Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast.
My name is Jeff Akin and I am the one who was,
Brent: and I'm Brent Allen. And I am the one who will be,
Jeff: and we're watching Babylon five for the first time for you. The one who is,
Brent: Jeff and I have been two veteran Star Trek podcasters that started off on a journey about two and years ago in change, I guess. And we decided to watch Babylon five for the very first time where we wanted to seek out the messages.
Really, you know what it was, was we'd heard all this stuff about Babylon five, and we just wanted to check it out and see what the heck it was all about. But we put a form to it to look for those messages. The deep moral messages. What is this show trying to say and how does it set itself apart from something like Star Trek?
How does it do it in its own unique way? And you know, Brent
Jeff: hearing about, I don't know, an hour-ish or so, we're going to be veteran Babylon five podcasters as well.
Brent: Do we get to call ourselves that
Jeff: now? We will have completed the series. Yeah, I guess we do, don't we? And as soon to be nascent veteran Babylon five podcasters, we are looking for those Babylon five messages.
What we're not looking for are ties to Star Trek. We're not looking for themes of Star Trek. What we're looking for are messages that only Babylon five can deliver. So to keep us on task doing that, we play a game we call the rule of three. The rule of three limits us to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode.
Total. That's it.
Brent: Three. One of those three. No substitutions, exchanges or refund. If we make one of those references, you'll hear, you're gonna hear this
now, Jeff, you know what could make that sound? Is, uh, you hitting a button over there? You know what else could make that sound? What's that? If I pull the trigger on the super
Jeff: cool p p G, whoa,
Brent: whoa.
Jeff: That thing looks incredible. Where Brent would I get
Brent: a P P G? That looks like that. You know what? All you have to do is, ah,
Jeff: okay.
Now we only have one.
Brent: All, all you have to do is go over to our Patreon page, patreon.com/babylon five first. That is the number
Jeff: five, and the word
Brent: first. That's right. And just become a subscriber at any level. If you're already a subscriber, you are already entered to win. Become a subscriber at any level and you could win one of these PPGs.
We've got a couple to give away. These are made by our good friend Wash who has, he has provided the giveaways for seasons one, three, and now five. Thank you. Wash. You have been incredible. I have your work on display here behind me of, frankly, this is my favorite piece. You've done this, this thing is incredible.
It feels so good in your hand. Like there's some weight to it. It's, it's not just like super, like it's not heavy, but it's not super light either. It, it, you know, it's got finger grips and, and and places where it's, it just feels so good. I don't wanna pull it too hard 'cause I'm not trying to break it, but I mean this a, a, a little tiny paint job and this thing is screen ready, you know, gloss it up just a little bit.
And this thing is, this thing is ready to go. This is phenomenal Wash. You are amazing. But, uh, you guys do that now, Jeff, you. Where can people, when they, well first of all, how long do people have to, to do said, uh, subscription and then when are they gonna find out whether or not they have indeed won one of these?
That
Jeff: is the big question. So you're watching this, if you're watching this in real time on Monday, most likely we're likely going to record our season five wrap up Wednesday night or Thursday, uh, at some, so what I would say is by Thursday am Eastern Time, have that subscription in, because that's what I'm gonna pull, pull the winner.
I'm gonna take every active subscriber at that moment, put 'em into a spreadsheet, kick out a random one, there's our winner or winners based on 'cause we got more than one of these things. Mm-hmm. So we're gonna be giving this away in real time. Our Season five wrap up. So tune in. So one step one, make sure you're a subscriber.
patreon.com/babylon. Five first, the number five, the word first. Step two, listen to our season five wrap up seven days from now, and wait for us to call out your name and we'll give you the instructions from there to get your P P G.
Brent: Now, we love giving away things here at the season end. Heck yes. We love playing games.
Every single episode right here. And you know what? We're not changing that just because this is the finale. We have a game at the end of the episode that we like to play where we make a prediction about what next week's episode is going to be. That may have to change at the end of this particular episode, Jeff.
Right? Actually, we actually don't usually make a prediction going into a wrapup show. So this is just the same. Mm-hmm. Now that I think about it.
Jeff: Hmm. It's gonna be different in the Wrapup show.
Brent: Yes. Yes. We like to play a game where we get to the end of the show and we guess what next week's show is gonna be about based on title alone.
And this is the spot of the show where we look back on last week and we play a new game called Time to Pay the Piper, where we revisit that prediction and decide how close we were. So Jeff, you read the title long before I did. And had more time to think about it. What did you say? Sleeping in? Not the just sleeping in light was gonna be about.
I
Jeff: had, I had. No idea on this one. I figured we'd have a time jump, uh, three years. And then as I talked I was like maybe 15 or I, I have no idea. Maybe a couple of years. And I thought we were gonna witness the end of the tele. I
Brent: think you originally said two years. Two
Jeff: years, right? Because because of the whole two years lead thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Because that's why I thought we were gonna see, we're gonna see the end of the telepath war, specifically Garibaldi taken out Bester. And then I thought we were gonna see Thera war, which was actually gonna be really short because we would see the sacrifice that ghislaine referenced in war without end.
Brent: Um,
well, we saw Thera and stuff that was referenced in war without End kind of Yeah. Just on the other side of it, right? Mm-hmm. Right. Well, we, I, we saw what happened post-war Without End. We saw Vera, his emperor. Mm-hmm. Which we saw him take up the mantle in war without end. And, uh, you know, That certainly the, the touching hat to, you know, you know what we didn't see as a, as a nod out of War Without End was Jcar and Londo.
'cause it wouldn't have made sense for them to show up here because they died. Yeah. They dead and Marcus died as well. Now we don't really know what happened to Lanier at the end of season four, but we do have an idea now having watched season five. So I'm gonna give you a 15% on this
Jeff: one. That's, that's about 10.
That's to say 10, 13% more than I would. I, I got time jump I think is what I got. Yeah,
Brent: yeah. Well it's, it's a serious finale. Time jump tends to be the thing.
Jeff: Right. Kind of a given. What did you think it was gonna be?
Brent: Well, I said time jump, uh, but I said we're gonna see the events of the future. You remember Deconstruction Falling Star?
Yeah. Where it showed us the future and how like everything just went really bad basically. I was like, that didn't happen and things actually wound up going really good and we were gonna see Sheridan. Um, evolve and turn in. Like he's the guy looking back and he's gonna turn into Kosh Neuronic and go back in time and start the whole cycle all over again.
Because Sheridan is Kosh. I'm on this train. I still believe it. By the way, this, this episode did not undo that
Jeff: idea. No. And in fact, I was gonna say it, uh, like it did. It didn't, didn't it didn't happen. Right. That's not a thing that happened. But I think we are in agreement that he did evolve. He did ascend in some fashion.
Sure. And, uh, there is a version, there is a version of a sequel to this where he goes beyond the rim or wherever he want and becomes osh. We don't know. That doesn't happen. But it didn't happen in this episode. Right. But just the whole, like Sheridan ascending, that's a pretty big deal. Yeah. I'm gonna give you a, I'm gonna, I'm feeling generous today.
I'm gonna give you a 50% on this one. Wow. That's a big part of this episode, was him heading out to do that.
Brent: That is true. That is, that is very, very true. Way more than I thought. But I will take every single bit that I can get
mostly. I just wanted to know, again, dangling thread out there, what was so important that Deslin was like, gosh, you've got to save him and it has to be him. And you know why?
Jeff: Could still be that we still have movies to watch. We'll find out. But what we know now, It's just what we know from watching this episode and the 109 episodes that came before it.
But there are some people who might be joining us that have not watched this episode. There might be some people who haven't watched it in a long time, which frankly surprises me. 'cause I feel like this is an episode that Babylon five fans probably come back to pretty frequently. Uh, but regardless for those who need a little reminder.
Brent, can you walk us through sleeping in light? Well,
Brent: before I do that, I, I just want to say I don't think there's any way that either one of us could properly do justice to everything that happened in this episode Agreed with the pathos and everything that that had Actually, I just, I'm putting that out front pretty much.
'cause people are gonna be like, that sucks. Anyway. Here we go. You ready? Let's do it. 20 years have passed since the Shadow War in Sheridan's death at Zaha Doom. Lian the first, first one gave Sheridan a little bit of himself, which would sustain him for about 20 years, and that time has come. Everyone's been expecting it.
