[0:00] So what is to be gained by fighting? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. I'd like to be the one to make that decision.
[0:06] Music. The year is 2024. The name of the podcast, Babylon 5. For the first time. Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Aiken. And I'm Brent Allen. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters. Now we're veteran Babylon 5 podcasters, but we're total newbies to this Babylon 5 spinoff show called Crusade. We are loving diving through this thing for the first time looking for those deep hidden messages that are found within it. Watching Crusade, it's like doing the extra credit at the end of the class sort of a thing. And we're all about extra credit. It's like you already aced the class and now you're just going for more than 100% at this point just because it's fun and you want to. And I feel like we're both that person academically. Absolutely. Yeah. Makes sense we're doing this. Yeah. If I've got a 98 in the class and I've got a chance to get 15% extra credit, I'm totally going for 113%.
[0:10] I want you to know that this thing just made a very large dent in my ship.
[1:14] Every time. And let's see how we score this time as we do what we always do on these podcasts. We're going to look for those deep messages. We're going to see if this is holding up a mirror to society or maybe possibly telling us that we could be better human beings. We do that by looking for what we call the sci-fi messages, not the Star Trek messages, because this is not a Star Trek podcast, which is why we play the rule of three, which is a game that limits us to no more than and three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three. One of those plays. No substitutions, exchanges, a refund. And what happens if we make one of those references, Jeff? We play everyone's favorite sound.
[1:54] Hey, Brent. Hey, Jeff. We have a five-star review. Oh, yes. Got another one from Apple Podcasts. This one's from the UK. And Sell You One, I think is how you pronounce this. It's really hard to pronounce these names. So I'll say Sell You One says. Saluin. Saluin. Saluin. Saluin. Saluin is where Galen found Gideon on that one episode. Tell us what Swellin says here. Well, Sell You One, I love how this one starts. I'm an old and very cranky sci-fi fan. I can't stand fandom, especially modern fandom. And part of why I avoided B5 at the time was because their fans were just insufferable. Really? So the thought of two people who are Star Trek fans enough to have done podcasts watching B5 through a Star Trek lens should push every alarm button I have. And here I am, all these episodes later.
[2:53] The guys are very American, and I say that as a lapsed American. And I have a drinking game where I chug a beer every time one of them says in a low voice, so good. So good. It's so good. I'm working this in as many times as I can now. It sounds like our drinking game now, now that we know. Graps it up by saying, but they're fair-minded, thoughtful, and have interesting things to say. I'll be sorry when the journey ends, and I was not expecting to say that. Jeff. Brent. I love, I love, I'm so glad we brought back doing reviews. Me too, it's so great. I missed it. I know there's a time factor to it, but really, I really missed it. Anyway, with that, you know what else? You know what I am going to miss when it goes away? Oh, I do know. I'm going to miss the predictions. I'm going to miss the predictions because it's been of like the three things that we hear again and again from people that they love about this show. By far, the predictions were the number one thing I think we heard about. We're going to see views and listens just plummet for the second time because they're like, yeah, there's no prediction. That's the whole reason I listened to this thing. I hope not because I tell you what, I think the second time is going to be even better all the way through. Anyway, but we're not done yet. Nope. We're not done yet because what happens is at the end of each episode, we get to it and we look ahead to see what the title of the next episode is. We haven't seen the episode before.
[4:20] We haven't read descriptions, looked at thumbnails, any of that kind of stuff, hearing it for the first time right here right now and making a prediction about what it possibly could be. Well, this is the spot of the show where we look back on that prediction from last week that was about this week's episode and see just how close we were. So, Jeff, what did you say ruling from the tomb was going to be about? And how close were you? I thought this was going to be where they find a planet, where the civilizations following old set of strictures and rules and very Star Trek original series where Gideon would come down and Kirk everybody back to reality. And then they end up not getting what they look for, take off and hope everything went well for them. I was not even in the same galaxy for this one. What did you think? Well, I said that basically this was going to be a riff on Stargate. We're going to find some, like, ancient building, ancient structure, and it turns out it's actually going to be a tomb, and there's going to be some ancient being trapped in there who's been imprisoned, and basically it's the Gould from SG-1. Yeah, not at all. Not at all what this episode was about. Big fat donut for me. That actually sounds really good right now. A donut does sound really good. I don't need one. I'll be right back. Oh, my God.
[5:33] Well, I don't know that anyone could have guessed that we were going to get what we got out of this episode. And if you don't remember this one, have never seen it before or anything like that, Brent, why don't you refresh us? Tell us what Ruling from the Tomb was all about. Well, it's a dry, dusty, random planet of the week. Lots of activity, comings and goings. Wait a minute. This place actually looks familiar. This isn't some dusty, random planet of the week. It's Mars, Earth's nearest neighbor, which seems like a great place to bring together all of the uninfected, smart humans working on curing this plague, literally right next door to the infected folks. If only Jeff, if only there was some better place that they could have met a place that could have accommodated everybody, a place that all space fairs could, could find, and it'd be a nice, good, safe distance away from earth. I mean, I get it. Earth and Mars are still not that close, but still like, eh, you know, I don't know. Maybe if like, uh, there's a space station out there, uh, a crossroads of sorts that would have, you know, stuff. But here we are on Mars.
[6:49] Anyway, Captain Lockley of the space station Babylon 5, which is totally big enough to handle all of that, is on temporary assignment to Mars to oversee the conference on the Drock Plague. She's having some trouble with the local PD. After all, they may be human, but Mars is independent now, and this is Earth Force, so they can stuff it. Cue Captain Matthew Gideon. He's brought the conference's keynote speaker, Dr. Chambers, and I guess he's there to sort of run support for Captain Lockley? Well, Gideon and Lockley lock horns a lot. It's cute. Lockley said she doesn't need him or his help because security is her middle name. Gideon says, well, he's going to tag along anyway, just in case her last name is Breach. While they're trying to one-up each other, there's some definite flirting happening. They even have dinner together in Lockley's quarters, and she appears to be wearing a silk nightie for some reason. They get around to talking about Captain John Sheridan. I'm sorry, President John Sheridan and Lockley's...
[7:57] Previous positioning in regards to John Sheridan. And finally, Jeff, in the best joke I've ever seen, the best moment I've ever seen really here on Babylon 5 in a purely 13-year-old way, we finally get a payoff to this weird, random Sheridan-Lockley marriage thing from so long ago. Now, it's not like she's pining for her lost love, because honestly, there's a man right in front of her right now, Matt, Matt Gideon. And there's some definite chemistry here. Let's see if we come back to this or go backwards to a previous episode about this, whatever. Now with that, while there's some definite chemistry, there's also a definite murder happening at the conference. His name is, or was Henderson. He's a guy who has also had some religious training way back in the day, serving the Lord and whatnot before he left the service. And his body has been etched with the symbol of a doomsday cult. And cue the doomsday cult guy. He's a Frenchman, and that's not a slam on our French friends out there. No, it actually matters later in the episode. We'll come back to that in a few. His name is Andre and he's hearing voices. Well, he's hearing one voice and her name is John.
