"I did fall on my sword once. I was running with it in my belt. Won't happen again."
The Office 5.17 - "Golden Ticket"
To sum up this episode in two words: OH MICHAEL. To sum it up in slightly more words:
I think the four most terrifying words I've ever heard come out of Michael Scott's mouth are "I am Willy Wonka." But the real heart of darkness in this episode is the exposure of the deeply dysfunctional core dynamic of Michael and Dwight's relationship. The beauty of Dwight is that he is not a total sycophant; his ego asserts itself when there's a conflict between what Michael wants and what's best for Dwight. He had to think about it really hard, but I don't think he was going to take the fall, at least not until it became apparent that it would benefit him. In fact, I think a lot of his hesitation came from him trying to figure out how it would benefit him even before it became apparent that he'd be taking credit for a successful idea instead of a failure. Michael can demand unswerving devotion, but he doesn't really get it, even from Dwight. (And does he remember nothing from the disaster when he fired Dwight, and had to go crawling into Staples to beg him to come back? Oh Michael.) And in the end, they're both hopeless buffoons, and all David Wallace can do is throw up his hands and retreat back to New York.
Small moments in the episode that I really liked:
* * * * *
Babylon 5 4.01 - "The Hour of the Wolf"
So Sheridan's swan dive wasn't the end after all. It seems like it did, however, shift the war with the Shadows back into the interior of people's hearts. Instead of fighting big Shadow ships, they're back to fighting weaknesses in their own people. I have no idea, exactly, how that relates to Lyta's gills--they confuse and alarm me--but she's enabling the Vorlons somehow, and her relationship with the new ambassador is clearly more toxic and harmful to her than her relationship with Kosh had been, and from that, we can extrapolate to the Vorlons and the station in general. In the meantime, the new Centauri emperor--the one Londo's political maneuvering placed on the throne--is, in clinical terms, completely bugfuck nuts. I was initially annoyed with the show for going with the gay=degenerate character shorthand, but then they went out of their way to spell out his entirely unique forms of degeneracy, and I especially liked that the rumors were true and sure enough, he kept a desk full of heads to talk to in the middle of the night. Cartagia seems like the most extreme expression of Centauri political sensibilities, convinced that what's good for him is good for the Centauri, even as he trades his entire people for elevation to godhood; I'm reminded again about how willing the Centauri soldiers, loyal to one family only, were to work with Narns to kill Refa. The notion of family or personal elevation has become indistinguishable from common good in their political system; this is where it leads. It was thrilling and terrible to see Londo's dream of Shadow ships flying over the imperial palace come true, and even more so to see Londo decide to do something about it, to try at last to fix the mess he'd helped create. Vir has never had as much hesitation about doing the right thing; he's a good choice for a co-conspirator.
Also completely bugfuck nuts: Morden, who is looking less like a toothpaste commercial model these days. I was joking about Londo needing to vacuum after he left, and then the camera actually focused in on the pile of skin flakes on the carpet!
I'm glad that someone called Dellen and Ivanova on the fact that whatever they might propose as rationale for a mission to Z'ha'dum, they really want to find Sheridan. I'm also glad that Lennier is made of awesome and set up a failsafe. I can understand why they needed to go, to try to found out what happened to Sheridan; but it always should have been their mission and their risk alone, because it was a terribly dangerous thing to do. How many times has Lennier quietly and patiently saved their butts now? And I adore G'Kar for taking his friendship with Garibaldi as a sacred trust and a two-way street; Garibaldi was there for him in some of his darkest hours, and there is no question that he'll return the favor. (Also, Daffy Duck as one of Garibaldi's household gods? Hilariously kind of true.)
Babylon 5 4.02 - "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"
It appears that, like Sheridan, when confronted with the question of whether he's alive or dead, I would have guessed dead but would not have guessed NEITHER. I really was not sure what to make of Lorien--though given where he seems to live, I started to guess that he was some kind of nameless evil that came before the shadows, some kind of Yin in the universe's Yin/Yang. But mostly I was distracted by the question of who could have put those attractive torch sconces on the walls of their little cavern there.
