B5rewatch: A Voice in the Wilderness 2
Okay, let’s get at least one more of these out before Christmas, with my track record maybe New Years. But least there will be this one done.
1x19: A Voice in the Wilderness (Part II)
I have to say I don’t like this promo as much as part 1. It’s hardly inaccurate, it’s pretty straightforward about the plot while not actually giving away too much, and it’s fairly faithful to the more actiony tone of part 2. But I’m not sure I see it being very good at attracting viewers and it just looks kind of...average. It doesn’t seem special; the sense of wonder the part 1 promo created isn’t there and there isn’t really any heart in it to take its place. The countdown to potential destruction element is just a ticking clock, not something that seems to have any feeling; and while yeah that’s not entirely inaccurate, there’s plenty of heart in other ways. Again, not bad, but certainly not great.
I didn’t notice it in part 1, but the way the shuttle is lit makes it look like an unfinished green screen set.
For the few times I’ve noticed them staging of com discussion in C&C done weirdly this season, I feel I should note that this one uses a staging that will last, where they put them over in the commander’s vestibule talking to the desk screen. And so far I really don’t have much to say this episode, I tried to think of something to say about Garibaldi’s magic show but couldn’t find a solid thought.)
I thought about pointing out that Franklin continues not to be at senior staff meetings, but I guess there’s a reason for it this time since he’s the best person to manage Varn’s medical situation.
Though now I think about it...why would Varn have them bring him back to the station in the first place? What can Franklin do that the machine itself can’t do at sustaining his life? Even if somehow he’s too weak to manage a hologram to actually explain things, Zathrus (or maybe Zathrus) could work the controls to give him a long enough projection to get the point across and the power plant would be less likely to go critical before finding a replacement.
So let’s examine my theory from last time about why Varn contacts the people he does. He must be somewhat telepathic to be able to make contact when not connected to the machine (or maybe Zathrus is sending out more messages) so this one is something different than contacting Sinclair and Londo. But I do think it still sort of holds; Draal is going around with Delenn having a great time while always aware that he’s leaving soon and won’t come back, so the loss factor remains. But I have an even less probable other theory (look, I really don’t buy what’s proposed in episode), that Jeff, Londo and Draal are all on paths to some...difficult destinies so they’re offered chances to change them (we don’t know what Draal’s would have been, and obviously we never will, but we know enough of the other two that it doesn’t seem out of the question). I don’t think that holds as much water as the loss and loneliness aspect (while being aware of the third principle of sentient life), but it might be there.
I feel like there’s a lot to be said for the symmetry between Jeff and Michael’s scene here and the one in Infection. It’s not really a role reversal, as in both cases Garibaldi talks and Sinclair listens but it’s still a nice building on the theme. I’m going to assume that Sinclair’s “I’ve been there” refers to some event with him and Catherine in the past where they weren’t together and she was in danger and he was going nuts with worry the way Michael is now, it just seems like the easy parallel to make with their on-again-off-again love interests. Past that, I’ve never been quite sure how I feel about Sinclair’s protectiveness of Ivanova, it certainly doesn’t feel out of character, beyond the command staff he doesn’t seem very close to any of the other crew so those he is close to are going to come first for him; and Franklin as a doctor will probably make it off and go without too much fight, and there’s no point telling Garibaldi now whether Jeff will order him to go when the time comes, and we all know Jeff himself will almost certainly go down with the ship; but Ivanova...between Sinclair and Garibaldi maybe they can find a way to have her make it out. But at the same time, I just can’t quite picture John doing the same thing; he’d almost certainly order her to go when the time came because he certainly does care about protecting her, but I figure he’d go to her first...except maybe Delenn, and you know maybe I can picture that. Him telling Delenn that if the time came she should take Susan and the two of them get to safety...except that Delenn would roll her eyes and know that neither she nor Susan would actually leave if it came to that; so again he’s probably do better telling Ivanova to grab Delenn and get her to safety as a way to keep them both safe. In any case it would twig less patriarchal in either case than Jeff going though Michael to protect Ivanova.
Okay, so Delenn’s flimsy cape thing is definitely gone here.