[9:16] He, she is the one telling him that God is demanding the killing of all these unfaithful people and pretty much everyone else. It is the end of humanity. And he has some pretty big bombs hidden underneath the conference center, ready to blow everyone up real good. And thereby he'll end all hope for humanity and bring about humanity's doom.
[9:38] Fortunately though, for our stalwart heroes of the episode, there happens to be a shuttle driver. His name is Trace. He's charming, personal, has a thing for Darina, and has a whole thing between him and Eilerson trying to go for Darina.
[9:54] Also just so randomly happens that he knows both Andre and Henderson because you see he was in seminary with them both way back in the day and now because of that Trace has to die too. An attempt is made on his life by the doomsday folks but it's failed and when Lockley and Gideon are showing up to check on him everything starts to fall into place. Trace tells them about Andre in the doomsday cult. Not that he's a bad guy. He just thinks he's doing God's will. That's when Gideon understands it all. And he leaps into action because he's got himself a plan.
[10:29] He interrupts Dr. Chambers speech and lies his ass off. He says that they were wrong. Their estimation of five years. No way. Humanity doesn't have five years with this plague. They only have months and they better get out and, and go make the men's because humanity has been tested and has been found wanting. And this is their punishment. He says to a listening Andre in the crowd. Well, that satisfies John and Andre and they turn off the bomb with just 20 seconds left to go. Andre heads back to the bomb bunker and well, they follow him and it turns into a fifth act and the whole cult dies. One guy even takes a direct shot to the back of the head with a PPG, which somebody would have told him to watch his back. But before he dies, Andre actually clarifies who jean is it's jean dark or for those of you who don't speak french joan of arc in case you're not familiar with history she's basically the french version of mulan who claimed to audibly be able to hear god's voice as well and she was executed as a psycho and a martyr well this episode comes to a close with yet another promise of gideon coming to be five for sure leave and rekindling his whole thing with Lockley. And meanwhile, Doreena and Eilerson and Chambers all sit around the table at the bar and do Jeff's and Mai's job for us. Tell us what the messages of this episode were all about.
[11:52] Don't try speaking for God or for the universe. And when you do, you inevitably wind up becoming the thing which you obsessively hate. And that's why so much killing has happened over the years in the name of God. Jeff, what are your thoughts? What are your experiences with this episode ruling from the tomb? I'm really curious what your revised thoughts are, because these are mine. If it wasn't for Gideon and Lockley, who were in freaking credible in this, I loved every second they were on screen together but if it wasn't for them this episode would be objectively hot steaming garbage this was horrible it was so bad they pulled every trope pod i i feel like it was trying to say like every single anti-religion message you could ever deliver but only through tropes like how how am i going to deliver this thing with just oh i'm gonna be a priest and oh i was i would rather trust science than oh my gosh just every single line that was spoken in this the relationships between didn't make sense it there was no cohesion to things that were happening i had no idea like who this guy like just this was garbage in every single way and i will always love the episode though because of gideon and lockley what did you think.
[13:17] I have so many more words, but I'm going to keep them at that. So, Jeff, I wrote my opening thoughts down last night after watching this episode before rewatching the second one. And I have not gone back to revise my opening thoughts. I'm going to leave my opening thoughts and I'll have some different closing thoughts. But here's the thing. This was a completely pointless episode. Yeah, I've this felt every bit of a season one type episode. Those of you guys that are firing up your keyboards, chill. I got you, folks. Just stick with me. OK, this is my initial thought, my initial impression. It felt like every bit of a season one type episode and a full 22 episode season without having seen the rest of the show. Anyone who's watching this for the first time would leave this episode basically thinking this is just a filler episode. It feels like it. The whole thing about the doomsday cult and the big reveal at the end about the dude hearing Joan of Arc's voice did absolutely nothing for me. I mean, it was clever. The idea that she used to hear voices and now he's hearing her voice. I can imagine as a writer, if I put myself in JMS's spot as a writer, you've held that in your back pocket. Like, I'm going to use that someday. Like, that's a cool idea. And he brought it out here.
[14:28] Unfortunately, it was so far out of left field for this episode. And it was really just the background story for what was really happening in the episode. It wasn't what the episode was really all about. That to say, what really was happening in this episode, what this episode really was about, what saved this episode for me, as you said, Jeff, Gideon and Lockley. Fully agree with you. Gideon and Lockley, they were gold in this episode. I loved their banter. There were times, Jeff, there were times when their banter touched on early Londo and Jakar type banter.
[15:06] Ooh. Like it was so good. And I know you and I tend to say that we don't like it when stories force characters to hook up, but I got to tell you, I am completely on the Matthew Elizabeth train. I don't know what their ship name is. I don't know if we should give him one, but I'm on this train. I'm all for it. The dinner scene when Gideon asked Lockley if she's ever been under Sheridan and she chokes Jeff, I lost it. I stopped it. I showed my wife. She has a bare minimum idea of these characters in the background to this. She cackled at that joke. It was so funny. So while this overall wasn't a good episode, it was still kind of a good episode to me. I'm still going to watch it again.
[15:55] It was very much that season one type filler episode, though. Now, that being said, this episode is also chock full of messages that we're going to get into. And you and I have often said, even in Star Trek, The episodes with the best messages sometimes are not really good episodes. And the best episodes to watch don't really have any good messages in them. Those two things are very mutually independent of each other. So, Jeff, let's dive into this. Let's talk about this episode, the good, the bad, the ugly, because we're going to talk about those messages here come the end. There were a lot of messages in this one, and I feel like a lot of it was centered around the death cult, right? Or the death cult, doomsday cult, whatever. but um can can we acknowledge something about that though jeff because and and you tell me if this read to you because i i feel like i've done this before with babylon 5 and and it just sort of sticks out and i find this a very interesting piece you and i both know that jms uh we have not read his his autobiography yet that's coming actually i think that's coming up right after we finish yeah very soon there's crusade the movies and then and then the autobiography, We know that at some point in his life, he apparently was in a cult. He got out. So he has a religious background. He has religious training, but he is also an avowed atheist.
[17:12] Knowing that about him as a person and seeing the things that he writes about is fascinating. Agreed. This particular episode and the things that they're talking about with the doomsday cult and all of these pieces felt very much to me like a lot of JMS's own personal ideas of kind of his own internal dialogue, I think, when he thinks of religion in many ways. It just kind of rings that way to me. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's how it rings to me. I don't know about you. I think some of it I honestly I hope not because like I go back to my statement earlier that every statement they made about it was just a trope. I lost it. I think even on my reaction like I paused and talked for I don't know 48 minutes on how ridiculous it was when Elaine or whatever Levesque was all you know well you know I pray to God that will something and then Sarah Chambers is like well I would choose to believe in science instead of someone who would let this happen. that.
