Babylon 5 Rewatch: The Fall of Night
Apr. 10th, 2022 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe finale of the second season, which is an episode I don't like much while acknowledging it's well done, and certainly a fitting thematic ending for this particular season that wraps up an era of the show and moves us to the next.
My relative coldness towards this episode is entirely subjective, and I'll try to name my reasons, but first, let me say on the darkly amusing side that JMS killing off the character whose existence was foisted on him with some bare nod to plot necessity (Warren Keefer manages to record a Shadow ship and thus make their existence public...but this is not a good thing from the pov of the main characters at all) and with exactly zilch emotional regret on the audience's part because the writing pointedly refused any effort to make the guy into a person all through the season is a case of creator tantrum that manages not to damage the story it tells at all. ((Unlike other cases of creator tantrums. Looking at you, Aaron Sorkin, in the infamouos "Lemon Lymon" incident on West Wing. Or for that matter, you, JMS, with the Great Man Of History rant at the end of s4.) I mean, the show really did not need a star fury pilot character, and at least this way, he didn't take any screen time away from the stories B5 needed to tell.
Now. In this episode, and a few s3 ones, the WWII analogies fly thick and fast, and you know, I really could live without another character saying "Peace in our time" to signal this character is utterly and completely wrong in any story not featuring actual Neville Chamberlain whatsoever. (It was especially groanworthy when Tony Stark got to say the line in Age of Ultron, not least because it really didn't need this line for the audience to realize Ultron wasn't a good idea.) I will say that rewatching the episode in the current situation as the dubious benefit of seeing it in a current context instead of in a pop culture WWII one, and I appreciate that JMS didn't make Roy Doctrice twirl his mustache got had the character come across as sympathetic and charm Ivanova with this grandfatherly behaviour - despite being an employe of the Ministry of Peace - right until it became clear what his actual mission was, and even then he, unlike Mr. Wells from Night Watch who comes across more creepy the more he shows up, is painted as someone not evil but misguided. This is why the unfolding events don't come across as a caricature, and why I think the episode is well made, despite not liking it.
Also: it either hadn't occured to me before or I had forgotten, but in additon to the very pointed Chamberlain/Munich analogy going on in this episode, we have another stark WWII reference - to the Hitler/Stalin-Pact, which was declared to be a "Non-Agression Pact". Incidentally, this casts Earth as Stalin. (And I can imagine a secret additional protocol between President Clark and Centauri Prime at this point.) Not a usual analogy 1990s US tv would draw. Yet fitting in an episode that also shows Night Watch revealing its colors, and Zack realising that by joining, he didn't just sign up to wear an additional badge and do the job he already does. The way Zack is pressured to go from saying the shop owners disgruntlement is harmless to joining the denouncing is chilling, as is the final image of the shop being closed for "sedition" and the owner arrested. Again, this had historical relevance the first time I watched, and a very contemporary one today.
The Vir and Lennier scene is great, and like many a fan I imagine they really do this a lot for the remainder of the show, and very much regret we don't get to see as much. Garibaldi's observation re: Londo being secretly afraid are to the point and show what a sharp judge of character he can be. And the big Kosh reveal, with everyone seeing him as a positive religious figure from their religion, is less of an unambiguous moment than I recalled, since Sheridan actually does ask Delenn later whether the Vorlons manipulated the younger races into seeing them this way. Lastly, the final monologue by Ivanova as she lights the candles is poignant (and starts a new tradition, i.e. that the character saying the final monologue of one season gets to speak the voice over in the credits for the next) and both a good ending for the "last, best hope for peace" era of the show and the "hope for victory" era that starts with this, determined, but also with melancholy, because this is the acknowledgement that the original B5 mission did fail.
So, with all these positives, why do I don't like the overall episode? I think it's because I have a dislike of genre tv invoking WWII analogies as easy characterisation and a way to get the conditioned responses. Unless, of course, they do the actual work. So, for example, what JMS does with Night Watch, or the rising xenophobia on Earth which you can spot throughout the first two seasons before it becomes what it does in s3, that's a very resonant, convincing story about a democracy turning increasingly authoritarian and fascist to me, precisely because the Zoccalo isn't called "Weimar", if you see what I'm getting at. It's of course influenced by awareness of the past, but it tells the B5 story on its own terms. Handing out lines like "Peace in our Time", otoh, is a narrative sledge hammer that gets my hackles up.