I had sort of forgotten that G'Kar was protected on Bablyon 5, and that leaving the station to search for Garibaldi meant leaving that protection. Oh G'Kar, you are such a good friend. Marcus tried to take over the visible work, but it was already too late; the Gold Jockeys of Doom were on his trail. And, surprisingly, there was no dramatic escape; just G'Kar, outmanned, taken, and Marcus unable to follow. The scene between Londo and G'Kar was just so wonderfully, amazingly complicated. At one time, Londo would have loved to have G'Kar at his mercy like this; and in a way, he still does, because it gives him the opportunity he needs to assassinate Cartagia. And he is going to seize that opportunity with both hands, because he knows G'Kar will keep his promises. But he does G'Kar the courtesy of neither sugar-coating it nor talking down to him: G'Kar is going to suffer, and Londo is going to watch. The really amazing thing, though, is that Londo agrees to the price G'Kar asks, and G'Kar believes him. They've come to a place where they've transcended their past enmity; they don't like each other any more than they ever have, but they trust each other to do their parts for their own people, and that is what this is about. When Londo doesn't try to argue with G'Kar about freeing Narn, when he acknowledges the justice of that request, it feels like an acknowledgement of both the ordeal G'Kar is willing to agree to undergo and Londo's own role in bringing G'Kar and the Centauri to where they are now. It's lovely.
It's wonderfully creepy that Garibaldi doesn't remember how he was captured, and that PsiCorps has him. It goes to prove, again, that you can defeat the external enemy with the big guns, but there are other people inside your own walls who want to do you just as much harm.
Babylon 5 4.03 - "The Summoning"
It is so painful to see G'Kar suffer, even knowing that he has a plan in mind. And even more amazingly, it's painful for Londo too. This feels like his redemption, but it's a weird one; he's offered G'Kar a chance to save his people through his own torture, which is the most important thing to G'Kar in the world. Londo himself doesn't suffer, just continues to see the suffering others undergo as part of his plans; but he can't brush it off anymore. He has to talk G'Kar into a final indignity so that the plan can go forward and they can both get what they want; it's almost incidental that he saves G'Kar's life by doing it, since he's preserving it for further torture. It's as close to grace as Londo will ever get, and that itself is rather terrible and significant.
It is... entirely too convenient that the trail to Garibaldi's starfury leads to Garibaldi himself--just a lifepod, the ship destroyed, all other evidence gone. It's also too convenient, albeit in a different way, that Sheridan returns, alive and triumphant, at the moment when the station residents express the most doubt. And since I liked Kosh, and Kosh helped Sheridan, I was still shocked at the Vorlons' ruthlessness, their disinfectant strategy. The new Vorlon ambassador's treatment of Lyta as a tool seemed, in retrospect, like a warning of how little they regarded the lives of the small people below them, but still. Destroying whole planets where the Shadows once touched down is amazingly extreme, and points to how little of the galaxy had completely clean hands in the waqr.
We will pass over Marcus's TMI-for-the-flight-deck confession that he's a virgin with our eyes screwed shut and our fingers stuffed in our ears, singing "LalalalalaICAN'THEARYOU."
Babylon 5 4.04 - "Falling Toward Apotheosis"
It's rather depressing--but all too realistic--that the ragtag planets defeated one enormous enemy only to have a supposed ally turn on them and go on a planet-destroying spree. As budget-saving devices go, I've seen worse than Ivanova's narration on the news announcements; the details about the refugees, and her own fear, go a long way toward conveying the situation out there. But it's comforting that Kosh was always on their side, in one way or another; that the part of him Sheridan still carried came out to help in the end.
I like that Garibaldi is so suspicious of Lorien, and that he finds the changes in Sheridan's behavior disturbing. Those suspicions come from both the cop and the friend in him. But there's a single-minded edge to his distrust that is somehow terribly off; it's a sign that he's been tampered with, and came back every bit as different as Sheridan.
(As a side note, given that everyone had presumed Sheridan dead when the Shadows were defeated, I find it really bizarre that they--especially Delenn--are so caught up on the 20-more-years figure. Isn't that a lot of time, when you thought you wouldn't have any? And since we don't really know when we're going to die normally, and they're all still living in extraordinarily dangerous times, it seems weird to complain about a specific expiration date.)
It seems that Cartagia is even more crazy than he seemed at first, which was quite crazy indeed. At least Londo understands that kind of all-consuming megalomania enough to direct its flow around the edges into the course he wants. He'll get them to Narn, where he has more room to maneuver, but not before G'Kar loses an eye. Why is it always the eye?!? (See also: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica.) Oh Londo! Oh G'Kar!
* * * * *
I really, really need a vacation right now. Since that isn't in the cards, I'll just admire this dog's fascination with a baby kangaroo instead. AWWWWWW.