They all knew that this day would come and all Sheridan once is one last meal with his good Dear friends, he sends the Rangers to deliver the messages. One arrives for General Ivanova who hates her job for Daddy Garibaldi and Uncle Stephen Franklin. And one also arrives for President. Screw I, I mean, Emper.
Cado. The crew arrives on Minbar shortly thereafter, and they enjoy a meal with their good friend Sheridan, laughing reminiscing, telling stories of drunken and singing prah dead cats and data crystals. After a very pleasant evening, both with company and in the privacy of his own bedroom. Sheridan sneaks off in the morning before anyone wakes except for Delin and a very teary goodbye that would make Qua Martin Green jealous
with that. Sheridan is off flying solo in a white star. Sort of like Kosh flew solo in his ship. Coincidence, I think not he heads out towards Babylon five for one last goodbye. When he arrives, he finds the station is ready for decommissioning and for destruction. There he meets Zach, who turns out really was there until they turned the lights out, literally, and a very familiar looking maintenance worker flips the switch.
With that, I. The station blows up and it blowed up real good and Sheridan is back, and Sheridan is going back to where this all began. The ANA system once there a very much fading. John Sheridan is met by the waiting Laurean who says they didn't forget him. This part of the journey is over, but another one is beginning.
It's time to go now. And with a flash of light, Sheridan and all his clothes are gone, leaving the ship just floating there, not diving into the sun. I'll note back on Minbar and other places around the galaxy, everyone moves on with their life. Ivanova is new Ranger one and
Delaine. Well, Deines getting on with the rest of hers. I. Every morning she gets up to watch the sunrise in honor of her late husband and Delin, and everyone else is at peace. Jeff, what did you think of sleeping in light?
Jeff: This might sound hyperbolic, but this was the perfect series finale. It was perfect. It gels almost seamlessly into season five, even though it was filmed. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's literally like, there are moments and connections that make it unbelievable that this was filmed a year ago. And unless you're looking for specific connections, like you can't, you can't even tell, you know, it's like, it's, it's mind blowing, but also it's not mind blowing because over the last couple years we have gotten to know j m s.
We've gotten to understand his writing and actually having this fit in perfectly is completely expected. Mm. Like of course it's perfect. Right? Of course it fits. I am willing to bet, I don't know that paper check that Garibaldi had locked up for 500,000 credits, that he had this episode pretty much written before he actually started filming the gathering.
Like he, you know, names might have changed some details a little bit, but he had the picture of this. Mm-hmm. From go, I dunno what, say man, I cried a little bit during this one. I felt a ton of emotions ranging from anger to sadness, to loss, to joy, to comfort. Um, God, it did everything. And I think
actually it didn't do everything it needed to do. It didn't touch on the Telepath war. We didn't get to drop war Kor's Mother Kor's father was best's last episode. No mention of him in this whole thing, but I don't even care. Like I'm fine with that. I'm fine with it because like those are just plot points.
Those are parts of stories. And I think out of this episode, I really understand that Babylon five was a beautiful story, but it was, its characters more than anything else. I can get past missing out on some stories. I'm gonna have questions, whatever. And you should, you should have some, you shouldn't have answers to everything ever.
Right? So I think this was great, uh, through Sheridan, through his end that we knew was coming. We touched on most everybody in some way. We gave the show and we gave the principles, the sendoff that it needed. I. That they deserved. I love this episode. What about you? I'm gonna read my
Brent: note. Okay. This was the perfect finale of the show.
It's not what either of us thought it would be, but once we realized what it was, it was like, how did we miss that? This is so obvious that this is what it would be. You and I have been harping for weeks about bester in the telepath war and all the loose threads. This episode made me not care about any of that.
Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly where I am, Jeff. You know it. I'm reminded of
what really still may be my favorite moment of this entire show. Okay. A couple years ago, our incredible, incredible discord community. Sent us a cameo from Peter Jui. Yes. And, and I, I squealed like a schoolboy listening to him. He was amazing. Thank you guys so much for that. It was, it, it that truly was fuel in the tank of my heart.
Like that was the best gift you guys could have ever gotten, uh, for, for us. Um,
Jeff: uh, hold, hold on. Before you, before you. Mm-hmm. You go too far. Uh, just because let me just, uh, uh, Brent
Brent: brand, my good and dear
Jeff: friend, that's what happened right there.
Brent: Yeah. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. Um, he said a line though, he said, you are trying to get into the mind of j m s.
No. You know what? He's right. Yeah. We tried to get into the mind of j m s a lot. We wrote him letters sometimes. We
Jeff: got it. We went and visited him in the past, like
Brent: we, uh, and this was perfect. Yeah, this episode was amazing. You know what this was though? And this is, this is real interesting and I mean this in a really good way.
This was the anti finale of so many television shows. Mm-hmm. So many shows build and build and build to the end. And you get to the final episode and it's this big action, big battle sequence, pulling out all the stops. You've never seen anything this amazing. 'cause it's the finale, right? Maybe they add in one final problem to solve for the crew, you know, as we send them off.
Not this one, this one was very simply, it's time we're moving on. That's all this was. And it was perfect. Everybody had already, everybody in the show just like us, is the viewing audience. Everybody in the show had already accepted that Sheridan's time had come. Mm-hmm. We have already accepted that the, that the show's time had come.
Sure. They were emotional. Sure were emotional about it, but we knew that it's there and it's okay for it to be hard. It's okay to be emotional, but it's also okay because we're there. And instead of, of mourning the loss as Sheridan tells us he wanted to celebrate and remember and be together, you know, um, we got to say goodbye to everyone, even Londo and Kar and Marcus.
We got to say goodbye to 'em. Why? Because of Veer and Ivanova. Yeah. They were like, I remember, I remember watching this and just going, I. Uh, those actors are not physically on screen in the show. They didn't even do 'em as a flashback. Mm-hmm. But I feel their presence, they still feel here. Totally. Here.
Yep. You know, um, we got one last tour of the station. We got to say goodbye, and then Sheridan, as it said, simply stopped. We don't really know what happened to him. Mm-hmm. We don't really need to know what happened to him. We don't really care to know because whatever it was, it was perfect. And there is a single word that I think overshadows this entire finale, and it's this word, peace.
Everything about this episode seems to be now at peace.
I think it's, it's time for that part of the show where we, yeah, like I, I
Jeff: mean, I have, I, I have a lot of notes on this. Yeah. But the notes are literally, this happened. This happened. Yeah, this happened. Um, I, I do wanna say that like I was, 'cause when, when, when we see Ivanova, the, the show is so, like, this is one of those things too, where it didn't even know how self-aware it was.
It couldn't have been known how self-aware it was. Maybe it did. 'cause the scene where we first see Ivanova were on her aid. Yeah. Uhhuh. And like the cameras pivoting around the aid. Aiden slowly sliding to whomever's at the desk and you just hear a couple lines, but you know. Yeah, well, you hear the voices like, oh, is that, and so it's this big reveal.
But if you just finished watching season four, The plan was you saw her last week. We haven't seen her in a year, you know, and so, oh my God. It felt so good to hear her. To see her. Mm-hmm. And between her, um, Sheridan Franklin, nobody does old makeup like Babylon five.
Brent: They looked great. Jeff, I, I, I, I need to read you my very first note.
B five does old makeup way better than Star Trek ever did So much better. That's literally my first note. Yeah. Um, you know what, Bruce Box Lightner is, I, I don't know that this is what he really looks like as he gets older, you know, but I've, let's just assume it is. He is Sean Connery, John Delancey level aging?
Well, yeah. Like, I mean, just the older he got, like the better he looks, man. Like he was just, that's
Jeff: amazing. We've spent a couple weeks like holding up his acting, you know, and Oh yeah. Great scenes, his physical acting and, and everything. Yeah. I wanna call out his, uh, physical performance in his voice. Yeah.
He had this just older little grizzled grumble. Mm-hmm. To his voice. That was natural. It worked, and it didn't feel forced. Like if you showed me that episode, I don't know, in 2024, and didn't tell me that this was Bruce Box Lightner in 1998 or 1997, actually. Mm-hmm. I would've thought it was him. Like, this is him.
Natural.
Brent: Yeah. Just, yeah. I, I would've really looked at it and gone, is that makeup or is that just him? Yeah. I like, I legit would've done now avva, I'd have been like, Hey, Makeup and I can see that, but it still look, look, look good. Ivana's makeup looked better than Gates McFadden's did. Yeah. In all good things.