Susan’s usually our go to for the funny, but damn, Jeff’s facial expressions during Pierce’s rebuttal to the...whatever race they Varn and these guys are; that’s some grade-A mugging there.
There’s actually a fair number of things in this episode that should stick in one’s mind come next episode, so that down the road when it’s stated that the Great Machine was involved with what happened to B4 it all fits together, or at least they ring that way with hindsight. Varn saying that it’s ‘not for this time’ is kind of a big one to me. Although I do find it a little creepy how the way he describes being in the Great Machine sounds a lot like the way people talk about being the pilot of a Shadow ship.
Draal suggesting it’s about who’s the most familiar with the third principle of sentient life gets quite a look from Delenn that I’m going to choose to interpret as ‘Um Draal, do you really think Londo gets it better than me? I’m building a damn cocoon creator in my quarters (though I seem to have put it away at the moment).”
Considering that Londo has foreseen his death, his vow to die doing something noble and foolish is actually a touch uncomfortable. Yes, my death as an old man strangling a Narn will be very noble indeed. Ultimately, he’s not wrong that his death will great and noble, but the way he sees it now, I don’t see how that would work.
How is there damage to the cobra bays in the forward section? The cobra bays are much further aft than that. I’m inclined to give a sick JMS a partial pass on this (mostly, although he maybe ought to have caught it afterward), but this why you have a story editor isn’t it? So ball dropped in editing Mr. DiTillio.
Is it sloppy or subtle that Draal’s hologram projection isn’t dressed the same as Draal was when he got in the machine? It makes sense that he’s still be working on the details of the systems so maybe got it wrong, but it also would make sense that the machine would just have scanned him to get his image to project.
I’m a little shaky on the timeframe here if Lise is expecting a baby in September. With only three episodes left I’d expect this to take place somewhere between mid-October and late-November. Even in the revised schedule with five episodes left it can’t be earlier than September now. Maybe Lise’s awkward outfit is to mask her almost complete pregnancy but I still don’t think the timing works especially with the structure of the line. On the other hand, it it’s much later in the year than it seems at the moment and she means next September and right now she’s just barely pregnant then that’s difficult to and causes some issues with later events.
I really expected to have more to say on this one than I apparently did. I still have a couple bits of thought, but mostly I just enjoyed watching it. We are kind of getting into a phase where every episode or two it feels right to say that B5 is starting to feel more like it’s found itself, and that’s quite true of these episodes; I’m sure it’s no coincidence that we’re in a phase where JMS writes several in a row (using the main order especially). It makes a person want to say that B5 has arrived, but it really still hasn’t, but it’s really feeling on the right path again.
One thing that changes between episodes that makes it feel a bit more like two episodes instead of one story in two halves is that this one focuses much more fully on the Humans. Watched together this still ends up feeling a lot like a Minbari story, but part 2 especially is pretty Human heavy. Really part 1 is also a Human story, but somehow two human focused episode when taken together end up feeling like a Minbari story. Probably because Minbari morality is so much a part of the resolution. And maybe that’s aided some by the fact that I had seen WWE long before seeing this one play out so I always saw its connection to those events particularly strongly.
While on the subject of our Minbari characters, it’s a decent time to share my pet theory (that I’ve tried to fic but can’t make the words work right) that 100+ years from now Delenn, like Sheridan and probably Jeff/Valen, will go off on her own to vanish in a puff of destiny, and on her way she could make a stop over around Epsilon 3 where she and Draal will have one final meeting, as he is the last living being this side of the Rim who knew her when she was young and he was old, states by then long since reversed. It seems like it would lovely to write if I could find the right words for more than a few sentences at a time.
I kind of wonder if the quick end of Varn’s race was because, even being sick, JMS recognized that he was probably going to have to play down the Great Machine pretty quickly. He needs it there to do a job down the road but doesn’t want it to be a story itself going forward. If there were plot elements out there connected with it, it wouldn’t just be the Great Machine itself that was a dangling plot point, it would become an issue why those outside forces weren’t making it become a plot point. I’ve toyed with the idea, but never given it quite serious thought towards theorizing, that the Vorlons set up the Great Machine to ensure the continued time loop, and that might explain why there are so few of Varn’s race and they’re so focused on the Machine if they were created to be custodians of the Machine. It’s barely a rough theory (aside from the initial Vorlon part), and even I’m a long way from convinced by it, but it’s an idea.
