b5_revisited | "War without End" discussion

Oh how I love every single thing about these two episodes. These are the episodes that made me appreciate Jeff, which I didn't do in his first season. I so remember how HOLY SHIT I felt when I figured out that he is Valen. Absolutely wonderful character arc. Oh, and Zathras explaining the one who was, the one who is, and the one who will be: That's why Sheridan has always been there! *loves*

Continuity makes me happy. Zathras makes me happy. Londo breaks my heart in all the best ways.

I have no clue how to be objective/analytical about this pair of episodes; it's all love and joy.

This is the episode I always point to for people I introduce to the show. I simply tell them that JMS is a genius storyteller and they have to hang in until they see this episode.

I missed Michael O'Hare when he left and I was beyond thrilled to see the payoff for Sinclair. The scene where he takes command of the White Star barking those commands in Adronato. His tender scene with Delenn where he tries to comfort her about John. My happy surprise at the revelation that John and Delenn married and had a son. Londo's dream becoming reality. The foreshadowing of Anna's return. Not to mention that time travel is one of my favorite sci-fi things(space battles are my other favorite).

Let's not forget JMS' slick manuevering around that scene from "Babylon Squared" with an aged Sinclair.

I could gush for days.

Anyway, I'll step aside now for the people who will view this in a more objective frame of mind.

Edited 2010-03-22 04:11 (UTC)

I don't think there can be an objective frame of mind for these two episodes. They are the magic episodes for me. I remembere the surprise when I saw them the first time. Everything, and I do mean everything, led us to this part.

Zathras was so wise in his words and his ways. "Yes, yes! Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very sad life! Probably have very sad death, but at least there is symmetry!" and " Cannot run out of time. There is infinite time. You are finite. Zathras is finite. This…is wrong tool."

I can't even pinpoint the most amazing but I'm pretty that Valen and the two Vorlons greeting the Minbari a thousand years in the past was it! That just blew me away!

Um, I'm done squeeing too.

Next!

I love these episodes because they showcase what a master storyteller JMS is. The return of Sinclair, the future scenes on Centauri Prime that we don't understand until seasons later, the scenes from an earlier season that we get to understand now. He weaves them beautifully.

And, as a J/D fan, I was excited about that kiss. The one that didn't really count. I am willing to bet that JMS got a sadistic kick out of doing that to the fans. And we loved him for it.

Considering every unexpected change that took place in the series, the fact that “War Without End” works at *all* as the flip side to “Babylon Squared” is impressive – and it works quite well, doing some clever work patching up some of the areas that needed to be fixed (“The One”, Lady Ladira’s vision of B5’s destruction), while wrapping up Sinclair’s storyline in a very satisfying fashion – and, oddly, providing the end of Londo’s storyline a season or two before we get the middle.

A random odd thought about the “everyone dies” timeline. Now, it seems to me that if B4 was destroyed before going back in time, the long term effects would be a bit more significant than just “The Shadows would have more ships” –without Valen, Minbari society is completely different, if the Battle of the Line occurs at all, Sinclair wouldn’t be identified as Valen, and either way there probably wouldn’t be a Babylon Project at all.

It occurs to me, though, that there is a valid point of difference that could lead to a timeline where the Shadows attack B5 directly – if Sheridan had decided not to go to Z’ha’dum, the Shadows could easily have decided since there was no chance of convincing him to defect they should just deal with B5 directly – as they might have done anyway, had they not recalled their forces after Sheridan nuked Z’ha’dum directly. And, of course, the reason Sheridan goes to Z’ha’dum is because he thinks that will avert the future he saw in this episode.

Yeah, I know, the timeline doesn’t quite work out – but as I said, there’s holes in the theory that B5’s destruction is the product of a B4-less timeline too. And either way, the events of this episode do prevent that timeline- just not in the way everyone assumed.

And, of course, it would make sense if everything ended up revolving around Centauri Prime. On that note, I like how the future destruction of Centauri Prime is treated with the same sort of importance most shows would reserve for Earth alone.

Garibaldi’s scenes in Part One are real gut-punch, huh? I’m convinced if this hadn’t happened, he’d never have been anywhere near as susceptible to Bester’s manipulation. The sense of being abandoned by a friend and no longer having someone he unconditionally trusted running the Army of Light must have been perfect material to drive a wedge between him and anyone else.

