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selenakLines 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 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
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Date: 2022-07-31 04:49 am (UTC)Heh, yes, I did feel all of this was very old-fashioned, particularly the Voice of the Resistance, which did indeed evoke pop-WWII for me.
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.
Heeeee, I was wondering whether the remastering was doing something weird with them. That was intentional, huh.
Delenn squaring off against the Drakh is a welcome return for her to non-romantic subplots
YES! I really like Delenn when she's being her powerful-Minbari self -- where the secrecy and the layered motivations that annoy me in the romantic subplots are actually pluses! More of this please!
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.
Oh wow. Cosigned -- would never have guessed it wasn't original plan.
No wonder she wants to kill him.
Lol, about five seconds before she said that, I said to the screen, "Boy, if you and he weren't such good friends, he'd be dead right now, wouldn't he?" just as Ivanova said, "If he weren't my superior officer..."
and it gets downhill from there, with poor Zack in between.
As usual I felt this could all be read as Sheridan getting too full of himself and forcing the conflict, although I am pretty sure JMS meant it to be a sort of coincidental tragedy instead. And certainly I think Garibaldi should know better than to think he could be let loose in the station like that -- he wouldn't let someone else do that.
But mostly I felt bad for poor Zack. Garibaldi yelled at him for being the one to carry out Sheridan's orders, but honestly? if it hadn't been Zack, Garibaldi would have hated that more. It had to be Zack because Zack knew him best; he couldn't leave the job to anyone else, to someone who would have been a stranger (at least relatively speaking), and Garibaldi should have known that.
Anyway, I am glad you mentioned last week about how this was originally supposed to have Sinclair, because when I watch it through that lens it all makes a lot more sense emotionally.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-31 05:20 am (UTC)Incidentally, in addition to "white propaganda", i.e. those broadcasts Sheridan is referring to, in WWII the Allies also had "black propaganda", i.e. radio broadcasts claiming to be German - only not democratic resistance, but from, say, aggrieved monarchists or inter-Nazi-split groups - managed by a guy named Sefton Delmer, who created a "pirate broadaster" named "Gustav Siegfried 1" which was pretty successful. (It's even mentioned in Erich Kästner's war time diaries; Kästner believed it to be the genuine article, and he was by no means a gullible man plus of course one who despised the Nazis.) In a way the ancestor of twitter troll bots. The morality is questionable - since those broadcasts as opposed to the other ones did not spread true news but were designed to weaken enemy morale by any means and encourage dissent - and so I'm not surprised the gazillion pop culture WWII films, movies or avatars don't include it.
That was intentional, huh.
It was, and I can see what it was supposed to evoke - the Drakh being eerie and creepy and the kind of beings you could swear aren't there if you don't look very hard - but it doesn't really work, and so the show ditched the effect. Thankfully. There are some key dramatic scenes involving Drakh in s5 where you really don't need headache-inducing distractions.
YES! I really like Delenn when she's being her powerful-Minbari self -- where the secrecy and the layered motivations that annoy me in the romantic subplots are actually pluses! More of this please!
More to come. I really like the Minbari Civil War subplot. Mind you, when Delenn tells Sheridan "it pleases me that you care for what I have become, but never forget what I was, or what I can do", I did think of you and inwardly commented "well, you can't blame him for forgetting, since he doesn't really know what you were in the first place, what with you not telling him". :)
. And certainly I think Garibaldi should know better than to think he could be let loose in the station like that -- he wouldn't let someone else do that.
Oh, absolutely. If Zack had been the one to quit and had pulled a stunt like that, Garibaldi would have been incensed.
Anyway, I am glad you mentioned last week about how this was originally supposed to have Sinclair, because when I watch it through that lens it all makes a lot more sense emotionally.
Indeed. Garibaldi and Sheridan behaving way over the top in a "you betrayed me" manner like aggrieved exes in an escalating way would work for Garibaldi and Sinclair and would feel genuinely tragic since we know how much they care about each other in a way it doesn't quite with Garibaldi and Sheridan, even leaving aside the How Much Of Garibaldi's Behavior Is Himself question.
ETA: just in case you, like me, are missing the Centauri at this point, might I remind you that there's still my mid season story Knowing Love about Vir (ahnd Lennier, and Marcus, but mainly Vir) to help with that? :)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-02 04:53 am (UTC)I did think of you and inwardly commented "well, you can't blame him for forgetting, since he doesn't really know what you were in the first place, what with you not telling him". :)
AHAHAHAHAHA :D
I actually wasn't thinking that! (Though I love that you were.) I did love her speech :D
Ah, excellent -- thank you for the reminder. :D
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Date: 2022-10-09 02:57 pm (UTC)He also knows she was a member of the Grey Council and broke it.
He knows she has incredible grit and determination and isn't afraid to face anything (eg Come the Inquisitor).
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Date: 2022-10-09 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-10 08:00 am (UTC)