A Spider in the Web

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

Brent: I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon Five for the first time. We are veteran Star Trek podcasters watching Babylon 5 for the very first time, searching for those Star Trek like messages, trying to dig them out of this series, applying that analytical lens that we have gained over our years in podcasting about Star Trek and ultimately trying to decide if we even like the series at all or not.

Jeff: And while this is not a Star Trek podcast, we are Star Trek podcast ORs. And so those references are gonna make their way into the show. In fact, I think a lot of them might actually make them into this show. It's gonna be a challenge because Brent and I play the rule of three. We each only get three a piece references to Star Trek through the entire episode.

Bartering is an option and may possibly. Be on the table this time

Brent: and I will, I will make you guys a promise. I know there was an episode a couple weeks ago where I was just like, I don't even care. I don't care. I'm gonna use all the star treks and then I'm gonna use all of, and I'm gonna use all yours.

I'm not gonna do that again. I'm gonna abide by the rules

Jeff: of this time, Jeff. That's good. I had to hit a lot of buttons. It was like two weeks ago and I had to hit all these buttons cuz you just kept going. I, yeah.

Brent: Like I used all of mine and then I used all of yours and I think I used some like rollover buzzes from previous

Jeff: episodes.

It was an old, uh, old, what was that? Vonage or at and t or something. Rollover plan that we have. Right,

Brent: Right. Which I don't think really works, you know, but whatever.

Jeff: It's kind of our thing. We can make whatever work. We have the most incredible community out there that listens to us, who watches us on YouTube, and I've got a couple things I want to share from them.

The first one is from our Twitter at Babylon. First, you can follow us there. There's nothing for me to say on this one. This is just one for you to go and look at sometime. But Carl's web at web, Carl's with a K on Twitter and Gale at B five Raven shared some super cool, some amazing cosplay photos of them as, uh, different uh, instances, but as vlan they would were on stage at Cons in the late nineties.

Yeah, it was caution VLANs. Super cool, super cool. Okay,

Brent: I have a question. I've been thinking about this recently. Are there Babylon five specific conventions. I know there are Stargate conventions, obviously there are Star Trek conventions, but are there actual Babylon five conventions out there? And if there

Jeff: aren't, should there be why?

Maybe. Yeah, maybe we should.

Brent: Hmm. Is the fandom not large enough to handle its own convention and come together?

Jeff: Sounds like we might have a task in front of us.

Brent: Yes. And we have like two years to get it planned and operated because we wouldn't be allowed to go to it until then.

Jeff: Anyway. . Right. And we got plan.

We can go and we can just tell people this is the Babylon five conference to discuss up to season two, episode 2021. . Nothing after that.

Brent: well get, let's see here. Well now see, I can't even, like I was gonna say like we'll get like the dude that played Jinx, so, and we'll get the dude, but I don't know if those guys come back or not.

That's right. We don't, I don't know.

Jeff: Well, we could prob No, I was gonna say we don't even know if he did. Yeah.

Brent: I I, I don't know if they came back or not.

Jeff: Well, I have, I have three other comments I wanna share, but they all have a common theme, and this is when we've talked about a couple of times, but these three people in the recent times have shared the impact that Babylon five has made on their lives.

Cool. Yeah. These, the, they all kind of came in a succession and it really hit me. So I kind of grouped 'em all together on our YouTube violent silence. Shared that it was something that got me really interested in screenwriting. JMS did a great book on it that featured the script for a pivotal season two episode.

Not as dramatic of a change or impact, it's for other people, but it did lead to me being a harsher critic. Like it didn't kill Star Wars for me, but it meant I couldn't mis or ignore the faults in it like I did as a kid.

Then on our Twitter, Alyssa, who has an incredible Twitter name at Wacky Vlan and she says she's had that name from Twitter, like since the nascent days of Twitter. So I'm good. Good on you, Alyssa. But she says

Brent: when she still could have just been at Alyssa,

Jeff: right? That was still, Or a list of one like it was just, Yeah, they were all out there.

but still picked wacky vlo.

Brent: I have, I have a friend who's like at Josh. Really? Yeah. Or it's like at Josh w I think is what it like, it's that like easy and simple. And cuz he was one of those like day

Jeff: tours. I'll try this thing out. I mean, what? It's got an egg. What could go wrong with a great egg? Right?

