"The Parliament of Dreams" discussion [spoilers]

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 1X05, "The Parliament of Dreams". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Extra reading:

The article for "The Parliament of Dreams" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[dqbunny.livejournal.com]

I agree with the earlier assessments that this is really one of the best of early season 1, if not the best. You got another dose of utter awesome that is Londo and G'Kar, and the introduction of Na'Toth is perfectly done. I also enjoyed the deeper look into the insights of the intricacies of Narn culture and how much of that has survived the Centauri takeover of their world. Under the proud exterior that G'Kar constantly shows, you can see just how much he wants to live. We get our first true glimpse of how much his religion is a part of his life, and we know how much the words of G'Quan are going to play into later events.

I had heard about the rebirth/marriage ceremony aspect of this episode long before I actually saw it for the first time, and maybe it's because I looked at this from a perspective of having Sheridan/Delenn together that I just could not see it. I've read about the original JMS plans and this episode drives home for me the lack of chemistry in that area that I felt regarding Sinclair and Delenn. Even back at this point in season one when the original plans were probably somewhat intact, I just never got that sense that they were supposed to be together. I do wonder if that's part of what TPTB saw in this as well, realizing that Sinclair and Delenn didn't have the right sort of chemistry to pull off such a major relationship critical to the core of the show, and to find someone else that had better chemistry with Mira Furlan on that level. They really hit the mark with Bruce as Sheridan.

Likewise with Sinclair and Catherine Sakai. It was the ninth novel that made me really fall for this pairing, because again I really wasn't sensing the chemistry. The line from Catherine Sakai, and many apologies to those who did enjoy this scene, sounded very forced to me. I actually enjoyed the aftermath more than the build-up to Sinclair and Catherine sleeping together.

The end of the episode where Sinclair introduces all of the major religions of Earth is just beautiful and really shows us just how diverse our own world is and how it is going to become even more so in the future. I love how JMS really shows a great amount of respect to all faiths and it's greatly making me look forward to seeing Brother Theo in season 3. Oh, how I wish more had been done with Brother Theo!