"Ship of Tears" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 3X14, "Ship of Tears". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
Bester returns to Babylon 5, this time asking for help to rescue a group of frozen telepaths.

Extra reading:
The article for "Ship of Tears" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

One of my favourite episodes, so I'll admit bias in its favour up front. Rewatching didn't change it.

But to try for matter-of-factness:

1.) Propaganda!ISN: this time I don't mind JMS versus Journalists, because this is what happens in a fascist state, and Real ISN has presented as heroic before they were stormed.

2.) Bester is back, and you know, of all of Walter Koenig's appearances on this show, which were all good, I think this is the one where he gets to show the most range, from smugly superior to genuinenly shattered, from playing games to serious focus... and it's not that Bester is any less of a magnificent bastard in this one. We simply see more layers. By which I actually don't mean the fact he's in love with someone as much as the highly continuity-relevant information that there are different factions in Psi Corps, which was given for the first time here, and that Bester being a telepath supremacist does not mean he's also in bed with the Shadows. And he's as good with the one liners as ever.

3.) Seriously, one of the things I love best about B5 is that it doesn't do what most genre shows do, simply have all antagonists/villains on the same side, but allow them instead their individual goals, some of which some of the time even coincide with the heroes' goals. Way more realistic and complex this way.

4.) I also love the B-plot around G'Kar and Delenn, which contains what are my two favourite Delenn scenes ever. In five years of show, I never admire and love Delenn more than when, in her meal with Sheridan, she says "WE won't, I will". Delenn insisting on telling G'Kar the truth herself, doing so without obfuscation and accepting the responsibility for the tactical decision she made is fantastic, and also, as I noticed upon rewatch, a great contrast to the constant "we" talk regarding the Earth/Minbari War and the way she regarded becoming half human as a bridge and atonment but without explaining anything about her reasons to the people involved. Not so here. She owns those scenes, both of them, and as the second one is with the mighty Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar, that's really something.

5.) The first time I realised what the "weapons components" telepaths had been meant for, I was completely freaked out. The concept still chills me, more than anything else the Shadows do on this show.

6.) Reversal of expections: whereas the first and second season strongly implied Psi Corps, as a unified whole, was micromanaging Clark, and were directly allied with the Shadows, Bester presents the situation as the other way around: "Through Clark, they (the Shadows)'ve managed to infiltrate Psi Corps." We've talked before about just when the red herrings about Psi Corps being the human Übervillain in the Earth political storyline stopped, and I think it's more that they fade away (much like that other red herring, Centauri Prime sooner or later invading Earth) in the course of the third season, but this is definitely where it gets textual. So from this point onwards we have the Corps presented as split in different factions (not simply as in: future resistance fighters like Lyta when she was still it on the one hand, and Psi Cops on the other, but several factions within the "the corps is mother, the corps is father" believers), and Bester not in a ruling position but as a member of the machinery, albeit an influential one in one of the factions.

7.) Garibaldi works it out: we have two neat show, not tell instances of what makes Garibaldi a good investigator here - he both realises that Carolyn responded to aggressively was Bester's insignia and later makes the big discovery as to why the Shadows both are averse to and want to use telepaths. What nobody at this stage realises, and I didn't, either, is that this makes it highly unlikely telepaths developed by accident. The later revelation that the Vorlons deliberately engineered them as weapons in all the younger races is a logical conclusion.

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

and it's not that Bester is any less of a magnificent bastard in this one.

The chilling thing being that thus he comes across as bth inhuman and human *at the same time*. A very daring concept from a traditional fantasy/SF perspective, but, I agree, much truer to life.
For me it is this kind of thing that makes B5 stand out.

he concept still chills me, more than anything else the Shadows do on this show

Makes one wonder about the Vorlon ships, which are obviously biotech too.
Interestingly how hints get dropped way before S4 (and its revelations about teeps - I don't think we ever learn about the ships). It's the kind of hint usually only noticed in hindsight, but it makes for solid continuity.