Babylon Squared is one of those arc-heavy episodes that’s really hard to discuss in hindsight – it really doesn’t have much standalone value independent of “War Without End”.
Taking the two stories as a single unit, JMS did an incredible job tying everything together, considering how much of the storyline had changed between the two episodes. There are some oddities – Sinclair’s flash-forward really doesn’t make any sense… apparently it was actually a vision of an alternate future timeline in which B4 didn’t go back in time but, somehow, he still ended up commander of B5. Alright, whatever, can’t fix everything perfectly. Hell, I’m going to go with vjs2259‘s idea, that it’s actually a flashback to some untold adventure of Jeff and Mike on Mars…
Babylon Squared was one of the first episodes that really hooked me on the series – it’s the first episode I saw where it was really clear that there was a bigger plot planned out (I think I missed “And The Sky Full of Stars” the first time around… assuming it even got shown in the first place. Channel Nine was… not good about consistently showing episodes) – so it’s got a lot of nostaligia value just for that. It’s a damn creepy episode even with full knowledge of what’s going on – by the end of the episode, Sinclair and Garibaldi haven’t really learned anything…
The Grey Council scenes are interesting, though there’s some odd elements. Delenn was to be the new leader? Well, I guess as Dukhat’s protégé it makes sense – still, she’s presumably the youngest person on the council… and the other councillors seem to shift very quickly from “You will be our supreme leader!” to “Your interpretation of everything is wrong and you’re an idiot to try and work with humans.” Can’t help but feel it’d work better if they just wanted her to return to full time Grey Counciling rather than wanting her as the new leader.
Minor notes:
- Does anyone zip then fasten? That’s just weird…
- Delenn’s strapped into her seat in her transport. Just a safety precaution, or do even the Minbari not have artificial gravity on their small ships?
- Intentional design decision or not, having the spacesuit so closely resemble the ones from 2001 really adds to the surreal feel of The One’s appearance.
- So, B5’s mainly blue – and C&C has a lot of blue lights. B4 was green and has sickly green lighting. B1, as seen briefly at the end of “In the Beginning” was red, and thus presumably had an evil red glow all through its interiors…
- It occurs to me that if Garibaldi was originally going to die in a last stand against invaders, as Sinclair’s flash-forward implies, then Ivanova screaming “You’re a dead man!” at him in the first scene could count as foreshadowing...
- So, why can the B4 personnel leave safely, but Zathras would die if he stayed in 2258? Just because he’s in his own past, while they’ve travelled forward to their future? I guess it makes sense that it’s easier to permanently move forwards than backwards, since that’s the direction we normally travel through time…
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-06-01 01:28 pm (UTC)Taking the two stories as a single unit, JMS did an incredible job tying everything together, considering how much of the storyline had changed between the two episodes. There are some oddities – Sinclair’s flash-forward really doesn’t make any sense… apparently it was actually a vision of an alternate future timeline in which B4 didn’t go back in time but, somehow, he still ended up commander of B5. Alright, whatever, can’t fix everything perfectly. Hell, I’m going to go with
Babylon Squared was one of the first episodes that really hooked me on the series – it’s the first episode I saw where it was really clear that there was a bigger plot planned out (I think I missed “And The Sky Full of Stars” the first time around… assuming it even got shown in the first place. Channel Nine was… not good about consistently showing episodes) – so it’s got a lot of nostaligia value just for that. It’s a damn creepy episode even with full knowledge of what’s going on – by the end of the episode, Sinclair and Garibaldi haven’t really learned anything…
The Grey Council scenes are interesting, though there’s some odd elements. Delenn was to be the new leader? Well, I guess as Dukhat’s protégé it makes sense – still, she’s presumably the youngest person on the council… and the other councillors seem to shift very quickly from “You will be our supreme leader!” to “Your interpretation of everything is wrong and you’re an idiot to try and work with humans.” Can’t help but feel it’d work better if they just wanted her to return to full time Grey Counciling rather than wanting her as the new leader.
Minor notes:
- Does anyone zip then fasten? That’s just weird…
- Delenn’s strapped into her seat in her transport. Just a safety precaution, or do even the Minbari not have artificial gravity on their small ships?
- Intentional design decision or not, having the spacesuit so closely resemble the ones from 2001 really adds to the surreal feel of The One’s appearance.
- So, B5’s mainly blue – and C&C has a lot of blue lights. B4 was green and has sickly green lighting. B1, as seen briefly at the end of “In the Beginning” was red, and thus presumably had an evil red glow all through its interiors…
- It occurs to me that if Garibaldi was originally going to die in a last stand against invaders, as Sinclair’s flash-forward implies, then Ivanova screaming “You’re a dead man!” at him in the first scene could count as foreshadowing...
- So, why can the B4 personnel leave safely, but Zathras would die if he stayed in 2258? Just because he’s in his own past, while they’ve travelled forward to their future? I guess it makes sense that it’s easier to permanently move forwards than backwards, since that’s the direction we normally travel through time…