Welcome to one of the most devastating episodes of Babylon 5, to yet another turning point, and to our Control Group–with us once again–one Steven Schapansky!
We present a podcast within a podcast, a new addition to The Incomparable Network: Steven Schapansky’s “Vejar or Not”. (The preceding sentence is a complete lie.) We celebrate the outstanding work of Foundation Imaging in the mother of all space battles, of Richard Biggs in the mother of all split-screen performances, and of Laura Ingalls Wilder after a fashion. Plus outtakes!
In this episode: we talk about one of the most delicious/creepy comeuppances in science fiction television history, Erika makes a hip-hop reference that is one letter away from being brilliant, and pause to remember all the poor crew on the White Star shifting uncomfortably just off-screen.
One or more of your co-hosts buck the Received Fan Wisdom about Grey 17, the Zarg, and Freddy Kreuger. One or more of your co-hosts vow to do a Phantom Edit of the episode. Find out who! (There is also an unsurprising amount of Neroon admiration within this podcast.)
Epic. Convoluted. “War Without End” answers questions from the dawn of the Third A…er, from the pilot movie and first episode, and sets up new questions for The One Who Will Be. We reach back into time and space, and pluck Liz Myles out of our “Babylon Squared” episode to help us delve into the fate of Babylon 4! PLUS: Chip monologues a LOT in the spoilerverse.
Shannon, Chip and Hugo Award winner Erika take a leisurely saunter with Stephen Franklin down the dark alleys of Downbelow as he goes on “Walkabout” to find himself. Along the way they explore just why the heck they couldn’t remember that this episode also has a kick-butt Shadow War subplot, discuss whether Stephen’s walkabout is cultural appropriation gone wrong, and celebrate one Patricia Tallman.
(Congratulations to our friends at Uncanny Magazine for winning the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine! Every member of the editorial staff has appeared on this podcast.)
Chaos! Loss! Destruction! So much awfulness happens to our poor characters in this episode, so of courseJason “Schadenfreude” Snell is back with us! (Also, he’s sitting in for Shannon, who was out sick for this one.) It’s the full meal deal: meat (Kosh and the Vorlons), potatoes (Stephen and the stims), and undefined vegetables that your hosts couldn’t settle on (Londo and … Adira…?). Strap in for a podcast about an episode you can really sink your teeth into.
Since the station’s secession from the Earth Alliance, it was inevitable that Our Intrepid Heroes’ relationship with perennial antagonist Bester would change. Did you see this coming, however? More to the point, did you expect that in the closing seconds of the episode, “This cold war just got hot”?
(We’ll give you bonus points worth absolutely nothing if you recall the source of that quote.)
“Ship of Tears” always makes one of your cohosts think of the Robert Plant song from _Now and Zen_. Or the line from Wang Chung’s “Everybody Have Fun Tonight.” Fortunately, he does not embarrass himself about this fact on the podcast. And therefore no one will ever know which cohost it was.
It’s that lovable scamp Vir’s turn for a love story, and it’s also time for an exploration of the banality of evil and the horrors of genocide. Plus Ivanova gives sex advice and Delenn seasons flarn! You might think that “Sic Transit Vir” has the makings of an uneven episode. Several of your co-hosts might agree with you.
We all find different ways to cope with hardship. David Macintyre grabs some chainmail and a prop sword and becomes King Arthur. Cheesy? A weird departure from the story arc? Thematically relevant and touching? What can you say about an episode where the biggest villain is the post office?
Oh, and because B5’s gone Arthurian again, it’s time to bring back Sunspot’s fantabulous 2013 song, “Arthuriana”–the whole track this time! Check them out at sunspotmusic.com.