As it is a Human episode, I did have a couple of Human thoughts, mostly brought on by the caricature characters of Pierce and the guy at the bar. Part of the subtext with Pierce might have been similar to Ben Zayn, thinking that a lowly commander should have less say than - in this case - a captain; that would explain some of his antagonism with Sinclair, but it doesn’t cover his trigger happy flaws. Maybe it’s intentional that again Earth seems to have learned nothing from the EMW; in a first contact situation there’s not much restraint on pulling the trigger. They had been given somewhat more reason in this case, but still. It also occurs to me, and I may have mentioned this before, something that will be expanded on later in the show; that Earth is in a weird position following the War, of being both victor and vanquished. The Minbari surrendered, so the Humans get to feel strong and mighty as a victorious party; but they came so close to extinction that basically an act of god (or Minbari Jesus) saved them, and it might as well be that since at least 99% of humans don’t know why at this point; and that’s not really victory. So behind the pride of the victor there’s the resentment of the vanquished, thus creating Homeguard and the like, and you can read it into Pierce’s jingoism if you try. I’m fairly sure it was there in the writing, not even consciously but just because JMS understands the world he created; even if the actual text of the writing wasn’t the best and the acting sure didn’t help.
I also had the beginnings of some thoughts on bar guy and Earth’s colonialism and on a meta level JMS is always dealing with American’s relationship with our colonial past (his own and his primary audience’s) - as opposed to England’s or India’s or Russia’s relationship with their colonial pasts - but I’m really not sure I’m qualified to get into it, and I’m definitely not in the right frame of mind to try at this time. It would go hand in hand with my half formed observation about Free Mars as a terrorist organization from last time if I could do more than half form either idea. I think I’ll just leave it there and not put my foot any further into it.
Next time: Babylon Squared, and I suspect it’s going to be a big one, I have so many thoughts connected to that one
1x19: A Voice in the Wilderness (Part II)
I have to say I don’t like this promo as much as part 1. It’s hardly inaccurate, it’s pretty straightforward about the plot while not actually giving away too much, and it’s fairly faithful to the more actiony tone of part 2. But I’m not sure I see it being very good at attracting viewers and it just looks kind of...average. It doesn’t seem special; the sense of wonder the part 1 promo created isn’t there and there isn’t really any heart in it to take its place. The countdown to potential destruction element is just a ticking clock, not something that seems to have any feeling; and while yeah that’s not entirely inaccurate, there’s plenty of heart in other ways. Again, not bad, but certainly not great.
I didn’t notice it in part 1, but the way the shuttle is lit makes it look like an unfinished green screen set.
For the few times I’ve noticed them staging of com discussion in C&C done weirdly this season, I feel I should note that this one uses a staging that will last, where they put them over in the commander’s vestibule talking to the desk screen. And so far I really don’t have much to say this episode, I tried to think of something to say about Garibaldi’s magic show but couldn’t find a solid thought.)
I thought about pointing out that Franklin continues not to be at senior staff meetings, but I guess there’s a reason for it this time since he’s the best person to manage Varn’s medical situation.
Though now I think about it...why would Varn have them bring him back to the station in the first place? What can Franklin do that the machine itself can’t do at sustaining his life? Even if somehow he’s too weak to manage a hologram to actually explain things, Zathrus (or maybe Zathrus) could work the controls to give him a long enough projection to get the point across and the power plant would be less likely to go critical before finding a replacement.
So let’s examine my theory from last time about why Varn contacts the people he does. He must be somewhat telepathic to be able to make contact when not connected to the machine (or maybe Zathrus is sending out more messages) so this one is something different than contacting Sinclair and Londo. But I do think it still sort of holds; Draal is going around with Delenn having a great time while always aware that he’s leaving soon and won’t come back, so the loss factor remains. But I have an even less probable other theory (look, I really don’t buy what’s proposed in episode), that Jeff, Londo and Draal are all on paths to some...difficult destinies so they’re offered chances to change them (we don’t know what Draal’s would have been, and obviously we never will, but we know enough of the other two that it doesn’t seem out of the question). I don’t think that holds as much water as the loss and loneliness aspect (while being aware of the third principle of sentient life), but it might be there.