Jeff: So true. Dang it. I don't even wanna buzz you because it's just true. It's it's just true. It's just true. Yeah. Yeah. So much better. Yeah. And Franklin, like, there was a scene, and you even said this, uh, Franklin's all grayed up looks good. He's in great shape. He's out playing tennis. Yeah. But he's got these glasses on because he's smart.
He's a doctor, so of course he wears glasses, but, uh, and the lenses in
Brent: your eyes get tough and they don't focus as they used to. Exactly. And that's just normal part of aging. Yeah. But
Jeff: he looked just like his dad.
Brent: Well, oh, like Paul Winfield. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It wouldn't shock me, Jeff, to know that those were the glasses that Paul Winfield wore during his episode.
Yeah. Probably that, that the props department just went and pulled them and handed them to him and said, here, look like your dad. Yeah. It's
Jeff: awesome at, that's good. With, uh, Ivana, we got little hints of like, you know, snarky, bity, Ivana, but just a little bit. Mm-hmm. But I don't think we got a lot because as you said in the recap, she hates her job.
We, when we watched it, um, we, there's the, she had her aide that was going over the scheduling and then she had like her other, a, the military guy in the Earth Force thing that the ranger literally busted, busted over to get through, right? And that dude, so uppity, I don't know about these rangers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I just wanted her to bite his head off. But it, on a third watch of this, actually, I've watched this a couple, couple times and I thought to myself, is this guy a precursor or like a foreshadowing to like the 500 deconstruction of falling stars, right? Mm-hmm. 500 years in the future. They hate the Rangers, they hate the alliance.
They're gonna separate, uh, the, you know, they want to get earth out of this alliance thing. Is this guy like, Early, like a foreshadowing a seed for
Brent: that? I don't think so, but maybe like, I wouldn't be surprised. J m s lays a lot of little stuff like that, but, um, it was pretty
Jeff: aggressive. Like he was aggressive about it and I kept building in my head to like, well, Bon's gonna, she's gonna say something.
Get Nope. They just
Brent: left it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, Ivana just needed the foil. She needed somebody she could just slap down, you know?
Jeff: Which is always good, just when she's at her best. Uh, she is,
Brent: she really is. So Ivana's back, uh, who, who got next? Was it Garibaldi was up next? Yeah. Uh, Garibaldi gets one. Um, look, he found his family.
That was cool. Got his happiness right. I had my say about that last week or two weeks ago. Uh, I won't repeat it here, but good on him.
Jeff: I will just say I really question. I mean, it's great, you know, she's grown uhhuh, you know, I'm going to probably close to 20. Yeah. Given, given the timeframe and playing tennis.
But I question his parenting skills. He's letting Steven Franklin play tennis with her unsupervised. Stop it.
Brent: Stop it. Stop. I'm stopping you. No, we have turned that page. We have, we have passed that corner on Stephen Franklin. He's a good dude. Takes time. I I am, I am going to defend him from now on against the Alex of you, Jeffrey Aiken.
Jeff: That's fair. That's fair. No, it takes time. It takes time.
Brent: I, but it was cool. I need a t-shirt. I'm a Steven Franklin guy. I'm, I'm a Franklin Champion, whatever.
Jeff: Yeah. Like Team Franklin, whatever you Yeah, there you go. Now Yeah. Now to time, what's talk about Right, right. Since shadow dancing. Yes. Yes.
Brent: Let's, uh, but, but speaking of walkabout, I'm sorry.
Speaking of walkabout, And addictions and all that sort of stuff. Garibaldi iss in there. He is smoking a cigar that he told the dude to leave behind, and then he gets up and he walks behind a full on mini bar mm-hmm. In his house. And I'm like, no. And I tell you what Jeff, because I thought for a moment that he was gonna go over there and grab himself a drink, like a legit drink.
Chemically offensive. Yeah. If you remember that phrase. Uh, and that they were gonna be like, Hey, listen, he's not an, he's not an alcoholic anymore, so he can have a drink every once in a while and it doesn't affect him that much. And I was Right. Dr.
Jeff: Dr. Franklin created this new treatment now, and it just, yeah.
Oh, I was gonna,
Brent: I would've been, I was gonna slap somebody for it. And then he poured a glass of o oj. Yeah. I was like, okay,
Jeff: O good, good. It almost, it almost made me think, 'cause there was that bottle over there, whiskey, bava, whatever. Maybe it was apple juice, maybe like, maybe it's just a fruit juice bar that
Brent: he's got set up.
I'd be down. You know, if, especially if they bought that house from somebody else who actually had a bar there. Well, what are we gonna do with it? Let's put fruit juice in there.
Jeff: Yeah. Decanters. And maybe this is makes me an old fashioned guy, but like decanters of the booze up on the thing. Like think that's kind of cool, you know?
Yeah. Come over, Makem himself, drink with the glass stuff or whatever. So maybe he likes that too. And, you know, well, when I was like 16, I got a vodka bottle my parents had thrown out and I filled it up like three quarters of the way with water and just put it in my room. 'cause I'm like, people will think I
Brent: drank, put a bottle of vodka.
Stupidest thing ever. I can, I can. I mean, this is, is so gross, Jeff. So gross. But you know how when you're like 15, 16 years old, the look, the image is everything. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. All right. I remember going to a party forties were huge when I was, when I was at that age. Okay. That was, if you wanted to prove that you were somebody, you could drink a 40.
You know, big old glass, right? Big old glass bottle. Yep. I found a glass bottle one day, had whatever label on it, I don't know, slit small, like, I don't know what it was. Um, I took it home. I washed it. I will say I did that. That's good. But this was, this was a random bottle I just found. I don't even at a park or something.
I, I took home, I'll wash it. I filled it up and I drink apple juice out of it all the time. I would take it to parties drinking apple juice out of it. 'cause I, Brent has never been a drinker. Yeah. I'm not saying I've never had alcohol. I, I mean, I can count on one hand the number of times I have alcohol in a year.
That's, it's just not my thing. Um, it's, it's an incredibly. Social drink and I'm not that social. You know what I mean? That's fair.
Jeff: Uh, well it's one of the cool things, and they're not paying us to say this, but you know, I often drink liquid death. Yeah. Um, it's a cool thing, but it's one of the things, uh, that actually a remember of our community a long time ago, told me about that part of their whole shtick was, uh, was that like, you can go to a bar or a party, you can get this and drink water, but it kind of looks like, oh,
Brent: what's that?
It can't the can the writing, everything looks mm-hmm. Looks more like a beer. Hey, by the way, uh, makers of Liquid death, um, contact us 'cause we got some numbers we wanna
Jeff: put in front of you. Yeah. For real. Like, I think we've moved some of that for you. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, you know, it's funny 'cause like, I, I totally feel you, I'm total sidetracked this conversation, but, uh, You brought up forties, right?
And so it's like old English 800. Some people are gonna hear me on this, they're gonna hear it. But Oldie has the, uh, charcoal filtered piece, and I'm just like, dear God, what is the non charcoal filtered tastes like? So, but I was always excited. This one, uh, gas station, uh, what I grew up, had a thing called Camo 40.
So it was literally just like this 40 with a sticker on it. It was camouflage and then like in that generic writing, camo 40, it was, it tasted like sweat. It was so gross. But we got into like boiler makers, um, Uh, the orange juice, brass monkeys, stuff like that.
Brent: I, I remember doing some little bit of brass white.
It was nasty. Yeah. But I loved the song by Beastie Boys. So you
Jeff: had to Yeah. You had to do it. Yeah. I'll never forget, and this another old timey thing, right? If you watch The Wizard of Oz mm-hmm. And you drop the needle on the album, that's an old timey fate. Yep. Actually, it's not that old timey anymore.
People are doing vinyl again,
Brent: so. Yeah. Yeah. But listen, our generation are our main audience and they know exactly what you're
Jeff: talking about. They know what it's, you dropped a needle on the thing right? When the, I think it's the third lion roar or whatever of, uh, is it, um, is it dark side of the moon? Yeah, dark side of the moon.
Pink Floyd's, dark side of the moon. And it lines up. And so first time we did that, we were drinking brass monkey. And uh, it was right around the time the witch came down that I threw up the first time. So, yeah, good times. Thanks for bringing up forties. Lots of great memories that I don't. Have access to anymore.
Hey.