[18:10] Phrase that is spoken so often on television and sci-fi. How could God let this happen? To me, it is the height of ignorant hubris. Like, that is someone who has no concept of anything outside of the pop culture myth of who God is. Like, someone in the sky with the old marionette things making everything happen. That is that so minimizes our humanity when that trope is played and the fact that it was the first like shot fired in this whole thing from go i was just like oh my god it's going to be one of these can can i play the other side of that though okay the the issue jeff this is going to be one of those episodes where we dive into it okay here let's own it guys if you guys have been with us for any amount of time you know jeff is a very active practicing catholic i'm not catholic um But I do have some faith, religion background, and I'm probably going to jump into my story here a little bit later on because it tracks with one of these characters very, very similarly. Oh, wow. But I am also a person of faith.
[19:20] The problem of pain. C.S. Lewis had a whole book about it. The problem of pain. If there is a God, and typically when you say that, we're talking about the Christian God. We want to acknowledge that there are many faiths out there. But typically we're talking about the Christian God. If there is a Christian God, if there is a God out there that claims to be good and to be loving, how could a God like that let so many bad things happen on earth? And that is one of the number one and still is one of the number one questions and one of the number one stumbling blocks to faith that society at large has. And I don't know about you and your experience, but from my experience with the church, the church has done a really bad job of answering that question. Oh, absolutely. And by we, I mean the church at large. That said, I completely understand your frustration because when you boil this very sensitive and actually very nuanced topic, and there's so many things to it, when you boil it down to just a trite phrase of, well, I'd rather believe in this than this thing over here, it does not do that conversation. Because that is a conversation that is worth having and worth diving into. And it does not do that kind of – it short circuits what really should be a great conversation and a very interesting conversation between people who are either seeking or not seeking or people that are struggling with faith or just straight out don't believe in it and they need answers.
[20:48] And I agree with you. That sort of a question tends to short – or that sort of comment tends to short circuit.
[20:54] Those conversations. I think especially when, as a Catholic, and I own this very often when I talk about it, there's the church and then there's reality, right? And often the two are quite separate. And so when I talk about the church, I'm talking about the ideals and the teachings, not necessarily the execution. We'll talk about actually that with the teachings, I think later on, when we talk about some other parts of this episode, but science in many ways exists in its form now because of the catholic church so many of the what i'll call foundational uh theories and ideas that we have that we've based our understanding of the universe and other things on were catholics that discovered a big bang theory right which so many people hold up as well this is god couldn't have created the universe because there was the big bang yeah it was a catholic like a monk who first discovered that and postulated it.
[21:50] The the two things and we talked about this a while ago they are not mutually exclusive right science and religion but the argument against religion has created that well you can't have both and i just i don't know i felt like it's i felt like it was just a huge shortcut in writing to be like, well, I didn't get that. Come on, come on. I felt that the line itself was insulting. And more so, like I was saying earlier, I feel that that belief is an insult to our humanity. For the most part, regardless of your faith, we were created with free will, right? That's one of the many things that separate us from the quote-unquote animals that are out there. Free will and an opposable thumb. That's what we got.
[22:37] If God's up there controlling good things and bad things that happen, how does our free will work in? How do those do, I mean, bad things happen because we don't always show up the best way. Or we try things that we don't know. Or we mess up. Or we just try to hurt other people sometimes. It's not. And also, like, I'll tie it to sci-fi. They answered this question really well in The Matrix. When Agent Smith starts saying, we tried a version of the Matrix that was a utopia, where there was no conflict and everything was great, and you rebelled against it. You rejected it because your humanity couldn't handle that. And Kirk talks about this frequently as well, where we need conflict to grow, to change, to develop, to be what we're supposed to be, to sort of boil it all down to, well, God let it happen. What you're boiling it down to – no, what you're boiling it down to is Kirk was actually a shadow. Oh, yeah, because he needed conflict and fighting.
[23:39] Well, Jeff, let's put a pin in that conversation and come back to it. I'm not sure that this podcast is a place to litigate that conversation. I don't mean to short-circuit it just like I said we were trying to do, but that is a big conversation. I do want to talk about what – At least the episode was saying whether or not we agree with it. We can have that conversation as well. But I do want to talk later about what that episode was saying. But, okay, look, we started this actually talking about getting in Lockley. Oh, you're going to jump there already. I wanted to hit some of the ugly stuff before we got to the good stuff. Oh, okay. Then let's do that. Ugly stuff. Eilerson. Oh, my God.
[24:17] Literally. So I had a comment in my opening thoughts just in my notes on it where I said there's a lot of this. It was so bad it was actually kind of fun and sadly a lot of it included eilerson you know i think on my reaction video i i did something very similar i was like this is so bad but i'm having so much fun with it it's so cringy but i i'm in i love it it i think i had that same kind of a reaction to a lot of it it was so but they're walking through the the the mean streets of mars him and darina which by the way i'm sorry did that not look like they just went to the storage unit of whatever slot they were on and pulled out the old set from total recall oh my gosh yes it did didn't it just waited for some guy to come up and be like man i got five kids to feed but it's like it's i got five kids to feed but it's like they just didn't light it as well and put as much smoke around but it was the same set it looked like totally did it was ah i was just but it's so frustrating because i was literally like yeah so i mean i totally grew up in a country club but like i was totally a rebel the whole time like i came here right i was in my reaction video i'm like you know what i used to do during i used to come down here and i would drink merlot like.
[25:37] I got so just in the gutter. I would just drink it for days. That Merlot was so good. It was out of a box. Yeah.
[25:48] Oh, my God. It was awful. But I loved that he got totally worked over. He's like, yeah, one time I came here and he stole my wallet. She's like, you mean like just happened? Did you know that he got pickpocketed as soon as that happened? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's just staring at him like. but then and you mentioned this in one of our back and forths one of the worst choreographed fight scenes I have ever ever seen oh it was awful like this is on audio you're gonna miss this so i'll describe it afterwards but this is my impression of dorina in that fight uh to describe that hold on hold on let me describe this for our audio folks jeff.
[26:25] Is currently sitting with his arms spread wide and his mouth open like he's whoa jeff.
[26:32] What was that what was it like the mouth came open.
[26:35] Really big and something came shooting out of the mouth what was that that was an episode of something we did together was it yeah was.
