A Day in the Strife

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I'm watching Babylon five for the first time.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the very first time. We are two veteran Star Trek podcasters who are watching Babylon five for the first time and searching for what we call the Star Trek like messages in this series. Contrary to popular belief, Jeff, we are not comparing the show to Star Trek.

That is correct, but we are going to search for those messages and decide how much we really like the.

Jeff: We are so much not comparing this show to Star Trek, that we play a game just to stop us from doing exactly that. And that game is the rule of three. That means each one of us gets only three references to Star Trek during this episode.

That's it. Three. One of those takes. No substitutions. Exchanges are refund. Hey Brent. Yo. We have a five star review. Oh yes. This one is off of Apple Podcasts and it's from . This has gotta be the greatest, greatest name of all time on Apple Podcasts from Ka Stinky the Swamp Rat.

Brent: I read this one, this part before you even get there.

I know which one you're talking about. This is, this one's been around for a long time. I've been waiting for you to get to this one. This is perhaps my second favorite review we have ever received just because of the title of the review alone. For the record, the, the one that's the favorite is, do you remember that one?

I don't remember how long ago it was. Somebody wrote like, all the, the references like throughout the entire, uh, review.

Jeff: Like, oh, that was, uh, norm. That was Norman La Who did that, right? Who had all that? Oh, that was Norm. Yeah.

Brent: Okay. Yeah. That was Norms, uh, that was such a clever cleverly written review. This one is Right, right there next to it.

Jeff: Captain Stinky the Swamp Rat. Right. This is fun to say that.

Brent: That was a, uh, oh gosh. That was what It was that long, dark back in the last season. That was the one,

Jeff: uh, it was before that Star distance. Star, yeah, distance. Star, star. I forgot all about that. Yeah, it's, it was his,

Brent: his little friend looked

Jeff: like a teller, right?

Yeah. I blocked like the first four or 5, 6, 7 or eight episodes of season two outta my head. Rightly so. Yeah. Oh, anyway. Hey, back to the good stuff. Yes, captain Stinky the swamp Rat says Epic nuggets to chuckle over. This podcast has it all. Intergalactic discussion thoughts on alien hairstyles and a penalty buzzer.

I grew up watching Babylon five, and now I get to enjoy new perspectives as the host document their first time. I also get to laugh when predictions for future episodes are far from accurate while muttering under my breath. Just you wait. If you're looking for a Babylon five journey, this podcast is it.

Brent: I love the two things he says there. He says, one, I get to laugh at them. As they make their predictions, uh, which I, I mean, Jeff, I'm, I'm a comedian of old, like, I like when people laugh at me because I know that actually means they're laughing with me. Right. You know, uh, I'm in on the joke folks, like, I'm not, because I don't know.

But I am in on the joke. But the other thing is he said that, uh, he's a, he's a, he gets new perspectives and particularly for those of you guys out there that are long time Babylon five viewers, uh, if Jeff and I can come in and provide a new perspective on something for you, that's a win in my book. It's

Jeff: pretty cool.

I've got one more. Andrew reached out via our website, Babylon five first.com, that's the number five, and the word first.com. With some questions, I'll share one of them. It was a lengthy email, but I wanna share just a little bit of, it says, Hey guys. First I want to thank you for putting this show together.

It has quickly become one of my favorite pods. The work you put in really comes across and it's been a blast following along, watching episodes once a week as intended. I appreciate your unvarnished opinions and your discipline in not watching ahead. It makes your show special. Question, do you plan to cover the TNT movies?

I ask this in part because my on Ramp to be five was through in the beginning, so I have a slightly different perspective on the show. While it does spoil a few things, overall, I feel in the beginning is a better introduction than the gathering. I hope you guys do cover third Space in the middle of season four, and then watch in the beginning, before starting season five, I'll be there watching.

Brent: Yeah, Jeff, uh, we have a list. Our good friend John over at the Trek Profiles podcast sent us a, Hey, watch things in this order. And I was looking at that list not too long ago, and it has all of those movies at the end of the series and we have just kind of said, we're gonna follow that order. Now. We could change that up cuz I've heard this in the beginning.

Is, is really good to watch between season four and season five. Mm-hmm. , um, there's a few others that get placed in various spots. Uh, so I, we haven't had that full discussion. That's not one we're gonna have right now in this moment, but, uh, I think I'm safe to say yes, we will watch them and cover them as far as when that happens.

Right now it's scheduled for at the end of the show and not during the middle. But stay tuned. Jeff and I might change that as we.

Jeff: Yeah, I think we've had quite a few things offered for us, right? The movies, couple books, uh, a few comic series as well. And I, I think that I can, I think it's safe, right, to say that we're wildly interested in all of them.

We plan at a minimum watching the movies, uh, reading JM S'S autobiography at a minimum. Probably Claudia Christians as well, maybe diving into more, but also we are at the very beginning of the third season, out of five of a, uh, 110 episode series. So, uh, we'll figure, we'll figure that out at some point. We got a ways to go, but it is coming quick though, Jeff.

I know we are in the beginning of the third season, like we're almost like, yeah, halfway,

Brent: like, yeah.

Well, Jeff, you know, what we like to do along with, uh, our reviews and our comments and our rule of. What's that? Well, when we get to the end of the episode, we like to play this game where we try to guess what the next week's episode is gonna be based on hearing the title alone. We've never seen a description.

We haven't read the really bad description that's on HBO Max. We haven't looked at the thumbnails. It's just, here's the title, what's the episode gonna be about? That's usually where the people laugh at us about the predictions we make and say Just you wait. Usually, although I'm sure that happens during the, the Red Yarn sessions.

That's the name of a good podcast. The Red Yarn Session or, or a Rock album title. It's the Red Yarn Sessions. Those are both good. There you go. We can do, um, uh, we, we like to do that at the end of the episode. Well, we have reached that part of this episode where we look back at what we said last week, A day in the strife was supposed to be about, and we pay the piper for just how right or wrong we were.

So, Jeff, just how right or wrong were you with your

Jeff: prediction? I actually pulled up my notes to see exactly what I said, because I feel like my first couple words really describe how close I was. Jaar is trying so hard. I tried so hard to get this right, and I got kind of close, like I said, I was gonna be about jaar and there are some jaar in there.

I said he'd be trying to get the resistance to stand up and it would be, here's where I completely missed the boat. I thought it would be a series of tragically comedic failures for Jaar, and I thought it'd be a step towards him, uh, reaching rock bottom. And, uh, that was not the case.

Brent: Comedic would not be the word I would use to describe this

Jeff: episode.

Tragic, um, especially in regards to a couple of people in this one. Yeah, I think would, might be a little more apropo. Yes.

Brent: What about you Jeff? I, I do believe you get more points this week than I do because you at least said Jaar. Jaar was even in this. I said, Marcus. Yeah, we didn't see a black hair won in this entire episode.

All 43 minutes of it. I was, I said it was gonna be a day in the life of Marcus the Ranger and, no, no, not, not at all. Not anywhere close. Uh, so Brent gets a big old fat dub on that one donut. Uh, not dub donut, but Jeff, while I eat this donut over here, uh, why don't you tell folks out there who haven't seen this episode, or maybe it's been a while since they've watched it, or maybe just maybe they're listening to us, ramble on about a show that they themselves have never seen.

Tell us what happened in this episode. A day in the strife,

Jeff: the Gears of Bureaucracy Grind in the 23rd century, just like they do today. We are transported to most any city council meeting in the United States today. But this one happens to be Sheridan and Ivanova meeting with the tsa, I mean the tpa Transport Pilots Association.

See Babylon five is ramping up weapons inspections. So they're either gonna have to slow down getting through customs or need to increase docking fees to hire more inspectors. Sheridan does what most any facilitator has wanted to do in most any meeting ever, and that's to get up and call out a super loud and overly entitled dude out on his bluff.

After that, they call for a recess. That's not the end of this story, I'm sure. You know, just like that other story about the upset dock workers that we had, you know, two years ago, and there's been so many follow up from, well, an Envoy from the Cent show up and it's two nans. They're here to meet with Sheridan Afar, an obvious collaborator that just wants the Narn to be cool for a while, and Talon his bodyguard.

I feel like we might know. Talon looks a little familiar. Well, they're here to shut down the armed nan resistance on home world, and that means picking up Citizen Jaar and sending him back. But Sheridan is not having it. There's no such thing as a boring day on Babylon. Five. Let's see what all is going on here.

