Babylon 5 Rewatch: Lines of Communication/Conflicts of Interest
Lines of Communication
I'm having a "this is old fashioned" moment again with the whole "bombing civilians is not something Good Resistance movements do" subplot here. I mean, evidently Bombing Civilians = Bad, but I also can't think of resistance movements which did use violence and managed to keep that distinction up consistantly. In this case, DS9's take was more realistic when it had Kira Nerys tell a former Cardassian civilian that they were all legitimate targets. (In the episode "Between the Darkness and the Light".) But then, DS9 had Kira call herself a terrorist repeatedly - this being a pre 9/11 show - and tell, say, Tom Riker, that this was how the Resistance worked, not in derring-do bloodless yet heroic operations.
It strikes me that the entire human Resistance depiction is very (USian Pop Culture) WWII informed on Babylon 5, both here in this episode with the Mars Resistance, and in the next episode with Ivanova and the Voice of the Resistance, while on DS9 I suspected Vietnam was a somewhat bigger influence on how the Bajoran Resistance was depicted. (Not on the Cardassians. The Cardassians are WWII era Germans more often than not.) Otoh the promise that Mars will be free/self governed in a post Clark age is something else again, because: how, precisely, does Sheridan at this point think he can make that promise come true? Blackmail the post-Clark government by threatening Minbari fire power? Ask really nicely? Anyway. I do appreciate that Mars wanting independence is a red thread through the show and that B5 at no point forgets that the Mars resistance might now share some goals with Sheridan & Co., but their primary motivation and goal remains their own self government.
This is the episode which introduces the Drakh, and may I say: it's big relief JMS ditches the blurry visual effects for them later on. These are headache inducing. I mean, in theory I get the concept - "the Shadow of a Shadow" - but in practice it's just too distracting. Delenn squaring off against the Drakh is a welcome return for her to non-romantic subplots, and her and Lennier realising almost simultanously where the Drakh must be coming from (Z'ha'dum) but not letting on that they know to the Drakh envoy was a neat reminder of their intelligence. I haven't seen this episode more than once before - true for several of the mid s4 episodes due to their lamentable lack of Centauri and Narn - and so I had forgotten Lorell (?) didn't have a Keeper but teamed up with the Drakh voluntarily in the misguided belief they could be helpful against the Military Caste.
As Delenn learns things on Minbar are falling apart and heading towards Civil War, I'm retrospectively amazed this wasn't always the plan, because it fits so well thematically. Actions have consequences, and Delenn breaking up the Grey Council - as much as that was needed at the moment she did it - was a very big action, plus the tensions between the castes had been rising through all the seasons so far. And yet, I seem to recall from interviews at the time the Minbari Civil War had been a late idea of JMS' caused by the former Yugoslavia becoming a battlefield of Serbia vs Kosovo, Servia vs Croatia etc. , and the impact this had on Mira Furlan who had left to work in the US when it was still Yugoslavia and returned to literally find her country gone and at war at the same time. But whichever was the cause for this plot development, it's one that neatly parallels goings-on on Earth and the way that now the Shadow War is over, all those thinly papered over interior conflicts and injustices burst into the open.
Lastly: Marcus the frustrated virgin handling his fighting pike (errr) while Stephen and Number One are getting it on is a bit of a cheap laugh, but I did laugh. Again. :)
Conflict of Interests
Sheridan waking up Ivanova in the middle of the night with his latest idea reminds one again of him making her go on strike with him in s2 about the rent for their rooms. No wonder she wants to kill him. As I said, the whole Voice of the Resistance idea is very WWII and in a way touchingly innocent in its belief that telling the truth would win over propaganda and lies. Clearly, JMS did not anticipate social media or Rupert Murdoch. Or the way dictatorships can control the internet. This said, of course it's important that there is a not-evil propaganda source of information out there, and Episolon 3 as a power source is building on established facts.
Meanwhile, Garibaldi starts his P.I. day feeling good by having managed a touching reunion of a father with his lost daughter, waves his fee, and it gets downhill from there, with poor Zack in between. The episode also reintroduces Lise, last seen in season 1's Voice in the Wilderness two parter and here being set up as a film noir trope - the dame from the private detective's past now bound to the shady rich guy who's near the center of the plot. I remember Lise getting a good deal of fannish bile - far more so than any other female character of the show until s5 - but while she's not the most memorable of the recurring characters, she works witihin the narrative.
Because I hadn't rewatched this particular episode since the original broadcast - see above - , I had forgotten Garibaldi is watching a WB cartoon in it, I think the first time he did this since s1. I think if you took this episode and showed it to someone without the knowledge this was s4 and that therefore Something Happened To Mr. Garibaldi between seasons, it wouldn't be guessable from the content, because I doubt without-the-mysterious-influence Garibaldi would have acted much differently in identical circumstances.
This episode has a single Londo and G'Kar featuring scene, and it's Bruce Boxleitner's nightmare scenario, since it involves Sheridan with both of them at the same time. He's actually handling himself well here, making the pitch for Ranger patrols with just the right words (you can tell from Londo's face what he's thinking when Sheridan says "the blood will be on your hands" etc.). Not to mention the pointed reminder that it's easier to team up against a shared foe and the bigger challenge to actually work together for something instead of against something. My question is this: Sheridan, from his pov, has reason to believe he may have a shot with G'Kar here, given he's been working with G'Kar the last two years, but Londo? For all Sheridan knows, Londo is still in Long Live the Empire mood about Centauri politics. Though wait, I take it back, Sheridan has to know Londo gave the order for the Centauri withdrawal from Narn. So maybe that's why he thinks there's a chance here, too.
Lastly: the detail of a stricken through President Clark as part of Ivanova's "Voice of the Resistance" logo I hadn't recalled, either, and it amused me.
The other episodes