[26:42] It was it oh it was like a horror episode of babylon 5 like they tried to turn it into something and it was like oh my gosh what was that was that gray 17 maybe the monster in that maybe i'm just thinking the xenomorph and alien no it was something you and i did together and we made so much fun of it because it looked so awful well this also looked awful no it was it wasn't it the episode no it was it was the movie the one with wells or the episode with wells right was it like with the little thing that went around and like anyway it doesn't matter it does not matter right here at all it just doesn't but yeah yeah she comes out just screwing oh jeff i think you should clip i should you should clip yourself for that and use that as the the thumbnail for the episode yeah see if i get that but i mean literally like the minute he goes up and he's like hey you got my wallet they're all standing there cracking their knuckles like oh my god yeah and then that followed i'm just i'm just gonna go on the iris and train that followed immediately by him go walking into the bar and biting off more than he can chew with a bunch of biker looking dudes just for the next scene to be him being best friends with them yeah because that's how dudes work i will we will get into a drag out fight and and as soon as it's done we'll go have a beer together and be friends.
[28:06] Yes, but would you include Max Eilersen in that description of dudes? I don't know that I would. That's fair. That's fair. I mean, he rebelled by drinking Merlot out of a box. That was his big rebellion.
[28:21] I like Merlot. I don't know. But, okay, can we please talk about him and Trace and Dorena? It's not even a love triangle because you have to have people actually liking each other in that. It's just they're both going after the same girl and she's like i'm not interested in either of you and none of them neither of them take a hint at all like all the way back in the shuttle on the way down which by the way in the shuttle on the way down darina sitting right in between the pilot and co-pilot chairs awkward as all get out great for the camera but awkward to look at it in like real life until she starts going in like literally mommy dearest in them oh my god that was awful that was awful oh that was such a better way to handle that i'm gonna say this noting the last time i said this i i uh insulted the great steven first and veer but whoever directed this episode should have their head cut off and placed on a pike high in the air where i can look at it and wave like this.
[29:27] It was not the best directing. It really, uh, there were, it's almost like this guy was just out of time and he's like, okay, print it, whatever happens. I don't care. Just run it, do something. Hey, uh, Doreena lady, whatever your actor's name is, uh, just grab them both by the ear and say your line and let's, let's print that. That'll be good. That'll be enough. We're at, we're out of time. Yeah.
[29:48] Did you catch what Eilerson said to Doreena before he and Trey started their drinking contest?
[29:54] Pray tell. they're talking about getting drunk and passing out on the bar and he says well at least you're equipped with flotation devices i get that now yeah wow i remember that line but i i i yeah i uh kind of couldn't believe it that that's that makes sense on a planet that has no water what did you think of the dancing scene with him uh with allison and darina okay so here's the thing that dancing scene there is a clip of it in the opening credits now in the opening credits i have to tell you i've secretly held out hope that eilerson's going to become cool he's going to become suave there's something about him that we just don't see that we don't know yet and he where he's going to grow into it because you and i we can we can hate on a character and then but we know he can grow like we we're not we don't give up hope and so i'm like i'm watching this i'm like okay we're gonna come to it what i didn't know from watching the opening credits was no he was drunk the whole time and he was not suave and was not debonair and he was not okay why dorina was even there dancing with him that long in the first place i don't understand but dude was getting beat up in the alley out back and she just the hairs on the back of her neck stood up her her threat ganglia went up or something and was like where's trace trace there's a disturbance in the force spidey senses tingling right and she's like let's go find him.
[31:24] I loved their dance. I loved it. They were. It was great. The dance, like I said, to watch it, to see the clip of it without context looks fantastic. In context, so dumb. Right. But it looked well executed. Great dancers. I mean, you know, so here's what happened with that. You know, I figured it out. They took all the money that they would normally spend on their fight choreography and gave it to the dance choreographer. That's fair. Totally fair. They just were out of money for the fight guy.
[31:53] Oh oh the dumbest line i heard uh eilerson say now maybe you've ever heard this used he trace says real early in the episodes i kind of feel like a yo-yo here all right you know talking about going back and forth back and forth back and forth a yo-yo that makes a whole lot of sense to me and island's like it's a phrase to use for an idiot or somebody who's being dumb i'm like i've never used the term yo-yo to describe somebody being an idiot the dude's a yo-yo like I haven't because I didn't live in the 1950s. I think that it was like, I think that's an old like. Maybe. I don't know. That was like, that's now to be fair, this show is set well in the future and maybe it becomes a phrase like that, but there's nothing I'm familiar with. I was like, eh, I just didn't. I thought that was dumb. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's go on to the actual thing that's worth talking about. Gideon and Lockley. Like from go immediately. I'm just like, there's so much chemist. Like they start talking to each other and the lights are brighter. The voices are more clear. Like literally everything is immediately better. Well, even the first interaction, she's not even looking at him. Exactly. Excuse me. Excuse me. I hate to interrupt. Then don't. Yes, ma'am. Right.
[33:10] So my first two notes here are saying, so this is the episode that Gideon and Lockley meet. And then I asked this question, Jeff, why in the world does JMS's order, which by the way, you and I are following JMS's own order, at least one of them. Apparently he has more than one. But why is it in his own order?
[33:32] This episode comes after last week's episode. Because they're like I understand he wanted to group the the gray uniformed things together, because it makes more sense as far as that goes because I guess we're going back to the black uniforms and yeah I like the black uniforms too but today they weren't even in the black ones these were like just the navy blue dresses or jumpsuits.
[33:53] Whatever it was it wasn't even the green ones like it made no difference on a uniform level why the there was no reason to put this episode prior to last week's episode there was no reason to put this episode in the series 22 episodes in a season man they got to fill them up somehow right you got to fill them no i feel like both episodes with them were like here's my introduction to captain lockley and captain gideon there's zero connective tissue they both start in the same place where like one's a little out of sorts and the other one you know because lockley's all worked up because of lieutenant car and then she was in the life's in med bay or whatever in the other one and they both end the same with so meet up on babylon 5 then yeah everything in the middle is what and you and i were told going into this that the order is all sorts of screwy because there's like there's episodes where people meet and then they meet again later yeah exactly like and okay here's here it is right here this was what they're talking about anyway i digress by the way if anybody out there is pulling your hair out at the order that jeff and i are using blame jms yeah.
[35:02] It's his just write him you can write j michael straczynski at babylon51st at gmail.com and we will forward that to him and make sure he gets it we'll take it to him the next time we time travel to him yeah i love some of the lines though and he's like uh what's because i'm ruggedly handsome him well you're a control freak can i be both that was a great line it was can i be both later on she like bags on him for his game she's like this i'm like what are you talking about like this dude is smooth really jeff maybe that it says more about me really jeff.