Lawn has a meeting with Thelen where he tries to rekindle the friendship that Thelen is pretty sure they never actually had. There's a weird probe that shows up outta nowhere offering untold technologies if they can pass the SATs, and Dr. Franklin is the worst lawn lawn's tired of hanging around with a goody two shoes, and he's trying to find ve a new job.

He convinces to lend to let him go to Minbar to reopen the sent diplomatic mission, but Veer doesn't want to go. Wado paints it as a great career opportunity, so head down. Quiet and sad. Veers, shuffles off on a transport. Hopefully, hopefully to be seen again someday. The B five crew are working on the SATs for this probe that's promised all kinds of great stuff, but the stakes here are a little bit higher than getting into an out-of-state college.

If they don't answer right, the big old bomb inside the probe will explodes and destroy the station. At literally the last minute. Sheridan figures out the probe isn't here. No, it's not here to test for intelligence so that these can, uh, they can meet up with these new species. It's testing for intelligence that might be a threat.

They use some bots to push it far away from the station. Then they transmit their scantron sheet with all the answers, and Sheridan was right. It blows up, and it happened far enough away that everybody's gonna be okay. The NAS ne far is playing hardball. He tells them all the nans on the station that if Jaar doesn't return to home world, the center will harass their families back home.

In another chapter of the hit series, Jaar Servant Leader, he agrees to return despite his his friend Gu Baldy, begging him not to wow. Well on his way to the ship. We see what happens when a leader is willing to sacrifice themselves for their people. They literally block him and tell him that he needs to stay and continue the fight.

Telon. Now I know where I remember this guy from. He's the dude from the, uh, from the abduction ship with, uh, Sheridan, all alone in the night, right? So they drank a little bit of orange juice together. They reminisce. That's Talon. Cool. It's good to see dudes doing all right. Well, he pledges himself to Jaar in the Nonresistance, and he does so by ruining a perfectly fine pair of gloves with his Chris knife, what they call a kock, kind of a kind of a samurai sword.

Then Franklin, you know, you know how Dr. Franklin is literally the worst. Well, not only that, turns out he's also hooked on stems. He's also a huge jerk, not only to the people that he works with, but his friends in his colleagues back home. At the end of this day, lawn do's Gemini, cricket has left. The nans are unifying under jaar.

The probe crisis has been averted, and Franklin is one step closer to hopefully being fired. Ah, all in a day's work. Oh, Not quite. We forgot about the Transport Association. Poor Ava and Sheridan end up right back where they started. Brent, what did you think of this one A day in the strife.

Brent: So help me out with this episode. You texted me earlier today. I said, Hey Jeff, good luck with the Star Trek messages in this episode. And you're like, yeah, we could spend an hour talking about that alone, Uhhuh. Okay. So was this an episode about gun control in the Second Amendment or was this an episode about drug use?

Was this an episode about, um, not meddling in the internal affairs of alien cultures or cultures that are not your own? Uh, was this an episode about not being burned out? Was this an episode about looking out for others? Was this an episode about being a, a conscience? For those around you. Uh, was this an episode about, uh, not dying?

Was it, this episode was everything, everything like smooshed into one . Like the, the only thing this one didn't have was two guys with like half their face paint and one color, half their face paint and the other, and then the other guy is the exact same thing. It's just reversed and they're at war. Like it's on the right side.

That's the only thing this one was missing. Yeah, right. I believe I get a

Jeff: buzzer, that one. Oh, it's right. Yeah.

Brent: There you go. Um,

Jeff: I was just so on board with the narrative. I'm just like, yeah, you're right. This is totally what this Oh,

Brent: lit. Literally. Literally. I, my first note on this was, is this episode about gun control and the second Amendment, because we've totally seen JMS make little veiled political commentaries like this before ala green and purple.

Or red and blue, take your pick. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, whatever. Um, but I, you know, here's the thing. This was not a fun episode. I don't think we could say it was a fun episode. This was a good episode. This was a fine episode. Like, did this one knock my socks off? No. Did I have fun with it? No. Was I blown away by everything that happened?

No, actually some of it was predictable. The whole thing, I don't know about you, Jeff, the whole thing with the ship at the end where he is like, Nope. Actually, they're just trying to fake us out and see whatever. I, like, I called as soon as it popped up. I was like, oh, I know exactly what's going on with that ship.

Yeah. Like it wasn't, that was not a shock to me at. I did go back and rewatch this one a second time before we recorded and like there was a point earlier where they said something in the episode where it's like, yeah, Sheridan's known for being this great Strat Strateg strategist. That thing right there.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I was like, oh, they're obviously just gonna put that in for this episode. Although he apparently is that, um, this was a little bit of a heartbreaker episode though, because you got the whole thing going on with Ja car who you're like, no, this is not a good idea. And this man's about to go sacrifice himself for the good of his folks.

Oh my gosh. The needs of the one outweighing the needs of the few, or I'm sorry, flip that around. The needs of the mini outweighing the needs of the one like, oh my gosh. Like all of those messages are just all over, but then VE leaves. Yeah, I did that one is probably the part that caught me the most by surprise.

I did not think he would actually leave and. I have so many thoughts about VE leaving and how it's such a bad idea. And lawn took a whole other step in his evilness for me in this particular episode. Like he's digging himself in as heels and to lose veer in the middle of that is, is just something else.

So, yeah, I liked this episode, but I'm not really sure why. Jeff, what, what did you think of

Jeff: this one? I liked this one a lot too, but I think I liked it really because like what I, you know, I started the recap with the Transport Association and ended it with the Transport Association. And to me, like, I think I, I'm gonna guess the point of this episode was to, you know, move some plot stuff along, of course, but really to show you a day in the life, this is what it's like to live and work on Babylon five.

And I really appreciate it. In my job, in my day job, a lot of times this is what happens where I've got this just. Ridiculous level of bureaucratic sit around and blah, blah blah. Like your PowerPoint slide deck and this and that. Like kind of is the rapper of my day and it's what people think I do all the time, you know?

And that's when, oh, you command a international space station or intergalactic space station of, of diplomacy. Oh, you must be in meetings all day. So yeah, that's the thing you think, but actually you're solving this problem. You have a crisis over here. You've got somebody with a personal thing. Like to me it was a really good just slice of life kind of episode.

Mm-hmm. . But I think, I think what made it not fun, right? I also watched this one two times. I had a hard time watching it the second time in some parts because it's like, okay, it's a great day in the life. Life here sucks. , like not a lot of good going on for anybody. In this whole thing and, uh, yeah, no, I, I, I enjoyed it.

That's not the right word. Yeah. I thought it was good. It was a great episode. It's, it's important. It's all those things, but I think it just drives home that like things aren't good on Babylon five at all. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. This is one of those, like, if we were to take the entire season of season three, and we understand that this is supposed to be a chapter, like this is supposed to be a story, right?

If we were to take this whole thing and, and somebody looks at us and goes, guys, you have a four hour movie, I need you to cut it down to like two, two and a half hours max. Mm-hmm. , this would be something that gets cut out and left on the, on the cutting room floor. Yeah. You know what I mean? But this would absolutely be the thing you put on the DVD for like, oh, we hated to lose this one because we liked it so much.

It just, I don't know. In the long run, how much this

Jeff: one's gonna matter. I think two things out of this. One matter, there's the nan stuff with Jaar. Um, unifying really the resistance under him. Like there, there's not, up to this point, there's been some questions, right? Are you the guy? Like, are you this, you blah, blah.

Like now he's totally the guy. And then I think Franklin's stem thing is gonna mm-hmm. , you know, I was actually thinking about that when they ran the stem story with him. I, I feel like, I feel like I thought that was gonna be Ava that she was, cuz they've talked a couple times about how she doesn't sleep well in certain situations and, you know, the, the, that incredible scene back in season one with Sinclair and Garabaldi and Ivano and I'm just, you know, talking quietly about the time with the Jesuits and we'd meditate, put her to sleep.

It was great. I'm like, oh, she's gonna get hooked on stems. I wouldn't have thought Franklin, but also, of course it's Franklin. Right. And that's, that's gonna turn the quality of mercy back in season one again. Like, that's the reason that lady lost her license was stem. So they planted a seed, you know, two years ago that I think is gonna sprout in Franklin this season.

It's just gonna be a bigger way.

Brent: Do do you mean that Franklin could lose his job? Like that's real.

