b5_revisited

Entertaining yarn with some interesting deatil, although I wasn't convinced by the relatively formulaic motivation.
Ansd I agr, it was well handled.

The Psi Corps aspect is good, though. Gray is the first omn-scren telepath I've felt sorry for. And the Ivanova and Thalia story is hinted at again - I think the previous episode's shot where they both see the little girl off was a rather strong hint too, at least in hindsight.

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imhilien.livejournal.com

A gripping episode... I thought it could have been sub-titled, 'Sinclair's Performance Review from Hell'. I hate to think what the station would have been like if Ben Zayn had been running it from the beginning. :(

I appreciate how events from past episodes are mentioned, instead of being forgotten.

I did feel for Susan, who got progressively desperate at the thought of being scanned.

I thought the character Harriman Gray(sp?) was quite cute for a Psi Corp member. Oh dear... :-p

I did like the sub-plot about the motorcycle, with Garibaldi muttering, 'If I kill him [Lennier], it will start a war!' and Sinclair's comment at the end, 'Glad to see things are back to normal', when the repaired motorcycle zooms past. LOL.

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I thought the character Harriman Gray(sp?) was quite cute for a Psi Corp member. Oh dear... :-p

;-)
Seriously, I think we were meant to.
He's the decent guy who's fallen for the Corps' lies and is only just realising this.
When his dreams were shattered, there was no Ivanova character to show him the other options.

Nice how we are slowly fed different views and experiences of the Corps, so we know when it becomes arc-relevant.

I did like the sub-plot about the motorcycle

So did I, and also the way it showed that Lennier has learnt English and studied human culture(s), but still lacks the exposure to understand some idioms and behaviour patterns (I mean, who'd *guess* that "get out" could signal approval!), and also how uncomfortable this makes Garibaldi.

Three cheers for ttention to detail... :-)

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Well, pretty much agreeing with everyone else; the motorbike subplot’s fun, the Ivanova scenes are very good… and the main plot is somewhat less good.

On the Lurker’s Guide, there’s some quotes from JMS where he’s annoyed with people comparing this episode to Star Trek TNG’s “The Drumhead”. And that’s fair enough, I don’t think this was an example of plagiarism – but the two episodes do have the same premise, and it is natural to compare how two shows in the same genre handled the same plot.

And, well, “The Drumhead” handles the story of a witch hunt against the command staff in a far more engrossing fashion compared to “Eyes”. For example, “The Drumhead” opens with an apparent sabotage attempt on the Enterprise, which makes an investigation, seem more justifiable than here, where we’re given no reason to ever believe Ben-Zayn has a legitimate cause for concern. In “The Drumhead”, Worf is an enthusiastic supporter of the investigation, whereas here, Garibaldi has to be drafted into participation. There is an actual criminal to be exposed in “The Drumhead” – a Klingon scientist is exposed by the investigation as a Romulan spy. It’s only after the show’s laid the groundwork that the prosecutor starts investigating Picard. “Eyes” just isn’t as interesting – growling guy with a big scar comes out of nowhere to make accusations of our heroes? And he turns out to be a bad guy? You don’t say.

There are a lot of references to past episodes here – I counted mentions of the events of eight different episodes, and this is only number sixteen. Still, a lot of them feel like references for the sake of references, not real efforts to show the consequences of past events – at times, it almost feels like a clip show without the clips. It would have been nice if there’d been more of an effort to initially present Ben-Zayn as having some legitimate concerns – Sinclair’s actions in “Midnight on the Firing Line”, for example, are pretty dodgy. Instead, he’s too much of a cardboard villain from the very beginning – he’d be pursuing Sinclair regardless of what the commander had been doing in the past.

I have to admit, this is one of my pet peeves; I’d really like to see a show one time where internal investigations are shown to be completely justified in their actions and fulfilling a vital role by watching the watchers… I have the same problem with a lot of cop shows.

Anyway, other comments:

- B5’s ideas of how long technology will remain in use are… interesting. In the B5 universe, production of gas-powered vehicles will apparently come to an end within twenty-five years, but ‘VCR’ will remain a term in common use for several centuries to come.

- Man, it’s weird seeing Weyoun as a good guy.

- One has to wonder what Ben-Zayn’s reaction would be if he found out that the station security chief had given an alien ambassador’s aide unsupervised access to his own quarters… would have been fun if he’d mentioned that during his final rantings.