[35:39] Did you hear her next line after that like are you just this bad do you not have that much experience with it is that really jeff's telling on himself right now folks that's that's what he's doing right here here's here's jeff's real story but even matheson is like calling him on it yeah rumor rumors are going around we're all talking as you because you know what when two people have that kind of chemistry everyone can see it yeah it's so obvious everyone sees it and you're like mm-hmm but it all it all comes together in that dinner scene oh my gosh that dinner scene was the greatest like i'm gonna tell you what that was a better dinner scene that was a better dinner scene than we ever saw sheridan and delin have absolutely ever and i liked their dinner scenes that was better have you ever been weren't you under him i know she's full-on choked they first said that and my 13.
[36:37] Year old little brain went that's what oh is she laughing at that too did she have did they would they put that in here did they put that they put that in here yes that's exactly what she's choking out i'm like oh my gosh totally he even had to clarify like oh at babylon five like uh weren't she oh yeah yeah yeah yeah no no but then she doubles down on it she goes yeah he actually preferred it that way yeah oh it was so good it was so good she had so like little the little quips too and you know before they connected or uh she gives it all away and gideon's like yeah he's my hero you know it's so great and then uh well but you know he probably puts his leg pants on one leg at a time and she's like yeah backwards in the dark sometimes too yeah.
[37:26] Oh my gosh and then and then it gets a little cheesy i'm gonna say the writing on this piece was not great he's like oh what you mean some guy bagged you and he was dumb enough to let you get away which there's a little you know that's he really he was dumb enough to let you get away like that i'll give you credit on that one but oh my gosh he's probably the dumbest man in the whole wide world oh yeah he's he's real dumb oh he's got his name of course i like you just track every side of this of exactly where it's going i think i literally said as he was doing that i'm like there better be a spit take boom there's a spit take like yeah paint by numbers but perfect so perfect now i want to throw a wrinkle into this whole thing for you okay okay i want you to imagine the exact same lines the exact same script gary cole but instead of tracy scoggins as Captain Elizabeth Lockley. It's Claudia Christian as Susan Ivanova. And it's Ivanova and Gideon. Think of the lines. Think of how she delivers lines like this. This is nothing against Tracy Scoggins. But you and I got four seasons of Ivanova. You and I got four seasons of Claudia doing this sort of stuff. Like saying these kinds of lines. The way she would go after.
[38:45] I mean, her and Garibaldi were just friends in that early season. I get it, but she could stand toe to toe with him and just go the way she would do stuff with Marcus and how she'd go back and forth with Marcus. You put her on this with Gideon and let that be her. And as much as you and I are loving Gideon and Lockley, I think this ratchets up to a whole nother level if it was a Vanova. Yeah. If they, if the actors have the same chemistry, absolutely. But I think they do. I think they would. I'm just imagining her, you know, the little things of like, well, he preferred it that way. You know, just the way she'd like, she'd get it underneath, you know, a little bit, her intonation and stuff. Also, I think if Uravanova, he would leave with two black eyes.
[39:30] Yes, but only after they actually hooked up. Because I'm pretty sure that's going to be some Klingon bedroom stuff there with her. I was going to say, Jadzia and Worf. On that, I had a question for you. Yeah. How do you think that date ended? Oh, I think they totally hooked up. 100%. I do. I think they totally hooked up. There's no way. There's no way. He was like, well, thanks. Can I help you with the dishes? No, okay. Well, I guess I'll see you at work tomorrow. All right. I'll have a good night. Stands there awkwardly waiting for her to be like. As soon as she said, dinner in my quarters, it was on. She took. So when she called that and then early on where I'm like, oh, my gosh. I think I understand what role she plays in this where he's like, is that an opinion or is that a fact? And she's like, oh, that is a fact.
[40:21] Yes yes ma'am and then here where he's like we say my quarter she's like my quarters 1800 boom she's gone she's calling the shots in there yeah and i think matt is all even the one that she's like matthew matt he loves it oh matt's fine uh elizabeth liz elizabeth like 100 though this relationship continues she becomes lizzie to him it's not liz she'll become lizzie promise miss you that god this is another another one of the things that like because this stupid series got stupid canceled we're never see and there's a thing this episode you said it and i'll say it again would be a hundred percent worth the filler just to introduce lockley and gideon and start them on whatever this is going to be you know and here's the thing because like like project this out over five seasons this isn't going to go the way that sheridan and delin went no where it's just going to be the slow burn slow climb and just straight into love and into marriage and saving the galaxy and flying off together and then watching the sun come up because of your love it's not going to be that this is going to be a relationship where they're they're fighting and they're arguing and they're making up and they're they are toe to toe the whole time and will love it every bit of the way. He shows up on Babylon 5, she shows up on Excalibur, and all operations are.
[41:51] Like, they destroy every ecosystem they walk into. They're just that big of a force. Yeah. But you said it in the recap of the episode, and you couldn't say it better.
[42:02] This just about made that whole marriage shtick in the fifth season worthwhile. Yeah. This is actually the second time you and I have looked at something that happened with Lockley and have gone, you know what, if that happened for this one moment right here, totally worth it. And I'm good with it. We first said it with Lockley with the whole thing about we actually justified her entire presence in the show when she was able to go to Garibaldi and talk to him in his addiction.
[42:33] Justified her whole presence the whole thing about her and sheridan that they by the way never ever mentioned again and thank god they didn't because it was dumb and i will maintain it was dumb it was stupid but you know what at least they did something with it and here it is and it was great here it was great here it's still dumb there but it's great here so shifting gears a little bit to the uh death squad stuff yeah big deal out of it being called sacred omega like there are people serving on earth force ships that are members of sacred omega like it's a whole thing and all i could think was is sacred omega crusades version of home guard like we're going to mention them this time and then never again also it might have ended when lebec or elaine or andre or whatever his name was. My impression is that what happened down there in the bomb squad area or in the bomb area where they're shooting everybody, shooting PPGs around the bombs. Right? Right? Right? Oh my gosh.
[43:38] Could you stop shooting the bombs? I don't know what movie that's from, but I remember that. But somebody in the comment section, please let me know. What movie is that from? Stop shooting the bombs. It was the bad guy who was saying it, like trying to get him to stop. I think I might have watched it recently, too. I don't even remember. My impression, my takeaway from that scene was the Doomsday Cult is done. I think so, too. Yeah, that was my last note was like, was this guy the head of Sacred Omega or was Joan of Arc the head of it through him? Okay, can we talk about what the hell that was? Well, before we talk about that, I want to talk about that fight scene with the PPG stuff and everything that was going on. There are two things that just I couldn't we can't not mention one the timer on the bomber on the bomb six six six my God come on that's so like really really not even trying. Oh, my God. But the worst? Holy crap.
[44:39] So, this might not have been the PPG fight, but it was when Darina saves Trace. Lieutenant Carr, who that lady, that lady's got an axe to grind with somebody. She is not a happy person. But she rolls up behind dude. She's got her PPG pointed, and she's like, I'll give you to the count of three to let go. One, two, bang!