Jeff: That would be lovely. What do they call the great, uh, the great maker is what Lawn calls it. Let me Yeah, that's whatever, whatever God's eye worship according to Tolen, right. Between me, whatever God's I worship.

Yeah. Please fire,

Brent: please fire Dr. Franklin. That would be just fantastic, man.

Jeff: Do you wanna talk about Franklin real quick? No. That whole thing. Well, I just wanna get it out

Brent: of the way. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Before we do that, I wanna talk about two other guys real quick. Oh, okay. I want to talk about, um, Steven Mocked.

Stephen mocked played ne far in this episode. Okay. He looks familiar to me. I don't don't know if you know who Stephen mocked is. I don't. He's one of those faces I think you would probably recognize if you were to, to go see who, see him peel off. He just all the prosthetics. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, he usually plays like a cop in whatever show he's in, usually kind of like the cop who's like, he's not in uniform, like he's the detective.

Okay. But he's got the trench coat on and he's smoking a cigarette. He's got like a half drink cup of coffee in his hand. Okay. He's that guy, you know, but where I really know him from is the amazing movie. Jeff. He is the father of this movie, uh, not of the movie. He's in the movie, the Monster Squad. Did you ever see the Monster Squad?

I don't think, I don't think this is, like, this is like a b rated horror flick from the 1980s. Um, kind of like a Goonies wannabe doing monsters. Okay, okay. Kind of a deal. The best line that ever came out this, this epi, this movie was Wolfman's got Nards .

Jeff: I've heard the mine, I've heard the lens. It comes

Brent: from this film here.

Um, so, such a good movie. Oh, oh, oh. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna waste a Star Trek reference on it. Anyway, um, a guy who played in one of the other shows was also in this movie. Anyway, this guy was the dad. And whenever I see his face, I'm just like, Wolfman's got nerds. It's that dude like, uh, yeah, he's the cop.

That's cool. You, you mentioned, uh, the guy playing. Lon. Mm-hmm. as the guy who interacted with, um, who was it, Sinclair or

Jeff: whatever? Sheridan. He was Sheridan on the

Brent: strip ship. Yeah. Do you know who else he was? Mm-hmm. . Yeah, we've seen him before too. We've actually seen him out of makeup and then in makeup and then stuff.

He was Nelson Drake in the, the phenomenal, remarkable season one episode infection turned into the, he's the guy who turned No, he's the Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I When you, when you started talking about, oh, we've seen him before. That's where I thought you were going, and then you didn't, and I was like, oh, I've gotta, I've gotta point that out.

Okay. Wow. Now we, I have no idea. Yeah. I'm gonna leave that one. I'll let you look that up. But, uh, yeah, let's talk about Franklin and being. Two chicken to go talk to the girl until he goes and shoots up in the bathroom. Seriously. And you know, he is like, no, it's not a problem. I don't have a problem. I can stop anytime I

Jeff: want.

The, the note I have, this is the note I have out of, when Garabaldi had him over to his, to his quarters, made pasta bred a salad. I mean, Garabaldi went full olive garden for Franklin. Like it Well this is, this is

Brent: the opposite of whatever that other thing was that we saw Franklin coming over to eat at Garibaldis house.

The, remember remember when Franklin put him? Yeah, Franklin put him on like the diet. Yeah.

Jeff: It was the banya Cool. Whatever that was. Anchovy stuff. Ugh. The

Brent: crushed anchovies. Somebody sent us the, the recipe for that and I was with it until it said crushed like smush, like mortar and pestle. Anyway, uh, this is like the opposite of that meal.

Jeff: Yeah, it looked great. This is awesome. And. And Franklin was terrible, but he was also totally on point for an addict. Like everything he said and did and Garabaldi was totally on point for an addict. Talking to, like, the note I wrote was, this is great writing of a terrible person. And, and frankly, I think too, some great acting of a terrible person.

I think that, uh, bigs who plays him, Richard, Richard Bigs, I think it's fantastic. It's great.

Brent: But I, you know, I'm sorry. I thank you for bringing that up because for as much flack as we give Franklin the character, uh, bigs the actor is portraying him, uh, really well, except for that time he got creepy with that chick that just came outta cryo.

Yeah. Um, although you don't, he might have even played that really well. Like he was just given what the director told him to do. Uh, yeah, he, that conversation I feel like I've been a part of before. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, um, you, you can't have that conversation the way Gar Baldi had it with Franklin.

Unless you have your own junk that you've dealt with, you know, and to have them turn around and be like, well, look at you. You've never met Buddy you didn't like, which totally low blow. Yeah. And he even caught himself and he called. Yeah, he called himself out. Which in that actually is something I never or very rarely hear when somebody goes that route.

They're not like, oh dude, I'm sorry that was a little low.

Jeff: Right. But I think it's, I think it's cuz they really are buddies, you know, like they're friends. Yeah. And Franklin's not so far, far involved in his disease yet that he's, he's gonna, uh, sacrifice friends. Right. I think we'll get there. But it, what it really reminded me of though, is in Oregon we have a program and a few other states across the country, actually more and more have this, but we have a peer support, uh, program that's, that's regulated by, by the government and it's billable to Medicaid and it's insurance can bill for it and whatever, but like instead of just going to get addiction recovery services from some doctor or some professional with a whole bunch of master's degrees, you can get recovery services from a peer, from someone who is, does have addiction and is living in recovery.

And it is wildly effective. It is so effective because it's, I can sit down, right? Like with a group of, I, I always use this example where I can sit down with a group of at risk youth, you know, youth that are at risk for joining gangs or things like that. Mm-hmm. , I'm a big dude. I'm all tatted up. I mean, yeah, they're pretty nerdy, but like I got a lot of ink all up and down.

Like I can look there and be like, look, kid, you don't want to do it. It's bad. Okay. Don't do it. After they beat me up and rob me, they're gonna leave and go immediately join a gang. I will be totally ineffective regardless of what letters I have after my name. Mm-hmm. . If I was in a gang and I did a hard time and I did bad things and I turned my life around and I talk to those kids, they're gonna listen to me.

It's the same thing with an, with someone who, who, who, it's the same thing with an addict where if I sit down with, I have all these degrees and I understand your, uh, you know, the diagnosis and the principle of this, and yeah, well, they're not gonna, but if I'm like, dude, when I was living on the streets and I was having to do these things to get from one fix to the other and this to eat, this is how I, oh man.

Thank you for that. Like, I'm so wildly effective. This was that. And if Franklin doesn't fall off the edge, the legend is, it's gonna be because of Garal.

Did you notice when Franklin was being his peak terrible self? Mm-hmm. and yelling at that poor doctor back on earth, just trying to like get dude on vacation to answer a molecular biology question. Right. But like he's yelling and like all the staff are turning and looking at him. There's a patient lying on the gurney, like he's ugh.

He even like stops ugh turns and he even looks at Franklin . He's just like, dude, what is your problem? .

Brent: That's funny. You know, speaking about bigs acting the way that somebody would, would act, okay, not only is he acting the way that an addict would, I know that doctor. Oh wow. I'm sorry I take that back. I know those doctors cuz it's a common thing to be overworked overs stress.

understaffed with the support people you have mm-hmm. to be tasked with doing stuff that is not actually your job. You know, do you know, do you know what, do you know what doctors get paid for? You know, what their number one job is as a doctor. Hmm. It's not to see you as a patient, it's not to operate on you.

No, no. It's to write the note. Okay. And then when the insurance company asks you for more information, for you to spend time talking to them and on hold while you're waiting to talk to them, and scheduling peer-to-peer reviews. And that's really what doctors get paid for. Not actually doctoring doing the paperwork so that the people that control the money will actually, uh, you know, pay them Yeah.

For their work. But that burnout, I mean, it's so typical in the medical field, uh, but especially among physicians. And for physicians, you know, I, I know people look at like, well, yeah, but look how much they're paid and da. Uh, yes. All of that's true. The other thing about those physicians, remember, they sacrifice most of them if they just went straight through school, sacrificed their entire twenties mm-hmm.

to be able to do this, and the decisions that they make on a day in, day out basis are life and death. That's a lot of stress and a lot of weight to carry on. Your Yeah. On your shoulders. And here's, uh, Sheridan up in CNC being like, dude, if you don't gimme these answers, we're all gonna blow up. And he is like, okay, I'm sorry.

