b5_revisited | "Eyes" discussion [spoilers]

I like: the further development of Susan, the continuation of the Psi Corps story, including the introduction of a Psi Corps affiliated character who has good and bad qualities, and genuinely seems to want to do good. Also, of course, the whole Lennier and Garibaldi subplot.

I'm not crazy about the "Outsider comes in and asks Sinclair to justify his decisions and is thus presumptively evil." This was handled with more nuance than it could have been, and more than it is in some other places, but it does reflect a trend in JMS's storytelling that can get tiresome.

Still, overall, my like outweighs my skepticism.

Generally, I thought this a good episode, though it had its weak points. The actor playing Ben-Zayn turned in rather an overripe performance, to put it mildly, and Ivanova's dream sequence was clunky and not very dreamlike.

But there was some great moments too, including the Psi Corps guy (whose name I've already forgotten, unfortunately) seeing in Ivanova's head that she's thinking about Talia. I think this is the first open hint that something is going on between those two, which is ramped up in the next episode.

I think I liked this episode better the first time I saw it, without the weight of the rest of the series behind it. It works better if you're not sure what might happen with Ben Zayn; the tension isn't amped up enough over his replacement of Sinclair because everything moves much too fast. This plotline would have worked better in that sense as a two-parter. On the other hand, it was good to see the beginnings of repercussions for our heroes; Sinclair (and later Sheridan) can't just be the lawmen of the Old West, they have to answer to authority.

Also, I love Harriman Gray. He's adorable. Especially when Garibaldi makes his 'Abbot and Costello' crack and he giggles, then stops himself. N'aaaawwwwww!

Eyes is better than the two preceding episodes but still falls ever so short of Signs and Portents which is why I always recommend skipping it to newbies who haven't seen the show before. They can go back there once they're hooked.*g*

Impressions upon rewatching: the Garibaldi + Lennier + motorcycle subplot is still cute, and the scenes between Harriman and Ivanova are great. Harriman pretty much comes across as a proto John Matheson, and serves to flesh out Psi Corps as not consisting of uniformely evil thugs. It's the main plot, or rather, the ending of the main plot which is the problem. Turning Ben Zayn into a raving lunatic for the last ten minutes is an easy way out, and the critique of Sinclair gets devalued much as the one of Sheridan in the s4 finale, or the one of Delenn and her certainty of being the chosen one by the fact it comes from a torturer (and Jack the Ripper, no less) in Comes the Inquisitor. The only example where JMS didn't take this easy way out I can think of is In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, where the episode clearly means the audience to recognize Sheridan's behaviour as problematic as well, and doesn't see "but Morden is a villain!" as an acceptable reason.

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.

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.

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…

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!"

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.

One thing I had completely forgotten was that we saw Susan's mother in the dream!

The terrible bit of foreshadowing with Harriman describing what happens to EarthForce officers who are discovered to have psi talent is more heart-rending when you know about Susan. I also liked her description of what her mother touching her mind was like...she really is quite sympatico with Sinclair. I'd forgotten that too, and it makes her distress when he leaves on B4 more understandable.

"Eyes" discussion [spoilers]

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