To sum up this episode in two words: OH MICHAEL. To sum it up in slightly more words:
I think the four most terrifying words I've ever heard come out of Michael Scott's mouth are "I am Willy Wonka." But the real heart of darkness in this episode is the exposure of the deeply dysfunctional core dynamic of Michael and Dwight's relationship. The beauty of Dwight is that he is not a total sycophant; his ego asserts itself when there's a conflict between what Michael wants and what's best for Dwight. He had to think about it really hard, but I don't think he was going to take the fall, at least not until it became apparent that it would benefit him. In fact, I think a lot of his hesitation came from him trying to figure out how it would benefit him even before it became apparent that he'd be taking credit for a successful idea instead of a failure. Michael can demand unswerving devotion, but he doesn't really get it, even from Dwight. (And does he remember nothing from the disaster when he fired Dwight, and had to go crawling into Staples to beg him to come back? Oh Michael.) And in the end, they're both hopeless buffoons, and all David Wallace can do is throw up his hands and retreat back to New York.
Small moments in the episode that I really liked:
- Darryl's amazing, heroic calmness as he pointed out how Blue Cross got all the tickets, especially considering Michael came down to the warehouse to try to pin the blame on him. That is the calmness of a man who knows that the idiocy is on the other side, always, forever.
- Jim getting alarmed that Dwight might fall on his sword for Michael, and trying to talk him out of it. And Dwight appreciating that gesture of friendship in the usual way, by writing Jim up for insubordination. Those two!
- Andy's dating advice was indeed, as Pam put it, "psychotic," but it also showed how injured he is now, how afraid he is to show any vulnerability or weakness in a romantic situation now. Angela broke him.
- Kevin's romance! Awwwwww. His come-on was so adorably honest, even if he should have stopped before he got to "Boobs!".
* * * * *
Babylon 5 4.01 - "The Hour of the Wolf"
So Sheridan's swan dive wasn't the end after all. It seems like it did, however, shift the war with the Shadows back into the interior of people's hearts. Instead of fighting big Shadow ships, they're back to fighting weaknesses in their own people. I have no idea, exactly, how that relates to Lyta's gills--they confuse and alarm me--but she's enabling the Vorlons somehow, and her relationship with the new ambassador is clearly more toxic and harmful to her than her relationship with Kosh had been, and from that, we can extrapolate to the Vorlons and the station in general. In the meantime, the new Centauri emperor--the one Londo's political maneuvering placed on the throne--is, in clinical terms, completely bugfuck nuts. I was initially annoyed with the show for going with the gay=degenerate character shorthand, but then they went out of their way to spell out his entirely unique forms of degeneracy, and I especially liked that the rumors were true and sure enough, he kept a desk full of heads to talk to in the middle of the night. Cartagia seems like the most extreme expression of Centauri political sensibilities, convinced that what's good for him is good for the Centauri, even as he trades his entire people for elevation to godhood; I'm reminded again about how willing the Centauri soldiers, loyal to one family only, were to work with Narns to kill Refa. The notion of family or personal elevation has become indistinguishable from common good in their political system; this is where it leads. It was thrilling and terrible to see Londo's dream of Shadow ships flying over the imperial palace come true, and even more so to see Londo decide to do something about it, to try at last to fix the mess he'd helped create. Vir has never had as much hesitation about doing the right thing; he's a good choice for a co-conspirator.
Also completely bugfuck nuts: Morden, who is looking less like a toothpaste commercial model these days. I was joking about Londo needing to vacuum after he left, and then the camera actually focused in on the pile of skin flakes on the carpet!
I'm glad that someone called Dellen and Ivanova on the fact that whatever they might propose as rationale for a mission to Z'ha'dum, they really want to find Sheridan. I'm also glad that Lennier is made of awesome and set up a failsafe. I can understand why they needed to go, to try to found out what happened to Sheridan; but it always should have been their mission and their risk alone, because it was a terribly dangerous thing to do. How many times has Lennier quietly and patiently saved their butts now? And I adore G'Kar for taking his friendship with Garibaldi as a sacred trust and a two-way street; Garibaldi was there for him in some of his darkest hours, and there is no question that he'll return the favor. (Also, Daffy Duck as one of Garibaldi's household gods? Hilariously kind of true.)
Babylon 5 4.02 - "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"
It appears that, like Sheridan, when confronted with the question of whether he's alive or dead, I would have guessed dead but would not have guessed NEITHER. I really was not sure what to make of Lorien--though given where he seems to live, I started to guess that he was some kind of nameless evil that came before the shadows, some kind of Yin in the universe's Yin/Yang. But mostly I was distracted by the question of who could have put those attractive torch sconces on the walls of their little cavern there.
