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selenakThe Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father
The last Bester episode - he was supposed to guest star in Crusade, and the script, which was later published, was already written, but alas the show was cancelled before it could get filmed (which is doubly a pity because it would have made my favourite character from the Psi Corps Book Trilogy, young Bester's mentor Sandoval Bey, tv canon) - , and also the last of the show's rare attempts of doing a completely different pov episode. The other ones being the first ISN feature on Babylon 5, and this season's A View from the Gallery. (Boo, hiss on the later.) I'm hopelessly biased - look, Bester is probably my favourite non-Centauri, non-Narn character on this show - but I do think this episode succeeds very well in what it attempts to do. It doesn't proclaim the Corps are a bunch of deeply misunderstood people - all those "Obey" and "Trust the Corps" signs at Geneva Headquarters are less than sublte in their Orwellian-ness, and btw, it cracks me up that even the opening credits sequence features the Psi Corps sign instead of the B5 one - and lest we forget, it ends with Lauren the intern committing her first murder (of a "mundane") to the approval of her mentor. But the episode also shows that if Lauren learns that some lives are worth protecting and fighting for (telepaths), and others are expendable (non-telepaths), she doesn't learn those lessons solely from Bester and the Corps. She also learns them by encountering Zack Alllan whose first words are a crass joke about the telepath she's just seen murdered and who from her pov keeps implying telepaths don't deserve to live. She sees Bester doing his best to cooperate with station security despite this relentless hostility. Now, we the audience know where Zack's attitude towards Bester is coming from, we've seen the episodes in question. It's earned. But by flipping around the pov you get an episode where instead of Bester the antagonist intruder coming to B5 and either causing trouble or at best being ambiguously helpful (in his own interests) to defeat it, you get Detective Bester being on the case and pursuing it to a shady environment where the authorities are unrelentingly hostile. Between comforting the partner/widow of the original victim, lhandling Lauren's pass in a kind yet definite way that makes it clear this won't happen without shaming her, and doing his best to protect the fugitive Harris upon arrest as he's figured out Harris is suffering from mental illness and thus not to blame for his deeds, he makes the hero worship of the two young interns understandable. And yet none of this retcons all the villainous deeds we've seen Bester perform, or makes him less responsible for them, which is another way in which the episode is good. (Also, Dr. Franklin is of course right on the money with his "even the self righteous arrogant ones with delusions of godhood" description.)
Trivia: the backstory Bester briefly gives for himself when the interns ask him how he joined the Corps - that his parents died in an accident when he was a few months old and he then was raised by the Corps from this point onwards, meaning the Corps really was Mother and Father for him - is in the books (i.e. the Psi Corps trilogy) both what he believes to be the case until he's in his early 20s, and a complete lie as in the books the baby who wasn't yet called Alfred Bester was the child of two rogue telepaths, the most prominent anti Corps telepaths pre B5 time frame, who didn't die in an accident, to put it mildly. He finds about this mid volume 2 and promptly goes into complete denial about it; that he can't move his left hand is the psychosomatic result. Now, book canon isn't tv canon, but as I said earlier, some of the background the Psi Corps novels establish for Bester came pretty close to getting canonized and would have been if Crusade hadn't been cancelled.
Lauren's "I've never seen anyone fight for our people the way you do" strikes me as a deliberate callback and contrast to Lyta's "he's hurt so many of my people" in s3's Epiphanies, and a point of this episode is that both are true.
As the Bester-relevant B5 canon is now complete: Seven Virtues was written by me on a dare of
hobsonphile's and inspired by andraste's similarly themed Scorpius story, and it was my attempt of an overall Bester portrait; Coming in from the Cold is a DS9 crossover in which Garak meets Bester, because I thought they really really should.Meditations upon the Abyss
This was the episode where during my last show rewatch years ago
deborah_judge said that if you turned down the sound in the early scene with Delenn and Lennier and asked an unsuspecting audience about which character was supposed to be in unrequited love with the other by body language alone, they'd pick Delenn. I don't quite agree in that Delenn has nothing of the pining and restraint on herself I'd associate with unrequited love, but said opening sequence is certainly an intriguing emotional mess, as Delenn continues her tried and true habit of lying to and keeping secrets from Sheridan For His Own Good (tm), arranges for a secret meeting with Lennier by using his pledge to be at her side whenever she needs him and gives him the hand-on-cheek treatment twice. Now, this does not happen just because she missed him, there's an actual important point to the meeting as she puts him on an investigative mission which is key for the survial of the new alliance, and it's about time that investigation was carried forward by someone competent, too. HOWEVER. Picking Lennier, out of all the Rangers at her disposal, is at once selfish and selfless in a very Delenn manner and I'm with Lennier here, Sheridan (still) doesn't know that part of her.BTW, in the later scene when Sheridan is all "pity the Drazi didn't succeed in bugging Londo's quarters, then we'd know what the hell is going on with the Centauri, but of course WE can't bug Londo's quarters, that would be wrong" , note that Delenn says bugging Londo's quarters would be pointless since she's still sure he doesn't know about these goings on, not that she agrees with Sheridan that spying on Londo would be wrong. You bet that if Delenn thought Londo was involved in these raids, she'd have no problems bugging his quarters.
Speaking of Sheridan in that scene, and his "if these actions are ordered by someone other than Londo, who is the PM after all, things are dangerous and dire": this brings up a good old deceased equine of mine, to wit, you really have to fanwank that Sheridan post Z'ha'dum has either selective or complete amnesia about his time travel experience on Centauri Prime. Otherwise the man who told Delenn via recorded message in the s3 finale that he wants to prevent that future by going to Z’ha’dum really should put two and two together now when pondering what it could mean that Londo, as PM, does not seem to be aware about actions which at the very least some of his own people are involved in. You did see the Keeper on Londo's shoulder, Sheridan. You heard Old Londo say that there were servants of the Shadows left behind on Centauri Prime after the Shadow War ended. Great Maker!
... hence my headcanon about dying and getting resurrected leaving Sheridan with some holes in his mind.
G'Kar attempting a variation of Platonian imagery when talking philosophy with his people and finding himself unable to communicate with them is on the surface a light hearted scene but actually continues the theme from the earlier episode where they treat his book as canon to be recited and repeated but not debated and thought over by themselves, and prefer meaningless soundbites ("truth is a river") to something more complicated. Knowing what this builds up to, it strikes me in a way it didn't during my original watching.
Lennier in training is on the one hand reminding us of all his good qualities - looking out for fellow Minbari Ranger Findell as he does - , but on the other: it's pretty rich to lecture Findell on having joined the Rangers for the wrong reasons (i.e trying to fill in for his deceased siblings) instead of following an inner calling when you yourself joined because of the Delenn situation. Not to mention that Findell's reason for joining the Anla'shok is pretty identical to the late Marcus Cole's orignal reason for joining up.
The Londo and Vir conversation reminds me that the existence of "McBari's" is actually canon, though I never can decide whether this is meant to be a Minbari restaurant or a human restaurant using a bad pun. Probably the later, yes?
The other episodes
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Date: 2022-10-17 03:58 pm (UTC)Let's just say it's a good thing Delenn was never anywhere near The One Ring...