[45:03] Right the back of the head dude point blank range to the back of the head that's like some kowalski level like sheer the back of your head off type stuff man yeah right right into the gate just i love that i can make that reference with you and you know what i mean now if you guys don't know go check out our stargate for the first time show you'll get it but no and then she has the audacity when lockley's like so what happened we need to talk to him oh you gotta have a ouija board, wow that was that was kind of funny i ain't gonna lie that was kind of funny but i just couldn't believe she didn't even wait to get to three oh wow yeah um can we can we also just talk about this all right so track with me the order of events okay dude sets the bomb to go off six six six starts a countdown it's going down about one number per second okay 666 seconds jeff It's just a hair over 11 minutes. Not long at all. That's it. 11 minutes. He's freaking out because he's like, I don't want to be. I'm scared to die. I know it's I know it's good and just and martyrdom and blah, blah, blah. But I'm still scared. And she's like, I was scared to die, too. Whatever.
[46:14] Somewhere far away at a bar or whatever, here's Trace, who's all like, oh, just got beat up. And Gideon and Lockley, like, rushed to him or something. Gideon's back at the thing, whatever. And they're having a conversation with him. And all of a sudden, they realize exactly what's going on. And, oh, it's this Andre guy. And, you know, who's he? What's he look like? We don't know, but we know him. And he, listen, he's not a bad guy. He's really a good dude. He just thinks he's doing the Lord's will and whatever. And as long as he, you know, kind of thinks that everything's going to be fine. And then Gideon hatches this plan, rushes the stage and says this lie. And then dude has, and he stops it with just 20 seconds left. All of that took place in less than 11 minutes. I don't buy that. It was on Mars. Time is a little different. It's like metric time. Oh, it is. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it. Got to do the math a little differently there. You're just, what you're doing by 2.2. And yeah, you're taking your earth ideals and forcing them onto Mars with that, with that comment. Earth, Earthica, Marsica, Marsica.
[47:20] What did you think of Gideon's plan though? To like shut dude down. Okay. You know, the most unbelievable thing I had about that entire plan when he said we were wrong, it's not five years. It's a couple of months. Nobody freaked out. There was no panic. there was no murmur there was no it's just people like oh okay well you guys should all go home and you know and then and then he starts badmouthing humanity has been judged and been found wanting and i'm like okay q settle down dude you know what i mean that's three is that three okay, fine sorry if i stole them all from you i do like it when and we've talked about this we've seen Sinclair do it. We've seen Sheridan do it. We've seen Gideon do it on other episodes. Have we ever seen Lockley do it? Maybe not. But I love when they come up with an answer to ninja the whole situation. But the point was, from a writing standpoint, they had to get Dude to believe.
[48:24] That everybody was going to die anyway and that judgment was upon him so he didn't have to exact the judgment. He could just let them go. There is no way that I believe that they're gonna be like okay well just let them go it's fine we don't have to kill them okay then we can kill them anyway it's a mercy now to kill them like which is what they were thinking it was anyway that's part of the doomsday piece right like you know on some weird sick twisted level so and then like what's he do does he come back after that and be like psych actually we got five years guys go back to freaking out about that like and was this televised back on earth they wait hand waved that at the end where luckily was like yeah once we got people off the ceiling and screaming about what you did. Everything was fine. I'm like...
[49:06] How i mean off the ceiling they were just chilling eating bubble gum in their chair listening to him so everybody we were just joking we were actually going after a terrorist oh sure i'm gonna believe the government who's telling me this thing right we just saved your lives by freaking you out for a moment but we had to make it believable so although i i was thinking the real reason for him doing that specifically interrupting chambers to do it was just to save that crowd from her acting and speaking you know they gave her something to do in this episode i really like how you complete each other's sentences no they they finish each other's sandwiches jeff it's their sandwiches it's their sandwiches i don't know when the last time was i put a good disney reference in here jeff but there it is but yeah let's talk about joan of arc okay hey, here's the thing. When I first heard it, I was like, okay, it's a character off screen. Yeah. No, clearly it's not a character off screen. Okay. He's got a communication device and this is somebody from somewhere else. No, he's actually hearing a voice. Okay. So what the hell was this? Was this dude just schizophrenic or was he really hearing the disembodied voice of Joan of Arc? What do you think? I think that this was one of the messages of the show, that trauma response can lead to extremism and fundamentalism.
[50:34] When something bad happens to you, because Trace was talking about some stuff that went, I forget exactly, because it was Trace talking, I wasn't paying that much attention. But something happened to Dude, and so he constructed this defense mechanism. That's what trauma does. How do I exist in reality? and his happened to be Joan of Arc.
[50:54] But I think that the meaning behind all of this was untreated trauma. Like that's why we have people who are extremists and are utilizing, it's part of the package of this is why religion is used to justify horrible, horrible things. Or it's why people think that their King Arthur returned from Avalon. For real, right? Oh my God, yes.
[51:18] Unresolved trauma. And he doesn't have the voice in his head. And he's just doing it. Look, look, this would have been so much easier if Doreno would have just showed up and let the dude give him a sword. Problem solved and we would have all been fine we could go home but no no couldn't let him give him this award because she didn't need an escort yeah i so so you you say this is just something he's hearing in his head dude schizophrenic i mean i think he truly believed he was hearing it oh absolutely so and and i'm i i want i may not be using the term schizophrenic right and i know that that's a real issue out there and i don't mean to to use it as a punching as a a punch line or belittle anybody who might actually be doing that i just don't know a better word to say it like he's hearing stuff that's not there my understanding that's what schizophrenia is that's fair but i think at the very end there was a really cool thing that chambers brought on board to say that would have been neat to go down but she's like hey all this stuff he wrote in his journal are things that joan of arc said actually said yeah which is neat but was that stuff in her writings it would have been cool if he was saying things that wasn't.
[52:30] Publicly known where it's like how did he know how would he have possibly maybe she really was there but instead it was just oh it's the stuff she said okay move on to the next thing and i think that whole line was really just to kind of give the oh maybe he really was hearing jonah vark's voice disembodied from somewhere i wish or he was copying her journals he's a he's a well-read man yeah that's what i got out of it he's he's in seminary he's studying yeah especially as a seminarian absolutely and he stare is studying old stuff like that yeah he's he has access to those books well we're teasing it we're getting close to it so i think it's time brent we talk about the messages in this one and much like last week where the whole episode was the message this one just had a bunch of garbage wrapped around it We've now talked through. Why don't you talk about some of the messages that were in this one? Well, I think this episode ultimately comes down to the idea of people having a crisis of faith and how do they manage that? Chambers talks about believing in science rather than believing in a God who lets bad things happen.