- So, since when does Bester have good friends in EarthForce? I’m never sure with these early episodes if there’s intentional misdirection being laid about Psi Corps’ power and influence, or whether at this point the idea actually was that the Corps were the puppet masters of the Earth Alliance government. Later on, Bester clearly isn’t one of the movers and shakers of Clark’s order, and while the Psi Corps clearly have their own hidden power base and goals, they don’t seem to have much influence outside the telepath community.

- Of course, one can’t help but wonder if Bester had a score to settle with Ben-Zayn as well as Sinclair, and set the whole thing up so at least one of them would be eliminated. He had to know Ben-Zayn was unstable, and that going to Babylon 5 would only make him worse…

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selenak.livejournal.com

Re: Drumhead versus Eyes - another reason why I think Drumhead is the superior episode is that by making Worf (and others on the Enterprise) into supporters, the episode instead of being about the evil outsider versus the wonderful captain (and crew) investigates how likeable characters we know and trust can buy into a mindset that abandons more and more civil liberties. Picard's big speech and anger wasn't about his own integrity being slandered, it was about what was happening to everyone and the sell-out of democratic principles in favour of safety. (That Franklin quote about liberty and safety comes to mind.) The fact that there actually was a spy which kickstarted everything made it all the more powerful.

I’d really like to see a show one time where internal investigations are shown to be completely justified in their actions and fulfilling a vital role by watching the watchers… I have the same problem with a lot of cop shows.

There is a British show called "Between the Lines" which is about an Internal Investigations team, and they're definitely the heroes of the story.

Of course, one can’t help but wonder if Bester had a score to settle with Ben-Zayn as well as Sinclair, and set the whole thing up so at least one of them would be eliminated. He had to know Ben-Zayn was unstable, and that going to Babylon 5 would only make him worse…

I like that theory. It would be very like him.

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Yes. Granted, it's a tough comparison; "The Drumhead" is a very well written and acted episode, one of Star Trek's best, and I think no matter what, "Eyes" would have had to come across as weaker - but as you said, the real weakness of "Eyes" is that it never lifts itself above "How dare you do this to me</>?!", while "Drumhead" is more concerned with "How did we come to this?"

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- B5’s ideas of how long technology will remain in use are… interesting. In the B5 universe, production of gas-powered vehicles will apparently come to an end within twenty-five years, but ‘VCR’ will remain a term in common use for several centuries to come.

These are no contradiction. Technologies and the words for them are very different things. The latter tend to stick round much longer and get transferred from one thing to the other. Note that VCRs in the B5 universe are no nothing like the kind of thing I'm currently using to rewatch my old B5 tapes.
Or, to take an example from the real world, a spaceship has very little to do with watercraft!

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kel-1970.livejournal.com

Re: Weyoun -- I was so distracted by the fact that Harriman was being played by Jeffrey Combs that I kept expecting Harriman to do a major turnaround and turn into a worse bad guy than Ben-Zeyn. Poor guy is totally typecast in the sci-fi world, I fear.

I fear that the reason we never saw Harriman again after this episode was that he got in BIIIIIG trouble with Bester...poor guy.

And, re: the issue of Ben-Zeyn not having a clear complaint to begin with -- was that actually his intent? I mean, I thought he (a) was a nut job, and (b) was out for revenge against Sinclair for getting the job he got passed over for. An empty revenge, at best, since Sinclair didn't even realize that Ben-Zeyn was on that list till Garibaldi looked it up for him. YMMV, of course, but I didn't think that B-Z really thought he would actually get Sinclair fired.

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Well, if we want to be optimistic - like I said, Bester must have known Ben-Zayn wasn't anywhere near stable enough to bring Sinclair down perminantly. I'm betting he was willing to settle for simply making Sinclair's life difficult for a few days, and wouldn't waste too much time punishing Grey - if he really cared about eliminating Sinclair, he'd have ensured a less neutral telepath was assigned to Ben-Zayn.

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kel-1970.livejournal.com

This struck me as one of the better of the non-major-plot-arc episodes of S1. Does that sound a bit defensive? Perhaps. There are so many groaners in S1 that it makes me have to subcategorize them a lot to find the good ones.

I was not a believer that Ari Ben-Zeyn was anything other than a whack-job on my revisitation of the episode. It's always a danger sign that a character will turn out to be unstable if they are portrayed as having a facial scar. Not very fair to real life.