The fate of the entire station is on my shoulders to make this happen, and I just want a nap. Right. Yeah. Like, I, I get it. I've, I've seen it. , I live with it. I know. Oh, I've been there in many

Jeff: cases. Like I re, I remember, uh, I'm gonna age myself here, but I mean, many, many of our listeners and viewers are here as well.

Uh, I remember my first colonoscopy that I got. Okay. And I was talking to the doctor before, before I went under for, for that really fun experience. And I asked him, I was like, dude, like there are a lot of parts to the body, a lot of specialties. You could pick why, why this, why this one? Yeah. Yeah. And his answer blew me away.

And it makes sense. And I think especially given your social circles, it really resonates too. He's like, oh, uh, I'm never on call. I work office hours. I come in, I do this, I write the notes, I send it off. That's, I'm not on call cuz not only from my, you know, understanding, do they sacrifice their twenties for the education, but then they sacrifice their thirties and forties and fifties and their social lives and their family lives and whatever.

Unless they have a great partner who can work to balance all those things. because like, oh, yeah, yeah. So I worked, uh, 62 hours, uh, this week in three days. Yeah. Like, that's the job, you know? Yeah. And hopefully, hopefully you got some time off after that, but you might not have, and if you did sleep at all, it was on a little cot in a closet down the hallway from the supply room, like mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Ooh. Yeah. It's, it, it, it's wild, man. And even when you do have the day off, you still have meetings and people calling you, asking you about stuff that happened while you were doing, anyway, it's, it's a whole thing, man. And, and like, I get it. Um, I'm not saying that him being on drugs and turning all into House MD was a thing to do, you know?

Um, the only thing he could have done is just, you know, get in there and in a moment just be like, but I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm so scared that would've, that's the only thing that would've made this better to me, more

Jeff: realistic. Anyway, for your daytime Emmy consideration, Jesse Spano .

Brent: It's portrayed by Jeff.

I have, I have now sang in two weeks in a row on this show that you need to stop me.

Jeff: No, I didn't think it's great. . This is, this is good stuff.

Brent: Um, what, what's gonna, we didn't really resolve the whole situation with Franklin. Oh, no, no. Like he, like we ended it with him, like, yeah. I didn't use any stems and we're like, we saw you.

Jeff: Yeah. You were massaging it into your hand. Saw the whole thing.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I need, I need this to come back. Like, this needs to not be dropped, you know? Um, and, and like for the, for the sake of the show. Like, you don't do something like this and then just let it

Jeff: go away. You know, I'm, I think it's gonna come back.

I think it's gonna be big, and I think it's gonna be pretty devastating when it does like this. He's, he's gonna, he's gonna drop something big and it's gonna be very costly.

Do you wanna talk through the probe stuff really quick? Sure.

Brent: There's not a ton

Jeff: there. Yeah, let's go for it. Yeah. So here's literally all I have. Well, I have two things actually. One, uh, Sheridan. Sheridan said, boom. That's, that's cool. That's, that's neat. Cuz you know, Savanna and then Sheridan said it. Um, so literally all I have is where'd this thing come from?

Who sent it? And does it matter at all in the scope of everything? So here's, here's

Brent: my thought on the, because this is my only note about the whole probe thing too. Uh, well, no, my, my two notes, uh, I'm sorry. I had three. Wow. I had three notes. My first note was this thing's a joke. Like, this is just a joke.

Like it's, it's not gonna blast you with 500,000 megatons if you miss an answer. That is ridiculous. Also, I was like, I don't understand what they're doing here. And then I went, oh, I get it. It makes no sense right now, but I think this is gonna turn out to be like season three's Geometry of shadows.

Really? And if you, Reem, if you remember that episode in season two, we watched that one and we're like, this, this episode just makes no sense. What, what was the point of this episode? Oh, people were got

Jeff: blasted. Yeah, they were furious with us. Yeah. And they're like,

Brent: Ooh, well yeah, that conversation there, okay, spoiler for you guys are keeping up with us.

We're at this point in the timeline. They're like, well, if it's that conversation between the techno age and lawn where he is like, you got billions of people's blood on your hands and they told you that he was gonna turn bad. And I'm like, I didn't know that back then. We've been that for like a month.

We've possibly seen that, right? Yeah. Like now looking back at it by the end of season two, rewatching it, guess what? Oh, I now understand what he's talking about. You know what I mean? Yeah. What was that? What was the episode? Well, oh, we talked about with the cryo freeze lady. Long Dark, long, dark. And that was an episode where we're like, Hey, remember that little like ghost thing that it led out that it was, and we're like, Hey, it wasn't until the end of the season, but we're like, was that a shadow?

That was hitching a ride home? Cause that makes more sense now. Mm-hmm. to know what it is, you know?

Jeff: Yeah. That was still a terrible episode, but it made more sense at the end of the second season. Right? 20 episodes later.

Brent: I think this probe is gonna turn out to be like that. I think really we may come back like, we're going to understand this probe.

A lot later down the line, like, we're gonna look at it and I be like, what the heck was that? And then we're gonna see what it was, but it's just gonna be a lot later. Hmm. Okay. That's my guess. I could be wrong. Somebody out there is laughing at me going, just you late right now. And that's okay. I'm glad for you guys

Jeff: to Yeah, my guess is we'll never see it hide in her hair won't even be mentioned again.

Brent: I, it won't, it won't bother me if we don't, I'm just making a guess that we will. Yeah. So, um, although I will say out of that whole situation, we got some amazing banter between Sheridan and Niana. We did , and I wish I would've written it down, but I didn't. I just, there was just some great lines that they were popping off one after each

Jeff: other.

I just loved when I forget what he said to her, but, uh, it's something like, uh, well if I, if I wasn't all happy or whatever, I'd turn out like you then she's all, do you hear that? Did you hear that? Yeah. And, and dude who's getting more and more lines, he's just like, right, I want to keep getting more and more lines.

So, no, no, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't hear anything. Right. That's right. You didn't, yeah, he's, some of these automatic shower settings are about to get a little cold. Yeah. That was it right there. That was

Brent: this, I'm gonna turn your automatic shower settings to ice cold. And I'm like, wow, you have automatic shower settings.

Okay, well maybe

Jeff: Wonder two is like, so she's like, I'm gonna change your automatic shower settings and I'm, and then Gar Baldi, when he was talking to Franklin, he's like, or to Avan after Franklin. I was like, yeah, I read through Sheridan's personnel. You read through his personnel file. You can't do that.

Yeah. I gotta know things. Did you read through mine? Oh, I'd never do that. Whoa. people have access to a lot of stuff on babbling. Five

Brent: personnel files. But see, here's the thing. Garabaldi should have access to a personnel file unless he really shouldn't be reading it. Mm-hmm. then maybe he shouldn't have access to it

Jeff: or he has access to everything, but a redacted section or whatever.

Brent: Right, right. Yeah. Right. Um, There's no way that anybody should have access to somebody else's bank account information though,

Jeff: right? Yeah. They get, uh, you know, quality of mercy lady thing. They get, uh, the one security guy way back who was, you know, doing bets and stuff. They got his stuff like it's all just out there. Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Mm-hmm. . All right. We either gotta talk about lawn and veer or we gotta talk about Ja car and his whole situation.

You pick Jeff, I'll let you

Jeff: take it. Let's talk about, um, let's talk about lawn cuz I'd rather end on a happier note than what we're gonna end on here. Lawn

Brent: and veer. Lawn and veer. Okay. Um, I said it earlier and I'm gonna say it again just to double down because we gotta start there. Uh, lawn took about 10 steps into Villa in this episode alone.

Uh, what he did with who was that? Ne far? Yeah. What he did with ne far when he came in, like. I've really come to dislike lawn. I, I'm not yet ready to say I hate him, but I very much dislike him. This might be the first time though, Jeff, and for all the things he's done, this might be the first time I've wanted to full on punch

Jeff: him in the face.

Yeah, he was terrible. I, I captured two quotes from there. The one was when he is talking to ne far about, uh, and the way he starts it too. Do you think it would be safe for someone like me to walk down the streets of, of home world? I'd like to visit. I'd like to visit and Nefa was great. He is just like, the mostly empty streets would be fine, you know, but then the ones I capture where he says, um, he asks if the executions are still happening.

Yeah. And the far is like, yeah. And he is like, progress,

Brent: progress. He said it right to his face. You know, here's the thing. How many nans exist? There can't be many because you're feeling 500 at a clip. You know? Now, I mean, I don't know. I mean, we, we had a horrible, terrible point in our human history that was absolutely real.

