b5_revisited | "And Now for a Word" discussion

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"And Now for a Word" discussion

This is the discussion post for the episode 2X15, "And Now for a Word". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
ISN Special Report about a regular day on Babylon 5.

Extra reading:
The article for "And Now for a Word" at Lurker's Guide.

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Some nice Narn/Centauri tension, but overall, I just loathe this episode. Not even Reva Shayne can save us from JMS Making A Statement About The Press. I'm with Delenn in crying. Which I found embarrassing as a viewer, but realistic. She's new to human emotions; they're tough to deal with. And she still has that lame hairdo and it looks bad on TV. I'd cry too.

I find the assertion that 250,000 humans died during the Earth-Minbari war to be an interesting fact. I guess we can make the math work if we assume small outposts were taken, smaller ships, etc., but it's weird how over-the-top the reactions in In the Beginning (which I adore) are in comparison to that number. I'm not prepared to say continuity problem, but I would need some talking into it.

Which I found embarrassing as a viewer, but realistic. She's new to human emotions; they're tough to deal with. And she still has that lame hairdo and it looks bad on TV. I'd cry too.

That, and over the season she's been kicked out of the Grey Council and lost most of her allies, regarded as an outcast by her own people and as a freak (at best) by humans. And hormonally, she's probably at a stage equivalent to that of a fourteen-year-old girl. Not to mention that she seemed to have a number of friends in season one, most of whom have vanished (except for Draal) now. She's basically down to spending her time with Lennier and Sheridan, and, um, I'd cry, too.

(This is how I justify a scene that doesn't quite work for me at all. At first I thought she was bunging it on, in the manner of Donna Noble at her abortive wedding reception, but that's not Delenn's style. And she still seems blotchy and distressed in the next scene. I don't know. I have trouble believing that she wouldn't have considered the human reception before, and I can't quite see the journalist as a Big Bad for asking about it.)

I guess the reaction in In The Beginning makes sense if you assume that for every output the Minbari were attacking, the civilians were being evacuated, leaving just the military there to take on the Minbari.

And if all of those were getting slaughtered, you can see how freaked out Earth would be as refugees keep coming in and no warships are coming back. And when all your colonies are gone, the Minbari are on the way to Earth.

Even if a relatively small number of people have died, if that composes 90% of your military and all your civilians are at the next target, that'd explain a lot of the reaction.

Yeah, the Minbari war causualty figure seemed very low to me, especially since it is implied elsewhere that entire colonies were destroyed.

Anyone know how big the crew of an Earth Alliance cruiser is meant to be?

I believe the Hyperion (the most common ship at the time) had a crew of about 100 to 120.

About the casualty numbers - as far as I thought the colonies, even major ones, only have a population roughly 1 or 2 million at the time of the show. Fifteen years earlier they'd be smaller still. As such 250,000 may well have comprised a large proportion of Earths spaceborn population. Plus I always thought Earths military was almost wiped out during the war. More like 98% casualties than 90%.

*icon courtesy of IPX sponsoring this episode and Max Eilerson being a company man*

I remember upon first watching finding the different format narration interesting and being amused by the Psi Corps ad, complete with subliminal message. But it's not an episode I cared to rewatch, so this is actually only the second time, as opposed to how often I rewatched other eps.

Looking back, Cynthia is actually the reporter who fares best on all five seasons of B5 and in the spin-offs. She's not declared oxnoxious for just doing her job (s1), presented as a tool for fascist evil (s4) or humiliated and ridiculed for daring to ask a head of goverment for an interview (Lost Tales); JMS even gives her the concluding plea to keep B5 running. This being said, I'm never quite sure how the audience was supposed to take the Delenn interview. On the one hand, bearing Delenn's personal involvment in the Earth/Minbari war in mind which she can't bear to acknowledge out loud, her extreme reaction here isn't out of the question and ties with the earlier incidents in GROPOS, on the other, I can never quite unite the Delenn who crumbles in tears every single time someone critisizes her or shows hostility because of her transformation with the Delenn who faces torture by Sebastian, the Markab dying around her and later breaks up the Grey Council. So this makes me wonder whether we were supposed to go "how dare that reporter make Delenn cry!".

