: and, and when, when the ambassador says he's confronted with something and says, I need to go confer with my government, and Sheridan stands up. And goes, well, while you're doing that, tell them this. And he passes judgment, not having taken a vote, not having put it to the, to the folks.
He just passes. And later he's like, well, the council is satisfied that you did this. That is BSS satisfaction.
Jeff: See, earlier that we have a supreme ruler over a council who gets to make all the
Brent: calls, it's not okay. And, and, and it was, it was awful. I, I really just want to chalk this up to J M Ss wasted 11 episodes dealing with Byron and realize he's now running out of time to deal with this actual really awesome issue.
Yeah. That being said, I still stay true. This was a phenomenal episode, despite that being just awful. Like, I think when you put the magnifying glass to that, uh, I, I think that's awful. And Londo, Londo turns around and he's like, okay, I gotta get off here. And he's like, And I'll never come back is effectively what he said.
Yeah. You know? Now I get it. He's like, I probably will never come back. Things could change whatever. But he's effectively saying, I'm never coming back to Babylon five, who just a couple episodes ago returned to Babylon five and is like, this is actually like coldness. Right.
Jeff: It's so, it's so sad. Yeah.
Because people just start falling into their old patterns, you know? And so, like you talked about it, I think last week and you've, and today as well, where it's like they already have the answer. I'm gonna burn our third reference right now. Do, do you have any other that you need to make? I've,
Brent: I've withheld like five references right now, just in case.
So, go ahead, brother.
Jeff: This is a hundred percent the Kardashians, like they're already guilty, they're already convicted. We're just gonna put the trial on and construct the evidence to, to back it up. Mm-hmm. And, and this, and this is the good guys doing it, but they're doing it I think very much because it's the sari and Yeah.
Everybody's got a dog in the fight when it comes to the sari. Yeah. But Londo, Longo's not innocent in this. Londo slipped into old habits. He turned everything he said. Everything he said was correct. This is circumstantial evidence. You haven't proven anything but the way he said it, this was coming of shadows, Londo.
Yeah. This was Londo coming in, swinging a sledgehammer and just being big and accusatory and all this stuff. And it's like, D Dude, you are. Mm. You are not helping yourself at all. At all right now. Yep.
Brent: Ish. But it's, it's the, it's the bravado of, of really the sari. I don't know. I don't know that that's just londo.
I think that's just the sari and how they are. It's his old
Jeff: pattern. It's what he does. It's who he and his people are. A hundred percent like this. Sure. It's, this is, I'm gonna get big here for a minute. There's an author, Dr. Bruce Lipton, who wrote this incredible book called The Biology of Belief. This sounds a whole lot more woo-hoo than it really is.
Like this is a scientific, uh, study of how we interact with the cells in our body. I won't go deep into it, except he talks about. How as you grow and your cells are in a growth state, you can learn new things. But when you're put in danger, you revert to a subconscious, a protective state. And when you're in that state, you can't learn.
You can't be the person you're trying to be. And we've seen Londo specifically for a long time now, try to be a better, this whole series we've seen him trying to become a better person. But in those cases, coming of shadows, uh, and, and here and other, other points where he's put in that threatening position, all that growth goes away.
And he becomes that old Sari Republican. Well, I,
Brent: I mean, even go back to, I think it was signs importance back in season one when we first met Morden. And he's going around going, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? And he pushes Londo. And Londo is in a moment where he is just sort of pissed off in the moment.
Mm-hmm. It's like, well, okay, you know what I want, I want this entirety restored to their glory. I want the nons obliterate. 'cause he was pissed off at something in the moment. Like, you know, and Morgan goes, I can
Jeff: use that. Done and done. Right.
Brent: Right. Uh, yeah, I I mean that makes all the sense in the world.
And I know, you know, you back me into a corner. Yeah. I, I think I probably revert to some more of my baser. Mm-hmm. Baser instincts. I, I, that's probably, that's probably a lot true. I now let me take all of this and say they were wrong for how they treated this Londo got railroaded. It's sure as heck looks like the cent entire are involved because this, this defense minister is army as heck.
Like I do not throw trust this guy as far as I can throw this guy. No, not at all. Uhuh. Like, he seems a thousand percent, you know, you can't talk to the region. Why not? Well, he's just indisposed and. You're not gonna get it past me 'cause I'm the one who's doing like it. So looks like that. But as far as in a court when you're having to make a full on de defense, I mean this seems like something that Congress has taken care of up there in, in Washington, not an actual court of law happening.
