b5_revisited | "GROPOS" discussion

I know this isn't one of the most popular episodes in the show, but it was actually the one that made me into a B5 fan back in the day - I remember being very impressed by how at the end of the episode all of the soldiers that had been 'introduced' to the audience, both the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys', were killed, and that their deaths were shown as equally tragic.

Rewatching the episode now, I have to say that it is pretty cliche'd (though I still like the ending), and it would have been nice if we'd ever heard about Matok again :) But Keffer is surprisingly non-annoying in this episode.

Also, I had been talking with a friend about the white-washed worlds of Joss Whedon's shows just before rewatching this, so it caught my eye that the gropos were a nicely diverse bunch - there were men and women of various ethinicities in both speaking roles and in the background (and not just few token women and minorities).

Like you, I have always liked "GROPOS" a lot, despite the prevailing view that most fans harbor about it. If I have to go even further, I have always liked Warren Keffer, as well. I understand how his death furthered the story, but I have always thought that the series had suffered slightly from the lack of of a fighter pilot in the series in episodes like "Severed Dreams" and "No Surrender, No Retreat".

I'm not hugely impressed with GROPOS. The Garibaldi/Dodger plot is good, and one of the subplots that shows that unlike many genre shows B5 is not moralistically hostile towards casual sex. But the Franklin plot is a sad example of the cliched Hollywood father-son plot.

Better than I remember it being, but then, I remember it being utterly boring, so much so I skipped it in every subsequent season rewatch. Upon this rewatch, Fraklin and his father are still really standard Hollywood military movie, and so are the grunts, but I do like the continuity; this is one of the episodes that shows how xenophobia and saber-rattling are increasingly goverment policy on Earth, but not in a sledgehammer kind of way, and the grunts versus Delenn keeps up the Earth/Minbari war fallout thread, and shows the ISN reporters later aren't actually talking out of thin air when talking about hostile human reactions to Delenn's change. What does make the episode not a waste of time, though, is none of this but the Garibaldi/Dodger subplot, which manages to be funny and poignant at the same time, with Dodger being a vibrant character and a way to showcase Garibaldi's current emotional state, the way he distrusts himself and doesn't expect anything good to happen to him. This is probably my favourite of Garibaldi's canon romances (well, sort of romances...), and I thought it was splendid Neil Gaiman brought Dodger back in Day of the Dead in season 5.

"This is probably my favourite of Garibaldi's canon romances (well, sort of romances...), and I thought it was splendid Neil Gaiman brought Dodger back in Day of the Dead in season 5."

Yep, agreed 100%

This isn't exactly one of my favourite episodes, but that last scene is a sad illustration of death being the great leveller. :(

Like season one, season two follows up its ‘name’ episode with a rather irrelevant episode with a title all in capital letters. Fortunatly, GROPOS is nowhere near as bad as TKO.

Main problem I see here is that the episode feels a little disconnected from the rest of the setting – we never see large scale infantry forces again in the show, the Shalasan Triumvirate never even gets name-dropped again, even Dr. Franklin’s father never gets a mention during the Civil War.

Oddly, because there’s such a clear distance between the B5 officers and the Gropos, Keffer ends up playing a useful role for the first and only time in his existence. Since infantry are such a rare sight in the B5 universe, Keffer provides a vital service by helping convince me that the Gropos and the B5 staff are part of the same organization. Really, I think I might have preferred to see more scenes of Keffer trading war stories instead of Dr. and General Franklin competing to see who can be most self-righteous... I like that the story Keffer tells is his perspective from “Points of Departure”, and it occurs to me that Keffer might have actually proven an interesting character if he’d been emphasised a bit more as a guy who doesn’t ever have the big picture, and has to trust that his commanders know what they’re doing even if he’ll never find out just what the hell was going on. He could have had an interesting storyline along the lines of Zack’s in the third season...

Delenn – as Selenak pointed out, the issue of humans taking offense at Delenn’s transformation would be raised again in “And Now For A Word”. As there, Delenn seems to be uncharacteristically at a loss for words. We’ve discussed this before, and I think it’s interesting that Delenn’s idea of bringing humans and Minbari together is to take an action which makes the rapprochement process all about her while at no point making any mention of her own personal responsibility. She also seems to assume her gesture would automatically be accepted without any further action or explanation on her part, when in fact neither Minbari nor humans seem to think much of it. I find myself far more sympathetic with the human position here and in “Word” than I think I’m meant to be – grand gestures are all very well, but Delenn seems to be far too focused on the gesture itself, and not on its purpose, and it seems ends up completely failing to build any real connection between Earth and Minbar.

Minor notes:

- General Franklin is known as the “liberator of the African Bloc”. Sounds like there were fairly major conflicts on Earth itself within living memory… How recent is Earth unification meant to be?

- So, Garibaldi gives orders to seal off the more ‘colourful’ areas of the station… and that didn’t include the casino?

- Why do space navies get to be far more relaxed and informal than their real-world equivalents, while futuristic armies always seem to still be employing the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket?

Agreed on Keffer actually having a purpose in this episode. BTW, isn't this the first time we see Jeff Corwin, who did become sort of the little guy who doesn't ever have the big picture on the station?

I find myself far more sympathetic with the human position here and in “Word” than I think I’m meant to be – grand gestures are all very well, but Delenn seems to be far too focused on the gesture itself, and not on its purpose, and it seems ends up completely failing to build any real connection between Earth and Minbar.