Brent: In there told you guys. You'd get the runoffs man. You guys would get the runoffs. All right. Um, Garibaldi says something to Sheridan. Jeff, you pointed this out when we were doing the watch through, and I thought it was brilliant. Uh, he says, we didn't always see eye to eye. Speaking of Sheridan, we didn't always see eye to eye, but we we're still friends.
And when you reconsider that, that was actually meant for the end of season four when him and Garibaldi had literally been coming to blows. Mm-hmm. And then Garibaldi found out that he'd been messed up by, with Bester and all that sort of stuff. And it was still tense, but it was a lot. It, it was kind of chilled out a little bit.
Garibaldi hadn't gone through his redemption just yet. Yeah. Um, that hits differently. That line hits differently there than it does. Fast forward all the way to the end of season five when Sheridan. Went full on intervention with
Jeff: Garibaldi, you know? Yeah. Because it was, I remember that you were just like, what do you mean?
I thought they were, I thought they were good. And it's like, yeah, they, they are now. They weren't then, but then is now. So when will now be Now. Right
Brent: now. Soon. Speaking of that,
Jeff: yeah. There you go. Nice. Beer has
Brent: gone full on. President's
Jeff: screw, they had everything, all he needed to have was Sari the bedsheets instead of, instead of like just having regular betting on there.
Brent: Right, right, right. I love that. I
Jeff: love that. I love that he's in there with two, uh, two ladies. Uh,
Brent: and he pops up, head the foot of the bed.
Jeff: Yeah. Hair's all messed up, like, yeah.
Brent: Yeah. Oh dude. Speak of your's. Hair man. Dude, he got big hair.
Jeff: It's putting Londo to shame. Right?
Brent: Right. Um,
Jeff: Yeah. We got an entirely different veer between this moment. Yeah. And then what comes in the, the stuff following everyone comes together. Like, I want that, that story. I want the, the arc Yeah. Of veer.
Brent: Well, I think we have it. I want the
Jeff: actual story. I
Brent: wanna know what happened. No, I'm, I'm, I'm good with where we are because Yeah.
What, as soon as Veer took that sword to the drowsy fruit stand. Yeah. He was different. Do you remember when, um, Sheridan and Delin were bringing the charges against Sari Prime? They wouldn't let Lando into the council chambers. Yeah. And Zach says, don't make this any tougher than it needs to be. Londo And Londo storms off, and Veer just stands there and looks at him, and he go and, and just, he bows up to Zach and he goes, don't make it any tougher than it needs to be.
Just how much tougher could it get Zack? Yeah. And like walks out, right? And I was like, dude, that's veer step, like stepping up, right? Yeah. And, and again, I I, that image is seared in my head of veer standing over Londo and Kars body for more without end. And just, I remember saying even then there's something different about veer the way he's looking down.
I honestly, in my head, I kind of thought he was a bad guy in that moment. Yeah. But I, but looking at it now, I see No, no, no. That's just a strong confident, knows who he is. Kind of a guy. And that's what we heard when he was at dinner telling the story. Yeah, you said it first. And I was thinking it. That is a strong veer and he is, he's being humble and sincere.
He's not putting on anything, but he's, he's there with strength. And Yeah. You know, telling his stories and an equal member of everyone around that table. He's not there as an attache tolando. He's there
Jeff: as veer. He's, you know, Londo always saw that in him that he was what Londo couldn't be. Yeah. You know, how, how can you walk these same halls and not, you know, not be a part of all the things going on and fear's just like, I don't know, I just do it like mm-hmm.
This, this is who I am. But he had, even, like when he stood up to Zach, when he took down that drowsy stand, he still had that nervous nerd energy, for lack of a better term, outside of my comfort zone. I'm angry, I'm expressing myself, but I'm not there. His life experiences has, has has, yeah. Like he's owning it.
And it was interesting too, kind of to my opening thoughts again, but I kept wondering, When was the keeper on Veer gonna show up and start messing things up. But partway through, I realized I don't know if he's got a keeper. And I also don't care at this point. Yeah. It doesn't even matter. Yeah. Veer is amazing.
Uh, when you have a choice between being anyone and ve you be a veer every time. Dude, that's a
Brent: T-shirt. Yeah, that's our, that's what, that was one of our very first T-shirts. Yep.
Jeff: It's be veer. We used to have Be a Lanier. We're gonna pull that one. Yeah. Um, yeah. But veer, I mean, to the, to the, to the end. Be
Brent: a season two linear.
Jeff: Yeah. Let's get real specific here. Season two to halfway through season three. Right. And then beyond that, forget 'em. Right. But that whole dinner scene, you know, so everybody shows up and they're sitting around the table. It felt, you know what it felt like, it felt like a bunch of actors who'd been working together a long time through a tumultuous production.
Getting together and telling stories. Mm-hmm.
Brent: Yeah. You gotta imagine that that actually is, you know, you get Bruce and Claudia and Steven and Richard and Jerry and Mira together at a con and they all go to dinner one night. Yeah. You know? Um, yes, folks, I know that several of them have passed by now. I'm making a point.
Yeah, you're you're absolutely right. That's exactly what it felt like. And it should have felt like that. Yeah. And they, they did it. They did it so well. I didn't realize in the moment that was gonna be Sheridan's like goodbye to them. I know. I thought there was to be stopped. He's out the next morning.
He's, he's dipping out the next day gone before any of them get up.
Jeff: So let's talk about that. Right? Yeah. He's in bed, uh, with Delen. Yep. You had some
Brent: strong feelings on
Jeff: this moment. I did. So let's just talk, walk us through what happened just in the scene at a high level and I'll, and Yeah. I had a pretty strong
Brent: reaction to this.
Yeah. So, so Sheridan, Delen are in bed and the lens. Just weepy and, and understandably so. Yeah. You know, uh, she's super weepy and, and Sheridan's like, I'm, I'm, I'm leaving tomorrow. Like, I'm gone. I wonder if Delin knew where he was going. Like, was, was him going out to Ana, the ana system, a part of what he wanted to do?
He talked as if it was, he's like, I want to, you know, uh, I wanna see the mountains again. Frodo, you know, he's like, I, I wanna see that. I wanna see the space. I wanna feel space. But he's me again. Dehi. Yeah. Um, but he, he's just talking and he's, he's basically trying to comfort her in a moment where she, you know, it's all crashing down around her and he is like, Hey, it, it's gonna be okay.
And he kind of just, he starts saying all the reasons why it's good for him to go away. All the ways she's gonna be okay. And how she's gonna be able to run things without him, and how, uh, everything, you know, everything's gonna ma because they asked de uh, not Delin, uh, delin asked Iva to take over the Intel Z spot.
Yeah, I love that. Which I got, I got a question about that though. We'll talk about that in just a second. Um, but he, he's like, you can, you know, the Rangers will be here and he's, he's basically talking politics at this moment. But you had one reaction. My reaction to that was he's, he's trying his best to comfort her and get her mind off of some things, because frankly, he didn't know how to talk to her about this right now.
You know what I mean? So
Jeff: they've had 20 years to get ready for this. They've been talking about it. They know what's up and in the whole thing, I swear like, bro, pay attention. To your wife, right? She,
Brent: she is.
Jeff: She is drowning right now. So you've been talking about this. It's been planned. You know how things are gonna go.
They had letters written, the recipients of the letters knew to expect them. Right? Like they had talked about so much of this. I agree. I think she knew where he was going. Yeah. And what it was gonna look like. And he told a beautiful story. Right. About his Sunday drive. We'd get in the car, dad would be like, pick a direction, and we'd just go, really?
I wanna go. Yeah. Really
Brent: touching story. Actually, I forgot about the Sunday drive part. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. It
Jeff: was cool. I liked the story. Yeah. But then, and this, and this is complicated, right? Because dude is going to die. No he is not. And knows he's gonna die. No, he is not. Well he did. No, once he's already dead.
He
Brent: said you can't die. He's not gonna do it again.
Jeff: Yeah. He's gonna go away. He's going to stop. He's gonna stop. There you go. He's gonna stop. They know he's gonna stop. You get to, you get to have some agency over what that looks like, right? Like if you're that person and you're like, at 1242 tomorrow I'm gonna stop or whatever.
You kinda get to pick what that's gonna look like. But also I don't think you get to do that at the expense of other people. Yeah. Especially someone like Delaine, who just an episode ago, he held up as the best ally you could ever have. The best love the person who would never judge you. So she's laying there, turned away, this is important.