Yeah. Uh, I have a question though. Why does Londo still bow down to the regents? Like why does he, um, and I don't mean physically bow down, although I'm sure he probably does, but like why does everything that he says have to get, why does it get superseded by the regent? Why, why He is the prime, prime minister, although he's not on world doing anything about it, and he's the soon to be emperor.
A region is just supposed to take care of your stuff for you while you are in, while you're not there yet. Right. First of all, they never should have let Lon, if Lonnda was gonna be the emperor, he should not have been going back and having a region. He needed to be emperor. Yeah. Be there like that should be.
But like, like maybe it's just, I don't understand how Ari titles work. Like maybe Prime Minister and Centara does not mean the same thing that Prime Minister means here on earth right now in this day and age. Um, why is the regent the regent till death? That's only supposed to be until the emperor comes Uhhuh.
Yeah. Like really Londo should just be able to go back and be like, okay, today, okay, I'm ready now. And bam, transfer of power. Like, but even still, there's the regent. But if the emperor soon to be emperor walks in and says, no, no, no, this is the way it is. Doesn't he kinda override the, the region? Like you'd
Jeff: think, well, but I, I feel like it's dangerous to start doing that math.
'cause let's talk about the Sari Emperor. Over the Republic that has a centara that it's like, there's like three or four different active governments happening at the same time. And I think the Emperor is like a supreme commander of stuff, but sometimes he's not. And or is he
Brent: just really a figurehead?
And, and again, I, so I chalk this up too, I just don't think we understand how the internal workings of Sari politics
Jeff: work. Yeah. Because Prime Minister to me just seems like a pretty big title for the guy who's still essentially the ambassador to the advisory council. Yeah,
Brent: pretty much. Yeah, pretty much.
Uh, that's why I gotta believe like it must be more of an honorific title than an actual functional title. Yeah. Because
Jeff: the defense minister is, is working him. Like, if you're a Prime Minister, that's, that means you get, you get access to the Monarch, like that's part of the deal. You know, you're, you're the one, but
Brent: you are, you are the guy who's in charge of everybody as the prime Minister.
That's the way we would think of it again. I really think it might be more. Look at you
Jeff: putting your Western European ideals onto the sari. Can't even keep it on the planet. Dude. Geez
Brent: man. Maybe we should just look at how Rome,
Jeff: how they put, how they commissioned specific buttons with the emperor on them.
And then, you know, at some point x number of years later, that implicates you in shipping lane attacks. You know what I did love about this though, is
Brent: I, um, are you tr are you transitioning? 'cause I have one more line about this whole piece I wanna say. Did it? Okay. Uh, there was one line though that I thought came out, um, because my other problem with this is how they, how they shun Londo in the middle of this.
They're pretty sure Londo knows nothing about this. They're pretty sure like he's on your side. Do you not go to Londo and go, yo, Londo, I. What is going on here? What's going on with your homework? Is this really what you guys are doing? Right? Oh, well, he, you know, things got leaked out. If you tell Wado that there's a leak, he'll plug it.
You know, like, do you not use Londo on your side when all of this is happening? Uh, but they said this, they said, Londo is our only hope for ending this. I found that incredibly interesting. And then he gets tossed in jail,
Jeff: right? Yeah. Shut that down real fast. Right? But he gets thrown in jail. By the way,
Brent: the sari arresting Jaar after everything went down is not the wrong move.
Jeff: Oh, I a hundred percent. He's still an active member of the Alliance. They are at war for all intents and purposes. Yeah, yeah,
Brent: yeah. Like that is, that is not the wrong thing, uh, to do. Yeah. And then I'll, I'll also say this, the smarmy minister guy, by the end, he's kind of growing on me really Like How so, yeah, like, like when you first listen to him, you're like, there's no way this guy is trustworthy at all.
This guy is completely behind everything. But Jeff, I'm starting to wonder is he not actually being truthful Yeah. To what he believes? Does he really, does he really not have anything to do and know what's going on with the shipping lane attacks? Does he really believe that this actually is the Sari government getting set up and, and unjustly so, and for him, as far as he's concerned, they're only in a defensive posture right now.
So
Jeff: my theory is exact exactly that, that you've got him managing. 95% of the sari force that he, that they know they have, and he's got 'em patrolling and flying around and, you know, taking convoys or doing whatever. In fact, one of his guys got blowed up by the, when Garibaldis thing. Like there's, yeah, this is a concerning thing.
We have to be defensive. There's something going on because over here is the regent with these aliens, whether they're DRock or minions or servants or whatever. They are whole operation coming out over there that he's not involved with at all. And so when he's telling Londo you can't see the region, he's, he's indisposed at the moment.
