b5_revisited | "Infection" discussion [spoilers]

Ah, one of the infamous ones. It's not quite as bad as I remembered. I think the basic problem is that despite the important continuity stuff which shows up here first, it's terribly generic - you could do that episode on any space ship in any sci fi show, and it would be the same. Wheareas the other first three episodes were specifically about THESE characters.

Re: continuity - as I sad to

londondkds once, Max Eilerson on Crusade has to be the only archaeologist in the B5 verse (financed by Interplanetary Expeditions, no less) who makes it out of his story alive, not evil, and not brainwashed, either. (Which makes him the last girl of a horror movie!) Otherwise, the profession is doomed, and we see it here for the first time. Speaking of Max, I think David McCallum's character was supposed to be more ambiguos and failed sadly; for a sci fi icon, he's singularly charismaless here. (And I've seen him in Sapphire & Steel!)

The episode also features the first appearance of a JMS stock-in-trade, the annoying reporter (still featured in Lost Tales.) I have to say this bothers me in retrospect. Not the depiction of the media as a tool for the goverment once we're solidly in the Clark era, because that's how fascism works, but the media in the first one and a half seasons, and in Lost Tales, too, when we're talking about Earth as a free society. While I agree reporters can be annoying (and I've read my share of interviews which made me roll my eyes at the interviewer, not the interviewee), it strikes me that in a story which features a democratic society turning into an authoritarian one and back, the importance of the media as a fourth power, as something that keeps everyone on their toes and responsible, in short, the Watergate scandal side of the media, is singularly neglected. There is Good!Heroic!ISN shortly before the building is stormed by Clark's troops, true, with the reporter that made the last free broadcast coming back after Clark is gone, and there is Ivanova as the voice of the resistance in s4, but the later is on Sheridan's orders, and that comes back to my point. By and large, the media are represented in a "how dare they bother and crtisize our heroes?" fashion, when we, the viewers, know so much better. And that irritates me.

(Sidenote: it's not just JMS, though. If a show doesn't make reporters the heroes, a la Lois & Clark, they usually aren't presented in a complimentary manner, though I think The West Wing does a good job of offering the media as something that might be unfair at times but also is important for democracy, not just in spite but BECAUSE they can run stories that go against Our Heroes' interest, to keep them honest.)

Stand-out scene, in terms of character: Sinclair and Garibaldi at the end, no doubt. The whole "do you have anything worth living for" will be transfered to Sheridan later, of course; at this early stage it's remarkable that the usual leading man heroics aren't presented as simply heroic but that we're meant to wonder about the reason, about whether this man might need to reexamine his life.

I agree; there is, I think, something faintly disturbing about B5's regular portrayal of the media and elected politicians as a threat to society - generally because they have the temerity to request Our Heroes occasionally justify their actions.

(I've always really disliked the sub-plot in "Rumors, Bargains and Lies", where Sheridan intentionally makes use of the Voice of the Resistance to mislead the league worlds into signing on to his new alliance; an alliance which, it must be noted, does very little to justify its existence for the rest of the show...)

And the use of the trope here is particularly unsubtle (like most of the episode, really). The reporter here serves no purpose to the story other than to show up, be unlikable, and get in the way... How dare she try and claim the people have 'a right to know' about the Ikaran weapon's attacks? Next she'll be claiming the people have a right to know about who funded the excavation of the weapon, or what happened to it after the episode!

How dare she try and claim the people have 'a right to know' about the Ikaran weapon's attacks? Next she'll be claiming the people have a right to know about who funded the excavation of the weapon, or what happened to it after the episode!

Shocking, isn't it! Yes, exactly that. It also reminds me of the attitude towards historians in the s4 finale - how dare they critisize Sheridan for being a lousy President and making the wrong decision regarding telepaths on the station! Except then the show proceeds to show Sheridan as a lousy President and, etc. Or the s2 interview with Delenn - how dare the nasty reporter make Delenn cry! Except, of course, this is the same Delenn who goes head to head with Neroon, Shadows, Drakhs etc without crying, and intimidates the hell out of everyone when she wants to, so this is just cheap emotional manipulativeness on the writing's part.

The funny thing is, it's not like JMS is incapable or writing an episode that shows Our Heroes from the perspective of someone critical to them. The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father is an example of this. We get a scene we've seen before - Bester arrives at the station in pursuit of a telepath gone rogue, tells Zack as the representative of station security that the guy has killed a Psi Cop, and Zack replies "and that is bad because...?" It's the kind of reply Garibaldi, Sheridan or Ivanova have made before, only then we were in their pov, mocking the evil Psi Corps. In this case, we've seen the murdered man's widow crying over his dead body in the preceding scene, so Zack's remark looks callous and bigoted instead of cutting-Bester-down-to-size. Just imagine if we'd gotten episodes from a reporter pov which weren't about how great Our Heroes are or how unfair the media is...

Or the s2 interview with Delenn - how dare the nasty reporter make Delenn cry! Except, of course, this is the same Delenn who goes head to head with Neroon, Shadows, Drakhs etc without crying, and intimidates the hell out of everyone when she wants to, so this is just cheap emotional manipulativeness on the writing's part.

In this one instance, I have to say that I had thought that was foreshadowing Delenn's own guilt about her role in the genesis of the Earth/Minbari war as elaborated upon in "Atonement."

Otherwise, I agree that the show could have been more responsible about how it portrayed certain professions. Wait until we get to "A View From the Gallery."

I bet Max Eilerson only made it out because Crusade didn't make it out of the first half-season.