Turned away tears streaming down her face. Now he has mansplained to her and everyone else that she's been bari, she's been bari. She'll be fine. It's alright. She, Brent is clearly not fine. And he's like, I'm gonna go on a Sunday drive and it's gonna be great. I'm gonna feel space under my feet again and all this stuff.
And she's like, I feel awful. And he's like, don't feel bad. It's great. He's, it's, I want people to laugh and this, and if I stick around, it's gonna get weird. He's minimizing her feelings, he's shoving them aside, ignoring them so he can feel good about his stuff. He and other Sheridan men are incapable of saying goodbye.
We've seen it time and again now. Right. We saw it when he is called his dad. Um, you know, before all the earth stuff went down and he is like, um, send my love to mom. We saw it just last week when they're leaving the station and he is like, Hey, Delaine. Yeah, you say the stuff, I'm not saying anything. And then here, all he needed to say was, Hey, Delaine, I want this really great celebration when I head out, but look like.
I love you and I'm gonna miss you, and this is gonna be hard for you, but I'm so grateful for having you and all that. Just acknowledge her feelings, which by the way, is exactly what Delaine does the next morning. She sucks all that up. She shows up, looks beautiful. They're standing across the hallway. He wants to watch the sunrise for the first time ever on Minbar.
He'd never seen it before. And she shows her reflective listening skills. She parrots the whole thing back. It's a beautiful day, John. A beautiful day for a Sunday. Drive Sunday, right? You dress up on his Sunday. I dressed up. She compartmentalized and shoved down her feelings 'cause her husband refused to acknowledge them and then handed him exactly what he wanted in a, oh my God.
Beautiful. Goodbye. So, yeah, I, I have feelings about how that whole thing went down just a little bit.
Brent: I want to thank you for sharing your feelings. I want to acknowledge every single one of your feelings. I, I see
Jeff: what you're doing. It works, by the way,
Brent: uh, with the exception of your, your rant about the Sheridan Men being incapable.
Uh, I disagree with everything you just said.
Jeff: That's fair. I bet a lot of people see people while we were watching it. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people will,
Brent: you know, but I, yeah, I, I think Sheridan handled that, you know, in a way that you can only handle that when you've been married for 20 years. There's, there's an unspoken connection between husband and wife who are in a good relationship.
I, I should probably point out. Yeah, yeah. You know, uh, and a healthy relationship between the two. Um, Sheridan is who he is. Dela is having a hard time. Uh, I don't, it's the thing. I don't even know that she's having a hard time. I think Delin in her Ari way has fully accepted every single bit of this, and she's also understanding how much she's going to miss him.
And he is, is
trying to comfort her in the best way. He knows how, and I think she understands he is here trying, like the more he talked, the more she cried and the more emotional she got because she loved him. That like it was hitting all those like, yes, this is my husband. He, this is how he is, this is how he talks.
And, and I think. Where you, where you said that they're incapable of saying words, which I agree. I think they're incapable of saying words. They say words in their own way. Yeah. Oh yeah. Sheridan's dad never said, I love you. Sheridan never said to his dad, I love you, dad. He never said that. Or, I love you too, son.
You never, you never heard that. There is no way that you can look at me and tell me that, watching that scene between Bruce Boxer and Ron Howard's dad, Rantz maybe. That sounds right. Yeah. I think, uh, and tell me that they were not communicating love to each other. Oh, yeah. Pay a thousand percent.
Jeff: Were, I think that, I think that, I think that, uh, Sheridan expresses a tremendous amount of love to a lot of people without words.
Yeah.
Brent: Including his wife and he in, in even using weird words, talking about the how things are gonna be fine with politics and, and, and all of that. I also don't know that I mind Sheridan at the moment of his passing, kind of talking about how he wants to go out. Like, like I, I tend to be a person who turns around and looks at me and says, Hey, it's not about you.
But frankly, in this moment it kind of was about him. Well, and I it wasn't about Delin, it wasn't about everybody else. It was about him. Yeah.
Jeff: I don't disagree. I think he gets to, and, and I agree. The things he said caused her to have to, to express Yeah. And get in touch with her emotions. The piece that was missing to me is him connecting with that in any way, or acknowledging it, like, like I said, literally all he had to say was, I understand this is really hard for you and that you're gonna miss me.
And these I understand that, and you know what, this is hard for me and I'm gonna miss you. See, I think, but we can do these things or, and we can do, we don't say, but we say and, and we can do these great things.
Brent: Yeah. I think he said all of that with his lips, without words coming out of his lips in that little thing Right at the end.
What I'll say is when, but she, when she turned, because you talked about her being turned away from him. Mm-hmm. That's the, I don't want you to see me like this, but it also set her up to do the turning back to like, so she, you can't turn back to somebody if you haven't turned away from 'em, right? No. Yeah.
She turns back to him and they're, they're, they're locked and they're fully embraced. They fully understand each other in this moment.
Jeff: Well, in that, you know, in that moment when they started kissing, like, you know, like that was, that was, that was the kind of kiss that the kiss is not the end of that. Like they, they put an exclamation point on the end of that, uh, time together.
Brent: Um, I will, I will read my recap. I.
After a very pleasant evening, both with company and in private in their bedroom.
Jeff: Uhhuh. Yeah. But, but this is where, this is where I will give more, um, gosh, I dunno, weight to, to your argument of where he's not saying it with words, but he is saying it with is when Delen reflects back to him. Uhhuh. So it's, they're in the hallway, they're out there and she, I mean, God, like the, like I'm almost tearing up thinking about it like, it's such a touching scene where she's just like, it's a beautiful day.
It's a beautiful day. And he, she's looking out, you know, at the, at the sun coming up and he's just staring at her. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, do you? Yeah.
Brent: It is beautiful. Exactly. She, yeah. He's not looking at that sunrise. No. He's looking at his sun. And you know, what I thought was where it really. And if you want to talk about how he actually said it with his lips, not just, you know, in the making out thing, he does that thing, which I think they said this when they got married, Jeff.
Oh yeah, I could be wrong. Where he, he said these words of you were my son and she said, you were my sky and my stars and my moon or something. Which is, which I don't, there's a lot we could actually dive into that and I don't care to because that's just their culture, their tradition, things they say. He said that, no, no, you, you, you gotta understand you are my son.
She understood that in a way that I don't, honestly, you and I as non menari could ever understand. Hmm. Frankly, that Sheridan himself could never understand, but he understands what it means to her. Yeah. And without saying, I love you, he said, you are everything to me. She was in that moment clearly. And she melted.
She melted when he said that. Yeah. You know,
Jeff: and she was clearly his whole world, super
Brent: touching scene. Uh, Jeff, one thing I'm not gonna talk about. Okay. I ref, I refuse to talk about it 'cause I am not going to mar any single bit of this perfect
Jeff: episode. Yeah. By talking about, are we talking about the other part of the should be a part of his world?
Are we gonna mention that real
Brent: quick? Uh, we're No, no, we're going to not talk about the whole ridiculousness with their son and why he's not there. Oh my God. We're just, we're gonna skip over that. Yep. If you guys want to hear that, you can go watch our reaction video. Yep. I'm not ruining this episode by talking about that.
Agreed.
Jeff: I, I, I'll play that as well. Yeah. I
Brent: I will, I simply, I'm gonna stand by. It was a production issue and they had to make a choice and they went for it that way.
Jeff: Yeah. And I think that they made a bad choice. You can listen on the reaction, you can look at my notes.
Brent: I don't know if that's reality, but that's my head Canon.
It's the only way that I make it feasible. Anyway, moving on. Um, Some people are pissed about us right now anyway, uh, talk about Avva,
Jeff: right? Inza, I mean, because she makes the decision at the end, but Yep.
Brent: Yep. Look, here's the thing. I avva coming in, being inza. Cool. Here's my question about the whole inza. Um, so Inza just means Ranger one.
Mm-hmm. Right? Is Ranger one, is Inza the one, you know, the Rangers all say we live for the one and we die for the one. It's just the one. Is that, is that what they're talking about when they say the one or is the one specifically this triumphant of Sinclair deland and Sheridan and Ranger one in until is a separate deal altogether.
And here, because here's my, here's my thinking behind that. If the one is just whoever's in that particular position at any given time, I'm not devoting my life to live and die for. That's one right there. No, I'm, I'm not devoting my life to that. If it is a particular per, if it's a particular set, if it's, if it's set as these people right here, I can devote my life to that 'cause of what that means, what that represents.