[53:35] Gideon later on just says he's not thinking about it at all. Trace is running away from what was once for him a calling. And Henderson, who we really didn't even know at all, uh, is, is another person who had some dealings with it and, and went on and whatever the heck happened to Andre that made him go crazy. I don't really know, but you have, you have those pieces there. So there was a lot of people talking about faith and we kept coming back to faith. I think even Lockley had a few words to say, cause she asked him like, well, you haven't weighed in on this one, captain Gideon. And, uh, that's when he basically declined to answer. He's like, well, ask me in five years and we'll see if we get through this plague or not and i'll tell you five years and one day i like that but then we get the scene with it was it was eilerson chambers darina was trace there i don't remember if trace was there or not trace was there yeah because he and darina got up to dance at the end that's right that's right that's right and he's got like the band-aid on this anyway uh but they're sitting there and And basically this whole conversation sounded like about six lines of non-dialogue phrases or sentences that was put together in a sort of haphazard way that the actors made sound like an actual conversation.
[54:56] All right. Because here's where we go. Okay. Eilerson says one man's lunatic is another man's saint or a martyr.
[55:03] T.S. Eliot said saints and martyrs rule from the tomb. That's an interesting concept to analyze that whole idea of, you know, that they both saints and martyrs. It's really not until they die that we really give credence to the things that they did and said. Well, technically, you can be neither until you're dead. So we jump from that to immediately, Chambers says, well, we end up translating those orders to suit ourselves. Jeff, we're talking a lot about religion and faith in this particular episode. I believe that this is also a reflection, I would say modern day, but honestly, I think this has probably been the history of humanity of the way politics are as well. Yeah. Not just here in America. And from what I understand, it's like this around the world. All right. But certainly I think we're seeing it here in America. All right. You have people who claim the name of insert God, whether it's Christ or God or Allah or Buddha. Okay. Maybe not. I don't know. I don't know. I've ever met an angry Buddhist or an extreme one. Oh my God. Do you know what I want to do right now? I'm going to start. I'm going to start a Buddhist extremist group. The angry Buddha. That sounds like a beer is what it really sounds like. We will extremely do no harm.
[56:29] But insert name of God here, right? And in the name of this God, we're going to take this book. Oh, we saw it even in Babylon 5 with the book of Jakar and the book of Jaquan and how people would take that and twist it. Absolutely. To mean something that it didn't actually mean. And we used it to suit ourselves and we use it to give ourselves marching orders. Dorena pipes up and she's like, well, on my planet, it's a great evil to presume to speak. For the universe, or as we learned last week, the universe is God, according to JMS. I'm not, you know, Jeff, it occurs to me, I'm not so sure JMS actually wrote this episode. I think we're so used to JMS writing every episode. We're assuming he wrote all these episodes. I don't know that he wrote all these episodes. I hope he did not. But even if he didn't, he's still giving the treatment and the outline for what the episode should be about. So it's still him in many ways. But still, it is a great evil to presume to speak for God.
[57:30] Which we could chew on that for a little bit if we wanted to. But then Eilerson says it and he names it by name, which is why I go back to the Christian side. He says, Christ came to tell us to love one another. And we've spent 2,200 years killing each other over how it is said. And then basically, and I'm going to, this is my paraphrase. When you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy. Again, these are phrases. These are lines that really don't have much connective tissue. I really want to give credit and kudos to the actors who are sitting around that table because they made it sound like an actual conversation. They did. But to go through those lines are the messages. We should not presume to speak for God or the universe. He can speak for himself. Okay. Like we don't need to do. We don't need to do that. But really, there is a concept. One man's lunatic is another man's saint or another man's martyr to you and me. This person is absolute crazy person. Okay. We see that. Listen, let's go to America. All right. State of the union as it is right now. We just came out of a presidential election.
[58:40] Half the country looks at it. Let me back up. Here's something I don't think either side realized about the other. And I still don't think either side realizes about the other. Both sides of the presidential election of the two main party candidates truly and personally felt that the other side was an existential threat to democracy, to America, to the Constitution, and to them personally. Whether they're right about that or not, whether that's a legitimate feeling, I can tell you the people who voted for candidate A truly felt candidate B was an existential threat. The people who voted for candidate B truly feel candidate A is an existential threat.
[59:28] These people, this guy's a lunatic, but to these people over here, this guy's actually the, he's the saint. He's the savior. And that's how they really feel about it. When we talk about holding up a mirror to society, Jeff, we're seeing it right here. I understand that this is happening in France and Italy and Venezuela right now and other countries. Like this is not just an American problem. I'm just putting that I want to I want to make that clear because I know and we you and I can also only speak from our personal viewpoint and experience. So so we have that. I think Chambers's point we we take what people say. We take scripture and we twist it and turn it to suit our own needs to suit our own selves. You Jeff is a Catholic have seen that happen within your own church over the last 2000 years.
[1:00:22] The thing that stood up for me on this one, I even wrote it in my notes, though, was what Gideon said. They think this is Noah's flood all over again. That story, Brent, ended with a rainbow. What did that rainbow symbolize? That we'd never flood the earth again? Mm-hmm. So what I took out of that was fanatics, extremists, people that utilize cafeteria-style pieces of Scripture to justify their works. Like, that's what they're doing. They're not, I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Christian. I'm not looking at the Quran or the Bible or whatever. I took this one line and then decided that I needed to genocide entire people for it.
[1:01:04] I don't, I, I, I'm sure there's, we've said this before, but I'm sure there's a religion out there. I can't think of it. The ones that are out there that are widely practiced all tell you to just be cool to each other and love. I might be jumping ahead a little bit, but Eilerson's line about Christ coming here to tell us to love one another and then spend it.
[1:01:24] That's everything. It's brilliant. And it's true. It's so true. That's the thing. It's so true. What it made me think, though, is you and I have spoken many times on theological nuances between various lines of Protestantism and Catholicism. But you know what? None of it matters. just different ways different hows of loving one another that's all it comes down to and so like just the fact we've got a name a stamp on our denomination is creating that well i know how to do that jeff go back 200 years 300 years 550 years 30 years okay maybe more than 30 years how do you have a catholic and a protestant sitting side by side arm in arm amazingly great friends and a great partnership being able to rationally discuss and mostly be on the same page about most things. Yeah, would not have happened. When would that have happened? Well, it couldn't have, Brent, because, You're going to go to hell. So how can I possibly talk to you? You're already a damned soul. I mean, shouldn't I be here trying to save you? I mean, of course, but no, why would I do that?