Twitter is the great egg. It. Yeah. I won't go down that rabbit hole. . Well, wacky Bolon Alyssa says. Babylon five played a formative role in the development of my personal philosophy and ideals. I learned a great deal about how to live from the show.

I gotta tell you, Brent, I'm, I think it's amazing the show had this impact on people. I have not seen this yet, right? Like mm-hmm. , what we have watched in this series so far would not teach me a lot about how to live. No. So I think we have a lot to look forward to. Yeah.

Brent: Alyssa, I, if you could write back to us, tweet us or DM us if you want to do it that way.

Um, anything that you're comfortable being shared, uh, and tell us what it has, like how it has taught you to live or like what things it has taught you to live. Keep it non spoilers. Um, but I'd be, I'd really be interested to know, cause I'm kind of on this page with Jeff there of. What exactly have you learned?

Because, Because Jeff, that is exactly what we're searching out in this show exactly. When we look for those Star Trek like messages, we're not trying to compare it to Star Trek all the time. We're looking for those, Those life messages that are, I think, honestly should exist in most sci-fi at least somewhere.

Jeff: So, yeah. Agreed. Last one, I've got through our website, Babylon five first.com. That's the number five, and the word first.com. Nathaniel reached out. Nathaniel said, While I consider B five to be generally life-changing and influencing, there's a particular dialogue between two-ish characters in early season three that helped me deal with some of the effects of post traumatic stress disorder.

Unfortunately, I can't say more without spoilers. Appreciate that, but look forward to you reaching that section. I've heard similar stories from a number of fans, so I think you will find that many have been touched by B five in the way you describe Star Trek fans.

Brent: That's cool. Yeah. And please reach out to us when we do get to that spot and say, This is what I was talking about, because we're a whole season away from that.

And while I would love to tell you that I will remember this, I cannot promise that that will be the case. So I would love to hear that. Um, and you know, one thing, like he's, he mentions that we're kind of in a spot now, Jeff, where every once in a while we'll get a message from somebody who says, I've been waiting for you to get to this spot.

Yep. And so it's kind of neat to know that there's still people waiting for us to get to more spots down the road. Uh, cuz we've started hitting those and it's like, it's like, Oh yeah, we know, now we get it. We're.

Jeff: We're also still so early. So early in, in the series, you know?

Brent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Jeff, you know, along with our game rule of three, we have another game that we like to play here at Babylon five for the first time.

And that's where we try to guess what next week's episode is gonna be about based on the title alone. Cuz we haven't read show descriptions or you know, watched any trailers or anything like that. And this spot of the show, because that game happens towards the end of the episode, uh, this is the spot where you and I take a look back at what we said last week that this week's episode was going to be about.

So, Jeff, this honestly might be the hardest thing we do every week, because I'm just trying to remember what we said. But Jeff, do you remember what you said spider in the web was going to be? And how close do you think you were? I

Jeff: remember very much what I said because there was a, I. A fraction of a second that I thought I might be right and then not at all.

But I thought this was gonna be, um, ster coming back and ster being set up like, Look what a good guy I am. I'm so great. You must be the people that there's something wrong with. So there's some C core sorta kind of in a p cop in this one. That's the about as close as I got. What about you?

Brent: I don't entirely remember what I said. Do you remember what I said? I don't. Come on, you get the recordings of these things. I think I, I, I remember kind of reasoning it out like a spider in the web is somebody who's sitting around waiting to make a kill and I don't know where I went from that. Was it a lawn thing?

I think I was Oh, that's what I said. This is gonna be a lawn Ja car episode. And it was not at all. So I'm gonna just say I completely lost this one. Yeah.

Jeff: I think, uh, yeah. Yeah. We both, but I'll, you know, 0.1

Brent: and, but like, they were setting traps for each other, like lawn was gonna really get something over

Jeff: on Ja car or something.

Right. It was gonna be kind of the, uh, the Jaquan f

Brent: Yeah, yeah. Sort of a thing again. Yeah. And I, that's not at all what this was about, so I completely, uh, completely missed

Jeff: that one. Well, hey, now that we have talked about how completely wrong we were about this one, why don't you, Brent, remind us about what this episode was actually about?

Brent: Well, all right. A spider in the web buckle up because this one is pretty thick. T you winters. Hey Reg guys, remember her? She's our resident commercial telepath. Well, she has an old friend who's just come on board B five. Well, he's an old friend. And an old mentor and a father figure. And a client. His name is to is Soge Sogi.

