Recap and discussion: 1 x 04 - Infection
Nov. 30th, 2015 07:52 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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b5_revisitedSeason 1, Episode 4 – Infection
Talk about signs and portent. This one was a hammer to the head.
Babylon has been online 2 years at this point and a reporter from ISN has come to interview Sinclair, who apparently does not care to be interviewed.
The main plot is Franklin has an old friend, Vance Hendricks, show up with an artifact that he wants Franklin to examine. What we see that Franklin doesn’t is that Vance’s assistant, Nelson, moves the crate of artifacts through quarantine by killing the agent in charge and making it look like a heart attack.
Franklin and Vance find the artifact to be living technology, a biotech that can withstand time and attacks. In the meantime, Nelson is messing with the artifacts and one shocks him. We see him putting some sort of scarab on his chest and he begins to change into something not human. He says “protect.”
Franklin and Vance talk. IPX hired Vance to find artifacts and this one comes from a planet called Ikkara, which has been dead for a thousand years (Remind you of other places?)
Nelson is replaced by (or evolves into) a metal monster who begins a rampage over the station. Vance helps Franklin study the tech and they find that the Ikarran’s built supermachines who sought out all ‘impure’ enemies and destroyed them and finally destroyed the Kiarrans themselves as well. Remind you of anyone?
Sinclair uses this as a weapon when he goes after the monster and convinces it that it has killed its masters. The machine leaves Nelson and he tells Franklin that Vance knew all along. Vance tells Franklin that IPX is a front for hunting military tech to sell for huge profits and invites Franklin to join him. Franklin has him arrested instead.
Garibaldi visits Sinclair and gigs him for risking his life yet again and Sinclair has no real explanation for him.
The story ends with Sinclair finally talking to the interviewer:
Reporter: "After all that you've just gone through, I have to ask you the same question a lot of people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back, forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home?"
Sinclair: "No. We have to stay here, and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars."
The ending – Earthforce Biotech division shows up to take the tech…
We first learn of biotech but it won’t be the last time for sure. Muhahaha!
We first hear of IPX and it won’t be the last time for that either.
We encounter the anti-alien sentiments from back home in the reporter’s questions.
Now I have some questions:
1. Were you suspicious of Vance Hendricks from the beginning?
2. Do you think this one was actually a sign of things to come or do you think it was less deliberate than that and only afterward did JMS connect it in some way to the things that occur down the line?
3. Why do you think Sinclair does what he does? Heroism? Something darker?
4. JMS considered this a weak episode… do you? Why or why not?
Sources:
Babylon 5 Lurkers Guide: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/004.html
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0517658/?ref_=ttep_ep4
Talk about signs and portent. This one was a hammer to the head.
Babylon has been online 2 years at this point and a reporter from ISN has come to interview Sinclair, who apparently does not care to be interviewed.
The main plot is Franklin has an old friend, Vance Hendricks, show up with an artifact that he wants Franklin to examine. What we see that Franklin doesn’t is that Vance’s assistant, Nelson, moves the crate of artifacts through quarantine by killing the agent in charge and making it look like a heart attack.
Franklin and Vance find the artifact to be living technology, a biotech that can withstand time and attacks. In the meantime, Nelson is messing with the artifacts and one shocks him. We see him putting some sort of scarab on his chest and he begins to change into something not human. He says “protect.”
Franklin and Vance talk. IPX hired Vance to find artifacts and this one comes from a planet called Ikkara, which has been dead for a thousand years (Remind you of other places?)
Nelson is replaced by (or evolves into) a metal monster who begins a rampage over the station. Vance helps Franklin study the tech and they find that the Ikarran’s built supermachines who sought out all ‘impure’ enemies and destroyed them and finally destroyed the Kiarrans themselves as well. Remind you of anyone?
Sinclair uses this as a weapon when he goes after the monster and convinces it that it has killed its masters. The machine leaves Nelson and he tells Franklin that Vance knew all along. Vance tells Franklin that IPX is a front for hunting military tech to sell for huge profits and invites Franklin to join him. Franklin has him arrested instead.
Garibaldi visits Sinclair and gigs him for risking his life yet again and Sinclair has no real explanation for him.
The story ends with Sinclair finally talking to the interviewer:
Reporter: "After all that you've just gone through, I have to ask you the same question a lot of people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back, forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home?"
Sinclair: "No. We have to stay here, and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars."
The ending – Earthforce Biotech division shows up to take the tech…
We first learn of biotech but it won’t be the last time for sure. Muhahaha!
We first hear of IPX and it won’t be the last time for that either.
We encounter the anti-alien sentiments from back home in the reporter’s questions.
Now I have some questions:
1. Were you suspicious of Vance Hendricks from the beginning?
2. Do you think this one was actually a sign of things to come or do you think it was less deliberate than that and only afterward did JMS connect it in some way to the things that occur down the line?
3. Why do you think Sinclair does what he does? Heroism? Something darker?
4. JMS considered this a weak episode… do you? Why or why not?
Sources:
Babylon 5 Lurkers Guide: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/004.html
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0517658/?ref_=ttep_ep4
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no subject
Date: 2015-12-19 05:54 am (UTC)It's been some years since I first watched the show, so in some ways I feel like I'm watching it for the first time. He did seem shifty from the start. Plus, taking out the custom guard was a giveaway that something was going on.
2. Do you think this one was actually a sign of things to come or do you think it was less deliberate than that and only afterward did JMS connect it in some way to the things that occur down the line?
I'll probably remember, once I watch later eps!
3. Why do you think Sinclair does what he does? Heroism? Something darker?
I understand what Garibaldi was saying to him about guys coming back from war who lack that larger sense of purpose when they return to normal life. But I'm not sure that would necessarily apply here. He does have a larger purpose in his work. It's not always as dangerous as being in the middle of a war, but it sometimes is.
Plus, I didn't get the sense that Sinclair was one of those guys. He seemed to me like a good man and a good leader. The sort of man who would have no problem putting himself in harm's way to protect the people under his command.
4. JMS considered this a weak episode… do you? Why or why not?
I enjoyed it. I felt like we got to know the characters a bit more deeply. And I've always loved the idea of biotech.
The one thing I did hate was the old cliche that those who become obsessed with the enemy become like them. (Or whatever the exact wording was.)
That's not only simplistic, it's factually untrue. There is good and there is evil. There are good people and there are evil ones. There are good ideologies and there are evil ones. Those on the side of good can and must defeat that which is evil. If being committed to that is seen as being "obsessed", then so be it. We should - we MUST - be obsessed with defeating evil. And doing so does not make us also evil, or make both sides equal in any way. That's ridiculous.
It was a bit disappointing to hear that on this show. I guess I didn't remember it from my first viewing.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-31 02:46 am (UTC)An example I can think of is the Interment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII. The govenrment became so obsessed with the enemy that they imprisoned American citizens without any due process at all.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-31 03:46 am (UTC)