I feel like there’s a lot to be said for the symmetry between Jeff and Michael’s scene here and the one in Infection. It’s not really a role reversal, as in both cases Garibaldi talks and Sinclair listens but it’s still a nice building on the theme. I’m going to assume that Sinclair’s “I’ve been there” refers to some event with him and Catherine in the past where they weren’t together and she was in danger and he was going nuts with worry the way Michael is now, it just seems like the easy parallel to make with their on-again-off-again love interests. Past that, I’ve never been quite sure how I feel about Sinclair’s protectiveness of Ivanova, it certainly doesn’t feel out of character, beyond the command staff he doesn’t seem very close to any of the other crew so those he is close to are going to come first for him; and Franklin as a doctor will probably make it off and go without too much fight, and there’s no point telling Garibaldi now whether Jeff will order him to go when the time comes, and we all know Jeff himself will almost certainly go down with the ship; but Ivanova...between Sinclair and Garibaldi maybe they can find a way to have her make it out. But at the same time, I just can’t quite picture John doing the same thing; he’d almost certainly order her to go when the time came because he certainly does care about protecting her, but I figure he’d go to her first...except maybe Delenn, and you know maybe I can picture that. Him telling Delenn that if the time came she should take Susan and the two of them get to safety...except that Delenn would roll her eyes and know that neither she nor Susan would actually leave if it came to that; so again he’s probably do better telling Ivanova to grab Delenn and get her to safety as a way to keep them both safe. In any case it would twig less patriarchal in either case than Jeff going though Michael to protect Ivanova.
Okay, so Delenn’s flimsy cape thing is definitely gone here.
Susan’s usually our go to for the funny, but damn, Jeff’s facial expressions during Pierce’s rebuttal to the...whatever race they Varn and these guys are; that’s some grade-A mugging there.
There’s actually a fair number of things in this episode that should stick in one’s mind come next episode, so that down the road when it’s stated that the Great Machine was involved with what happened to B4 it all fits together, or at least they ring that way with hindsight. Varn saying that it’s ‘not for this time’ is kind of a big one to me. Although I do find it a little creepy how the way he describes being in the Great Machine sounds a lot like the way people talk about being the pilot of a Shadow ship.
Draal suggesting it’s about who’s the most familiar with the third principle of sentient life gets quite a look from Delenn that I’m going to choose to interpret as ‘Um Draal, do you really think Londo gets it better than me? I’m building a damn cocoon creator in my quarters (though I seem to have put it away at the moment).”
Considering that Londo has foreseen his death, his vow to die doing something noble and foolish is actually a touch uncomfortable. Yes, my death as an old man strangling a Narn will be very noble indeed. Ultimately, he’s not wrong that his death will great and noble, but the way he sees it now, I don’t see how that would work.
How is there damage to the cobra bays in the forward section? The cobra bays are much further aft than that. I’m inclined to give a sick JMS a partial pass on this (mostly, although he maybe ought to have caught it afterward), but this why you have a story editor isn’t it? So ball dropped in editing Mr. DiTillio.
Is it sloppy or subtle that Draal’s hologram projection isn’t dressed the same as Draal was when he got in the machine? It makes sense that he’s still be working on the details of the systems so maybe got it wrong, but it also would make sense that the machine would just have scanned him to get his image to project.
I’m a little shaky on the timeframe here if Lise is expecting a baby in September. With only three episodes left I’d expect this to take place somewhere between mid-October and late-November. Even in the revised schedule with five episodes left it can’t be earlier than September now. Maybe Lise’s awkward outfit is to mask her almost complete pregnancy but I still don’t think the timing works especially with the structure of the line. On the other hand, it it’s much later in the year than it seems at the moment and she means next September and right now she’s just barely pregnant then that’s difficult to and causes some issues with later events.
