Text 7489, 188 rader
Skriven 2006-09-03 11:45:00 av Robert E Starr JR (7986.babylon5)
Ärende: Epiphanies: my review
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The Shadow War is over, but new troubles are just beginning as "Babylon
5's" 5-year arc shifts gears into its third act with this
installment.


THE PLOT

"The Shadow War is over... We won," Sheridan observes in voice-over,
seeming to hardly believe it himself, as the episode begins. For the
Babylon 5 staff, it is a time to rest and reflect. G'Kar reflects on
how his search for Garibaldi led to salvation for his people, proving
that if you show the universe good intentions, then the universe will
reward you ("usually"). Garibaldi reflects on his career, and decides
that perhaps it is time to move on, to carve out a little bit of
happiness for himself and do a little bit of good at the same time.
Lyta replaces some of her discarded possessions, while at the same time
wondering about her increasing isolation. All know that there is still
a lot of work to be done. Still, for the time being at least, they have
a chance to take stock of themselves.

Unfortunately, they aren't the only ones taking time for reflection.
With the Shadows gone, President Clark is worried that his power base
is threatened. Fearing that Babylon 5 will eventually take action
against him, he sets into operation a plan involving Night Watch and
Psi Corps. First they will discredit Babylon 5 through propaganda, then
they will stage a terrorist assault and blame it on the station. With
the way thus paved for them, Clark plans to shut the station down...
permanently.

The only thing Clark hasn't planned on is a Psi Cop with an agenda of
his own. As Bester arrives on Babylon 5 with news of Clark's plans
and a demand for an expedition to the Shadows' abandoned homeworld,
Sheridan and his people suddenly realize that the pause they were
hoping for has already ended.


THE GOOD

Bester returns, and is as fascinating and multi-layered as ever. In his
last scene of the episode, as he stands beside Caroline's
cryo-chamber/coffin and tells her, quite simply, "I miss you," I find
that my heart breaks for Alfred Bester. He may have emerged into a
monster, but he started as a man doing the things he believed were
right. Even now, in all his coldness, for all his calculated
manipulations, there is a core of humanity that makes Bester impossible
to simply discount.

In my review of the "In Valen's Name" comic arc, I noted of Sinclair
that he was a character who carried life like a burden, who felt every
sacrifice that had been made in his name or on his orders. That is also
true of Bester. He truly does feel the burden of having sacrificed
people to attain his goals. Unlike Sinclair, though, Bester sacrifices
people who trusted him for selfish goals. Sinclair would have traded
his own life for Catherine's in a second; he would never have traded
away Susan's life, or Garibaldi's. Bester, however, trades away the
people who looked up to him here. He doesn't do it for any "greater
good," even as he sees it. He does it out of hope to gain a chance to
save the woman he loves. Even in his love, as much as I feel for him
and empathize with him, Bester remains selfish.

It is ironic that in the midst of this scene, as Bester laments that
without Caroline he has "nobody (he) can talk to," he spends only a
very small amount of time talking about Caroline. Most of his speech is
centered around spite and anger. He vows revenge against Sheridan for
something that even he must realize is not Sheridan's fault. Sheridan
has taken in Caroline and the other telepaths both for potential
advantage and as a philanthropic gesture. With the Shadows now gone,
Sheridan does not (yet) see any other potential advantage. So what
Sheridan and Franklin are doing housing them and researching ways to
free them from their programming now falls under the heading of pure
philanthropy... and Bester knows this. Nevertheless, Bester remains a
scorpion. Give him a ride across the river on your back, and he will
sting you. Sheridan doesn't know it, but he has already been stung.


Garibaldi's character arc also takes an interesting turn in this
episode. Beneath all that has happened to him, Garibaldi remains a
strong-willed man. In the early scene in his quarters, he seems to be
on the verge of consciously realizing not only that something is wrong,
but what it might be. He draws that enigmatic, emotionless face on the
steamy mirror of his bathroom, and seems to ponder it. The wheels are
turning. Then he receives that mysterious transmission... and his
troubled face goes as blank as the face on the mirror, and his first
act after erasing the transmission is to erase the mirror's face, as
well.