I bet episode 15 had Max get his mind erased when he discovered Things Man Was Not Meant To Known in the process of excavating an ancient Vorlon fertility statue.

As someone with an archaeology degree, I had a similar response!

The episode also features the first appearance of a JMS stock-in-trade, the annoying reporter (still featured in Lost Tales.) I have to say this bothers me in retrospect

Yeah - that caught my eye this time through as well. It's not that I *necessarily* disagree with any given portrayal, but the cumulative effect... journalists and archaeologists are always evil? *g* I particularly disliked the incident in the Lost Tales, because that was just unnecessarily petty. JMS obviously has some... issues with journalism, which is a shame, because, as you say, it's important, and it could have added an interesting extra layer to the show.

Wiki says JMS worked as a journalist himself in addition to his other jobs (150 articles), which makes it even odder.

Incident in the Lost Tales: oh yes. That didn't make Sheridan look funny but made him look acting like a jerk.

Archaeologist-wise, though, he did try to break the pattern with Max who is a company man out for money but also capable of doing the right thing in a pinch.

Lastly: back in the day the lesson I drew from this episode was that if an episode had no aliens as main characters, just the human staff, I was less likely to enjoy it...

Wiki says JMS worked as a journalist himself in addition to his other jobs (150 articles), which makes it even odder.

Not necessarily - he'll also have known a lot of inside dirt.

I know people who deal with sensitve issues, and all of them have had bad experiences with the media.

I think part of what jms is doing is not slagging off journalists as such, but highlighting the power of the media. And unfortunately nobody ever notices that when (if?) it is used to do good.

To quote

4thofeleven from above: The reporter here serves no purpose to the story other than to show up, be unlikable, and get in the way... How dare she try and claim the people have 'a right to know' about the Ikaran weapon's attacks? Next she'll be claiming the people have a right to know about who funded the excavation of the weapon, or what happened to it after the episode!

I.e. we have the presentation of the reporter in a bad light when in fact she was doing her job. And that's a pattern on this show. Again, I don't mean an episode like The Illusion of Truth where the media is already under Clark's control, but before, and after.

And unfortunately nobody ever notices that when (if?) it is used to do good.

I'd say Watergate has burned itself into the public consciousness as a prime example of the power of the media used for good in real life. In my own country, Germany, one major incident in the early 60s was when the secretary of state had a reporter and an editor arrested in Spain (where they were vacationing) for a story the magazine Der Spiegel had printed. This, the "Spiegel Affair", ended with the secretary of state dismissed (and the journalist freed, of course), and was celebrated as a victory for the relatively young post WWII democracy.

I'd say Watergate has burned itself into the public consciousness as a prime example of the power of the media used for good in real life. etc.

Fair point - I amend "never" to "rarely"...

BTW:

The reporter here serves no purpose to the story

Arguably, her purpose is to be the trigger for Sinclair's speech at the end.
Not very good writing to have character with nothing but an extra-textual function, though...

Not only this, but I think the reporter also serves as a reminder that Sinclair's actions are being viewed by people off station, as we get reminded increasingly as the series goes forward. With other sci-fi shows, you have the sense that everything takes place inside a bubble and that the actions of the staff are largely ignored in the outside world - but this is the first time in B5 where we see that Sinclair's decisions do have an impact beyond the station.

Also, Western media today tends to be very heavily slanted towards certain ideological perspectives. Now, there's no such thing as truly objective; everyone has a point of view, and in the case of journalists it influences both what stories they search out and how they tell them. Certainly, there are many journalists whose perspectives don't fit the normal politics/ideology for the media, but overall there's a definite slant. (It's why it's so important to get multiple points of view--no matter how fair and balanced and objective you try to be, no one can truly be objective.) Someone with a different perspective who tried to go against the grain (as JMS probably found himself) might not have had a very good experience, depending on where and when he was working in the field.

But I think the problem, at least with this particular episode, is that there's no indication that the journalist has any particular slant or bias or insidious agenda or anything like that. The very fact that she wants to do a story on B5 is taken as evidence she's an annoyance.

Yeah. I was speaking of a reason JMS might be biased against reporters even given that he was one, and not referring to this episode's reporter specifically. Sorry for being unclear!

Oh, gotcha. Sorry!

By and large, the media are represented in a "how dare they bother and crtisize our heroes?" fashion, when we, the viewers, know so much better. And that irritates me.

Yeah, I have to say this isn't that unusual in American shows/movies of the time, but it is disappointing in the context of what's a visionary show in many other ways. I think, as you've said, the 'West Wing' has changed that a bit -- together with events of the last decade that make some people sit up and say, 'hey maybe an activist independent media would be a *good thing to have*. But in general, in the 80s & 90s, if media weren't specifically set up as the crusading heroes, they were generally shown as dumb and/or evil.

I think, as you've said, the 'West Wing' has changed that a bit -- together with events of the last decade that make some people sit up and say, 'hey maybe an activist independent media would be a *good thing to have*

I was thinking of that, too. Once you've lived through the era of "embedded" journalism, it might change some perspective.

Re: media, I think it's interesting that one of the things JMS wanted to do in later Season 1 and Season 2 was to actually have an embedded reporter from ISN on the station. We get the reporter from Infection back later (I think in By Any Means Necessary) and we have Jane the news anchor, but if we'd actually had a real recurring reporter character we might have had a more balanced view. But yeah, I definitely agree on the point about JMS' bugaboo for reporters. The cumulative effect is either "twits" or "evil twits", and that's really annoying.

"Infection" discussion [spoilers]

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