Lastly, I will say that it does work like a narrative big herring, planned or not, in that I bet once these words were said the general audience expectation was that the Centauri, now coded as Space Germans in addition to the Space Romans they already were, would inevitably attack Earth later and would be defeated by an alliance of everyone else (including Earth) against them. That this isn't how the story unfolds, but that it becomes far more unique and complicated, is to JMS' credit.
The other episodes
My relative coldness towards this episode is entirely subjective, and I'll try to name my reasons, but first, let me say on the darkly amusing side that JMS killing off the character whose existence was foisted on him with some bare nod to plot necessity (Warren Keefer manages to record a Shadow ship and thus make their existence public...but this is not a good thing from the pov of the main characters at all) and with exactly zilch emotional regret on the audience's part because the writing pointedly refused any effort to make the guy into a person all through the season is a case of creator tantrum that manages not to damage the story it tells at all. ((Unlike other cases of creator tantrums. Looking at you, Aaron Sorkin, in the infamouos "Lemon Lymon" incident on West Wing. Or for that matter, you, JMS, with the Great Man Of History rant at the end of s4.) I mean, the show really did not need a star fury pilot character, and at least this way, he didn't take any screen time away from the stories B5 needed to tell.
Now. In this episode, and a few s3 ones, the WWII analogies fly thick and fast, and you know, I really could live without another character saying "Peace in our time" to signal this character is utterly and completely wrong in any story not featuring actual Neville Chamberlain whatsoever. (It was especially groanworthy when Tony Stark got to say the line in Age of Ultron, not least because it really didn't need this line for the audience to realize Ultron wasn't a good idea.) I will say that rewatching the episode in the current situation as the dubious benefit of seeing it in a current context instead of in a pop culture WWII one, and I appreciate that JMS didn't make Roy Doctrice twirl his mustache got had the character come across as sympathetic and charm Ivanova with this grandfatherly behaviour - despite being an employe of the Ministry of Peace - right until it became clear what his actual mission was, and even then he, unlike Mr. Wells from Night Watch who comes across more creepy the more he shows up, is painted as someone not evil but misguided. This is why the unfolding events don't come across as a caricature, and why I think the episode is well made, despite not liking it.
Also: it either hadn't occured to me before or I had forgotten, but in additon to the very pointed Chamberlain/Munich analogy going on in this episode, we have another stark WWII reference - to the Hitler/Stalin-Pact, which was declared to be a "Non-Agression Pact". Incidentally, this casts Earth as Stalin. (And I can imagine a secret additional protocol between President Clark and Centauri Prime at this point.) Not a usual analogy 1990s US tv would draw. Yet fitting in an episode that also shows Night Watch revealing its colors, and Zack realising that by joining, he didn't just sign up to wear an additional badge and do the job he already does. The way Zack is pressured to go from saying the shop owners disgruntlement is harmless to joining the denouncing is chilling, as is the final image of the shop being closed for "sedition" and the owner arrested. Again, this had historical relevance the first time I watched, and a very contemporary one today.
The Vir and Lennier scene is great, and like many a fan I imagine they really do this a lot for the remainder of the show, and very much regret we don't get to see as much. Garibaldi's observation re: Londo being secretly afraid are to the point and show what a sharp judge of character he can be. And the big Kosh reveal, with everyone seeing him as a positive religious figure from their religion, is less of an unambiguous moment than I recalled, since Sheridan actually does ask Delenn later whether the Vorlons manipulated the younger races into seeing them this way. Lastly, the final monologue by Ivanova as she lights the candles is poignant (and starts a new tradition, i.e. that the character saying the final monologue of one season gets to speak the voice over in the credits for the next) and both a good ending for the "last, best hope for peace" era of the show and the "hope for victory" era that starts with this, determined, but also with melancholy, because this is the acknowledgement that the original B5 mission did fail.
So, with all these positives, why do I don't like the overall episode? I think it's because I have a dislike of genre tv invoking WWII analogies as easy characterisation and a way to get the conditioned responses. Unless, of course, they do the actual work. So, for example, what JMS does with Night Watch, or the rising xenophobia on Earth which you can spot throughout the first two seasons before it becomes what it does in s3, that's a very resonant, convincing story about a democracy turning increasingly authoritarian and fascist to me, precisely because the Zoccalo isn't called "Weimar", if you see what I'm getting at. It's of course influenced by awareness of the past, but it tells the B5 story on its own terms. Handing out lines like "Peace in our Time", otoh, is a narrative sledge hammer that gets my hackles up.