I really expected to have more to say on this one than I apparently did. I still have a couple bits of thought, but mostly I just enjoyed watching it. We are kind of getting into a phase where every episode or two it feels right to say that B5 is starting to feel more like it’s found itself, and that’s quite true of these episodes; I’m sure it’s no coincidence that we’re in a phase where JMS writes several in a row (using the main order especially). It makes a person want to say that B5 has arrived, but it really still hasn’t, but it’s really feeling on the right path again.
One thing that changes between episodes that makes it feel a bit more like two episodes instead of one story in two halves is that this one focuses much more fully on the Humans. Watched together this still ends up feeling a lot like a Minbari story, but part 2 especially is pretty Human heavy. Really part 1 is also a Human story, but somehow two human focused episode when taken together end up feeling like a Minbari story. Probably because Minbari morality is so much a part of the resolution. And maybe that’s aided some by the fact that I had seen WWE long before seeing this one play out so I always saw its connection to those events particularly strongly.
While on the subject of our Minbari characters, it’s a decent time to share my pet theory (that I’ve tried to fic but can’t make the words work right) that 100+ years from now Delenn, like Sheridan and probably Jeff/Valen, will go off on her own to vanish in a puff of destiny, and on her way she could make a stop over around Epsilon 3 where she and Draal will have one final meeting, as he is the last living being this side of the Rim who knew her when she was young and he was old, states by then long since reversed. It seems like it would lovely to write if I could find the right words for more than a few sentences at a time.
I kind of wonder if the quick end of Varn’s race was because, even being sick, JMS recognized that he was probably going to have to play down the Great Machine pretty quickly. He needs it there to do a job down the road but doesn’t want it to be a story itself going forward. If there were plot elements out there connected with it, it wouldn’t just be the Great Machine itself that was a dangling plot point, it would become an issue why those outside forces weren’t making it become a plot point. I’ve toyed with the idea, but never given it quite serious thought towards theorizing, that the Vorlons set up the Great Machine to ensure the continued time loop, and that might explain why there are so few of Varn’s race and they’re so focused on the Machine if they were created to be custodians of the Machine. It’s barely a rough theory (aside from the initial Vorlon part), and even I’m a long way from convinced by it, but it’s an idea.
As it is a Human episode, I did have a couple of Human thoughts, mostly brought on by the caricature characters of Pierce and the guy at the bar. Part of the subtext with Pierce might have been similar to Ben Zayn, thinking that a lowly commander should have less say than - in this case - a captain; that would explain some of his antagonism with Sinclair, but it doesn’t cover his trigger happy flaws. Maybe it’s intentional that again Earth seems to have learned nothing from the EMW; in a first contact situation there’s not much restraint on pulling the trigger. They had been given somewhat more reason in this case, but still. It also occurs to me, and I may have mentioned this before, something that will be expanded on later in the show; that Earth is in a weird position following the War, of being both victor and vanquished. The Minbari surrendered, so the Humans get to feel strong and mighty as a victorious party; but they came so close to extinction that basically an act of god (or Minbari Jesus) saved them, and it might as well be that since at least 99% of humans don’t know why at this point; and that’s not really victory. So behind the pride of the victor there’s the resentment of the vanquished, thus creating Homeguard and the like, and you can read it into Pierce’s jingoism if you try. I’m fairly sure it was there in the writing, not even consciously but just because JMS understands the world he created; even if the actual text of the writing wasn’t the best and the acting sure didn’t help.
I also had the beginnings of some thoughts on bar guy and Earth’s colonialism and on a meta level JMS is always dealing with American’s relationship with our colonial past (his own and his primary audience’s) - as opposed to England’s or India’s or Russia’s relationship with their colonial pasts - but I’m really not sure I’m qualified to get into it, and I’m definitely not in the right frame of mind to try at this time. It would go hand in hand with my half formed observation about Free Mars as a terrorist organization from last time if I could do more than half form either idea. I think I’ll just leave it there and not put my foot any further into it.
Next time: Babylon Squared, and I suspect it’s going to be a big one, I have so many thoughts connected to that one