Let me just make that 100% clear. Called the Holocaust, where over six of million people, human beings were murdered in a very short span. Mm-hmm. . Um, so maybe it's not that farfetched to think 500 at a clip, but like, that just can't be good. You're just gonna kill, you're gonna pick 500 and just randomly kill 'em and execute 'em because somebody did something over here like, That is the, frankly, that's the stuff that leads to revolts and revolution.

Oh, yeah. Like that does not stabilize a, I think, and his, his whole reasoning behind it, like when you get to his reasoning, no, you must, you must crush them. And various questions like what we, we've done to him. Isn't that enough? No, you must break them. I don't want people in a hundred years to have to do what we've done again, you know, like, like lawn dude.

That is not okay.

Jeff: Yeah. Be's like, what do they even have? He's like, they still have their pride. As long as it remains they will be a threat. A threat. There's starving, they're hiding. Oh my gosh. And that was the moment when Veer questioned him. That was the moment when Lando was like, you're gone, you're done.

Yeah. Because I think, I think that the interactions he had with the lens showed there's still this sliver of him. . That's like, um, maybe I'm still a good guy. Maybe I'm still the fun guy at the party and it's all good. Mm-hmm. and DA's just like, Nope. But I think that what it does, I think it's a combination of him kind of reaching out for a life preserver.

Like if had said like, you know, what lawn do I do miss our talks? Why don't you come in, let's have some minbar tea and let's, let's chat for a while, like that could have turned things around. But she had no reason to. They never talked. They were never really friends like she was. Right. So what he is doing, I think I brought this up before, he's trying to set himself up as a victim so that he feels justified.

Well, what other choice did I have? You wouldn't even talk to me, you know, Jaar, you, I came to you with this and you didn't shared it. I came to you with this and you didn't. That what, what did you expect me to do? I had to go and be responsible for the death of millions of nans.

Brent: See, I, I get a different read on that.

Well, I think you're a hundred percent right and that that is something he can pull from it. I don't. I'm not, I don't know that I'm ready to sit back and say that that's why he's doing things the way he's doing. Yeah. I think he might milk it the way that you're talking about. Mm-hmm. . But I don't know that, that's why like the way I read the whole thing and, and to be clear what we're talking about is he goes to the Lynn to get her to reopen the embassy so he can effectively shoe veer away because Veer was acting like his conscience.

Yeah. Veer is lawn's conscience and his conscience is poking at him. And we've seen Veer, we've talked about veer getting stronger, getting more, uh, forceful, becoming a, a bigger, uh, voice as he should be to a guy that we're, we're, we're rooting for ve Yeah. Right. Totally. And, and lawn's sitting there and he is like, you know, despite my best efforts, I've actually really come to like this guy and I need him outta here because he's being a conscious and I can't keep doing what I need to do.

But he also says, he is like, I don't wanna keep exposing him to everything that must be done. He's like, and I really read that as like a, because I care about him, like lawn truly cares about him and he almost doesn't want to have him corrupted. Yeah. Because he knows how pure and how good ve is. But also, I need you off my back because I can't do what I gotta do.

If I gotta look you in the

Jeff: face. It's like when he says Tolen, it's okay. He wouldn't spy on you. He would consider it rude. You know, it's like he's highlighting his virtue in that.

Brent: Right. And he's scoffing at him at the same time. Cause that's just ridiculous. But actually that's kind of

Jeff: cool. It's kind of true.

And, and, but what I kind of took outta that too is how there, you know, in, in, in the self development world, there's the concept that you are the, the average. Five people you spend the most time with, you know? And so if you're hanging out with a bunch of, you know, losers or whatever, you're probably gonna be a loser hanging out with a bunch of high achievers.

You're probably gonna be a high achiever. Now, I took this to be that when you surround yourself with good people, it's that much harder to be bad. Yeah. And lawn knows he has to be bad. And so he's trying to slough off the good people so doesn't have that conscience asking him those questions, just

Brent: like 100% agree.

Think that's, that's why he's sending him away for his own personal reasons. But there's also the, well, why isn't he just sending back home to the home world then? Yeah. If he just, if he's just, if he's trying to get rid of ve, that's an easy, Hey, I'm just gonna get rid of you. He's doing it the way he's doing it because he actually has come to care about ve, he's

Jeff: trying to find a good place for him to land

Brent: and, and yeah.

And he is like, this will be a good career path move for you. And beer's like, yeah, but I don't want to go. And he is like, too bad. Pack your bags buddy. You gotta go. And we see him just like he leaves at the end. And like, the whole time I'm sitting there, like, at any moment, lawn's gonna be like, fear No.

Come back, had a look, didn't. Oh they did, they gave us the look. And I'm like, oh, here it's mm-hmm. . And then he turns on and walks through the door and David fricking netter's name cups up on the screen. I'm like, well, crap. Right

Jeff: under the welcome to Babylon five sign. Like that was, that was some placement.

I, I think what bothered, I mean outside of just the obvious of what's there to be bothered about this, just a couple of episodes ago, they were gonna, they wanted to send veer back to the, the, the home world and they were gonna get rid, you know, cuz Lawn needs a better, a better aid and Lando mm-hmm. put himself out there, you know, and I'm gonna keep you here.

And even invited Vere's family out. Yeah.

Brent: Well that was to screw with ve, but Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. But, but it's just like, where, where like, I don't know.

Brent: I have a theory. Okay. I have a theory. I, oh, and this is a theory, this is a prediction. Right. Okay. You and I have have discussed in previous episodes how ve we think ve is gonna continue to become more and more and more important over the course of the show.

If Lando eventually has to graduate and become the emperor, like we, we think he's probably going to Babylon five is gonna need a new ambassador. Right. And I think, I think with this, this is the show, uh, promoting ve or, or getting him in that, like starting him down that path mm-hmm. to be the next, uh, the next ambassador or whatever.

He's gonna be back on the homeward. Like this is getting veer more into politics now and getting. Not just as the, as the simple assistant. And you know, it may even be like something happens on Men Bar where he has to come back to Babylon five and he comes back to being Lao's assistant and then Lao's gonna go, and then he elevates and becomes the guy, you know, cause extensively the assistant is gonna be the next ambassador, right?

Yeah.

Jeff: But he's gotta go get that, um, diplomacy kind of entry on his, on his resume sort of a thing. Exactly.

Brent: Exactly. So that's what I think they're probably doing. And you know, Stephen First is one of those guys who's not in every episode out of the season. You know, he's, he's probably in, he's probably got a 13 episode contract.

Yeah. Right. So this works well. So, right. Yeah. This is a good way to write, Hey, this is where he's doing he, because Lando said you're gonna report to me. Mm-hmm. . So Veer comes back to the station, probably not infrequently. And uh,

Jeff: here we go. Just a different relationship and not here to question all of his murder decisions.

Can you

Brent: imagine veer. Coming back, like wearing the garb of the mbar. Like, cuz you know, you go to other countries, you adopt their clothing and you know, if you're just eating it up, like, Hey, look at me, I'm wearing whatever, and lawn's like, what are you wearing? .

Jeff: I wonder if, uh, you know, he, he's in an important diplomatic position as a, as a cent.

He's gonna need a telepath with him. What about that little, that that teenage kid that the human teenage kid they sent to Men Bar? Oh yeah. Bring her back and be

Brent: Ves. Uh, telepath. Sheridan. Sheridan's there. Sheridan. Or not Sheridan. Sinclair. Yeah. So they got a party. Veer knew each other. I mean, somewhat like this is where

Jeff: Veer hooks up with the Rangers and then whatever's at, and I still deeply believe he's gonna be a key part in the non-resistance, but he's able to Yeah.

Yeah. Now he is got a direct line to Sinclair. Oh, that's

Brent: good. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. But, but I, I totally anticipate seeing Veer, um, adopt a lot of Mbar. Like he's going to be the true ambassador. He's gonna celebrate their customs. He's gonna, he's gonna dive, he's gonna learn their language and it's just gonna piss the sonari off because they think that everybody should be like them.

You know? Uh, you know, cause Sonari wanna fly their union jack all over the universe. Exactly. No offense to, no offense to our, our English brethren history. It's all, yeah. No offense.

Jeff: It's just a, it's just a fact that the most celebrated holiday in the world is independence from them. But I mean, that's all.

