Text 507, 209 rader
Skriven 2006-05-25 07:53:00 av Robert E Starr JR (953.babylon5)
Ärende: Grey 17 Is Missing: my re
=================================
* * * This message was from jphalt@aol.com to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
         * * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *         
            -----------------------------------------------             

@MSGID: <1148155495.174860.70560@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>
Oh, dear. Major "TKO" flashback here, as this episode has two main
plots - one of which is brilliant, and the other of which... Well, as I
said: Oh, dear.


THE PLOT

Sinclair is gone, into the past, to meet his destiny as "The One Who
Was." Meaning that he is, effectively, dead in the present.

On Minbar, Delenn collects Sinclair's rather spartan possessions,
prominently marked by his Earth Alliance insignia and his medal for the
Battle of the Line. She assures Rathenn, Sinclair's friend on Minbar,
that she will support him to succeed Sinclair as Ranger One. But
Rathenn has a rather startling bombshell for her: the Rangers want her
to be the next Entil'zha.

Unable to argue with the logic of the choice, Delenn reluctantly
accepts the position. She arranges to have the ceremony held on Babylon
5. However, she will not be allowed to succeed without a challenge.
Neroon (John Vickery), the Warrior Caste leader whose appointment to
the Grey Council unbalanced it, has come to Babylon 5 with an
announcement: he will stop Delenn by any means necessary. Which Lennier
(correctly) interprets to mean, "even by murder."

Meanwhile, Garibaldi investigates the disappearance of a maintenance
worker in Grey Sector, only to discover that there is an entire hidden
level on the station. A hidden level that hides a few deadly secrets of
its own...


THE GOOD

"Babylon 5," like all great stories, is as much about characters as it
is about plot. There are many memorable characters woven in and out of
the show's tapestry. One of the more immediately interesting
recurring characters is Neroon, played with a splendid mix of bitter
spite and uncompromising dignity by John Vickery. From his first
appearance, in the first season episode "Legacies," Neroon has been a
character worth watching. He made an interesting counterpart to
Sinclair in that episode. Just as Sinclair was bitter about being
handed a false victory in that war, Neroon was bitter about being
denied a real victory. Neroon hated the humans not for what they had
done, but simply because they were an enemy he was not allowed to
finally defeat. Sinclair had years of buried hatred against the
Minbari, particularly the Warrior Caste, for the friends and comrades
destroyed by them, and for the 24 hours of his life blotted out at the
close of the war. The scenes between the two characters in that episode
crackled with tension and intensity. And no wonder - each character was
facing a distorted mirror image of himself.

At the end of "Legacies," Neroon reluctantly allowed a moment of
respect for Sinclair when he portentously noted that Sinclair spoke
"like a Minbari." But while he admitted a grudging respect for
Sinclair, he has yet to show any genuine respect at all for the
religious caste. The "religious zealots," as he calls them, have
thwarted his victories at every turn. He was not allowed to defeat the
humans at the Battle of the Line. Why? Because the Religious Caste
demanded surrender... on religious grounds involving Minbari souls in
human bodies, a reason that to Neroon smacked of yet more religious
zealotry. The body of Bramner was stolen in "Legacies"... by the
religious caste, and he was forced to declare the body's
disappearance a miracle... again, by the religious caste. This latter
admission was likely particularly burdensome to someone with Neroon's
strict sense of honor. In even tacitly supporting the "miracle"
declaration, Neroon was willingly going along with a lie. Neroon has
many flaws; dishonestly is not among them.

In Season Two, in the 3-part comics arc "The Price of Peace,"
Neroon's attempts to prosecute Sinclair on an assassination charge
were thwarted - not by evidence, not by a proof of innocence, not by
the capture of the real assassin, but... by the religious caste. Later,
Neroon was appointed to the Grey Council, only to see the Council
disbanded... by Delenn, who was of the religious caste.

>From Neroon's viewpoint, the Religious Caste have to seem more like
enemies by this point than the humans ever did.

And that brings Neroon to his actions in this episode. He was willing,
however reluctantly, to allow the Rangers to operate under the
direction of Sinclair. He didn't like it, he particularly hated
seeing "the purity" of the Rangers compromised by the admission of
humans. But at least Sinclair was: (a) the rare human he did respect;
and (b) a warrior. He didn't like the situation, but it was
tolerable.

But the idea of Delenn - someone who has made herself his enemy, the
person who broke the Grey Council and plunged the Minbari government
into chaos, and the very definition to him of a "religious zealot" -
the idea of her in charge of the Rangers is, to Neroon, utterly
intolerable. As a former member of the Grey Council, as a Warrior, and
as a "pure Minbari," Neroon has far more right to lead a group of
warriors than Delenn, a half-human religious zealot who Neroon likely
sees as a traitor to her own people.

As for the non-Minbari in the ranks? Well, Neroon can always utilize
them as cannon fodder until he has a chance to change the rules back
the way they were before, making the Rangers "pure" again.