It's not him. Big timing him. He's, it's almost like if he were to have been less of a jerk water, he would've been like, yeah, dude, I know. I can't even get an audience with this guy. He's stuck in this room all the time. I don't even know who's in there. I don't know what's happening. He's, every time I. Take it like that.
And all of a sudden defense minister is, is just as, is just as much a victim of as everyone else, which all of the sari are at this point. Yep. Except
Brent: he's a sari. And we see how Sari act, especially around other Sari, is they're always positioning, they're always trying to show that they have the upper hand.
They're never looking
Jeff: stupid, always playing. Darris stayed the mai, the game of houses from wheel of time. Like it's always a political look how important I am. I know that the region's schedule is full, so I'm more important than you, although I could really use your help Wanda, but I will never ask for that because that will cost me in status.
The only person who I think really understood that was Kar. Mm-hmm. Only one who saw that and he outright said it, Tolando, you know, this isn't you, this, you know, this isn't, this isn't how this works. He's the only one who could see that difference and. I dunno. It was, it, it was, it was a cool exploration of their relationship, you know?
But it was also just like, why won't the, no one's talking tolando, no one's listening to Jaar. They're just so laser focused on the outcome they want to get. It's, uh, it's frustrating.
He says he is gonna be a bodyguard. He's gonna keep being Lao's bodyguard. Yep. Couple questions on that. First, do we get a replacement on the council? Like, is there gonna be another narn that shows up to take his place? No, uh
Brent: uh, not Nrun. Um, um, um, um, um, um, Telon not a to Telon. Telon. Yeah. Telon. It should be Telan, right?
I'd be all for that. A thousand percent. It should be Telan.
Jeff: And then he, uh, he's heading off to Sari Prime, so he hands delen this stack of new chapters. Right. Still writing his book. Are there, so this, this is a question for you, uh, being an, an educated Bible scholar, are there, so the, the point of this, so there's two questions.
The one I think we talked about before, unfinished books in the Bible, like is that a thing? And we, we talked about acts of the apostles before, but the other question I had is he wanted to write these chapters specifically to set, write some things he put in earlier chapters. Sure. Off the top of your head, are there examples of that, like in the Christian Bible where there's a thing that's said here and then is contradicted corrected, set straight later?
Up here,
Brent: there are several examples where something is said here, people misunderstood, misinterpreted, acted on it later, and then it is clarified much later. Uh, a, a prime example of that. Uh, if you guys will let me devolve into this for a little bit, is the entire sermon on the mount, okay? Uh, in the Old Testament, um, God or whatever comes in and gives all of these like, you're gonna do this, you're gonna do this.
We want you to come out and be separate. We want you to do these things. Here are these rules and these laws. And the, the over hundreds of years, they really, uh, added a lot of extra rules to that that weren't really found and the whole thing. And it became about whether or not you're keeping these rules or not.
And Jesus comes in and he says, you've heard it said, honor your father and mother, or, or don't murder. But I say that if you even call somebody an idiot, you've already murdered them in your heart. He goes on like this, and the, and if you watch the entire look at the, because it covers like three chapters in the book of Matthew.
Um, if you look at his entire sermon, it's all basically, Hey, here's the rule, but it's really not about the rule, it's about the attitude of your heart. That was the message that he was trying to give. Or at least as it's recorded in the Bible, you know? Um, so there, there is certainly many examples of, Hey, here's what I said.
You guys didn't really understand where I was going with it, so let me clarify. You, you certainly see that. Um, what you don't see is, hey, here I said something and now I'm gonna come in and just completely counterman it. Um, because even if you look at, at this idea of, uh, oh gosh, I'm going really deep into all this, uh, I knew this would be good.
I knew it. Uh, if you, if you look at an old covenant versus a new covenant, One required sacrifice is what we're gonna take. The the new covenant. It, it really didn't change. It's just one was a fulfillment of the other. Like, here's the promise that's going on, and now that promise is being fulfilled in, in the person, uh, of the Christ.
Um, so yeah, it didn't really change, you know, um, uh, for that. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, like, I think, 'cause you also asked are there unfinished books of the Bible? Yeah. And, and the thing with that is, is, is you now you're coming into something called, called, uh, lower textual criticism. And this is actually where my specialty comes into play, which is how do you know that this particular set of books are the books of the Bible?