If it's just, Hey, whoever happens to be holding the chair right now, that's who I live and die for. Yeah. Maybe not. Maybe not.
Jeff: Yeah. I don't think we're clear on what, who, what the one really is.
Brent: Well, all we know is Sinclair is the one who was, and Delaine is the one who is, and Sheridan is the one who will be, is Sheridan the one now, like when, when, when Dilin became the president of Earth Alliance and Sheridan started spending more time with the Rangers, did he become the one, I think I got it because he was in ranger robes at some point.
Jeff: I think I've got this. It just came. So we've been operating on the whole in Inteza thing, right? Yeah. Which would mean essentially, yeah. You had Vallen as Ranger one who started the Rangers, and then there was no Ranger one until Delaine, or until until Sinclair. Uh, so Vallen, then Sinclair, then Delan, then Sheridan.
Mm-hmm. Um, and that makes sense. It's chronological Iva breaks that. What if the one is someone who takes a step towards ascension in, not in the Jason Iron heart, weird science, psych, Cycore kind of way, but like you've got the one who was, which is Sinclair, who goes back and becomes a Ari. Yep, yep. The one who is Delaine, who becomes half human, half Minbar.
Yeah. And the one who will be is Sheridan, who became whatever it is that Lorianne made him and his clothes turn into. It's,
Brent: I like my, my theory earlier that the one is actually like, the one that the Rangers keep talking about is really bigger than just the three people that it's actually like the universe and I forget how I got there.
You guys have to go back and list that anyway. Uh um, yeah. So Ivana's gonna be new Ranger one. Cool. Good job for her. Yeah. Um, I thought it was a cool, I hope the Rangers remember she is God. She and do everything
Jeff: she says. She'll make sure they remember. Like, yes. That's the thing too. If she's not the one now, uh, she will be, and she'll make sure everyone knows that she's the one, whether she is or she's not.
But it was actually, I thought this was a cool callback and I can't remember the season one episode, but there was one where Sinclair was gonna go out on some patrol or something like that, and she's like, dude, you leave me here all the time. Let me go fly this mission. I am so sick of standing in sea and see all the time.
Yeah, it's so boring. And so now we get this where she's got a fully bureaucratic job and she is dying inside. So that's part of like len's pitch was like, you hate your job. Yeah. You want to actually do things here, come back and do things. I like it. Yeah. I want, it's, I want her as inza. I want to see that.
You know, like, that's great.
Brent: I wonder, I wonder how the Rangers feel. About somebody becoming Ranger one who's never been through ranger school. Yeah,
Jeff: yeah. You know, well, did sin, well, Sinclair, they didn't know this, but he made Ranger school, but when he was Sinclair, there wasn't time for him to go through ranger school.
He was just ranger one. You know,
Brent: I still say that Sinclair started the Rangers when he went back to to Minbar. Yeah. Oh, totally. Yeah. This wasn't a vain thing that just changed later. Anyway. Um,
so Sinclair or Sinclair, Sheridan gets up, he leaves, says his goodbyes. They have the, the morning sun thing and he gets in a ship, he gets in his little white star by himself. Yeah. And he heads out, he's just happened to be in the neighborhood. He's gonna swing by Babylon five and say hi. Yeah. It's kind of cool everyone who is there.
Yeah. All three of them,
Jeff: all three people that are there. And it's nice. Siri is driving his, uh, his white star for him. Yeah. Now it's nice. Yeah. But, uh, no real need for a pilot. Just yeah. I think, uh, yeah, this is the moment in the episode where if I could have changed one thing to bring this more into alignment with mm-hmm.
Season five, and this is my initial thought, the minute you put any logic on this, it falls apart. Yep. But this just smarmy commander who's literally assigned there to tear the place down and shut it down, who's just like, oh, oh, oh my God. We, we did it, sir. We didn't. No, no, no. Like just, he's just this wimpy, coward guy who's just awkward.
And I'm like, how did this guy, a commander, I don't get it. But if I could change one thing, what would mean that're call piglet? We're call him piglet. Yeah. I like that. He's piglet. Yeah. But if I could change one thing, I'd make that lockley.
Brent: Uh, again, we talked about this to some extent, so I'm not gonna rehash it too much.
As you say, as soon as you think about it with any kind of logic, it completely breaks down. Um, unless, but I like, I like the symmetry and I like what you, what you said there, because that easily, that scene easily could have been the one that was re-shot. Mm-hmm. And fitted into the new thing to make it fit at the end of season five.
It's the one thing they could have done to make it fit. I, I agree with
Jeff: you. And I think too, you know, we talked about the logic leap you have to take, you know, oh. So she's there for 20 years as Ka Really? But Zach, so he runs into Zach and I tell you what, I think we both lit up the minute he showed up.
He's wearing an earth force uniform now. Yeah, yeah. But Zach retired and was doing his own thing for a while. He came back like six months ago for the sole purpose of helping to shut the place down. 'cause he wanted to be there when they switched off the lights. Lockley could have done the same thing. It could have been one of those things where she's like, yeah, hey, we both retired, you know, around the same time and stuff.
And then they were gonna shut it down. We talked and, hey, let's go help shut it down. It would, would've been a cool way. Let me
Brent: ask, you're, you're in the military? I was. Okay. You was in the, you was in the military and you were on boats and stuff? Mm-hmm. Ships,
Jeff: boats. It was a boat. Submarines. Boat.
Brent: Boat, yeah.
Okay. Um, let's take, let's say they take a submarine and they're gonna decommission it. They're gonna go through a whole decommissioning, uh, ceremony. Okay. Uh, do they only invite the current command staff for that, for that decommissioning ceremony, or would they invite all former commanders of that, uh, uh, people back to the, or even, even just.
Crew, if you've ever served on this ship, you get invited to the, to the decommissioning ceremony. What, who, who, who all gets invited?
Jeff: Yeah. You know, I've never been through one, but what I understand, um, if you're active duty, they let you know and invite you. If you're not active duty and they have contact information and you served on the boat, they invite you, like, Hey, they're doing the decom ceremony.
We're gonna be in Groton. We're tearing the bad boy down. Gillette is gonna buy it and make razor blades out of the hole, because that's where most Ra Gillette razor blades come from. By the way, it's decommissioned submarines. Really little trivia. Yeah. Little trivia for you there. Interesting. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, people get invited to that thing.
It's kind of a really big deal when that happens.
Brent: Interesting. Interesting. So I, it, it actually really would've made sense then for Lockley to be there. Mm-hmm. And, and now for it not to be empty, but to be, have a. Honestly, Sheridan and Delaine should have been invited as well. Yeah. Like this should not have been, he should not have been caught unawares that this was happening.
So,
Jeff: well, especially Delaine is the president of the Alliance. So Sheridan decided to not run for reelection. Yeah. Um, so And they got his wife. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Come on man.
Brent: Yeah. Which, uh, Hey, George doesn't wanna run again. Ask Martha if she wants it.
Jeff: Why not? What could, what could go right. Anyway, so like, they're in the alliance, they're doing stuff and the story we're told is so much of the Babylon five commerce shifted when they went to Minbar.
'cause people were going there, they had other places to trade, blah, blah, blah. But you'd think if you're president of the Alliance, you would be notified as something as significant as, Hey, you remember that place you started? Yeah. We're shutting it down.
Brent: Remember that place? You wanted to buy that one time, but you never did.
Yeah.
Jeff: But you kept it apparently for almost 20 years. Right. Commander Scaredy Pants is like, yeah, it's a couple years ago. Earth gov Took it back a couple years ago. Yeah.
Brent: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, you know, for a place that when everything left, when you guys went to Minbar 20 years ago, Uhhuh, it's still been okay.
So, uh, anyway, anyway, I don't wanna dwell on, on things too long. It was a really touching scene. I love the symmetry. I love Sheridan in that moment, kind of talking to the ship, uh, very, very Janeway talking to Voyager. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Saying, so our fates really are tied. I love the, I love that for, for the dramatic purpose of the show.
Yeah. You know, and, and the, the big cameo, maybe the cameo of the whole series is the maintenance worker who comes to shut the lights off. I was spoiled to this. I knew that this was gonna happen. I don't know if you did or not. I did not. But it was j m s
Jeff: himself. Yeah, I was gonna say, in fact, before he even put that out.