Interview and character moment I had forgotten but which I really liked upon rewatching: Franklin's story about his friend airlocking himself. It's haunting and a good reminder of the danger of living in space.

Corwin's interview with Ivanova in the background was amusing.

The mentions of the new minstery and Clark's "astronimical" popularity are parts of the ongoing transformation of Earth from a democratic into a fascist society. The characterisation of the Mars independent movements as bloodthirsty unreasonable terrorists menacing the Earth-loyal populace makes me think certain situations created in the last eight years, ahem.

Speaking of parallels: the episode reminded me again that JMS played up the "prelude to WWII /Munich agreement" parallels in s2 with the Centauri. (Which ended in s3 - Londo's memorable rant to Refa about only kings of idiots fighting multiple front wars comes to mind.) I remember a lot of viewers at the time were expecting the Centauri to eventually turn on Earth as to follow the pattern set, which did not happen. In this case, I'm voting deliberate red herring because the fact Earth, via Clark, is already allied with the Shadows (which Sheridan & Co. can't know about) means it can never have been intended as a parallel to the Western Allies.

All this being said, I wasn't bored, but it's not an episode I'll rewatch any time soon, either, and I really wish the Delenn scenes had been handled differently.

We’ve kind of discussed one scene in this episode a fair bit already – the interview with Delenn. On re-watching, I’m not entirely sure how we’re meant to take it. On the one hand, reporters don’t exactly have a good reputation in Babylon 5, and this is a scene that ends with a normally sympathetic main character on the verge of tears. On the other hand, Delenn really doesn’t come across very well – she’s apparently initially refused requests for an interview, and unlike G’Kar and Londo doesn’t seem at all prepared. It’s hard to see how we’re meant to be automatically taking the side of someone who seems that unwilling to take advantage of an opportunity to communicate her viewpoint regarding a change that was supposed to help build connections between Minbari and humans; if she doesn’t even want to talk about it with humans, one has to ask what the point is?

Of course, this goes back to the point Neroon made a few episodes back that the Grey Council is out of touch and unanswerable to the outside world; coming from that background, it’s understandable that Delenn is really uncomfortable being challenged in such a public forum… but that doesn’t really make it a particularly virtuous position, and I would hope the intended message was not that reporters should stick to vacuous questions about how pretty the cities on Minbar are.

Looking at the main plot, it’s interesting to notice that on the one hand, the Earth government is trying to spin the EA as a major powerful force – the senator claiming that their military is now powerful enough to hold of the Minbari, the reporter ‘correcting’ Sheridan that Earth didn’t lose the war – but on the other hand, their actions seem if anything reminiscent of the first season Centauri government. Sending a warship to blockade someone else’s outpost to ensure they don’t stop you using it as effectively a military supply depot is a fairly strong action, and not only does Earth seem to take the Centauri actions in stride, within a couple of days a senator is on TV discussing whether or not Earth really needs that outpost in the first place…

Now granted, as Sheridan said, the Earth Alliance really isn’t in a position to take on the Centauri, but it’s interesting to note just how much of a paper tiger the Earth Alliance seems to be. One has to assume the Shadows feel a little ripped off that they went the effort to assist a species that seems quite content to hide away on its own homeworld and avoid any hint of trouble…
Minor notes:

- Hey, it’s the flying camera robots from “The Gathering”! Man, I love seeing those things. I like to imagine they’re friends with the little mouse robots on the Death Star in Star Wars.

- ‘Growth only comes through pain and struggle’? Speaking of the Shadows…

On the other hand, Delenn really doesn’t come across very well – she’s apparently initially refused requests for an interview, and unlike G’Kar and Londo doesn’t seem at all prepared.