And not say the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary or, or, you know, the last lost chapters of acts or, or the apocrypha or anything like that. Um, That really just simply comes back to a, a general idea of, uh, it, it is mankind. It is the church that is, that is guided by the Holy Spirit. If you're in that faith and, and you believe of that sort of thing, uh, that it is the church that's guided by the Holy, holy Spirit to recognize what is canonical and what is not.
It's the idea of what's in the canon. You know, j m s gets to go, that's canon. That's not canon 'cause he's the creator and he can do it. He's the great maker. Right. Um, it, we don't have that sort of connection with, with God who supposedly wrote, you know, super superintendent the writing of everything. So, uh, it, it's really mankind saying, yep, that's closed.
No, that's open. Yep, that's closed. And as far as the Christian Bible goes back in like four something at the Council of NAIAs where they declared everything to be closed, um, And, and then we can have questions about Ex Cathedral and all of that sort of stuff, which comes down to Martin Luther and Solas Scriptor later on.
And, and lots of words that I'm, I hope you're gonna edit all that out, Jeff.
Jeff: I'm keeping every piece of this in. This is so good. Oh my
Brent: word. I love it. I put it in like extra viewing or something. I don't know. My gosh. Did that answer your question at all, or did I just make it
Jeff: way more confusing? Nope, absolutely answered the question.
I just thought it was an interesting concept of, you know, 'cause I think that's a thing that we, whatever your faith is, you know, your, the, the, the Messiah, the prophet, the whomever it is that you have, we, through the lens of history can look back and see this perfect being who did all these things, great.
But the reality is like, it was probably a law, like it was for Kar, you know, like, like we didn't talk about it in this context, but when he was being questioned, you can imagine, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this from a Christian faith, that's, that's my background. But you can see Jesus sitting around a fire, you know, with the, with the disciples, the apostles, and, and they be like, well, last night you said blah, blah, blah.
And him being like, oh, Jesus Christ, are you not listening to me? Like, let me lay this out for you. And then we're getting to see that play out with Jcar. And so I think. There's like the, that potential for some really interesting commentary on scripture as well as he kind of goes through and he is like, okay, well maybe, maybe what I need to say is this, because people aren't hearing it the way I just, it's great
Brent: analysis.
I would, I, I would, I would also, uh, simply say to, to really impact with Kar, like where he's adding extra chapters and stuff like that. Uh, there, there is a principle that we use that just because something was written by a particular author who has something included in the cannon of scripture does not mean that everything that author wrote is included in can, like we know, for example, included in Canon is, is First and second Chronicles epistles written from Paul to the, uh, not Chronicles, though.
That is their true, uh, um, Corinthians first and second Corinthians letters written from Paul to the church at Corinth. We also know that there's a third one out there and probably a fourth and fifth one. The why, why is one and two included, but not three, four, and five, right? It's like, yeah, how come and, and is one and two actually C chronologically one and two.
It really, it really could be like second and fourth or something like that. Like, uh, why, why are these included? And the others aren't? Because not everything that somebody writes is included, you know? And so for, so to bring this back to this conversation, and what I find really interesting is this now actually sets up a potential debate and dividing line among the followers of jaar of do you include these extra chapters, which are only to be delivered after he dies, right?
Yeah. Or, and are they gonna believe that they were actually written by Jaar? And if they are, should they actually be included in the book of Jaar or not? And that's all a legit debate because, just because, just because Jaar wrote it doesn't mean like, The Constitution of the, of the Interstellar Alliance Jaar wrote it.
Does it get included in the book of Jaar? Right? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, well, but Jaar wrote it. Yeah. But should it really be,
Jeff: but they get to Sari Prime, they get treated like garbage. I was so impressed with Londo.
Brent: Well, you know what we got when they got to Sari Prime, and maybe you're getting into this, we got one of my favorite memes that I've like, I don't know that I, I probably found this somewhere in the middle of season three, and I swore we heard it earlier, but this is, it.
It's, it's, it's Jaar going. It's a natural musk. I find it pleasant or I'd rather like it or something like that. I didn't know that was a meme. I
Jeff: didn't
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: that was, that was one of the lines, right. You know, I mentioned some of the stuff where I, I, I, I know that's his defiance, right? Those jokes. His, his stuff, you know, he had the one before of just like, oh, let me know when supper is, you know, and those things.
But I, I still, and I think this one played off better. The one that really bothered me was earlier when he is talking to Delan and he is like, yeah, I already booked Passage. I got this seat right next to him. Yeah. He hates talking to people. I know. It's gonna be great. It's,
Brent: see, I thought that was so classic, JCAR.
