"A Distant Star" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episodes 2X04, "A Distant Star". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
A ship commanded by an old friend of Sheridan's becomes lost in hyperspace after a visit to Babylon 5. Meanwhile Delenn is being questioned by the Minbari about her transformation.

Extra reading:

The article for "A Distant Star" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

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,

He. I definitely had the impression D.C. Fontana was writing Kirk post-TMP, pre-WoK here. Well, as this is a very early episode and she couldn't have seen Boxleitner's performance or the majority of the s2 scripts, presumably JMS gave her no more to work with than "new guy, used to command a ship before"?

Good one on Delenn channeling Ulkesh. I had forgotten Kosh II says the very same thing to Lyta in s4. One more proof the Minbari were the ones most influenced and formed by the Vorlons!

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.

It's the general JMS problem on this show. He's great on showing and warning how a democracy slips into a fascist dictatorship via the Clark regime (and preludes in s1), but when it comes to presenting the forces for democracy as actually democratic, not so much. See the demonization of the reporter in s1 for daring to ask Sinclair what's going on. And the poor reporter in Lost Tales whom Sheridan acts like a gigantic jerk towards. I think it might go back to the fact that Sheridan's storyline has similarities with the Aragon/Return-of-the-King model, but while in a conservative fantasy like LotR you can accept Aragorn becoming king of Gondor as a happy ending without question in the last third of the story, Sheridan becoming President and everyone who dares to question him treated like an annoyance and/or villain is another issue, because B5 is another type of story and supposedly in support of a system that encourages a balance of power.

The Earth Alliance ships: after conquistadors and sci fi writers (see the Asimov).*g*