I had sort of forgotten that G'Kar was protected on Bablyon 5, and that leaving the station to search for Garibaldi meant leaving that protection. Oh G'Kar, you are such a good friend. Marcus tried to take over the visible work, but it was already too late; the Gold Jockeys of Doom were on his trail. And, surprisingly, there was no dramatic escape; just G'Kar, outmanned, taken, and Marcus unable to follow. The scene between Londo and G'Kar was just so wonderfully, amazingly complicated. At one time, Londo would have loved to have G'Kar at his mercy like this; and in a way, he still does, because it gives him the opportunity he needs to assassinate Cartagia. And he is going to seize that opportunity with both hands, because he knows G'Kar will keep his promises. But he does G'Kar the courtesy of neither sugar-coating it nor talking down to him: G'Kar is going to suffer, and Londo is going to watch. The really amazing thing, though, is that Londo agrees to the price G'Kar asks, and G'Kar believes him. They've come to a place where they've transcended their past enmity; they don't like each other any more than they ever have, but they trust each other to do their parts for their own people, and that is what this is about. When Londo doesn't try to argue with G'Kar about freeing Narn, when he acknowledges the justice of that request, it feels like an acknowledgement of both the ordeal G'Kar is willing to agree to undergo and Londo's own role in bringing G'Kar and the Centauri to where they are now. It's lovely.
It's wonderfully creepy that Garibaldi doesn't remember how he was captured, and that PsiCorps has him. It goes to prove, again, that you can defeat the external enemy with the big guns, but there are other people inside your own walls who want to do you just as much harm.
Babylon 5 4.03 - "The Summoning"
It is so painful to see G'Kar suffer, even knowing that he has a plan in mind. And even more amazingly, it's painful for Londo too. This feels like his redemption, but it's a weird one; he's offered G'Kar a chance to save his people through his own torture, which is the most important thing to G'Kar in the world. Londo himself doesn't suffer, just continues to see the suffering others undergo as part of his plans; but he can't brush it off anymore. He has to talk G'Kar into a final indignity so that the plan can go forward and they can both get what they want; it's almost incidental that he saves G'Kar's life by doing it, since he's preserving it for further torture. It's as close to grace as Londo will ever get, and that itself is rather terrible and significant.
It is... entirely too convenient that the trail to Garibaldi's starfury leads to Garibaldi himself--just a lifepod, the ship destroyed, all other evidence gone. It's also too convenient, albeit in a different way, that Sheridan returns, alive and triumphant, at the moment when the station residents express the most doubt. And since I liked Kosh, and Kosh helped Sheridan, I was still shocked at the Vorlons' ruthlessness, their disinfectant strategy. The new Vorlon ambassador's treatment of Lyta as a tool seemed, in retrospect, like a warning of how little they regarded the lives of the small people below them, but still. Destroying whole planets where the Shadows once touched down is amazingly extreme, and points to how little of the galaxy had completely clean hands in the waqr.
We will pass over Marcus's TMI-for-the-flight-deck confession that he's a virgin with our eyes screwed shut and our fingers stuffed in our ears, singing "LalalalalaICAN'THEARYOU."
Babylon 5 4.04 - "Falling Toward Apotheosis"
It's rather depressing--but all too realistic--that the ragtag planets defeated one enormous enemy only to have a supposed ally turn on them and go on a planet-destroying spree. As budget-saving devices go, I've seen worse than Ivanova's narration on the news announcements; the details about the refugees, and her own fear, go a long way toward conveying the situation out there. But it's comforting that Kosh was always on their side, in one way or another; that the part of him Sheridan still carried came out to help in the end.
I like that Garibaldi is so suspicious of Lorien, and that he finds the changes in Sheridan's behavior disturbing. Those suspicions come from both the cop and the friend in him. But there's a single-minded edge to his distrust that is somehow terribly off; it's a sign that he's been tampered with, and came back every bit as different as Sheridan.
(As a side note, given that everyone had presumed Sheridan dead when the Shadows were defeated, I find it really bizarre that they--especially Delenn--are so caught up on the 20-more-years figure. Isn't that a lot of time, when you thought you wouldn't have any? And since we don't really know when we're going to die normally, and they're all still living in extraordinarily dangerous times, it seems weird to complain about a specific expiration date.)
It seems that Cartagia is even more crazy than he seemed at first, which was quite crazy indeed. At least Londo understands that kind of all-consuming megalomania enough to direct its flow around the edges into the course he wants. He'll get them to Narn, where he has more room to maneuver, but not before G'Kar loses an eye. Why is it always the eye?!? (See also: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica.) Oh Londo! Oh G'Kar!
* * * * *
I really, really need a vacation right now. Since that isn't in the cards, I'll just admire this dog's fascination with a baby kangaroo instead. AWWWWWW.