I thought that was, that was hilarious. And it was so, and it, and the thing is, is with Jcar, here's, here's, I didn't take that as being mean or spiteful, but as, as like, frankly as two friends, a guy who knows a friend, I'm gonna go mess with you now because
Jeff: I'm your friend. It's that loving ball busting that we do so
Brent: well.
That's it really is. That's, and that's the way I interpret it. So, you know, that one played a thousand percent true to
Jeff: me. I think for me it was placement in the episode where it was because like on Sari Prime, it made sense. He was being defiant. He was standing. Yeah. He was, his little victories over them and the indignities and stuff there.
It was just like, it it, you're handing over your holy books. You're, you're stepping away from the council. You're, you're, you're probably never gonna come back here again. And like, yes, we'd leave a little party and joke Ha ha ha. But also everything was ramped up to 11 and it just came in, in a thing where it's like, uh, mm mm Not, not, not not the right time.
A good line. Funny, like nothing was not funny. Mm-hmm. But I just think it was, this wasn't an episode to play things for laughs.
Brent: Again, if you'd like to send in your emails, you can do that to Jeff at Babylon, right? First
Jeff: gmail.com. But through it all, through all of it, even with Jaar sitting next Tolando and talking his ear off the whole flight, they get down and Londo to the Bitter end stands up for Jaar.
Yeah.
Brent: Oh, I loved it. Sure does, sure does. Absolutely. To the point of getting thrown in prison with Jaar, uh, which is right where he needed
Jeff: to be.
How, how, how quickly did you know that was gonna happen?
Brent: Um, it happened, it happened all so fast that as soon as like, I tracked it as it happened, like I didn't predict. Londo going to jail with
Jeff: Jaar. I felt like there was this second where like his chest puffed just a little bit more. He was like, well, if you're gonna, I'm like, he's totally going to jail with him.
Like, this is gonna, this is gonna happen, but here's my bold prediction on Uhoh. The, like, what's the point? Right? What is the point of putting him in jail with Jaar to get him in a spot where they can install his little neck controller keeper thing on him? I think, again, I'm gonna give myself that three episode radius, but I think that is happening.
Okay. Because I think that the war without end is the future that we're headed towards. Oh, I really don't want it to be Yeah. Neither does Londo. Like, I,
Brent: I really want the story to avoid the crap that we saw there. Like, you know. Yeah. That was not fun at all. No, I, because you know what it is, is 'cause I don't want Londo and Jaar to choke each other out at the end.
I don't want Londo to live his life with a little thing on his, on his shoulder. On his neck or whatever it is. Like, I want be, I want better for
Jeff: him than that. And to have to do the things that led him to that moment with Sheridan, you know, just like, we're gonna kill you, dude. Well,
Brent: because, because the, the war without end is 18 years in the future
Jeff: or something like that.
Yeah. 17, 18 years. Like,
Brent: it's a long time into the future. Like supposedly right before Sheridan dies. Sheridan's only for
Jeff: another 20 years. Right. And at this point it was like, I think it was 17 years back in season three. So we're looking at 15 years now.
Brent: Right. And then we've had most of this year. So y you know, uh, that means Jeff, what, what that means is this whole, this whole thing with Centara, with Centara Prime and the Alliance that doesn't get resolved.
Yeah, that's right. That's what that means is we have to leave this with Centara being outside of the, the Interstellar Alliance and
Jeff: on fire. Yeah. Burning and with all the leftover pieces,
Brent: and they haven't, they haven't gotten their stuff, you know, fixed yet. And, and like when we talk about giving us hope for a better
Jeff: future, yeah.
Not so much, at least not in the, in the near 15 ish year future. But Brent, yes, sir. I think we're at a point in this episode where you actually get to talk about that a little bit. This is the point where we start to boil this whole thing down and see if this episode does give us hope for the future. If it has any morals or messages tied to it, any of those really great Babylon five messages delivered in the way that only Babylon five can do.
You get to do that by rating this on a scale of zero to five white stars. So, Brent, what do you got for
Brent: us? So I was, I was actively looking for this as I usually do. And I, I remember I was just kind of struggling with it as I was going forward and I was trying, I was trying to apply the litmus test and I'll tell you.
Where I came down to, uh, was, was three white stars. And where I kind of got to that was, um, I, I, I asked, does this give us hope for a better future? Is it a mirror to society? Is it delivering some moral message that we need to hear? Like that, that's kind of always been our litmus test in season one, right?