Yeah. Yep. Nas

Brent: Yeah. So Citizen Jaar, they say that with great disdain, every, like the word citizen never rolls off. It's always. Citizen

Jeff: Jaar got some sta on that.

Brent: It does, absolutely, it does. Um, but he comes in o okay, I want to talk about the guy ne far, right? So he comes in and he is like, I'm here to replace Citizen Jaar.

He can't be here talking to people. And my first, my first question here is, is this guy a collaborator?

Jeff: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah.

Brent: Because we hate collaborators. If there's anything we learn from KI and Aris collaborators suck. Exactly. And also Jaar is not going anywhere cuz he's under sanctuary. Right?

Like

Jeff: you can't force him to go love Sheridan's response. He's like, this isn't my problem. Like, go do your thing. I'm, we're good.

Brent: But then afar goes and has the conversation with Jaar. I don't remember if the other nans were there or not, but he is like, okay dude, I know what's going on and I know that all this stuff is happening, but you don't know how bad it's getting.

You're here in this cushy station, you've got your corner desk, you're eating your meals. Do you know what it's like for us back on the home world? And you are causing that? He's like, and, and there's a piece of him, he's like, look, yes, I don't want this entire there, but we're gonna lie low. We're, we're gonna, we're gonna get everybody stable first and, and once we can get that situated, then we can climb back out of this.

But for right now, you gotta go pops. You know? And I was like, maybe he's not a collaborate. Maybe he is, but he's not like, and I don't know how to feel about ne farge. Jeff, how did you feel

Jeff: about ne far? I think, I think, I think that he is a collaborator, but I also think he's a collaborator. I'm gonna ride your reference, and I'm gonna say in the vein of Oto where he's not collaborating to hurt.

People and to, you know, trap people and, and set things up. He's collaborating to try to make things cooler for the people that are around. He, he feels fully justified and feels like he's doing the right thing and that this is the path to na freedom. Like he, he fully believes that despite here, you know, 200 and 300, almost 300 years before that time, we can look at that and say, no, there's all this history that tells you it never works.

it never works that way to do it. But he thinks that it is, and I think it's tough because it, without diving into all the way into like, into the, into a Star Trek conversation about it, it is literally a needs of the many and the needs of the few conversation, but they're looking at different menus, right?

Jaar is looking. Oh, I, yeah, it sucks for you guys on home world, but there are nans all across the galaxy going through this. And if it's gotta suck for you for a while, well that's what's gotta happen. Where Nefa only sees the many as the NANS on home world. Hey, this sucks for us a whole lot. You need to stop.

And so it just adds a layer to that needs of the many needs of the few equation where the definitions there matter a lot.

Brent: Well, but then you have, you have those questions of, um, I, I mean, I, I love the answer that was it Tolan gives at the end. Uh, I, I don't think it was afar who says, uh, maybe it wasn't afar.

He goes, no, no, no. Our freedom is greater than our safety. Yeah. You know, and I mean, frankly, I don't know that that's a Star Trek message. That's an American message. That's just a human, I think it's a human. That's a human. Yeah. Well, is it, I don't know. A lot of people might not agree with that, but that certainly is more real world political.

Like your freedom means more than your safety. And yeah, this, this may be what it costs to get us there, but overall, that's the better thing. Yeah. And, and what I think of here's Yeah, you're, you're trading the good for the great mm-hmm. . Yeah. I'm gonna give up the good so I can have the great, and it's gonna suck to get rid of the good, because it really sucks to not have

Jeff: that, especially when the good is basic subsistence, right.

Brent: Basic survival, right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not watching my friends and family and my loved ones and my little daughter go off to. Concentration camps. Yeah. Or labor camps or whatever. They said, well,

Jeff: they use different words, but we know what they're talking

Brent: about. Yeah, right. Exactly. Uh, that is just horrendous and horrible and, and, uh, you know, not okay.

It's just, you know, and I, I mean, yeah, I, I I don't know truly how things like that can still exist on earth today.

Jeff: I, I know, you know, and it is mind blowing,

Brent: Jeff, I'm, I'm always, I'm always trepidacious about invoking certain names cuz I don't wanna catch, uh, certain things. But, you know, uh, we, we have from, from America, we have a, uh, female basketball star who is, uh, at least for a while, um, I'm not sure if she's still there.

I haven't followed up on it, but has been sent off to a labor camp for nine years for something. That actually really didn't have much to do with her. And we all see it like mm-hmm. , we all this is she, this is a puppet move. This has nothing to do with what she did. I know international incidents, I know things happen.

How we haven't sent some SEAL six team in there to extract her at this point. You know, if we have, maybe we did, I don't know, , maybe I missed the news conference, but, uh, how that hasn't happened. I don't like, I don't understand, like those things shouldn't even be allowed to exist on this planet. Like that's not speaking unilaterally as a country, that's the United Nations guys.

This is what you exist for. That should not be allowed to exist. And if it does, you have an army that combines everybody together, go bust it up. Don't allow it to work. Mm-hmm. like, no, it's not. Okay. Anyway, sorry. That's brien some personal feelings. If bad stuff happens to me, you guys now know why. Um, or my family,

Jeff: sorry guys or me or friends or anybody.

Yes, yes, yes. You put a little line. I'm sorry. It's okay. Cuz you said the things that needed to be said, you know, and I think it is, it's mind blowing that it still happens today. There are things mm-hmm. that are that um, that micro and then things that are so much more macro that happen all the time that it's just like how, how this far into the 21st century are these things happening?

But now with Babylon five we ask how this far into the 23rd century. Yeah. Inter galactically are these things. Yeah. Is exact same things happening. Right. I thought it was great how jaar. Kind of brought the nans together early on and, and really just, he saw it how the centar, they, they don't like, they want the nans gone.

You know, that was crystal clear way back in signs and importance. When Morden asked Lao what he wanted, he said he wanted every nan dead gone, finished. He made that pretty darn clear in this episode too. But they don't wanna do it 500 at a time. That's gonna take, it's gonna take a long time to make that happen, and it's gonna be messy and expensive, so you know what we should do?

Make 'em kill each other. Boom. Problem solved. And they are, they're throwing scraps on the ground and forcing them to fight each other over that. And Jaar sees that. And it, and this is the thing too, in a political and societal climate that we live in today, where we look at people in the quote unquote ivory towers out there.

How can they make decisions on our lives? You know? Yeah. He's a ceo. What, what do they know about real life and blah, blah, blah. Well, Ja car's view, sitting in comfortable Babylon five in sanctuary and eating meals and having his corner desk allows him to see that bigger picture and allows him to see that they're making them fight over nothing, over nothing.

And he's able, because he is Jaar, he's able to verbalize that. He's able to use that to bring them together and have them stop fighting it. But if he was in it, if he was ne far on home world doing this, yeah, he couldn't have that vision. He couldn't see that. Now, I'm not saying that people in every towers are good, or that we should listen to and trust every C-suite person that exists out there.

Not what I'm saying, but I think we have to give credit to, you know, perspective and point of view means that it means a lot. It means everything.

I did like on a fun, on a fun note, I liked it when Talon and Sheridan were having their orange juice. That was pretty fun. And then Sheridan was like, yeah man, I don't know. I don't know what people would think you know about an earth captain walking around with a Narn bodyguard. And he says they would look at you and they'd say, here is a man who will live to be 150 years old.

Right? I thought that was great. That was awesome.

And then the last note I have on the Jaar and the Nan stuff, outside of my final thoughts, but when Kara Baldy dropped in to Ja Car's quarters and tried to talk him out of going, that was awesome. And what I love, not only was it cool of Gar Baldi, but it was just this cool theme when it was done. Like when and when Gar Baldi kind of said his piece and headed out.

Jaar says, thank you, Mr. Gar Baldi. Mm-hmm. like, it's almost like, Hey, so lawn sucks. I'll call you Mr. Garabaldi now. Like I'm cool. I like that scene a lot.

Brent: Well, Jeff, we've certainly been broaching. I think we've already crossed over into it, into that spot of the show where it's time to really boil it down and see. I think we've already done it, but let's just name it for what it is. What parts of the show have that Star Trek quality to it? What are the deep moral messages?

What are the mirrors to society? Where, where's the hope? Jeff, is there any hope for a better future in this episode? Uh, you are gonna rate this scale on a, this episode on a scale of zero to five deltas is the how Star Trek this episode is. I'm gonna take the other side. I'm gonna take the easy side this time.