Motorbike subplot: this falls into the "cute but not remotely believeable" category for me. I won't nitpick TOO much (since it _was_ cute) but:
--If you're a guy on the move, which apparently Garibaldi has been, do you spend 5 years scrounging up (and moving) motorcycle parts?
--Again, sorry, but can't see Lennier being so good at mechanical stuff (though perhaps it was more believeable at first viewing, before I "knew" the character).

Being a sucker for linguistic and cultural misunderstandings, I loved the lines:
Lennier: "I have installed a Minbari power source instead – clean and efficient."

Garibaldi: "Get out of here!"

Lennier: "Yes, of course."

Garibaldi: "No, no, wait... I didn't mean go, I meant... never mind!"

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Yeah, it did strike me as a bit inconsistant with Garibaldi's established history that he'd been working on getting bike parts for so long - would have made more sense if he'd just been getting parts since he got the job on B5, taking advantage of finally being in a stable enough job to indulge in a hobby...

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He's been on B5 almost three years by this point (he was there from the beginning) and was apparently pretty stable on Mars before that (long enough to get serious with Lise). So maybe five years isn't too much. How he could afford to ship heavy parts to the station I don't know.

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"sorry, but can't see Lennier being so good at mechanical stuff"

But why would that be unbelievable? If he'd tinkered around with the thing without any prior knowledge or instruction that would be one thing, but he had a manual. Massive research and following directions? Oh, that's Lennier all right. I jibbed a bit at his putting in the whole new propulsion system, but he probably had a book for that too.

My husband liked his prayer before he started. He also pointed out that Lennier saw it as a ritual, and his regret was not realizing that the performance of the ritual meant more than the resolution of the project.

It's a nice contrast between the human 'find out as you go' ethic and the Minbari 'figure everything out, pray, then start' way of doing things.

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lazulidragon.livejournal.com

Whoo, finally caught up again. Well, I mostly like this episode, for Lennier and the motorcycle if nothing else.

Harriman Grey is adorable, and I want to pat him on the head. I have this mental image of him as a shy, scrawny young kid with his little model ships and his stutter and I feel so sorry for him. He gets to be a military liason, sure, but I suppose he's too much of a nice guy and too far out of Bester's circle to, say, fly the Black Omega starfuries?

Speaking of Bester, it's interesting that he chose Grey of all people for this assignment. You would think that he'd want someone loyal to him, or at least more loyal to the Corps.

The thing with the bike always cracks me up, but I sort of wonder how Garibaldi managed to fit all those parts in his quarters, and where it ended up after this episode. It does demonstrate that Lennier's a pretty quick study, too. Had he already learned Japanese, or was he picking it up right then? I'm afraid I wasn't paying enough attention to notice.

At one point Garibaldi says "if I knew where God was, I'd thank Her," did I hear that right? I never noticed that before, but it tickled me.

While I like the concept of Sinclair being taken to task for all the rule-bending he does running the station, it only works if there's some possibility that he might be in the wrong, or at the least, not entirely perfect and above the law just because he's the hero and the investigator is crazy.

Finally, Mars. It's easy to forget everything else in the deluge of CLARK IS EVIL EVIL in later seasons, but it's obvious here that Clark himself isn't the root of the problem. There are a lot of people who think like he does, and all the extremist groups that later become allies of the Alliance are just a bunch of terrorists right now. Santiago may not be putting everyone under martial law, but I don't think he's an ally of Babylon 5, either.

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Yes, I was thinking that too - especially when watching "By Any Means Necessary". We sorta assume - or at least I did - that Santiago was a good guy - but there's really not that much evidence for that. The EA is clearly going downhill even in the first season, and presumably Clark and Santiago are of similar politics, considering they ran on the same ticket.

(On the other hand, both "Survivors" and "And Now For a Word" do mention that Santiago was a big supporter of the Babylon Project. Could be he saw it more as an example of Earth power and influence than as a diplomatic resource, though...)

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They also mention that Santiago is a big booster of trade and tourism with other races at one point--I think right after the election. He seems to be one of the good guys, if maybe a little wishy-washy, or intimidated by the powers that disagree. Someone (Malcolm?) mentions that there are aliens all over Earth, acting like they own the place (presumably tourists, diplomats, business people, maybe even exchange students!)

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Which goes to show how differently an essentially similar political line can be put into practice!
no way was that accidental ;-)

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lazulidragon.livejournal.com

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he's not an all of our heroes, then? I'm always confused about who on earth says what, my memory is terrible and we don't see the politicians' faces enough.

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