And so I, I was thinking about, I was like, okay, so you have the alliance, a k, a, the federation, okay, uh, they made a grave error in passing judgment without proof. We, we've discussed that already. Uh, that's just not how you handle stuff. It may not be they, they may not be wrong in the end. Like it really may be the sari.
That's just not how we handle it. Um, also, like I said, if they trust Londo and they think he's innocent, why would they not bring him into it and leverage him? Picard would've done that. Picard would've used that, right? They would've done everything they could. Over in star Trekk to avoid war and conflict.
And that's not what's happening here. So are we getting hope for a better future? No. No. And I'm not just saying, I'm just saying this is how that would've happened over there because this is battle on five B one five is doing it different. I recognizing that folks, okay. Uh, was this holding up a mirror to society?
That's kind of the other litmus test. And while I agree that Babylon five is more real and realistic than the idealized version of Star Trek, part of the idea of Emeritus Society isn't just showing us ourselves, but showing us why we are awful. And they really didn't do that with the Alliance because I think we were just supposed to be on their side and we were supposed to go, yep.
That's proof. Yep. That's proof. Yep. That's proof. And it's not really a mirror that they're not saying, Hey, let's show you yourself. Like, I don't think that's, that's really what was happening here. Um, Then Sheridan exposes all the council members at the end. He's like, you don't want peace. You don't want cooperation.
You just wanted war and damn you for asking for it, and damn me for agreeing to it. This is regret and frustration because this is not how the United Federation of Planets, the Interstellar Alliance, is supposed to behave. This, this idea that we get into the future, to, to hit this utopian society where we, where we can all come together and overcome our, our differences.
Um, instead, this actually rings a lot more to me like what Picard season one told us that it was supposed to be about. Then John Luke declared the reason he left Starfleet is because it wasn't Stalet anymore. Right? Um,
but then Jeff then, and, and, and I'm thinking like, like, then this happens. I. The Sari Open Fire on the Alliance, and Franklin comes to get vere to get him to safety. We get this scene and Vere's gonna be a target, and they get met in the hallway by the RI and he says his kind, if we can't take it out on them, then we're gonna take it out on him.
And this goes back to this idea we've discussed on this show many times before, Jeff. The idea of dehumanizing somebody, taking away their individuality, taking away their identity, and making a single person who they themselves are not guilty and not at fault, but you're making them culpable for the actions of others that look like him or her.
Sadly, I think this is something we do see quite a bit more and more unfortunately in our world today. Um, and we're seeing it happen here and now in. The form of, of this show, uh, here in America, we are in the midst of another presidential election cycle. In fact, we're getting really close to the election and things are hotter now than they ever have been before.
One of the phrases that I hate during this time for us here in America is vote blue or vote red, vote this way, vote that way. All the Republicans, all the Democrats, all the liberals, all the conservatives, all the capitalists, all the socialists, all the this, all the, that when you reduce a person to this group, you take away their humanity and you categorically pass judgment on them.
You are wrong for doing so. It reminded me of the great words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Who said, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged by will, they will not be judged. By the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And if I may, to judge anyone based on anything other than the content of their character is wrong, to judge them based solely on their nationality, their family history, their political affiliation, their tax bracket, their hair color, their eye color, their gender, the people that they choose to love, how they choose to dress.
It's wrong. It's wrong. Was this the crux of the episode? Was this what the episode was all boiling down to? No, but it's still a really strong message. So that, that's where my three, uh, white stars really came from. And then, and then we get to the end of the episode. It does all boil down. Everything that happens leads to this one moment, this one Speech by Delin, which does show what the episode was about.
It shows what the intent of the episode was. What J m Ss himself as the writer personally believes. One, which by the way is remarkably similar to the sentiment shared by Dr. King, one, which we would all do well, especially those of us here in America right now, uh, to remember. And she says, we are all born as molecules in the hearts of a billion stars, molecules that don't understand politics or differences.
And over a billion years, we foolish molecules forget who we are and where we came from. In desperate acts of egos, we give ourselves names. We fight over lines on maps and pretend that our light is better than everyone else's. Ouch. The flame reminds us that the piece of those stars that lives inside of us, the spark that tells us you should know better, and the flame also reminds us that each life is precious, that each flame is unique, and when it goes out, it's gone forever and there will never be another quite like it.
I wonder some days if we can see anything at all, Jeff. I don't have to comment on that anymore because that says it exactly as it is. It says exactly for what it means. Jeff, this is a five white star episode. That's what everything in this episode led to is that message right there. Our light is not better than everyone else's.
