Radical Edward's Field Trip1d ago

On most Mondays, I live toot an episode of a TV show at approximately 1PM EDT (UTC-4). This week's episode is from Babylon 5:

Garibaldi investigates an area where a maintenance worker disappeared and finds a whole floor that was forgotten after construction, including its rather strange inhabitants. Meanwhile, Delenn is about to take on the role of Ranger One, but Neroon swears to stop her.Join me here in about an hour and 10 minutes.

#Babylon5 #SciFi

Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
Pressing Play now.
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
Episode uses show don’t tell to get some early comedy in trying to find telepaths before a station worker is attacked, possibly fatally, in an OSHA violating hole.

It’s a pretty tight cold open for what it is.
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
After credits, Delenn goes to Minbar to deal with Sinclair’s permanent absence. Tall dude tells her she’s going to be in charge of the Rangers. She objects that she can’t move to Minbar. He says the Rangers will move.

Zack and Garibaldi nerd out over Garibaldi’s old Police Special before Zack tells him about the missing worker.

Ivanova finds Stephen on his sabbatical (which I won’t name here because of its ties to indigenous Australian culture) to get a list of telepaths he helped previously. He’s in rough shape from withdrawal but offers her the list in trade for her and Garibaldi leaving him alone.

He’s locked his files with the password Harriet.
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
Garibaldi finds out Grey level 17 doesn’t exist.

Neroon confronts Delenn about ruling the Rangers because she is religious caste. He calls her a religious zealot and tells her to resign or he will stop her by any means necessary.

Lenier interrupts, leading Neroon to pull a Batman.

Meanwhile, Garibaldi has fun with the Amazon Echo built into the elevator in Grey sector.
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
Delenn makes Lenier swear not to tell Sheridan about Neroon’s threat.

Garibaldi counts the cabooses between Grey 16 and 18 to get into Grey 17. It turns out Grey 17 does exist. He finds a talking mannequin that shoots sleeping gas at him. He gets off a message but we’re not sure it went through.

Lenier pays Marcus with a piece of convoluted piece of logic that wouldn’t be much fun at all party. He wants Marcus to protect Delenn from Neroon.
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
Garibaldi wakes up to a dude named Jeremiah getting philosophical about the comparative relationship between the human hand and a galaxy.

Sheridan and Delenn flirt in between Ranger arrivals.

Jeremiah’s shtick is recycled Minbari stuff.

Marcus confronts Neroon and demands a death match with him. Their bon mots wouldn’t win in Monkey Island.
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
Jeremiah continues to explain to Garibaldi as he tries to find a way out.

Garibaldi does some cop shit including brutality.

Neroon tries to get Marcus to stop but Marcus says he does it “for her” along with some other things. Neroon is poised to finish the job.

Jeremiah decides he’s ready to ascend. Physically by getting eaten by a Zerg.

Neroon interrupts Delenn’s ceremony but names her Entil’Zha (leader of the Rangers). He says there is now blood between them and the humans but that the Rangers wouldn’t die for him. Thus Delenn is the leader of the Rangers.

Like a shmuck, Garibaldi has been carrying around bullets for his Police Special. He MacGyver’s a zip gun and uses it to kill the Zerg. His method wouldn’t have worked in real life for several reasons but it did.
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip1d ago
Lenier explains the sacrifice of command to Delenn. Neroon visits and explains that he would have killed Marcus if he had wanted to.

The others leave so he can have a word with Marcus. He chastises himself for not being as much of a Minbari as Marcus was.

Marcus wakes up to say next time he wants a revelation, he should find a way that isn’t quite so uncomfortable.

This makes Neroon laugh out loud so hard that Delenn and Lenier hear it.

Garibaldi recaps to Sheridan his part of the episode in like 30 seconds.

Credits!
Show threadRadical Edward's Field Trip
This episode was in desperate need of a solid B-Story to distract from some of the flaws in the Delenn / Entil'Zha story. Unfortunately, what it got was a character actor who was misused and a pretty dull side story that was better recapped in 30 seconds by Garibaldi than watched in full.

Recycling old Delenn lines (some of which were already recycled Carl Sagan lines) didn't do much for it.

John Vickery and Jason Carter carry their end of the story well but, without a solid B-story, the issues with the Minbari become more clear to the audience.

Delenn is good at Minbari politics. She's good as a religious leader. She's good at a lot of things. None of which is being a leader for a group of what amount to space scouts plus Dollar Store Aragorn. The main qualification as far as the episode is concerned seems to be that people are willing to die for Entil'Zha and, since Marcus is, she deserves the job.

Having Delenn's own lines parroted by a fanatic draws attention to the absurdity.

Is it the worst? Nah. But it's pretty bad.
Apr 6 at 5:57pmWeb