I'm gonna do the star Furies on this one. Jeff, what you got

Jeff: there is so much. There is so much and we've talked about a lot of it. Do I

Brent: just need to single you out and just drop out of this conversation for a while? Let you go?

Jeff: I don't think so. Cause I, what I wanna do is I, there's a couple things I wanna like call out specifically.

there's an over, there was an overarching theme to this episode that I really want to dive into for this one. Cause we've talked about a lot of the other stuff, but one thing I've noticed over the last couple episodes is there's a phrase that has been dropped a couple of times and that's, uh, it's nothing personal.

And I think that when we look at things like war or different isms out there or genocide, it's never personal, right? It's, that's kind of what helps the perpetrators sleep at night. And we've been hearing more and more of that. And I think part of what brings that is this overarching theme in the episode.

It's pride, right? There's the pride of the NAS that lawn wants to crush. There's the pride in lawn to not have veer around to question him anymore. There's the pride that Jaar has in his. There's the pride that the whole crew of Babylon five has thinking that they can respond to this probe and answer all of its questions.

And then the pride of Dr. Franklin thinking that he can do it all Pride. Pride turns out really only like turns out positively. Only one time here. And that's with Jaar. And that's because his pride isn't something other than himself. He's selfless, not selfish. And that's servant leadership, right? That's what it's all about.

And servant leadership is one of the core messages of Star Trek Ja Car's pride as compared to say Franklin's pride that shows up with him using stems or lawns that shows up with him. Bad mouth and Nans and sending veer off Ja car's. Pride shows up as humility if he has to die to save others. Okay, let's do it.

But then that same pride gets reflected in the people that he is willing to die for. This is the power of that servant that, that being proud to serve people comes from. We mentioned the line a minute ago, what's more important than safety for the Nans? Freedom, but I also think loyalty comes into that ne far is trying, believes that he's trying to do the right thing and he's showing loyalty to the sentar to try to do the right thing.

Jaar believes he's doing the right thing and he shows unquestionable loyalty to the nas, to the point of willingly walking onto a ship to, to his horrible death that's waiting for him. But because of that, because of his humility, they, those nans are loyal to him now where they turned on ne far. And I really like the way they showed it, you know, because this is something, as a leader you like to hear.

They all lined up, you know, bit by bit. And they, they said the word, the, the line here was so great. You are valued and you are needed here. Yeah. That's the hope Brent, that it takes one person with humble pride in what's going on to give us hope to, to fight the fight that needs to happen. We talked about all the other stuff throughout the episode.

This Brent is a five Delta episode.

Brent: I wholeheartedly agree. And Jeff, as you were saying that, and you were talking, I was just kind of looking back through my notes over the last couple of episodes. So far we're only three episodes in mm-hmm. , season three has been a heavily, heavily, uh, I'm not gonna say Star Trek season.

It's a heavy Delta season so far. Yes. Over three episodes like. And I kind of hope it keeps going.

Jeff: I know. I love it. You know,

Brent: I love it. This, this might be like where we sit back and, and start going, okay, this is what I, again, this is what sci-fi really as a genre, I think serves, it just lends itself to this kind of stuff, which is why we're doing this whole show.

Exactly. Um, but I'm with you. Five Deltas, uh, through and through that, those words they use though you are, what, what is it exactly? You are something in needed here. Value. You are, you are valued. You are valued and needed. Here. Direct words of affirmation are so important to be able to look at someone and go, you are smart.

And I'm not talking about in a pack led way. I'm talking, you know, you are smart. No, we're past that part though.

Jeff: Yeah, we're in the

Brent: deltas. Yeah, but it's okay. But, but that's still my third, so I'm good. Okay. Um, but to, to, to look at somebody. You are, you are creative, you are good at this, to, to, to verbally say, you are this thing.

You are valued and we need you. Because so often you remember the, what was it like episode three or four last season, Sheridan's like, oh, I don't really know if I want to do this anymore. Yeah. I, and, and to have somebody sit back and go, Hey Sheridan, you're good. And we need you here, we need you here. Like, those kinds of words go are really far, far away in talking, you know, um, I think about it mostly in terms of being a parent these days.

Hey, kid, you're good at this and we need you. The family needs you. Or, or like my son right now, he's gearing up for, uh, spring football. Like they're, they're in their, their training, uh, uh, summer or spring training time right now. You know, and, and a phrase that we use a lot is, JU team need you. You've gotta, you've gotta go out there and get ready so you can be ready, but your team needs you, you know?

Mm-hmm. . Um, so I, I, I'm very much with you, but I'm not supposed to be talking about that. I'm supposed to be talking about star furries. Let's talk about Star. Yeah. Um, you know, star Furies I is after all this time, we've been doing star furries for a season in change. Now, Jeff, uh, it's still, it's still this weird mix of how Babylon five is it, and just how much do we enjoy the episode.

If I look at it on just pure, enjoy. Like this is maybe like a two and a half three. Like, this wasn't like a stellar standout. I'm gonna remember this episode for, for a long time. Every episode, every every episode is somebody's favorite episode. So somebody's like, oh, I love a day in the strife. That's just amazing.

Um, it, it wasn't that standout to me. But you talk about all those messages you just talked about and not delivering it so much in a Star Trek way as much as a babble on five Way. Right. Which is all, which often is a, showing us how we get there, not necessarily being on already there. Right. Um, or doing it in a way that you just don't expect and subverting expectations.

And to see your car be like, yeah, I'm leaving. and all of these people kind of stand up and be like, I am sps. You know, you are valued. And I, I just don't feel like we would see that very much on, on Trek. Not in that way. You know, maybe Warf would go off and sacrifice himself, but then people are like, they wouldn't try to convince him to stay, like they would like go rescue him or something.

Well,

Jeff: they let him, they let him go when he did that. Right. And then, and then tried to back him up afterwards when he got called on it or when mm-hmm. when Neli left to go and, you know, help a colony and, and possibly die himself in doing it. Yep. They let him go and they celebrated him leaving to do the thing.

Right, right.

Brent: Yeah. Um, you know, the, I absolutely could see this as a Star Trek episode though, with the B plot and that whole probe thing, like Totally. You know, that's what the bridge crew's taking care of while we work with like one of these other two or three of these other people down here. So, um, I don't know that it really, in many ways it felt very Star Trek.

In many ways it didn't. So I'm gonna kind of split this one right now in the middle. I'm just gonna give it a three star fury deal. I liked it. I didn't love it. Um, it handled a lot of things, but I also just, I don't know, like I said, kind of felt there in the middle to me.

Jeff: So it seems about right. I can't disagree with that.

But just like last season, Brent, we are currently creating the 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of a third season of Babylon five. Our current rankings have convictions in second place and matters of honor in the top spot. So, Brent, where do you put a day in the strife?

Brent: I'm looking back through my notes

and convictions. Was the episode where they were poking. Yes. And we got lawn and elevator, lawn and jaar in an elevator. We did. Don't Sing Him again, which I'm not going to, but that was such a fun scene that that was so, that was such a good, a good bit Matters of honor was, uh, we got introduced to Marcus and we had the dude, um, from Earth Force coming around.

Yeah, I, I liked that episode better. I think that was a stronger episode than this one, just as an episode. Um, so I'm gonna leave that one in the top spot.

But the question is, do I put this above convictions then, or do I leave it below Convictions? And as much as I liked lawn and jaar in an elevator, I think this one, probably this one had a more complete piece to it. The whole piece with Jaar. Was was incredibly moving, I thought. And I, I think this was a stronger episode.

Uh, probably not by much, but I'm gonna put this at number two.

Jeff: Wow.

As much as I, you seem, you seem surprised by that, Jeff? A little bit. A little bit. I just think, I think because as we talked about this one was fine, it was fine. Mm-hmm. , you know, and, and I think that, but as I think about it, you know, I mean, convictions really had like a, a handful of standout scenes, you know, and they were lawn related, right?

The lawn and LAN stuff and the, and med lab, and then the lawn and jaar stuff. And the elevator. But, um, I

Brent: mean, I did, I did really like in convictions, uh, cuz I, I brought this out last week and I, now that we're talking about this, I remember this of, I liked the looking at lawn and how he responds based on how two people respond to him.

And setting those two pieces next to each other. Uh, I did think that was really cool. Ooh, is it too late to change?

Jeff: Well, let me tell you this though. It's not, it's not. You still can, but I mean, the other thing was the, we'll say the main story of convictions just held no water. Right? It was dude who got picked on in high school, so he decided to bomb the

Brent: station.