GE is Soji.

Jeff: I think it's a Soge. Mr. Miyagi. A Soge

Brent: Sons. What you called him? Yes. Soge son. Uh, and he is the ceo, I think he was the CEO of a company called Future Corp, which is an earth based business that does stuff. And he has come all the way out to Babylon, five from Earth to meet with a representative from Mars government, just one planet away, so that they could negotiate a deal, which could lead to Mars's independence from Earth, which some people back on earth fear might actually be used to finance a new rebellion.

But unfortunately, someone else back home really doesn't like this idea either. And by back home, I mean somebody who's hiding out in the future wasteland that we now call San Diego. It's a mysterious woman and she's overseeing the commencement of a major operation that has 13 components deployed to Babylon.

Five. We're all 13 at Babylon. Five I. That's what I thought I heard, but I would be shocked if that was all. Anyway, regardless of that, there's also something called control that is at the center of the whole thing. Now, what this person we come to find out has actually deployed in this particular case is an assassin to take out a Seago.

A Sogi. A Sogi.

Jeff: A sogi? I think so, yeah.

Brent: All right. A so, Yep, that's right, because my word letters got transposed here, a sogi. He apparently got super cool Darth City Electric gloves for Christmas because he fries a sogi with a grasp of his neck. But he does it right in front of Talia, who stuns him with a mind scan and leaves him.

And he leaves her without harming her at all. Talia isn't really sure what the image was that she saw in his mind, but Sheridan and Gar Baldi promised to protect her. She's gonna need it because the bad guy was just ordered by control to take her out. Maybe her personal security guard is actually gonna need it because while he gets taken out just as easily as a Sogi, Talia gets to scan this mind's.

This guy, Talia gets to scan this guy's mind again and he starts to glitch and this time she can make out the image quite a bit better. It is a ship firing directly at the guy from his own point of view. You see this guy, his name is Abel Horn, and Abel is now a space zombie. When he was alive, he was one of the leaders of the free Mars movement.

But turns out he was killed in a battle when his ship was fired upon by an earth ship. He has no other memories going on in his head right now, except for that one moment of his own death replaying again and again and again, which I think just kind of means it sucks to be a space zombie. Now, Sheridan finds out about this and suspects that he was part of something called Project Lazarus, which was a secret program where they would take dead or mostly dead people and turn them into sort of robo cop silo type dudes.

So the Space Zombie starts glitching all over the place and even goes to the Mars lady for help. He injures her, but he doesn't kill her. And when Talia comes to talk with her, SPS zombie goes after Talia one more time. And this time, Talia gets an even deeper scan and she sees the moment where he woke up on the operating table being turned into Robocop.

And their standing over him was a female side cop saying He's alive, He's alive

Jeff: and

Brent: he's hours, all hours. Well, that's really about as far as we get because she and in company come in and they sparky gun him think to death. That is until he activates his own self destruct and he blows a and he blows up real good.

But you know, everyone got out of the room and they're totally not on a craft in the middle of space, which would've had a hole ripped in it. So everything's gonna be fine. Just a little mess to sweep up. And speaking of a couple little messes to sweep up, there's just two more things I want to talk about before we get outta here.

Number one, Aldi needs some more information from Sheridan on this whole project Lazaruth thing cuz he's needs to know. Sheridan says it was a secret, illegal organization ran out of the earth, government called Section 30, uh, I'm sorry, Bureau 13. Which is where we get a cutback to San Diego in the wastelands of that HQ place with Dr.

With the female Dr. Claw. She wants control to make sure that the bureau hasn't been compromised by this whole thing. And then we find out that she is that cycop lady from the operation and then we find out that she herself is deceased.

And lastly, speaking of Talia, it seems that her and Gar Balty have grown a little closer through this whole thing. Sure will come back to that one in the future episode, but for now, that's the end.

Jeff: What a breath. Of fresh air. This episode was right. Oh God. We've had just a line of stinkers up to this and I, I really, I enjoyed this. I was really thankful to be back to the Earth and Mars stuff going on. We've been so shadows focused and have only been kinda like spinning the pieces on the board around the shadow stuff to

Brent: actually have, have we really been shadows focused?

Well,

Jeff: i's what I say. Like, we haven't moved any pieces around. We've just like been, Hey, look at this and I spin it around. You can look at the different sides to it that we have. Mm-hmm. , but this moved some stuff. It reminded us of, you know, the whole earth thing and the, the, the Mars Rebellion that was going on and it moved things forward a little bit.

