"Mind War" discussion [spoilers]

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 1X06, "Mind War". 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 "Mind War" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[swashbuckler332.livejournal.com]

In general, I'm not a big fan of telepathy and telekinesis in general in science fiction because they usually seem (and often merely are) simply a method for writers to, from a functional perspective, bring magic into the genre. Babylon 5 managed to sidestep that issue with me for the most part by presenting the Psi Corps, which is interesting from a sociological perspective, and by the fact that it is eventually revealed that telepaths did not evolve naturally but through intervention.

I agree, however with selenak that Ironheart and Byron are annoying as all hell, and I feel that the telepath storyline in general in the fifth season was one of the program's weakest. This was clearly the beginning of a large arc with Talia that, along with several others, never went anywhere. The idea here wasn't so bad, it's realization is somewhat stymied by some of the performances (not, of course, Walter Keonig's), but on the whole I think the main story of the episode works, and I felt the idea of TKs being unstable was plausible if one buys the concept in the first place.

Even though this is Bester's introduction, his behavior is very consistent in most ways with what we will see later, although he and his partner take a bit more Psi Cop 'latitude' this time around than we see in the future; this isn't so much of a continuity issue though because one can easily make the case that once people know what Bester is about, he has to tread more carefully. It was very odd to see Keonig in this role initially, but his arrogant manner couldn't have been farther from the affable Chekov, and it didn't take long for me to accept him in the role once he started speaking without the accent...

While G'Kar was pretty sympathetic in "Parliament in Dreams," this is the first time that we see him helping somebody else for reasons that aren't selfish. This is the first hint of where G'Kar may be going, and how eloquently he can express himself. His description of whom we will eventually come to know of as the First Ones is beautiful and in its acknowledgment of the vast history of the cosmos.

I have to say that I rather enjoyed Catherine. It was nice to have the story follow a character who had a job in the private sector, something we rarely ever saw on other science fiction programs (Star Trek didn't really do it at all until DS9) and widens the show's scope. I agree with beatrice_otter that Bester and Sinclair's exchange at the end was fantastic and I found Christopher Franke's music for this episode to be really enjoyable as well.