Still, the "real" Garibaldi is there. His scenes with G'Kar and Zack
show that. Garibaldi might be unusually stiff and self-conscious when
he's with Sheridan or Ivanova, at this point, but he's entirely
relaxed and largely his old self around the people that his brain
can't conceive of suspecting - G'Kar and Zack. There is a lot of
wisdom on Garibaldi's part, actually, in his conversation with Zack,
as he passes the burden of security onto his second. It seems that
Zack's story resembles Garibaldi's own. Zack was a perpetual
"screw-up" who was on his last chance when Garibaldi hired him against
many others' advice. Just as Sinclair saw something in Garibaldi, so
did Garibaldi see something in Zack. The friendship between Garibaldi
and Zack is just as enjoyable as the one between Garibaldi and Sinclair
in Season One. And maybe, on some level, Garibaldi is even right to
leave his job now. It is time for Zack to come into his own, and he
can't do that without Garibaldi leaving. Nor is Garibaldi wrong that
he can do some good for those who have lost relatives in the war. Even
without external intervention, I could see Garibaldi taking this step.


The episode also focuses some attention on Lyta Alexander's
situation. She played a huge part in Sheridan's victory in the Shadow
War. She went to Z'ha'dum with Susan and Delenn to search for John;
even more than that, she was the one who organized that mission. She
led Ulkesh into Sheridan's trap, at great risk to herself. She acted
as a conduit for Sheridan to confront both the Vorlons and Shadows in
the final battle. Without Lyta, there would have been no victory.

For all that, now that the war is over, she appears to have become an
outcast on the station. She laments to Zack that no one invites her to
dinner, no one buys her a pizza, no one even stops by to look in on her
unless they want something from her. Here's one area where Sinclair
was a stronger commander than Sheridan. Sinclair personally greeted
Lyta when she arrived on the station and even gave her a tour of the
facilities. When Talia replaced her later, Sinclair took her to dinner,
and at several points in Season One established himself as a genuine
friend to Talia. Sheridan spoke of friendship to Talia when he arrived,
but abused any glimmer of trust in exchange for using her as an asset
in "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum."  Similarly, he has always treated
Lyta more as an asset than as a person... an attitude that will also
have consequences down the road.

Fortunately, Zack is still on-hand with his fundamental decency. He is
kind to Lyta, both in his offer to help her with her newly-purchased
possessions and with his end-of-episode pizza delivery. More than that,
he is direct with her. When she tells him of her isolation, he
doesn't patronize her; he owns up to the fact that people are
genuinely uneasy around her. In the later scene, with Bester and
Sheridan, Lyta and Zack sit side-by-side; at one point, as Sheridan
rants at Bester about "nailing (his) head to the table and setting fire
to it, then feeding the charred remains to the Pak'ma'ra," it is
not Sheridan who earns a smile from Lyta, but Zack. Zack is ultimately
too simple a man to truly anchor Lyta against the problems that are
soon going to wash her away from him. Still, what a lovely couple these
two might have been, in a less flawed universe.


Another character who stands out in this episode is the
Minister/Regent. As with early Vir, Londo seems to dismiss the Regent
as a harmless fool. As with Vir, though, there is some genuine wisdom
in the Regent's words to Londo, words that echo Sheridan's at the
top of the episode. Sheridan muses about "embracing the moment,"
saying, "Give me today, and I will be happy." The Regent wishes Londo
could stay, because "the jarno plants are just coming into bloom. Five
days of flowering, and then they're gone. Just like life, I
suppose... you really should see it!" Londo, as ever, is in too much of
a hurry and too preoccupied with the workings of his own mind to hear
the wisdom behind such sentimental thoughts. "Next time," he replies
mockingly. The tragedy for him, that he cannot see, is that this is his
last carefree moment on Centauri Prime, the last chance he will ever
have on his home world to take the opportunity for such a simple joy as
that the Regent describes. Londo's too obsessed with the
possibilities of tomorrow to stop moving and just take in so much as a
single moment. In a show where fools like Vir and even the Regent can
be revealed as both wise and tragic, then it is equally true that such
a brilliant and tragic figure as Londo can also be revealed as a fool.


Finally, no review of this episode could be complete without noting the
wonderful scene where Zack is attempting to give new recruits an
Orientation lecture at customs... only to have his speech interrupted
first by the arrival of Londo Mollari, then by the arrival of the hated
Bester, then finally by an emergency call from Sheridan. Zack departs
before "the Second Coming" comes through the gate. Then comes the icing
on the cake: the Second Coming indeed does arrive, in the form of a
trio of Elvis impersonators. A little gem of comedy gold, lighting up a
mostly very serious episode, this sequence also highlights one of the
things that appealed to me about "Babylon 5" from the very first. Even
in the midst of serious events, this show is never afraid to just go
ahead and be a little bit goofy. Just like life, I suppose.



My Final Rating: 9/10. A transitional episode, but a lovely piece just
the same.

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