Rewatch for 1x17 - Legacies

[kanadka]

Before getting started I want to give a special shoutout to the writer of this episode, DC Fontana, who recently passed away. DC Fontana was really well-known for her work in Star Trek, but she gave us three B5 episodes too, The War Prayer, A Distant Star, and today's episode, Legacies. Of these three, Legacies was actually her brainchild entirely. The War Prayer and A Distant Star were, like many episodes contracted out by JMS for B5, built off of a script idea he'd already had. When DC Fontana approached with Legacies, JMS actually took her idea over his and never wound up using the idea he'd originally had.

The highlights of this episode include:
- Neroon!! He's here for a funeral, and in Delenn's opinion he's making a big fat Warrior Caste mess over the whole affair. Neroon, naturally, disagrees.
- Talia and Susan bickering their way from Enemies to the Friends and Lovers part over a young telepath
- Delenn somehow gets a hold of the body and manages to cremate it on the station without anybody knowing, especially not Neroon
- Neroon and Garibaldi search the station for the body while Franklin pumps some pak'ma'ra stomachs
- Neroon gets friendly with Sinclair (read: he threatens to blow up the station and then hides in Sinclair's quarters to punch him a little)
- Na'Toth is fantastic in this episode and makes another attempt to get access to telepathic DNA for the Narn Regime (c.f. G'Kar with Lyta Alexander in The Gathering)
- young telepath Alisa eventually goes not with Psi Corps or Narn but with Minbar to train with Minbari telepaths; we never see or hear from her on-screen again - alas, because those experiences would be really interesting.

Here's a quick recap of the episode, and here's the Lurker's Guide page. For funsies, here's a great blog post that goes through all the wonderful things people are wearing in this episode with appropriately scathing commentary.

Now for some fun screencaps! I got a bit carried away so I'll put them under this cut.


The true courtship ritual is nodding at each other from across the bar. Conceal don't feel, ladies.
Sidenote, I love Ivanova's hair in this episode, with the exception of when they're meeting the cortege when it's down (they must have shot on different days, but I prefer the Watsonian interpretation where that was a choice Ivanova made)


Fighting over their new telepathic charge! Franklin solves a domestic dispute.


Neroon does a few sweeps with his eyes in the casket here as though maybe Branmer is hiding in some tiny corner of the casket? (Spoiler: he is not.)


An iconic Susan and Talia scene.


I really love these two being so chummy and taking tea in Delenn's quarters <3 Note however that Sinclair is not permitted to help out with the Minbari Lego project.


Na'Toth has such a great smile. It's full of fangs. (No wonder she asked about the teeth.) Here she is making an offer to Alisa, but Alisa doesn't seem to be very thrilled about Narn. She sneaks a look at Na'Toth's mind on the presumption of wondering what Narn is like but finds that alien minds - or, at least, Na'Toth's mind - are "cold, ugly, alien".


Best buddy cops. Also, Shock and Appall from this pak'ma at having to get their stomach pumped. Though I adore Neroon's haughty "and who are these... pak'ma'ra", it's also indicative of how much the Warrior Caste really gets out, which is literally not at all.

I don't know whether we hear the pak'ma'ra often throughout the series but this is one of the times where we see them speak, which they must do (like the Gaim) through a translator device of some sort. Also, I don't know how they did this - puppetry? CGI? makeup? some combination? - but this scene turned out really well and looked super inventively alien. Sad we didn't see more pak'ma'ra except as background characters passing by.


Delenn offers some worldbuilding on Minbari telepaths. Alisa, meanwhile, sees something she shouldn't in Delenn's mind: what really happened to Branmer's body. (I love it when the A plot and the B plot intersect!)


Caught redhanded with the urn! Neroon is very unhappy about what happened but Delenn wins and also makes him apologise to Sinclair for threatening to blow up his station and then hiding in his room to punch him.

Fun Facts and Tidbits:

• "You talk like a Minbari, Commander."
  