Yeah. So this guy's coming up to shut down the lights. Yeah. I immediately, as we're watching it, I said, oh, it's cool, they're gonna shut it down. But this would've been great for Bo and Mac from a view from the gallery to be sick around and you're like, actually yeah, this is so much cooler than that. Yeah.
Brent: And was I right?
Jeff: Yeah. Oh God. J m Ss coming on. And just that the image, like, 'cause like you said, there's that, that symmetry of Babylon five getting decommissioned, Sheridan going to stop. It's the same time. And then j m s to be the one. Yeah. To like, pull that off, man. To
Brent: pull the trigger. To pull the trigger and then blow it up.
Yeah. So nobody else can come in and do anything with it. You know, I, I think I blew up the station. You can't come do anything with it.
Jeff: I think I talked about, uh, you know, the impact Delaine expressing, you know, and, and putting her stuff to the side. Being there for John, the moment that basically broke me in this episode and I teared up every time I've watched it so far was just so they shut the lights out.
And then a transport heads out in my head that transport was j m s, and you've got V ships, drowsy ships, ri ships. You've got all these alliance ships lined up, and as it goes, those ships turn to watch it. And then they all head out behind it. And I was just like, oh, like the, it was such, I'm, I'm, I'm getting chills now describing it.
It was such a powerful
Brent: scene. It was a powerful scene. And I thought the whole time they were turning the other way. I thought what you had was, you had the, the ship kind of coming out. That he, he started to turn and was gonna go about face, and you had all these other ships that were just out there and that they were turning toward Babylon five, like as a salute as it goes up in, in Kalus, you know?
But instead, they actually were turning away to, to, to go away altogether. And it was, it was a powerful scene either way. I just literally thought the opposite was happening in the moment.
Jeff: Well, and then if you think about it, if j m s is the guy on that transport, they are all turning to watch Babylon five, they're turning to watch and follow j m Ss.
Yeah. As he leaves this creation. Well,
Brent: like I said, I thought that particular ship was turning around too, like when it turned around, I, I just, in my head, that's what I was thinking they were doing. And I was like, no, wait, that's not what's happening. Oh, wait, they're going away from the Oh, and it's all Oh, okay, cool.
I got it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, but it did,
Jeff: it did look super cool.
And then Sheridan's off to choreo six. Well, no,
Brent: I, I, I, I'm, I'm gonna read this one line. Okay. Um, I shouldn't have gotten this emotional watching a fictional c g i Space Station blow up, but I kind of did it. It may not have showed on my face, but it, that was the moment where I was like, oh, my, like,
Jeff: I care about this.
Brent: Ooh. I, I don't, I don't like that. I don't, I wanna see it keep going.
Jeff: Like, and to be clear, a fictional c g i, uh, graphic that we made fun of and bagged on for at least 22 episodes. Did we, not the station as much as the other C g I, but uh, we, we bagged
Brent: on the C G I A bit. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, my gosh, Jeff, for, for c g I on Amigo computers in 1994,
Jeff: like Yeah.
It's all that. I still say it was too soon. Should have waited a little bit. Anyway, this scene gorgeous. It's, and so emotional.
Brent: It's, it's what they had to do to get the, to get the show out. Yeah. For cost
Jeff: reasons. So made it happen. It made it so,
Brent: yeah. Uh, yeah it just a perfect scene Jeff. It was a perfect, perfect scene.
Um, and
Jeff: I love that too. 'cause it called back to Signs and portents when Lady Ladera had shared the vision with Sinclair of the station blowing up and we thought it was the worst thing ever that was gonna happen. Turns out it's um, really awesome. Yeah.
Brent: Yep. So Sheridan heads off, he's all alone. He goes to Ana, the ANA system and he is out there by himself.
He's fading fast. He's visually fading fast and who shows up. But Lian and Lian saying, uh, did you think we forgot about you? We never forgot about you. And he's, oh, you're here. Uh, this whole scene. Do you know what it totally reminded me of what it totally, all the vibes in the world, to me. What was that?
Was, uh, at the end of Lord of the Rings, when Bilbo comes back to the Shire. A hundred percent. And then he heads off to the, to the elf land to go live with them. Totally. Totally. Had all those vibes to me. Yeah. At that moment. Uh, but he's going beyond the rim. That's what I think. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't, yeah, he's just, he's just gonna cease.
He's, they're gonna take him. He gets, he, he gets to go with them now that he's going to join them. And he asks a beautiful question, can I ever come back? Lian in a real blunt, soft way says, no, not gonna happen. This journey has ended. You're, this one's over, but a new one is beginning the ho. Hope that even at the end, something new is coming.
Jeff? Yeah. Oh my word. Ah.
Jeff: And on top of that, just perfection. Yes. And on top of that, Bren keeps your theory alive. It does a new one. Awaits being caution and going and starting this whole thing over again as
Brent: a whole new thing that we just I was gonna say, it does, it doesn't end my theory. It just, Actually, it kinda lends itself towards it just saying, yeah.
Now
Jeff: I thought what was cool? 'cause like at some point, lo again logically, right? So I understand why Sheridan went to Babylon five. That totally made sense, right? Yeah. Walked down memory lane, all that stuff. So then you're like, why did he go to the site of the Battle of Corey on a six? Mm-hmm. And this was such a great moment from Day of the Dead, right?
Mm-hmm. So, uh, Lockley is hanging out with her, um, her childhood friend, things all done. And then he says, talking to Sheridan. She's like, oh. And there's a message from some dude named Kosh. Yeah. Kosh says, when the long night comes, go back to the end of the beginning. Like he, those were the instructions.
His long night is his last night, right before he dies? Mm. The beginning Yeah. That he's talking about was when he was reborn after dying at Zaha Doom. And the end of that beginning was the battle at Corion six. Huh.
Brent: Ana six is where Zaha dom was, right?
Jeff: No, cor six, uh, was the big, uh, colony that the, um, Vons were gonna wipe out.
That was gonna be like trillions of people.
Brent: Oh, I thought, I thought I, for some reason I thought Zaha Dom was in the ana system and that's why he was heading back there. We just, Zaha Dom didn't exist anymore, so he said he is gonna Ana. Yeah. Okay. That, that's fair. Yeah. That's fair. All I love that you found that out.
Jiv Yeah's. My, I love, I love that you found that
Jeff: out. That's good. That's my theory. And here's my other little theory. Beautiful scene, right? Yeah. And there was a real, um, theme of visual theme and one that gets talked about of the sun rising, you know, through this. Sheridan wanted to watch the sunrise.
Dela is gonna watch the sunrise for, you know, here in perpetuity for her. But in the moment when Sheridan stops, he's on the White Star Lorian. Is there? And just this bright, bright blinding light builds up the sun coming up, or almost like the sun, but it's this blinding light. And then Sheridan stops in that.
Sheridan is now and forever sleeping in light. Sleeping
Brent: in light. Exactly. I love it. It's perfection, Jeff. Yeah, it's absolutely perfect. The fact that they didn't, you know, they found the ship, but no escape Pods were launched, all the airlocks were sealed. I, I mean, yeah, it's great. Absolutely, absolutely.
Great. And then Delin sitting out there waiting to, to revisit and, and again, I, I'm, I'll end this with the same thing I did in my recap At Peace Sheridan was at peace. Delin was at peace. This whole episode was about being at peace. You're at the end, but now it's at peace.
Jeff: Well, now let's try to explore a little bit of peace at the end of every episode.
If you're just joining us for the first time on this one, we boil the episode down that we just watched to see if there's any messages to it, morals, um, deep meanings. Maybe it's holding a mirror to society, something like that. Uh, we rate that message and we also rate just how uniquely it was delivered in a way that only Babylon five can do it.
This week for this, the final and ultimate episode of Babylon five, Brent, that responsibility lands on you, my friend. Mm, where you'll be rating this on a scale of zero to five white stars. No pressure. Oh my gosh, none at all. But what are the messages? What is it telling us and how uniquely Babylon five is it doing?
So,
Brent: I mean, my gosh, Jeff, we talked about last week. How the Sheridan leaving messages for David was j m s saying, Hey, here's the entirety of what Babylon five for the first time has been all about packaged in one nice, neat little bow, but I like this one as well. The end isn't really the end Sheridan's life here.
Uh, the end of his life is not his death. His death already happened. His these past 20 years. They were a gift. They were, they were overtime in the game. Yes. It's sad. Yes, it's okay to mourn. And, and Jeff, I hate to do this at the very end. I think we have one more reference we can use and I'm gonna use it here.