Yes. And considering she's been a professional diplomat for more than a year now (and wasn't there this earlier scene where she and Sinclair, or was it Garibaldi, get editions of their respective papers? At any rate, Delenn does know what the media are), it just feels weird to see her behave so incompetently.

Now granted, as Sheridan said, the Earth Alliance really isn’t in a position to take on the Centauri, but it’s interesting to note just how much of a paper tiger the Earth Alliance seems to be.

It could be that Clark & Co. are indulding in playing both sides against the middle, in the hope that the Centauri and the Narn will so exhaust each other's resources that whoever remains standing will be a ripe fruit for the Earth Alliance a few years later. But they could just as easily be extreme isolationists, granted. Also, here's a thought: maybe the losses from the Earth/Minbari war were as heavy as In the Beginning implies, the numbers Cynthia gives are already a spin predating Clark and were chosen by earlier goverments as to not let the population know how narrowly they escaped, and Earth can only indulge in posturing because it really needs more time to recover?

I thought the reporter's questions to Delenn were on the spot, and worth considering. Delenn's inability to handle them reflected badly on her, which (I thought) was the point. How _are_ you a bridge between the two races, anyway?

Delenn may be a diplomat, but she's not a public diplomat; she works with negotiations among leaders and other diplomats, who are at least respectful within the formalities. I don't think Delenn, at this point, is really up to handling people whose respect is predicated on the quality of her words, rather than her status. (Something last week's episode with Neroon ties into.)

The post-production editing was obviously slanted, but I thought the reporters were at least trying to do an honest job.

Tony Zbaraschuk

Of course, if the Clark regime had any expansionistic goals, surely they've have gotten involved either when the Centauri started moving against the League worlds or later when the League turned on each other - a Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, perhaps, to go with the Munich Agreement analogies that pop up rather unsubtly later this season.

I do think it's amusing to look at what the show tells us humans are like - "They build communities out of diverse populations!" and compare it with how humans as a whole actually behave in the show - Isolationist dictatorship followed by a government apparently apathetic at best towards the Interstellar Alliance, followed by bombing themselves back to a pre-spaceflight status, and then eventually evolving into the new Vorlons...

It could be that Clark & Co. are indulding in playing both sides against the middle, in the hope that the Centauri and the Narn will so exhaust each other's resources that whoever remains standing will be a ripe fruit for the Earth Alliance a few years later.

I agree with this. It's also worth remembering that the Clarkists have a fairly advanced project researching Shadowtech, allowing them to produce some fairly vicious Earth/Shadow hybrid ships in as little as 2 years from now. I view them as trying to lull the Centauri into a false sense of security until they've finished building an upgraded fleet in the next few years.

In addition to my replies above I thought I'd input about the journalistic qualities shown.

Overall, this show is surprisingly unbiased against B5. Although there are obvious signs - if you know what to look for - of the Clarkists pressuring ISN into being more pro-Clark, there are plenty of pro-B5 voices shown throughout.

The overall effect is of a journalist attempting to remain as objective as possible when being pushed into a Clarkist position. She is mostly fair, but makes sure she puts the boot in good and hard when she feels she has to make a Clarkist point. It's worth noting that most of those occasions - the Delenn interview, the Mars comments being the notable ones - are those when Clark's views agree with the majority Earth view. Anger against the Minbari and the Marsies are well documented in Season 1. She probably feels that it's not breaking her integrity to represent those commonly held views, where pushing Clarks more controversial ideas would.

I think this is partly to contrast with The Illusion of Truth a couple of seasons on, which I'm sure JMS was already planning in some detail at that point.

We see how the portrayal ahs changed from an apparenlty quite decent one, albeit with a discernible bias (but then again, no journalism is completely unbiased) to one which only retains a superficial semblance of objectivity.

The two episodes are interesting in themselves (I've never been able to make up my mind whether or not I cactually like them), but I believe they are really a pair.

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"And Now for a Word" discussion

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