I'm not completely sure about Word, but here, given the soldiers accosting Delenn are presented as thugs, yes, we're probably not supposed to sympathize with their position at all. With Delenn, I think the problem is that she wants to have her cake and eat it - she wants to atone, but she does not want to confess first. And as you said, not only does this make human/Minbari reconciliaton about herself but means the humans and most of the Minbari (i.e. everyone who wasn't present in the Council when she cried for war) can't understand what her point is anyway because she never ever explains.

I think Corwin had an appearance in season one - possibly "Chrysalis". Think this is the first time he gets lines, though.

Delenn - Interesting also that when the thugs demand "What are you?", she responds with a rather defensive "I am a Minbari", rather than giving her name or position... or an explanation. And that links to "Soul Mates", where it's played for laughs, but the point seems to be that she still sees herself as full or at least primarily Minbari, and persists with her old behavior. It's almost as if she feels she's made the gesture, it's done, let's move on, why are you still talking about it?, rather than thinking of it as the begining of an ongoing process.

And without explanations, or even any real further effort on her part, it's easy to see why others would see it more as an act of mockery than atonment.

I don't think Delenn ever stops thinking of herself as Minbari, no matter the biochemistry of her body, though in the episodes we're about to watch she'll rethink what this means. It's interesting to compare this to Sinclair/Valen, because in a time-travelling chicken/egg way they were each other's model. Sinclair's transformation into a Minbari strikes me as much more of a sacrifice, because he really gives up his entire human existence (and his own time) for it, and as far as we know (and as far as he knows), there is no way back. Like Delenn, he has spent some time as ambassador among the people he's about to join, and like Delenn, he's gone from fighting them to joining them, but unlike Delenn, he does not have something major to atone for, surivor's guilt notwithstanding.

It always bothered me that we never heard from or about General Franklin during the Civil War arc too. I get that Franklin and his father weren't exactly best pals, but it would have been nice to see some sort of reaction from him.

“liberator of the African Bloc”

Could be the african bloc of one of the colonies. There's bound to have been some problems on the new colony worlds.

The casino is part of Red sector, and is therefore a fairly legit part of the station. I suspect that Garibaldi has prevented them getting anywhere near the similar, but much more 'colourful' entertainment found Downbelow.

I like this one (except for the Franklin & Dad bit), partly because it is so different. Shows how B5 can navigate various sub-genres with relative ease, and also shows a part of the military not notmally seen on space opera type shows.

Like selenak, I liked Neil Gaiman bringing back Dodger.

- General Franklin is known as the “liberator of the African Bloc”. Sounds like there were fairly major conflicts on Earth itself within living memory… How recent is Earth unification meant to be?

If memory serves me right, in the fist of the Psi Corps novels (Dark Genesis), the Earth Alliance is a federation *on earth, and not all countries are members. That novel ends with the birth of bester, which provides a time scale.

- So, Garibaldi gives orders to seal off the more ‘colourful’ areas of the station… and that didn’t include the casino?

He may not have got away with that, there'd have been a riot ;-)

- Why do space navies get to be far more relaxed and informal than their real-world equivalents, while futuristic armies always seem to still be employing the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket?

I am told real-world air forces are much more relaxed, too, and the nick-name airboy suggetst that an airforce rather than a navy is envisaged. Which ties in with the real-life space programmes being run by the airforce (I believe).

BTW, I like the nick-name airboy, at a place and time when pilots rarely get near an atmosphere. Like VCR, a nice observation on how conservative language can be (and unlike VCR, it hasn't been overtaken by real life...).
I love this kind of attention to detail.

that last scene is a sad illustration of death being the great leveller.

Less so than it might have been. First time round, I had fully expected the general to be killed too. Still the anti-war messge was good; somehow that kind of thing, though not new, never gets quite as cliched as other things do.

While I'm not enamored of the cliched nature of the Dr. Franklin/General Franklin plot, I am sort of interested in how many different kinds of parent/child relationships are shown on Babylon 5. Ivanova and her parents, of course, Sheridan and his dad, Delenn's musing about her parents in... ... cannot remember the episode name right now, Garibaldi telling the story of his dad cooking earlier, Londo's story about his father, Vir's family problems, and even the mother/daughter duo in Quality of Mercy. There isn't just one template on the show; it's really varied.

Actually I disagree with aris, albeit slightly.

B5 is rife with father issues. Mothers are absent, due to enforced suicide (Ivanova) or 'desertion' (Delenn, and possibly Garibaldi as he is raised by his father), or to whatever ('you know how your mother is'-Sheridan). Franklin's mother is presented as pretty normal. G'Kar's mother protects her children during the occupation.

Fathers are the only parents who physically appear in the series (minus Ivanova's mother in a dream). G'Kar's father (well, Kosh speaking through his image), Sheridan's father (and also Kosh using that image), Franklin's father; all appear in the series. Garibaldi's father is integral to a story, and mentioned here in GROPOS as well. Londo's father is mentioned ('my shoes are tight, and I have forgotten how to dance'); as is Delenn's (Grey 17 is Missing is that ep, btw). You could make an argument that Dukhat and Draal are both father figures for Delenn, Kosh is somewhat one to Sheridan, and Lorien is perhaps the ultimate father figure ('It is difficult when your children quarrel.')

I've found this fascinating for years. nolivingman told me once that B5 was about family, and here are all these people making a family in a time of great stress, turning to, and relying on, each other. Even ancient enemies learn to lean on each other. Human may be the race that makes communities, but that is in fact, the mission of the station.

Oh, and I join in the Dodger love. Even if she eventually spoiled Emily Dickinson for me.

"GROPOS" discussion

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