(And it may just be me, but it’s hard not to see Sinclair and Garibaldi’s relationship as at least a little slashy, particularly when there’s the parallel between future Delenn trying futily to warn Sheridan not to go to Z’ha’dum and Sinclair impulsively trying to warn past Garibaldi.)

Lucy and Ethel? That’s a pretty obscure reference even today. I guess if you hang around Garibaldi enough, you pick up all sorts of 20th century pop culture by osmosis…

The first time I attempted to watch B5, as a teenager around 1998, it was mostly because I'd read a summary of "Bablyon Squared" and "War Without End", and it hit a whole lot of my early narrative kinks: time travel, closed temporal loops, flash-forwards, flash-forwards to dystopic futures, doomed couples stealing moments together in cells before execution, OTPs producing spawn who end up in danger. (They're not very sophisticated narrative kinks.)

Needless to say, when I finally got to watch WWE last year, it had a lot to live up to. The amazing thing is how perfect it is: passable time travel logic (I agree with

4thofeleven that destroying B4 changes maybe too much to be sure that the Bablyon Project would even happen, although I'm prepared to believe that it's what the Tenth Doctor would call a "fixed point"), a neat balance of ensemble work, individual character moments, plot, etc.

Also, my latent inner Delenn/Sinclair shipper gets wibbly at the bit where they speak Adronato, because I'm a pathetic fool like that.

At

selenak's suggestion, I recently bought and read the In the Beginning novelisation, whose framing device is set concurrently with Sheridan's flash-forwards. I read that, and then I gritted my teeth and ~~read~~ ~~attempted to read~~ skimmed relevant bits of The Fall of Centauri Prime, the novel that deals with the same period. And I was really quite annoyed to realise that PDavid's two versions of the same events don't even add up (yes, I am comfortable with my identity as a pedantic nerd), plus I have a hard time reconciling the David-Sheridan-with-Keeper story as PDavid tells it with (a) Delenn's claim to Sheridan in the cell that their son is safe and she's ready to face death, or (b) the mention of the incident in "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", which implies something far more devastating and scandalous than what we got. And I have a hard time believing that the Drakh's plan went:

1. Give David Sheridan a Keeper.
2. Wait 17 years for it to activate.
3. ??????????????
4. Profit.

It just seems like there are more straightforward ways of torturing and killing Delenn and Sheridan, if that was their goal. Even for Shadow servants, it's a bit arcane.

Dystopic flash-forwards, man. I'm all over that.

Like everyone else here, I love War Without End to bits. Must attempt to be analytical nonetheless. So:

I'll never forget the jawdropping effect the three big revelations had on me the first time around - Sinclair being Valen, Londo and the Keeper, and the true reason for Londo and G'Kar killing each other. It says something about the quality of the two parter that despite being a Centauriphile, the Valen issue still completely caught my attention. Actually, even without that, I think this is Michael O'Hare's best performance as Sinclair on the show. He's relaxed and at peace with himself in a way he wasn't before - which fits with what happens to the charcter, of course - and there is both sadness and grace in all his scenes, along with some wry humour in his interactions with Sheridan. (Who comes across as remarkably boyish and young by comparison.) Also: the fact Sinclair is literally Valen, not a reincarnation but the same person in the flesh, makes the whole soul sharing business and the Minbari instruments responding to him nicely ambigious.

Speaking of sadness: "Goodybe, Michael." I really feel for Garibaldi there, every time.

Marcus & Ivanova are cute together, and the Sheridan/Delenn stuff is an original way to tease and avoid the "first kiss" cliché, but seriously, neither has a chance to compete in my viewing attention with Old Londo, the Keeper and G'Kar. One of the big, big reasons why one should see this show unspoiled is that Londo referring to G'Kar as his friend, sincerely, not sarcastically, really sends your head spinning. (As does the fact G'Kar kills Londo upon Londo's own request.) Until this moment, viewers expect Londo's death dream to play out, if it does, in the way present day Londo does too, as Londo and G'Kar coming to the end of their feud in a lethal way. Yes, G'Kar had an epiphany this season, but let's not forget that the previous episode just re-confirmed Londo's alliance with the Shadows. So "friend" is a biggie and of course what I wanted to see most from this point onwards in every subsequent episode was how they get there. I love this show.

Londo's death dream, familiar to the viewers since three seasons, recontextualized: best twist on a prophecy in sci fi, yes/yes?

The Keeper revelation was gutwrenching the first time and is gut wrenching still. One of the darkest fates given to a character. And yet, the reason why Londo's arc is so good is that he did his share to bring it about, and his tragedy is also part of his redemption.

