"Believers" discussion [spoilers]

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 1X10, "Believers". 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 "Believers" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[bonspiel.livejournal.com]

Throughout the episode I just wanted to smack Dr. Franklin. How could such an intelligent, well-traveled and thoughtful person be so dogmatic about this issue? Surely before in his career he’s had to deal with situations where length of life was in conflict with quality of life: risky procedures that the patient or their families declined, extreme measures for dying patients, that kind of thing? His approach here implied a kind of “we can fix everything with no consequences” kind of medicine more like what they have in Star Trek than what you see later in B5, imo.

That said, it was nice to have Dr. Franklin have his foibles and blind spots, as far as character development goes. And the situation did illustrate nicely the unique position that the station is in. One wonders how doubtful the aliens were when this project was announced: oh, sure, it’ll be a neutral meeting place, it *just so happens* that the humans will be running it all, there’s no conflict there.

As Howard Zinn said, you can’t be neutral on a moving train, and I think Sinclair understands this. Appropriately, he’s not trying to be neutral - he’s trying to be fair-minded. Even doing nothing is making an ethical choice, as the Minbari response showed.