This is the mindset of the Neroon who arrives on the station and
confronts Delenn at the beginning of the episode. In this way, Neroon
mirrors the cultists who lurk in the "lost" original Grey 17 level.
Like the cultists, Neroon insists on purity. Like the cultists, Neroon
wants things to be simple. The Minbari will be a closed society, with
no outsiders, just as the cultists have a closed society within their
sealed level. And what Neroon cannot see is that, just like the
cultists, such a society is inevitably a dead end.

And then Neroon met Marcus.

In the episode's best scene - indeed, in one of the best scenes of
the season and possibly the series - Neroon found his path to murder
blocked by a scrawny human. A Minbari cannot intervene in Neroon's
murder plan, as Lennier had previously explained; violence by Minbari
against Minbari would result in civil war. But Marcus, a human, can
fight Neroon. What he cannot do is win.

At least, not by force.

Marcus and Neroon's battle is as much a spiritual combat as a
physical one. Marcus is fighting a stronger enemy, an enemy he has no
hope of defeating. The battle is lost before it is even joined. But by
laying it out there, and by refusing every chance Neroon gives him to
flee the field and save himself, Marcus does win. First he wins
Neroon's respect. Neroon begins the combat by dismissing Marcus as
just another human; "During the war, I killed 50,000 of you. What's
one more?" Later, however, Neroon acknowledges Marcus as having value,
of having worth. "This (battle) is foolish, a waste of material... you
have been trained well, but you must have known you couldn't win!"
And finally, Neroon sees through Marcus' eyes. When Marcus declares
himself a Ranger, reciting the Ranger litany, and finally stating that
he will die willingly for Delenn - for "The One Who Is" - then Neroon
is forced to admit defeat.

"(The fight was) to the death," he tells Marcus as Marcus lies in the
hospital bed, recovering from his wounds. "The death was mine." For as
he is forced to admit to the hated Delenn at the ceremony, the Rangers
"I do not think they would die for me, but they would die for you."

Then Marcus, through a well-chosen sentence, goes even further in
breaking through Neroon's wall of bitterness than even Sinclair had
done. Through what is likely an incredible amount of pain, Marcus
manages to gasp out a friendly quip - the sort of thing Marcus
regularly says to Franklin, Ivanova, or Garibaldi... to his friends. In
so doing, Marcus tacitly invites Neroon into his circle of friends, if
only for that moment.

And Neroon responds with open, healthy laughter, for once not tinged by
any bitterness or hatred at all. Neroon still has little use or respect
for the religious caste (note his stern dismissal of Delenn and Lennier
from Marcus' bedside), but he can now acknowledge the value of men
like Sinclair and Marcus. Marcus is no longer "the human," but "a
warrior," and by referring to his conversation with Marcus as "one
warrior to another," Neroon is implicitly referring to Marcus - a
fellow warrior, if a human - as an equal.


THE BAD

Then there was Zarg...

When Garibaldi puts his feet up on Sheridan's desk at the end of the
episode and starts reciting his various misadventures to the captain, I
swear I wanted Sheridan to snap at Garibaldi, "That's the biggest
pile of crap I've ever heard. And who the hell gave you permission to
put your feet on my desk?"

The Grey 17 plot actually does not start off half-badly. The initial
stages of Garibaldi's investigation were really quite interesting.
Garibaldi's discovery of the missing level, by timing the elevator
stops, was well-done, and up to the moment Garibaldi found himself
surrounded by cultists being preached to by crazy Jeremiah (Robert
Englund), I was actually quite intrigued by this subplot.

Then the man in the rubber suit showed up.

What is a Zarg, you ask? Well, it turns out a Zarg looks suspiciously
like the warrior suit from "Infection," only with a few more spines.
How is it defeated? In about two minutes of screentime, through the
handy plot devices that Garibaldi just happens to be carrying around in
his pocket.

How sinister is a Zarg, you might ask? About as sinister as a
pointy-toothed Smurf. To cut away from the Delenn/Neroon/Marcus story
to the guy in the rubber suit being steamed, and then shot, by
Garibaldi while Freddy Krueger cowered not-very-comically in the
background was... well, it was a comedown. And given how easily the
Zarg was defeated, I can't help but think the "cultists" story
would have worked a lot better had the monster been removed entirely.
Garibaldi vs. crazy cultists makes a decent thematic counterpart to
Marcus vs. Neroon; Garibaldi vs. The Creature from the Black Lagoon
just undermines an otherwise pretty decent episode.


Ultimately, the strength of the Delenn/Neroon/Marcus plot overrides the
weakness of the Zarg story. Still, one hopes that this episode marked
the last time Straczysnki needed to re-learn that "man in rubber
monster suit" plots really, truly don't work.


My Final Rating: 7/10
                     
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32
 * Origin: Time Warp of the Future BBS - Home of League 10 (1:14/400)