Lastly, I will say that it does work like a narrative big herring, planned or not, in that I bet once these words were said the general audience expectation was that the Centauri, now coded as Space Germans in addition to the Space Romans they already were, would inevitably attack Earth later and would be defeated by an alliance of everyone else (including Earth) against them. That this isn't how the story unfolds, but that it becomes far more unique and complicated, is to JMS' credit.
The other episodes
no subject
Date: 2022-04-10 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-10 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-10 12:49 pm (UTC)Tony Stark on the other hand, it's an unsubtle reference both in and out because Tony should know damn well what he's refencing. (Also iirc Ultron then googles these words, finds out about War and gets set off on his evil mission. Nice one Tone)
no subject
Date: 2022-04-10 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-11 03:48 am (UTC)Unlike "Believers," I then watched most of the rest of it, except that I skipped almost all of the "peace in our time" scene where the alliance is revealed (though I did watch that particular line). I'd needed the spoilers because I'd been afraid that the entire episode would be leading up to the alliance punchline (in which case I might really not have watched any more), but I should have trusted JMS more. In any case, I thought it was a good episode, and powerful, but super depressing and but I'm not exactly excited about watching it again, and it even made me less excited to watch S3. (I mean, I'm going to watch S3, but it was noteworthy how when I finished S1 I was all "wow, I have to go watch S2 NOW" and this week I was like, "you know what? I can wait to start S3 until next week.") (Except, as you note, for the Vir & Lennier scene, which was fantastic and which I would 100% watch way more of.)
As to the "peace in our time" line itself, the interesting thing about watching it for the first time now is that my primary reaction was relief, that regardless of what mistakes one does or doesn't feel are being made with responses to current events, at least we know enough of our history that we're not making that particular mistake. (And I guess one of the consequences of watching it now is that I have a completely different set of primary associations than someone would have watching it before now.)
And the big Kosh reveal, with everyone seeing him as a positive religious figure from their religion, is less of an unambiguous moment than I recalled, since Sheridan actually does ask Delenn later whether the Vorlons manipulated the younger races into seeing them this way.
I really liked both this and the ambiguity Sheridan pointed out. And I also really liked the scene where the two aliens have differing opinions on which god/angel/etc. it was, and then one of them says, eh, it doesn't matter. Which was surprising and pleasing to me! And I think for me raises the ambiguity right back (on the positive side) as to the Vorlons' effect on the other races.
because the writing pointedly refused any effort to make the guy into a person all through the season
Lol. I think though that it wasn't helped by the actor just being... IDK if he was directed badly or what (I've definitely seen actors I thought were usually good give not-great performances in specific films or shows), but there were episodes where he had scenes with other characters, and the other characters were just fine and he was just wooden as anything. "Gropos" I remember being particularly bad in this respect -- the other characters in his scenes were one-off, somewhat-cliche characters but they still managed to sell themselves as reasonably sympathetic, whereas Keffer, in the same scenes and with similar-quality dialogue, ...didn't.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-11 07:34 am (UTC)No argument there, which is why it's only the third time I've watched it, too. (Once during the original broadcast, and once during my first big rewatch many years ago when the DVDS were released.) (Pre-DVDs, I had videos of my favourite episodes - I still have them, for that matter, though who knows whether they're still playable! - and those I watched a lot.) Re: the next season, while dark things happen there as well, a lot of good things do, too, including general fandom's most popular "fuck yeah!" kind of scene (which involves Delenn; you may have seen it quoted, though I hope not, it's neat to see it unspoiled). You'll get to know two new regulars - Lyta and someone else - who don't suffer from Warren K. syndrome, JMS wants them to be there, and so they get nicely developed. It's also when the show starts to use Bester as something more complicated than a straightforward villain, and the season when the awesomest of two parters occurs (aka the occasion where JMS expects you to remember Babylon Squared from season 1, but that's by far not the only awesome aspect of it). So there's quite a lot to look forward to. (G'Kar and Londo and Vir wise, too, but it's impossible to say even the vaguest thing about their respective arcs without spoilers.)
. And I also really liked the scene where the two aliens have differing opinions on which god/angel/etc. it was, and then one of them says, eh, it doesn't matter. Which was surprising and pleasing to me!
It was a Narn and a Drazi. (Otherwise known as the green and blue guys from one of Ivanova's comic relief subtplots.) And yes, that was neat. Incidentally, back in the day I remember there was some debate whether Londo is lying or telling the truth when he replies that he saw nothing, and if the later, what it means.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-12 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-13 12:23 pm (UTC)It struck me on this rewatch that if I was to show this episode to a younger generation, they might not recognise the Chamberlin quote.