Lives are precious. It is our egos that divi, that drive these differences. And we would do well to put those aside, to find this hope for the future. And this is a way that there is no character on Star Trek who could've delivered this speech. This was a delin only type of a speech. Maybe Lanier, possibly, but it still wouldn't have come out the way that Delin delivered it.
Uh, five White Star episode for me
Jeff: through and through. I think this is a theme that carries not just in this episode, but through Babylon five, you know, I mean, yeah, Babylon five is the, is the story of conflict. And that conflict is because people, I love the line so much, believe their light shines brighter than others.
And I, and I really loved that whole piece from Dela as well. 'cause not only did it tie. Back to their belief. Right? And they were all just manifestations of the same universe. We're all actually connected to the same thing. And I I, it, it, it ties back to what I mentioned earlier. I mean, shoot that Dr.
Bruce Lipton in the biology, biology of belief, the, the, the premise of the book is that we are not an individual as a person. We are 50 trillion life forms cells that are independent and work. We are a relationship That is what a life form is, a relationship of 50 trillion cells. So what makes me any better than anybody else?
Right? I'm just another relationship. I, that's a great, I love it. That's a fantastic rating. That was, uh, expertly delivered by delaine and it just wrapped such a beautiful bow on this whole thing. And you're like, binging. There it is.
Brent: When, when you can go through an episode and you go, okay, what's the point?
What's the point? Where are we going? Where are we going? And then you get to this one little bit at the end and it pulls everything together and you're like, oh my, oh gosh, yes. That's phenomenal writing. That is so good. And by the way, when you understand the opening scene of Delin sitting there staring at this candle, and you think about that, he, in light of the speech at the end, She's going back, she's staring at the candle.
Like that's what she's doing. That's what she's thinking of. And Sheridan to start with is just being a goop. Like, come on back to bed, hun. Like, what are we doing? Like, come on. And then he, he actually goes, Hey, can I come sit with you? Can I come join you in this? Instead of like telling you to come back to bed, can I just come be with you in this?
And holy cow, he learned something. We all do. Yeah, we're all better because Sheridan chose to engage and sit down rather than go back to bed. Yep. Jeff, Brent, I am going to take my shoe off and prepare to throw it through the computer screen at you. If you don't get this right, uh, you get to rank this episode.
You get to place it in the ranking are 100% completely accurate. Immutable, set in stone until we change it later. Uh, ranking our current top five is the very long night of Lao mal. No compromises. Those are the first two episodes of the whole season, aren't they? Uh, learning curve, the ragged edge and view from a gallery.
Even six is Day of the Dead. Jeff, where do you place
All my dreams torn us under. So you called it Don't let me influence You, right? You, you place it where you want to so you
Jeff: call, you better place it right, number one or number two. It's kinda what you said on this whole thing. Yeah, and I'm, I'm just thinking right now about, um,
I, I didn't start watching Babylon five and didn't agree to start this podcast so I could disappoint people. That was never my intention. It's not something I want to do. Now, I'm about to give my ranking and I just wanna, I'm gonna use this as a moment and I'm, I'm gonna stretch this out a little bit and say that my notes are posted on our Patreon, Babylon, uh, patreon.com/babylon five first, the number five, the word first.
So there's a chunk of you out there, a couple of hundred of you that already know what this is, this whole episode, you've known what this is, so you won't, well, you, if you had any level of disappointment, you've worked through that already. So for the rest of you, uh,
Brent: by the way, I do not read your notes before we record, so I'm very interested to know where this is going.
So
Jeff: for the rest of you, I'm just gonna give you a moment to brace yourselves because I am gonna rank this one right above an episode that I'll name, and you'll be like, oh yeah, that episode, and I'm gonna rank it right above.
No compromises as the number two in season five. Oh God.
Brent: I, Jeff, I had my response re prepared and it would've been me about six feet away from my mic. You hearing me? Just as clear as you're hearing me right now? Okay. Whew. Yes, you are correct. Number two, you. Yeah, you are, you are correct. This, this is, uh, uh, I would've been happy with number one 'cause I'm, I, I quite love what this episode has done all the way through.
Very long night of Londo mal is, I I the gap between Lando mal and no compromises is rather large. I was
Jeff: literally, when I was preparing where I wanted to put this, I, I, I looked at it and I was just like, how, how is no compromises in the number two spot? And it was actually in this episode when I hit the hit the drop right time to pay the piper that came from no compromises.
And I'm like, oh my God. That's the our number two episode. Yeah, this definitely belongs in that spot. There's no question. I still think there are some pretty severe flaws in this episode, but they are not big. They don't ruin it. They took me out of it for a moment. It's nineties sci-fi, right? Like that's going to happen.
