S5: Day of the Dead
Who would you meet, of those who have gone before?
A question which is cosmic in its open-endedness, and thus ripe for fic.
I love this episode so very, very much. I gather it is one that often makes the 'However Many Worst Episodes of B5', along with A View From the Gallery (another personal favorite.) So a defense, some squee, and a survey at the end!
Set-up and Exposition
Lochley's attitude toward R&Z is explained in a stage directive from Gaiman. 'Lochley looks at them like a woman watching men do a Three Stooges routine, sighs, and goes back to her book.' (Originally this scene was Lochley at breakfast, being confronted first by Sheridan, then Garibaldi stopping by.)
She has to report the jewelled comet as a gift. Gotta love bureacracy.
Brakiri are night-dwelling, so the Day of the Dead takes place at night. Cool. They must adjust the night/day cycle in their quarters so all the meetings are in their 'daytime.'
Why is G'Kar so fearful? What does he think he will see? This is never explained to my satisfaction. There is a lovely long explanation of the Brakiri custom in the original script (which was too long apparently and was trimmed and adjusted) which involves transubstantiation and compares the tradition to that of the Eruv. I used to see the marks on the telephone poles in Brookline MA, extending the boundaries of the Jewish community so Orthodox Jews could move about more freely on the Sabbath. It was neat, and very evocative to see it done here.
And now to the important part:
Lennier!
Oh, don't tell him how good he looks! You're feeding the monster, Delenn.
Cut from the script, and into my heart:
Delenn: I am sorry, Lennier. I have to prepare for tonight. We can see each other tomorrow.
Lennier (handing her a candy skull): This is for you. I must return to the Anla'Shok tomorrow.
Rebo and Zooty
The whole bit about Zooty not talking was due to them casting Teller. They had to add in the Gaim translator, Ood bulb, voice box to let Zooty speak when Teller doesn't.
The only word Zooty has ever said without the machine is 'why?' And the speaking to Sheridan with the answer to that question? Pure JMS. Sigh. Isn't Kosh's message enough WTF this episode? I never got this bit, I admit.
Delenn likes handkerchief rabbits. (I'm sorry, this makes me think bad thoughts.)
The real comedy happens in the Senate. This is true in America as well as EarthGov. Anywhere else?
The only reason politics exists is to ensure that people have the freedom to laugh, and to love.
Can we emblazon this on every politician's forehead?
And enough with R&Z! I liked seeing them after they've been mentioned a kazillion times, but P&T fall a bit flat for me. But there's so much good in this episode and in the general idea, that I ignore them.
So let's move on, but please, enjoy the kreebish.
On to the meat of the story: The Dead Return
Throwaway bit: 'Reclamation of San Diego wasteland gets underway.' This is a story in the paper (either Londo's or Mordenn's, I disremember). I like the harking back to interior history.
Londo and Adira
Londo speaking to Portrait of a Dead Emperor: 'When you were Emperor it meant something. Subduer of the Xon and the Shoggren...'
The Xon are the sentient race the Centauri exterminated, am I right? Originally, Neil had written the Narn. Apparently JMS threw in Xon, which Peter Jurascik saw, and spoke, as Exxon. It had to be overdubbed to Xon. The Shoggren were Gaiman's tribute to his beta.
'If Vir can be Emperor, a small Earth cat can be Emperor.' JMS addition.
I love how they turn the camera with Londo's head. They do it several times in this episode, maybe to let us know everything that happens is truly from one person's perspective.
Londo's scenes are just bloody painful.
Though I love the 'subtle' commentary of Londo's: What? Again?
Gaiman wrote in Adira's six back slits, but the network kiboshed it. Again. Le sigh.
Garibaldi and Dodger
Garibaldi sleeps with a PPG. And no one else! Boom badda-boom! I knew he was a good Catholic boy. Although not so much with Talia...lust in your heart counts you know.
In Gaiman's script, Garibaldi has a message waiting from Lise when he gets home, but decides to blow it off till morning.
G: Weren't you meant to bring back arcane knowledge from beyond the veil?
Dodger: Capers are pickled nasturium buds, and every Emily Dickinson poem can be sung to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas.
Anyone else have trouble reading Emily Dickinson after that? Gaiman first heard the Dickinson bit on an old GENIE message board. Apparently it is not true, though it fits a lot of 'em. One bit of poetry is Edna St. Vincent Millay, not Dickinson.
I love Dodger's leap to attention. And Garibaldi's expression when he sees Zoe clowning. What is he thinking??
Garibaldi draped with wires. I love a man covered in wires.
Every man's dream: A love hungry redhead who'll disapper in the morning, never to appear again. This made me terribly sorry for Dodger.
And finally: Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.
Ouch.
Lizzie and Zoe
'Geez Lizzie, what did you grow up to be?'
Every scene with these two is painful and lovely. As JMS said, "when Captain Lochley recites her password...we learn more about her character in that two-second phrase than in the multiple hour-long episodes that preceded it."
Lennier and Morden
This is the scene everyone hates (along with R&Z). I like it, as you probably guessed, although there are other choices less ham-handed and heavy as to characters for Lennier to meet. Let me say right off that I don't think Marcus is appropriate, cause he's not dead. JMS clearly wants him to be alive but unavailable because...well, just because. Morden gets some spiffy lines though.
'Looking back at it, I just tried to make people happy.'
'You don't come to the dead for wisdom.'
'Give a dog a bad name and you can hang him with it.'
'You shouldn't listen to everything Sheridan tells you.'
'I'm prophetic, not infallible.'
The harsh truth Lennier can hear but not believe without his world falling apart.
M: Delenn doesn't love you like you love her, and she never will.
L: I know that.
M: No. You don't.
There's some changes in the script here, actually a lot in these scenes.
L: Sheridan did not die at Z'ha'dum.
Lennier is unaware? In denial? Or just wishes Sheridan had died a little more thoroughly, like forever and never came back?
M: Do you like being a Ranger, Lennier. Would you like it any better if I were to tell you, you will betray the Anla'Shok?
Does Lennier remember what Delenn told him about prophecy?
And then Lennier puts his fingers in his ears, says la-la-la I can't hear you, and continues along his self-destructive path in his willful blindness to his own motivations and beliefs.
Cut are the lines after the prophecy in which Morden compares Lennier to Judas, Quisling, or the Minbari by-word for traitor apparently, Flethor. Moden adds that Lennier's name will be cursed for generations to come.
This part, if it had been left in, would have ruined the rest of S5 for me. The fact that everyone else is allowed a new beginning, a chance at redemption, EXCEPT Lennier? You can't imagine the howl of dismay. Try to imagine it, go ahead. It's heart-rendingly loud.
Kosh and Sheridan
I thought it was a metaphor. I'll try to be more literal-minded, sir. Lochley snark FTW!
'When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning.' Great, great expression's on Sheridan's face. The Vorlons have their paws into every little thing, don't they?
Credits
Harlan Ellison as The Voice of Zooty, and doesn't that explain a lot?
And after that long-winded opinionated review, a thought question and/or survey. Let's think about who other B5 characters should have met on the Day of the Dead. I've always worked on the idea that they saw who they needed to see, not who they wanted to see, but you can go either way. Throw in Marcus if you like, on either side, alive or dead. Although I'm pretty sure he's alive and by the rules you gotta be dead to visit. Having him visited in the cryo tube would be interesting though!
Delenn
Sheridan
G'Kar
Vir
Stephen
Susan
Marcus
and alternate choices for those who've already played:
Londo
Lochley
Lennier
Garibaldi