Great as the whole space suit swapping in order to make everything fit with Babylon Squared is, the one point where my suspension of disbelief breaks down is when The One In A Space Suit touches s1 Sinclair, and the two get thrown apart. This was obviously meant as the result of the same person in two different timelines touching, and makes no sense if it's simply Delenn in a suit touching s3 Sinclair.

Delenn's flash forward to spending the night with Sheridan: made it pretty obvious the female person entering had to be Anna, but that's okay.

In conclusion: Awesome two parter is awesome. And nobody listens to Zathras.

I love this episode with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns, and I find myself almost too incoherent to comment. Almost. :)

The only things that I can contribute, aside from the general squee-fest--

When I first watched B Squared I thought the firefight was from some time Jeff and Michael served together on Mars. Too wrong.
This is the first re-watch where I thought that Londo had asked G'Kar to kill him.
The never-a-first-kiss paradox both delighted and infuriated me on the first (several) viewings, to the extent that I wrote a series of ficlets shoehorning kisses into every episode from Race Thru Dark Place through WWE. I have mentioned I'm fixated, right?

The whole alternate universe scenario as presented by Delenn doesn't make sense but she's no tactician. The face that they had video from 1000 years ago rammed home the age of their civilization. I like to imagine Sheridan and Ivanova war-gaming this scenario later and going 'whoo boy, was she off a little bit.'

This is a 'look' episode. I adore Sinclair's look at Sheridan and Delenn hand-holding on the bridge. Gulp. Delenn's look when they're waiting on the White Star and she decides to hell with it; I'll get him back myself. Gulp. Sheridan's look when he tells Delenn he trusts her with his life. Preview of Z'ha'dum. Gulp.

Sinclair in general is marvellous.

Who would have been Lucy and who would have been Ethel? I actually found the Butch and Sundance thing painful. And funny...

Butch Cassidy: Alright. I'll jump first.
Sundance Kid: No.
Butch Cassidy: Then you jump first.
Sundance Kid: No, I said.
Butch Cassidy: What's the matter with you?
Sundance Kid: I can't swim.
Butch Cassidy: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.
Sundance Kid: Oh, shit...

I think David's Keeper was part of a fall-back plan to lure Sheridan and Delenn to Centauri Prime to kill them and destroy the Alliance. Caveat: I have not read the CP trilogy and don't plan to for a while as I've been gradually writing out my own version of this sequence of events. This theory is part of that.

I'll stop now.

Adding to the chorus of squee, I think this is probably the best and most coherent time-travel storyline I've come across (questions about the alternativbe timeline notwithstanding).

First time round, and (as a late starter) not then having seen B Squared, I had to sit down and work it out on paper, and it all fitted.
Brilliant.

I also hadn't seen unsuited Vorlons before, so the Valen scene really spooked me (in a good way)!

Oddly however, I am less keen on Sinclair here than as a commander. The spiritual aura (which I otherwise liked) is getting too much, and the old awkwardness is somehow missing...I'm probably just jealous.
It was interesting how nobody questions his assuming command when Sheridan disappears. He is not really part of the chain of command of either the Minbari (unless the White Star crew are all rangers) or B5, but at the same time it just feels natural.

I will add to the squee-ing. This ep begins the long string of what really makes this show great for me, all the way up through Deconstruction of Falling Stars (with a couple exceptions, Grey 17 for example...)

I always thought this and Babylon Squared worked perfectly together, and the fact that you had to wait almost 2 seasons for the payoff was both cruel and awesome on JMS's part. The only part that bugged me was the whole "woman in the red dress" bit from the end of BSquared that we didn't actually see wholly filmed, except we know that it was Delenn by the end of WWE.

I love that we know have our 3rd(?) interpretation of what actually happens to B5 and who is in the shuttle when it comes out. The fact that that was always how it was going to end and that everyone keeps having the same flash and getting different information from it, also awesome.

Also one of my favorite Sheridan bits, "if you remember anything else from the list of stuff we're not supposed to know, please tell us." Classic.

I always thought that it was awesome that everyone was going off "prophecy" that was actually Sinclair just relating history as he knew it to the Minbari. That's just brilliant.

I can't add much new, but will say these are some of my favourite episodes.

The clip of Susan in the AU as B5 is about to be destroyed by the Shadows, the terror in her voice, gives me the chills every time.

The final shot of Valen flanked by the two angels, er, Vorlons, is still an amazing one. :D

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