[1:02:35] So Jeff, I got one more thing. And I think this kind of, this gets to the heart of the whole piece. Eilerson said that of all people, Eilerson said this one too. And again, this is me paraphrasing. I didn't write down the exact quote, but basically he said, when you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy. Let me talk about George Lucas I didn't like what the movie studios were doing so I went and made my own movie studio and guess what now I'm a movie studio doing the things that those guys do there is a thing happening in in religion as it translates to the real world when they're the enemy that you taught you and I talk about this us first film thing all the time you know them They're the enemy and you go after them. And then turns out the way because you obsess about that thing, you actually become the evil one. I got to tell you, in our own country, we have seen a particular political party demonize, villainize and create an enemy of people here right here of our fellow citizens. And it has united a segment of the population because they now have a common enemy and it's not some foreign entity. No, it's the neighbor right here. And that's a sad thing. And I think there's a whole lot of people who would look at that and go.
[1:03:58] That actually makes you the enemy, right? Because we were cool and you guys just decided we are suddenly the enemy and now look at what you're doing. We're going to get some emails about this, Jeff. Oh yeah, we always do. It's great. I love everything. Honestly, I love every single one. It's great. We welcome them. We welcome them.
[1:04:17] And we're going to get people to say, leave that out of your show. Listen, the show brought it up. The show threw it in our face, folks. And we would be doing a disservice to the whole product of what this show is about, which is to discuss what the show is trying to say if we just avoided it because we don't want to put politics in the show. The show brought them to us, guys. No, Brett, you don't understand. We're just supposed to sit quietly and watch the show and enjoy it. We're not supposed to do anything else. And make sure you enjoy it. That's the important part. Absolutely. Yes. Make sure you enjoy it. Jeff, we're not ranking or rating these things anymore. We will rank it here.
[1:04:53] But this would be an episode that... Those messages did not jump out to me the first time I watched the show. It was really in watching it the second time that I was, that I kept picking up on the, oh, you're talking about God. Oh, you're talking about God. Oh, you're talking about God. I'm writing my recap. I'm doing my notes. And then this table conversation at the end. And how many times, listen, even if JMS didn't write this episode, which it comes to me, I don't think he might've, but even if he didn't write this episode, how often have you and I watched JMS episode that goes through, goes through, goes through, and then you get to the very end and they go now here's what i'm trying to say here's the whole thing a jms series, where the second to last episode literally takes seven minutes to say and here's what we've been saying this whole time and it's a monologue by frankly the supreme being of the babylon five universe john sheridan almost a religious figure he he did come back from the dead he did he did come back from the dead came back from the dead just to tell us how to love one another Yeah. Yeah. So lots of good messages, Jeff, lots of stuff to chew on and lots of stuff to dive into that we could continue to just go round and round. But this would turn into a three hour show if we did. And that's not that's a little bit out of the scope of this side of the show. However, I would invite people out there. Have these conversations.
[1:06:14] And if you'd like to send these conversations to us, Jeff, I'm not going to speak for you, but I will speak for me. Sindelman, I would love to engage with you on a personal level with some of these questions and with some of these things that this this show is thinking, because as I said earlier to what Jeff was saying about all these tropes, these are conversations worth having that unfortunately oftentimes get short circuited by little trite tropes that we saw. So with that uh oh you can email us at babylon5firstatgmail.com uh that is a real email address jeff um those are the messages i got you talked about some of them if you got anything else you want to talk about please do but please please please put this in our 100 complete definitive and accurate ranking of crusade i don't even have it pulled up to tell you what the top five are bottom five or whatever just just put it in there just tell us where it goes We'll do it. You don't need the top five. Brent, I was just reviewing The Memory of War, which was our current number nine, which tells you where I'm looking on this one.
[1:07:18] And Brent, this is going to be our number 10. This is going to the bottom of the stack. Wow. Gideon and Lockley were amazing. Not enough to save this one. Not enough to save the episode for you? No. Okay. Brent might disagree with that, but I'm not doing the ranking this time. I loved Galen, and I loved the message. Jeff I wouldn't be too far away from you I just I really didn't like memory and I think also on the message when we were doing the ratings.
[1:07:45] Or whatever part of that was how quote babylon five were they delivering the message yeah this was not babylon this was trope after trope after trope and then they had to literally like you said just read these random lines and act like you're having some drinks around it so that people actually get something out of the episode right it's a little bittersweet for me to say that we're wrapping up ruling from the tomb there was some good stuff in it but it's wrapped we're moving on Next week, we're watching Patterns of the Soul for the first time. Like Brent said, when we wrapped the game up from last week, we don't look at thumbnails, read synopsisises, or watch trailers or anything. Try that one again, Jeff. Synopsisises. That's the Oxford Dictionary word. Go for it. It is. Both a synopsis and synopses all together. Synopsisises. We don't look at any of them, is the point. But we like to guess what the episode's going to be about based on the title alone. So, Brent, what do you think Patterns of the Soul is going to be about? You know, Jeff, I feel like in many ways we are probably into the filler episodes or what would have been the filler episodes of the season. This week's title came from a T.S. Eliot poem, Ruling from the Tomb. And obviously a clear reference to the Joan of Arc thing, to the idea of saints and martyrs rule from the tomb, right?
[1:09:06] They have influence over us, you know, from back then. I almost feel like this is going to be something similar. Like it's not really going to be a direct. Here's the episode title of what the episode is actually about, you know, which is a very long way of saying I don't have an idea. I don't have a clue what this episode could possibly be about. But we got patterns. We've got soul. I am going to say that this is a dive into what happens in a community when you have this idea of groupthink and people like people go from their individuality thing and they sort of homogenize into one and it imprints itself on you as a person patterns of the soul. Or we're getting transporters and they're all locked in the pattern buffer. And this is how we keep them alive. It's one of the two. Sounds like a 50-50 possibility on that one for you. What do you got, Jeff? I think patterns of the soul. I think about...
[1:10:17] Patterns of our lives that have developed our value systems, the things that we believe and we stick to. I think in this one, Gideon is going to be faced with a choice and the entire Excalibur, the crew of the ship and everything will be on the line. But to make this choice, he's going to have to cross one of those values that he has. That's a, from the pattern of his life and his family, the pattern of his soul. Okay. But we're going to find out right here next week. That's it for us today. Thank you so much for joining us.
[1:10:50] Rate us. Subscribe. Hit the like buttons. Hit the stars. Do all those things that are cool and absolutely everyone asks you to do. You know the drill. Please do it. It actually does make a difference. But the thing that we do like to ask that you do that truly makes a difference and really, frankly, is really rewarding to see happen. But please share this show with somebody who might love Crusade already, who needs to love Crusade, or you have no idea and maybe you just want to subject them to two dudes talking about a 25-year-old sci-fi show. Either way, share this bad boy. We really appreciate it. So until next time, as I wrap this up, we're going to get out of here and we'll see you next. Dang, I'm so, so, yes, sir. Hey, what's up? Uh rugged handsomeness that's a it's a code word it's just part of the investigation for crying out loud where are you going I don't know.
