"And Now for a Word" discussion

[ruuger]

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.

Comments

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

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…

[selenak.livejournal.com]

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?

[(Anonymous)]

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

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

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...

[kathrid.livejournal.com]

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.