  I have been told that this line was ad-libbed by the actor. (Which was a surprise! I'd thought JMS didn't really allow ad-libs, even when it's not his script.) I've never been able to find proof of that in interviews with Vickery, Fontana, or JMS, but I've also never been able to find this line in the scripts I have access to. Fontana added: "...once the script was down in terms of, 'This is what we're going to shoot', there were no changes allowed on the stage. If there were changes that came up for some reason - they had to call Joe Straczynski and he would come down to the set and see what was going on and say, 'No, do it my way,' or 'Okay, we can change this line, it's for a valid reason'. But generally, once the script was set, it was set in stone." [This is from Echoes of All Our Conversations]
  So if it was added by JMS, it was added to a script that never seems to have been widely circulated. Otherwise, I think it might be an ad-lib that JMS kept in because it accidentally hit on something he was planning on doing, and he ran with it, and as we who've seen S3 know, he really ran with it.
  
  
• Neroon's makeup was by request of the actor who wanted to look more aggressive to feel more in the role, so the artist gave him heavier eye makeup. Should've asked for Delenn's sassy dark lip.
  
  
• Na'Toth's role was supposed to be played by G'Kar, but Andreas Katsulas wasn't available that day. Lucky too because this is one of my favourite Na'Toth episodes. Alas, this is Julie Caitlin Brown's second last appearance in the role (the last one is Chrysalis). Though the makeup was the biggest deterrent in the role (not just for her but for also Mary Woronov who played Ko'Dath, and the first actress they had cast as Na'Toth, who left) she liked the character so much she built her own backstory for Na'Toth and the Narn Regime. Here's a super interesting interview with Julie Caitlin Brown, Na'Toth's actress. Remember that bit where Alisa says her mind is cold, ugly, and alien? Apparently, it was less a remark about Narn minds generally and more an intended reference to Na'Toth's ulterior motives and plots.
  
  
• Telepath trivia: Apparently only 5% of telepaths manifest abilities post-puberty (from "Deadly Relations - Bester Ascendant" by J. Gregory Keyes). Talia meanwhile says that telepaths can be born with the ability already functional (adding that, in which case, one develops the ability to block others out) or the talent is latent and triggered around the onset of puberty. I take it that means that those who have it from birth are being 'found out' by the Psi Corps tests?
  
  
• At the end of the episode, Alisa takes the Ingata to Minbar. I really greatly hope she makes Neroon's return voyage extremely uncomfortable. I hope she steals many things from him! There's a tie-in short story ("True Seeker", by Fiona Avery) that is set post-series: ten years later, Alisa Beldon is reunited with Na'Toth.
  

This is one of my favourite episodes - definitely my favourite in S1 - and I could easily talk about it for days. Tell me what you think of this episode!

Comments

[nic]

Thank you for this post and the interesting links!

[kanadka]

<333! I'm very glad you enjoyed :D

[natoth]

"Na'Toth's role was supposed to be played by G'Kar, but Andreas Katsulas wasn't available that day."

Wow!
I did not know this fact! And Alisa on Minbari cruiser - omg!(this is a great topic for fic)

[kanadka]

Yeah! The original script featured G'Kar (that left screencap where Na'Toth is smiling - that scene was originally supposed to take place in G'Kar's quarters with Garibaldi). DC Fontana, the writer, says in an intro to the script ('Other Voices', Volume 2) that he was "engaged elsewhere" but it doesn't say with what. Fontana also notes that while it wasn't her last episode of the series, the filming of 'Legacies' was Caitlin Brown's last day on set. :'(((

Ahaha, it's so funny you mention fic of Alisa on the Ingata because I thought the exact same thing :DD

[natoth]

Well, birds of a feather flock together LOL

[shipperslist]

This was such a good episode. Foreshadowing (ohh... Chrysalis!), Neroon's stiff upper lip act, Susan & Talia fanfic trope-ing their way through this ep... Yeah, one of my favorites as well. I love the way warrior cast Minbari head...thing (crown? crest?) was also more aggressive, more spikey. And Na'Toth.

(Talia's voice does things to me. *purrs*)

[kanadka]

Oh, same. Both Claudia Christian and Andrea Thompson have such beautiful voices - it was half the draw for me for these characters! There's something about Talia's particular brand of husky, too... *_*

A lot of characters on Babylon 5 had really distinctive voices or accents...Neroon also comes to mind (because I am a broken record on that topic, hah), but the precise quality of e.g. Lennier's voice really helps make his character. Na'Toth, too! The actress uses a very precise and pushy tone for her and it sells the idea of what the character would have become if she'd stayed (vs her very muted portrayal of the character in her last appearance in S5). Aah, I could listen to all these people read a dictionary.

[shipperslist]

You’re very right about the characters having distinct voices. 💜