Don't, although in this part, don't, we don't count. Yeah. We don't have any more, we don't count references at the spot. Yeah. The game's over. Yeah. Um.
Yes. It's sad. Yes, it's okay to mourn when a loss occurs. What it's not okay to do is to live there. To stay there. Delin, delin, delin cried and cried and cried until John left. And now she's at peace. You know what I mean? Like she was able to, she, she wept in the appropriate time, and once it was gone, she was able to go.
And you know what? It doesn't mean she stopped loving. It doesn't mean she forgot. It doesn't mean anything of that nature. It just means she was able to come and be at peace. And she went out and did her little sunrise thing every single day. Um, When Sheridan is passing and moving beyond, this is a time of celebration and celebrating his life.
That's what he was trying to tell. I don't want anybody to come in here and be sad. Let's, I wanna party with my friends. This is what I want to do. Look, I've got, I've got 24 hours left here, and I gotta go. Y'all get to stay, but I gotta go. I'm not trying to be sad about this. Like, like, I love you guys.
Yeah, we're gonna, there's gonna be a time for morning, but right now, let's all just enjoy being together. And we all know what this means. We all, no one's, no one is, is blinded to what's happening here. Sheridan leads the way, um, he leads the way in this, not just for himself, but also with his fallen friends, because Sheridan gives a toast.
Remember when they're all sitting around the table and they're talking about, talking about, talking about, and Sheridan's the one who raises a glass and says to absent friends. Whose memory still Burns Bright. Oh yeah. They're still here. I said earlier, and I'm gonna say it again, I didn't feel like Londo and Jaar and, and, uh, Marcus and Lanier were missing from this episode.
They felt very present. And by that I mean Peter Jui and Andre Kali and Jason Alexander. No, Carter. Carter. Thank you. Jason Alexander is a Seinfeld guy. Yeah. Uh, Jason Carter and Bill Mummy, I didn't feel like they were missing from this episode at all. They felt very present to me. Um, and just as it was for them, even though their physical presence is there because their memory burns bright, it felt like they were there.
The same thing's gonna be for Sheridan. They rem Delin is holding his memory bright, keeping his memory bright. She does that in her form of going out to the sunrises every day. And as long as, as long as we remember these people, They're still there. They're still there with us, right? Um, and so I think as a final lesson, it's learn to celebrate life.
Embrace the end like it's an old friend. And I'll tell you, Jeff, lots of people have done this message. Lots of of of properties have done this message. This is not a message that's unique to Babylon. Five, but I'll say this, and this could absolutely be recency bias. No one else that I can think of has come close to doing it as well as Babylon five.
And if we want to talk about how Babylon five is this message, how did they do it in Babylon five way we started this entire podcast, Jeff, by comparing the messages that Babylon five delivers to the way that Star Trek delivers its messages, how, how are those messages being delivered and coming out? Um, You wanna know how Babylon five this message is?
How 'cause it did it in a way that Star Trek absolutely would not have done. Do you know what Star Trek would've done with this episode? They would've done half a life. They would've done, they would've tried to turn this entire episode from, Hey, let's, let's celebrate this life. Let's have this perfect episode where we're just coming to peace.
And they would've turned it into a moral dilemma of what do you do with a guy who is, who is coming up on the e dignity of life, uh, a, a a a episode that needs to be done. It needs to be done again, because this is, this is a, a relevant topic, but when it comes to doing it as a finale, Babylon five didn't feel the need to get preachy about it.
They just were, star Trek would've gotten preachy about it. Yeah. Babylon. Five didn't. Babylon five did it in its own way. Jeff, it's been here from the beginning. This is not a Star Trek podcast. This is a Babylon five podcast. Yes it is. And this episode is a five white star episode. The Is replete. It is uniquely Babylon.
Five and phenomenal perfection. Now that's the white star. That's the message. Jeff, you get the opportunity here. No pressure on you to place this in our ranking. How much do we like this episode? Where does this episode fall In 22 episodes of Season five. I'll be interested to see what we do when we rank an entire, the entire series.
Oof. I don't think we're doing that as an episode, but I know I'd be interested to see, you know, if we did a top 10 episode of the series. Does sleeping in light fall in the top 10? Spoiler hurt. Yeah, probably. Uh, but you get to do it just for these 22 episodes in season five. Jeff, how much do we like this episode?
It's, remember, this is completely accurate. It's immutable. This is rock solid until next week. So what you got? Where's it going?
It very clearly, this is not hard, Jeff.
Jeff: It very clearly
lands in one of two spots.
We've had a co this, this season. I'm gonna say this in, in front of our wrap up. Uh, this season has not been good. But the good in this season has been some of the best of Babylon five. And for us so far, that has meant objects at rest, very long night of Lando mal, I mean, fall of Sari Prime also. Great. You know, I mean our, our, our current top three woo, top tier super good stuff.
So yeah, this goes somewhere in there. Um, it's just weird, right? Because this is not a, a normal episode. I feel weird even ranking it in season five. It was from season four. It's, it transcends season five. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so when I, when I think about season five and the thing, I still think of our top three as like the real story of season five.
So does that mean I put this at number four?
I don't think it, I'll tell you what it means. It means that, and this is, you're right, I'm not, I can't kid anybody anymore. This is the number one episode. It has been all along like this. This is, this is, uh, this is Babylon five here. It's in all of its splendor. Everything culminated in this episode. And aside from one little section of one little conversation that we shall not mention, it is perfect.
Yeah. This is the top episode. Wholeheartedly agree.
Brent: And I would, uh, I, I would, I would pull, I, I would veto if it was anything different, and I'm not sure that we've ever even allowed that, but it would be allowed. Now I would detail if it was right. They gotta
Jeff: find a way. Yeah. Like I have PPGs over here that I would totally use and I would, Brent, Jeff, that's it.
For Sleeping in Light. We did it. And that's it. Oh my gosh, gosh. The series of Babylon
Brent: five. Do, do, do we get to ascend now? I know. Can we ascend and go beyond the rim with Sheridan? Like it's
Jeff: not happening. I mean, I feel something in here, but it, it might be the, uh, Ritz and salami I had earlier. Well, we're not done and we've been clear about that.
We have a lot more content coming out, uh, tied to Babylon. Five. We've got more new stuff to watch, but this moment we've completed the 110 episodes of the series. Next week when we come back, we're gonna do the season five wrap up. If you haven't heard us say this already, we are going to do a season wrap up.
We're gonna do that after the movies, after however, series, series wrap up.
Brent: What did I say? You said season wrap up? Yeah. We are gonna do a season wrap up next week. Yeah. We're also going to do a separate series wrap up. Correct. After the movies
Jeff: and other things. I'm gonna give a clean one here for the audio if you haven't already heard it.
We are going to do a full series wrap up. We're gonna do that after the movies. We're gonna do that after, however we approach crusade, um, and, and get the whole thing in one piece. But next week we're wrapping up season five. That means we're gonna revisit the immutable and perfect and correct ranking of all the episodes in season five.
We're gonna talk about other cool
Brent: things. Did we, Jeff, did we change season four at all? No, we didn't make a single change. Did we change season
Jeff: three? Yeah, we changed three, two, and one. We did.
Brent: Okay. So season, season four was immutable and, hey, I'm gonna stand by season five right now.
Jeff: I, I think we're gonna be pretty darn close, but we'll find out about that.
But another thing we're gonna find out about next week, Brent. Who is gonna be receiving from us? One of those absolutely incredible PPGs that wash made and sent over. Yeah. Listen, I'm so cool. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this because it feels a little weird talking about this giveaway thing after we just talked about this incredible episode.
So real quick, yeah. Next week we're doing a giveaway where the way you can win is by being a current subscriber to our Patreon. That's patreon.com/babylon five first, the number five, the word first, the link's down below. Click that. Get on there. Get on there by like Wednesday or Thursday. By Thursday am Eastern this week because that's when I'll be pulling the list is later that day.
So we know who it is. So get on there. You can win. Um, you can win one of those PPGs. It'll be great. We'll see you here next week. We'll wrap this season up. Thank you all so much. Thank you so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe. We have a lot more content coming. Leave a rating and review. Share this podcast with someone that you care about.
So until next time. Hey Jeff. Yeah.
Brent: Hey man, what's up? So here we are and there is still so much I don't understand as it should be. Do you think we can ever come back to our first watch again? No.
Jeff: This journey has ended. Another begins.