That was bad. That really was bad. Yeah. No, I'm leaving. I'm gonna leave this right where it is. Yeah.

Jeff: I don't, I don't disagree. If I wanted to, it wouldn't matter. I don't get, you get, you get to rank it, right? That's how it works. And Brent, that's it for a day in the strife. Next week is our 50th episode. Is it really?

Brent: It is. We're at 50 and this is 110. We're almost, we, we really don't need to celebrate 50, we need to celebrate 55. Right. Well,

Jeff: cause that's, it's our halfway point, right? Well it'll be 50, well that's not 50, maybe like 59. Cuz we do our wrap up. So I'm counting our wrap ups and number 50. Right? So, oh, okay.

Okay. This would be our 48th episode coming up. All right. We're getting enough for that, but we're still there. It's kinda, yeah.

Brent: But as a podcast hitting 50 episodes, that's a, that's a marque. You know, you hit that. What? What's seven? Most podcasts don make it past seven. So once you hit seven, that's a big deal.

Uh, and then really 50 is really the next one. Don't. That's 50. Yeah. It's really 10 50. And then you hit the hundred and you kind of

Jeff: go from there. Yeah, it's the hundreds from there. So, yeah. So it's kind of a cool thing. And for the 50th episode, we will be watching, passing through, get Seny. For the first time.

Now, this is one of the games we like to play. Brent talked about it earlier in the episode, but we've never seen these episodes before. We haven't looked ahead, we haven't read anything about them. We don't know anything more than the title of the episode, and we like to guess what we think it's gonna be about.

So, Brent, what do you think passing through Death Seny is gonna be about? Yeah,

Brent: Jeff, I feel like I get one of these every handful of weeks, uh, that are, it's a strong biblical reference, which they're

Jeff: like, Hey, what degrees do Brent have? And let's, uh, let's pick one of those.

Brent: Let's do that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, this harkens back to voice in the wilderness to me a lot.

Uh, but passing through guest se get Sente was, uh, uh, uh, Jesus in the garden of guest Cente, praying before, uh, his crucifixion. And, um, he, he gets captured by the, by the Roman, uh, authorities. Um, there. So this would presumably then be about somebody passing through their darkest hour. , right? Um, maybe even right before making a big sacrifice, maybe even deciding if they want to make the sacrifice or not.

Because that was, that was the whole thing where Jesus was like, Hey, if you can let me not do this, that'd be really cool. But if I got too cool anyway. Um, so somebody trying to decide if you wanna be a sac, we saw that with Ja Jaar in this episode. Right. Um, so I don't think it's Jaar because Jahar, Jaar, Jaar Jaar has already proven that he's, that

Jeff: one of those substitutions exchanges are refund Jaar, riff Ja.

Brent: Uh, he is willing to be the sacrifice. So he's already made that determination. So, uh, I don't think it's Lando, cuz Lando is not willing to be a sacrifice. I think we've established that. So Dalen, maybe Sheridan. Sorry, I've gotta talk to Adam. I'm a verbal processor. Uh, that's what I'm going with. Uh, it's Sheridan or maybe.

Um, or maybe them both together. Sheridan and Lynn. Oh, that's what I'm going with. Sheridan and Lynn, uh, facing this future they have together because, you know, they have that like connection thing and I think we're gonna learn maybe more about what that is and they're gonna look at it and kind of go, uh, do they have to become sacrifices themselves for the greater good?

Or like, do they have to sacrifice their job, their position, their something in order for something else to happen? Uh, Jeff, I think, oh, did we, we predicted, I know, I've had this thought in my head. Have we talked about it? I'm just gonna sit here and vaguely reference on and not tell you what it is. No. Um, didn't, didn't we discuss maybe in a season wrap up like a prediction for season three that like Babylon five was gonna like succeed from Earth Force?

Yes, we did talk about that. Maybe that's what this is, is Oh wow. The looming on that decision. Of like, okay, do we have to take Babbel and five away from Earth and like become our own our own thing? Because we haven't talked about it yet, Jeff, the intro to the, to the show, not our show, but to the show itself.

And I noted something this week, uh, cuz it's a vava doing the voiceover. Um, she says, she says it became in the year of the shadow war, it became something much more. And I think that there's, there's a lot like that's supposed to tell you kind of what happens in the season, right? Mm-hmm. . And I think there's a piece of watching how Babylon five becomes the last best hope for victory.

Like not just, oh, one day it is the last best hope for victory, but this is how it, it becomes that. And this I think might start us so Dilin and Sheridan facing their future together, knowing what's to come, having to make this big decision that might be. Babble on five. Wow. I don't know. How does Babbel on Five Break away from Earth Force?

I don't know how that works. Could they just be like, we're our own thing now?

Jeff: Change. Take the logo off your uniform. There. You, you go.

Brent: Does does Sheridan get Oh, oh, Jeff, is that, is that Oh, oh. Cause we talked about like the, the uniform change, the, the thingy, the, the, uh, action figure guy is, does he have the Earth Force gimmick on there?

Does he have it? No, but he has the status bar. Oh, we're figuring it out. Oh, we're figuring it out. Oh wow. But it does, it does, it does actually say appear earth force uniform. Oh, okay. So Nick's that idea. Maybe not so much. He's still pointing hardcore Brent,

Jeff: this is a hard one. This is a hard one, Brent, to figure out because.

Gete means one thing. Right. You know, I mean, like in, in, in the Bible, if you really dive into, especially the synoptic gospels, when he got arrested, you know, the night of the last supper wasn't the only time they were in Gete. That was a normal place, you know, I mean, Judas took off after the supper and he went to get the, the Romans and then walked up to g He knew he was gonna be there cuz that's what they did.

They hung out, they drank some wine, went to the garden up all night. Yeah. Went to the garden and, and hung out. You know, so I don't, but, but in the vernacular, right? Like em means the agony of the, you know, sweating, blood, begging for the cup to be passed, all that kind of stuff. And so at first I was thinking the same thing.

Like the note I even took was, this has gotta be the beginning of Sheridan's trial. This is where. He really starts getting put to the test and has to decide, you know, am I gonna be the one or not? Or whatever. But then as you were talking, I started thinking about the title and I, and you know, JMS gets cutesy with the title sometimes a day in the strife.

Right. You know, and now for a word passing through gets Sony. So imagine that the agony in the garden is happening right over there. Right. Jesus is alone. The, the apostles are asleep and he's upset with them because they should have stayed up, awake with him and praying, but, but they didn't. And you're just walking through and there's a dude over there sweating blood and crying to his dad, who you can't even see in a bunch of dudes passed out drunk around him, and you're just passing through.

Maybe it's not our main players. Who are going through something. Maybe we are observers in, in somebody else falling apart. Ooh. So I am going and, and, and it's hard to say, right? Cuz it could be the narn. We already watched the Marab fall apart. Is somebody else gonna fall apart? Right? Maybe this is a new player of some kind.

I don't know what I'm going to guess though, cuz I gotta guess something. Right? It's gonna be our Earth Force crew on Babylon five, experiencing and observing somebody else in their biggest trial.

Oh, is it a ko? It's a night watch thing. So they're gonna watch Zach Zach's in the main credits now. Uh, KA Nicki, right? Ka Nicki, yeah. Yeah. Nicki is gonna be put to the test and they're gonna be observing it. That's gonna be the thing that that's going on. And this is where it's, it feels early and it's, it's probably not the right time.

I'm probably super wrong, but I think that we're gonna see Ka Nicki face his trial and have to determine if he's gonna go full night. Watch.

But we'll find out right here next week. Hey, thank you everybody so much for joining us for our discussion today. This means the world to us. Please don't forget to subscribe. If you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. If you're listening to us on whatever podcast catcher you're on, give us this, subscribe right there, and then you'll get notified of all of our great episodes.

And if you haven't already, stop by Apple Podcast, good pods, audible Pod Chase, or any of those cool places. Leave us a rating and a review. I will read it right here on the podcast. So, until next time. Hey, Jeff. Yeah, yeah, Brent.

Brent: Uh, so, you know, I've been thinking lately, um, I spoke with the ambassador and we've come up with a new plan that, uh, for you is a good opportunity.

Jeff: I don't think I want a new opportunity, Brent. I like this one. This is a good opportunity.

Brent: Too bad. It's happening. Anyway, go pack your bags. All

Jeff: right. Well, peace, victory, and long life to you.