Well, that was kinda ‘meh’. Two main problems. Number one, the actor playing Captain Maynard seems to be playing up the “Sheridan’s old buddy” aspect of the character at the expense of the “experienced starship captain” part of things. He’s just a little too casual in all his scenes. That’s alright when he’s having a private drink with Sheridan, not so good when he’s just as laid-back when his ship’s bridge bursts into flames and his first officer reports that they’re lost in hyperspace and all going to die… The guy’s got no gravitas whatsoever.
The other problem is that nobody’s particularly likable in this episode. We’ve got Maynard himself, who in the scene in Sheridan’s quarters seems unable to quietly drop the issue of B5 not being Sheridan’s first choice of command. There’s the subplots, which revolve around Franklin being unnecessarily obnoxious and Delenn apparently pre-emptively channelling Ulkesh. And then there’s Sheridan, who spends most of the episode sulking about how he’s stuck on boring old Babylon 5 instead of commanding the Enterprise an explorer ship, a position which really isn’t one the show can afford to have us sympathise with, and probably isn’t the best way to help establish the still-new character as someone the audience wants to see stick around. And am I the only one a little concerned about his out-of-nowhere rant about politicians and bureaucrats, the political subtext of which seems to be “The only acceptable element of government is the military”? Somewhat understandable in context, but considering Sheridan would go on to overthrow the Earth Alliance government, and then seemingly accumulate more and more power with little to no actual accountability, it ends up a little disturbing.
The actual plot’s alright, but I’m still a little confused as to how Keffer navigated back – if he was still oriented enough to fire in the direction of the jumpoint for the Cortez, why couldn’t he just head in that direction once he got navigation back? And if hyperspace is that disorienting and distorted that even just being there for a little while would render that information useless, how could using the Shadow ship as a second reference point be exact enough to get him back? I’m cool with hyperspace being inherently confusing and difficult to explain, and I actually do appreciate the lack of info-dumps in the episode, but I was left a little lost as to what, exactly, the problem was and how the solution solved it.
Minor notes:
- More hints that the Earth Alliance isn’t a shiny happy Federation utopia – they name their exploration ships after conquistadors.
- Ah, Warren Keffer. I know, I know, the character was forced on the show, JMS didn’t want him – but surely there were better ways to work him in than just having him show up randomly and act as if he’d been a major cast member all along?
- For such a forgettable episode, this one does have some very nice music.
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The other problem is that nobody’s particularly likable in this episode. We’ve got Maynard himself, who in the scene in Sheridan’s quarters seems unable to quietly drop the issue of B5 not being Sheridan’s first choice of command. There’s the subplots, which revolve around Franklin being unnecessarily obnoxious and Delenn apparently pre-emptively channelling Ulkesh. And then there’s Sheridan, who spends most of the episode sulking about how he’s stuck on boring old Babylon 5 instead of commanding
the Enterprisean explorer ship, a position which really isn’t one the show can afford to have us sympathise with, and probably isn’t the best way to help establish the still-new character as someone the audience wants to see stick around. And am I the only one a little concerned about his out-of-nowhere rant about politicians and bureaucrats, the political subtext of which seems to be “The only acceptable element of government is the military”? Somewhat understandable in context, but considering Sheridan would go on to overthrow the Earth Alliance government, and then seemingly accumulate more and more power with little to no actual accountability, it ends up a little disturbing.The actual plot’s alright, but I’m still a little confused as to how Keffer navigated back – if he was still oriented enough to fire in the direction of the jumpoint for the Cortez, why couldn’t he just head in that direction once he got navigation back? And if hyperspace is that disorienting and distorted that even just being there for a little while would render that information useless, how could using the Shadow ship as a second reference point be exact enough to get him back? I’m cool with hyperspace being inherently confusing and difficult to explain, and I actually do appreciate the lack of info-dumps in the episode, but I was left a little lost as to what, exactly, the problem was and how the solution solved it.
Minor notes:
- More hints that the Earth Alliance isn’t a shiny happy Federation utopia – they name their exploration ships after conquistadors.
- Ah, Warren Keffer. I know, I know, the character was forced on the show, JMS didn’t want him – but surely there were better ways to work him in than just having him show up randomly and act as if he’d been a major cast member all along?
- For such a forgettable episode, this one does have some very nice music.