"Eyes" discussion [spoilers]

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 1X16, "Eyes". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:

Sinclair is put under an internal affairs investigation because of his recent actions.

Extra reading:

The article for "Eyes" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

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…

[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.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

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?"

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

- 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!

[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.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

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.