This was an amazing episode. This is destination viewing. This is Babylon, one of Babylon Five's finest moments. Uh, great episode. Thoroughly agree. Thoroughly agree. And with that, we're done with an all my dreams torn as sunder. Next week we're gonna be watching movements of Fire and Shadow for the first time.
Right? I'm sorry, what movements of Fire and Shadow Now Brent asked me to say that again.
Brent: It's Sorry. George R. Martin sounding title there. All right, go ahead Jeff.
Jeff: There's, and it's back up, the Songs of Fire and, but, uh, Brent asked me to repeat that because a game we play is that, we guess what the next episode is gonna be.
We make a prediction based on the title alone. We don't look at the, the synopsis, the descriptions, the, we don't look at thumbnails. Brent, just about every time hears it for the very first time when I say it, which is why he was asking me to say it again. And so off the cuff, Brent, knowing what you know from this episode and the title, what do you think movements of movements of fire and shadow are gonna be about?
You about said fire right now. I did.
Brent: Okay. Um, so the alliance is broken at the end of this episode. I don't, I I maybe we're not fully broken yet, but it it's certainly on tenuous, tenuous terms. Um, the Sari War is raging. We're going on. Um, we're yet in another Sari War in Babylon. Five. Uh, so do Thera come out in the open here?
Because this has to happen at some point. We only got six episodes left. Uh, the shadow, oh, the drop are the minions and the allies of the shadows, right, Jeff? I got it. I got, I got it. I got it. I, I hear, here it is. You ready? This is, and I'm gonna go, this is gonna be real high level, simple, but it is what it is.
While the war is raging on the movements of fire, the DR are coming out into the light. The movements of shadow. That's what I got. This is basically, this is, this is, uh, we, we discover or Lando discover whatever, uh, thera are really the ones who've been pulling the strings while the war is raging on.
That's the movements of fire and shadow is what we're talking about here.
Jeff: I'm really close. I think that fire and shadow both have very big me. Those are meaningful words in the Babylon five universe, right? Yep. How does this all end? Emperor Turin asks Kosh and Kosh says in fire and then shadows, right?
We got three and a half seasons of, of that storyline. So I'm really close. This is the episode where the dark minions get revealed explicitly to us, the viewer probably Tolando as well. Like that'll be the mechanism to get, uh, revealed to us and huge war. Like I think it's, I think I actually said this last week even, but I'm picturing like.
The big, like homecoming battle sequences in space, just massive warships, explosions, the whole thing. Um, and I think we're gonna get the seeds laid out that will pave the road for the dissolution of the alliance. Maybe, um, maybe it's like I, I, I don't know, just kind of speculating a group going rogue, maybe a group that, uh, joins up with the centar.
Like some, just some, some splinters, some fracture in the alliance that's gonna start, um, showing us that they're, they're gonna, they're gonna break
Brent: up. Do you, do you think the telepaths, the remaining telepaths have the same effect on the drop that they had on the shadows? That's a really good question.
Maybe listen, the, so the Sari are now separate. The telepaths have been looking for a new home. Do the Telepaths and the Centara link up and become kind of a thing?
Jeff: Leave Ari Prime to Thera? Maybe.
Brent: Maybe. I don't think so. I'm not, I'm sticking with my thing. I think this, this, this is a, this is a, uh, uh, this is a reveal episode.
The, like, the, like, I mean, Jeff, we're, we're, we're what, four we're six episodes left. Like the Dr. Thera have to be the bad guys now. Like we have to meet them. They have to be the bad guys so that we can fight them by the end. Like, yeah,
Jeff: we gotta get into the inner workings. Yeah. Well, maybe we'll get there.
We'll find out right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us on this discussion of and all my dreams torn as Sunder. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or wherever you're watching us, leave us a rating or review and please share the podcast or share the video with someone who loves Babylon five, or is just about to fall in love with this incredible series.
So, until next time. Hey, Jeff. Yeah. What's up?
Brent: So do you remember last week when we talked about like for Babylon five for the second time reacting to our own videos? Oh yeah.
Jeff: I totally regret even bringing that up.
Brent: Yeah, well you did and now people are thinking that that's actually gonna happen and I kind of feel like we need to like make sure that they understand that that's really not necessarily what's gonna happen because
Jeff: that's enough.
That's enough. Damn you for asking for it and damn us for agreeing to it and damn us all to hell because that is exactly where we're going.
Brent: Well then let's get the hell out of here!
