Babylon 5 dips into Buck Rogers territory with a cryogenically suspended visitor from the past, Forbidden Planet territory with an invisible monster, and The A-Teamterritory with Dwight Schultz. How’d “The Long Dark” fit into the five-year arc?
Babylon 5 dips into Buck Rogers territory with a cryogenically suspended visitor from the past, Forbidden Planet territory with an invisible monster, and The A-Teamterritory with Dwight Schultz. How’d “The Long Dark” fit into the five-year arc?
Sheridan is being a Clarke-ass this week. If you’ve not rewatched this episode yet, we’re told this week’s alien villian used to live on Z’ha’dum, a piece of information to watch with from the start. There wasn’t enough to save this episode for me, but maybe I can still save you! Remember that, Z’ha’dum!
Amis said it was as if hell had been let loose. Get it right Michael!!! Do The B5 Unofficial Guides have a straight to/from hell count? One from Broccoli this episode.
Weakest ep of S2 so far. The plot is hokey and holey.. Other disposable episodes of S2 have a little gold in the bin bags: an arc tap, a Kosh-byte, and there’s none that here. Female alien lead and victim alien cameoreally Britta’d it. IMO the only welcome watch is Jerry Doyle who gives grounding to Schultz’s Howling Mad-ness, and gravitas, and the makeup department do a fine job too.
Was this the first mention of the word Z’ha’dum on screen? It surprised me, right there at the end of the episode, and I didn’t remember hearing it in any other episode so far. Maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention…
First mention I can find is in S2E2, “Revelations”, 25 min 09 sec. Londo mentions the Narns have sent a ship to investigate it, and Morden briefly looks startled. “Ahh, so you have heard of it” says Londo.
Okay, lets talk about Talia and being off-screen.
Talia Winters is a licensed commercial telepath. She’s essentially a mediator for business deals. She is not a member of Earthforce (telepaths can’t serve in Earthforce) and not an employee of the station. To tell the truth, she shouldn’t be a main character (at least at this point) there should always be a good reason to bring her into the storyline.
We have a number of people who, by default, are fairly by the book, and using the telepath would be against the rules and what the human culture sees as basic human rights. Talia could be used in many situations, but so could torture, or anything else that is culturally considered taboo.
However, I think at this point in the series, there isn’t really a good understanding of the corps and the limitations society has put on telepaths, even while giving the psi-cops nearly unlimited authority when they claim they’re policing telepaths.
I agree there are excellent reasons for her to not be in every episode, but I think Steven’s point is more about the fact that she’s in the opening credits, billed higher than some folks who get a lot more screen time. The opening credits can be seen as a bit of a social contract, and I agree with Steven that in Talia’s case, the show breaks that contract. See also Keffer, Na’Toth, etc. He fixated on Talia because it happened most to her in S1.
To chips comment that it is a coincidence that Babylon 5 is in the path of the border between Earth and Mimbari space and Z’hadoom, I submit that the Mimbari helped finance the station an had say in who commanded it initially, maybe they had say its location as a potential to be on a lookout for teh coming of the shadows.