It expanded the world a little more, I just thought. Mm-hmm. , I thought it was really well done, but. Damn it. Damn it. Sheridan is just, you know, I, I'm really into conspiracies and there's this rogue operation that does the things that we are not willing to do. And he's saying this, I'm just like, Don't say it.

Don't say it. Don't. Bureau 13. Oh my God. . If this isn't a direct, like a direct Star Trek, I'll say this is, this is definitely a Star Trek inspired by Plon five. Yeah. Moment here that, yeah. I need to, I need to apologize actually. to one? No. Good, Good. I, I have, I got a pretty, this goes back a couple months, couple months ago, I got into a program.

Hasn't been

Brent: that long. We've had lots of conversations over the course of our time here, people. You know, they ripped off the space nine

Jeff: and I'm, Oh, I went to, I went to the mattresses with, uh, Matthew Ignacia retro, uh, robot on, um, on YouTube, but on Twitter. Like, I went to the mattresses with him and like, I, I was getting pretty cocky too with just like, Oh yeah, spacey shoot a hole in space, so they're the same.

And then this happened and I'm like, Oh, shoot. Oh no, . Yeah, maybe there's something. Do this.

Brent: Yeah. I, you know, I don't remember if it was on this show or a different show that I was talking, but I can remember having a conversation with, um, a guy named Aaron, who is a writer on one of the current Star Trek shows that are out there.

And one of the things Aaron was saying was, he does not read anybody else's writing refuses to, because if, if he's reading that writing and then he's putting down his own stuff, he can't be a hundred percent sure that he didn't pick up an idea. Like even if he's not copying, saying, Hey, let me steal that idea and put it in here.

Or Hey, the idea of a ro. Cause look, here's the thing. JMS does not own the market on rogue organizations. .

Jeff: True, true. You know

Brent: what I mean? Like rogue or that rogue organization's. Kind of a neat idea. Let's throw it in there. The fact that one is named Bureau 13 and the other one is section 31, which Jeff, go ahead and give us a buzz for both of us on this, cuz this is completely the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be But I mean, the fact that they're so closely named is like, like the Dcon, the ducat thing. I can kind of be like, Okay, that's a coincidence. Mm-hmm. , this one's like, that's really close.

Jeff: Yeah. I mean literally if it was burro, Alpha Bravo, or even burro. 86, you know? Okay, cool. But the Right.

Wow. Wow. This is, this is, I think it was last week, I was making fun of the Vanilla Ice thing, you know, Vanilla Ice and Queen. This, this is that. Exactly. So it's why there's another eighth note to, I mean, it's a 31, not a 13 . Come on,

Brent: Yeah. It, uh, you know, I mean, the only saving graces, I mean, but Section 31 didn't even come out until season six of Deep Space Nine, like it was, was so far into the run. And it, I like, I

Jeff: don't know. I am tempted, and I'm not gonna do, I'm just gonna say I am tempted to go down a path of like talking about what Section 31 was and what it was intended for and what Bureau 13 is.

But I want to save that for another time because I don't know exactly what Bureau 13 is. I was gonna

Brent: say we don't know what Bureau 13 is. We could talk about what Section 31 is. Here's what I'll say from the information we know right now. The two, while both are rogue organizations operating within the government, Um, I don't, Wait a minute.

Is Section 31 a rogue organization?

Jeff: It's in the Star Fleet Charter. It is Section 31 of the charter.

Brent: It's not actually a rogue organization. It is a black ops organization for sure. But they're not actively working against the Star Fleet government and they're not working for their own betterment.

They're actually like, the things they do are for the betterment of that. Based on what we get, the feeling here, this Bureau 13 really is acting to either subvert the Earth Force government or potentially take it over or have its own agenda. Yeah. And there's a, there's a very different quality to those two things.

But I mean, I can't get over the 1331 thing, man.

Jeff: Well, and so, And this is just, this is total Jeff with the tinfoil hat and the red yarn connecting everything back here because there's no, there's no way this is tied, but seriously, it's bureau 13 and control. Yeah. Like there's a whole, there's a whole season of discovery dedicated to control.

And I even did the, a little bit of research. So this episode of Babylon five occurs in March 22, 59. Discovery went and chased down control in 2257. No, it did not. Yeah. So what my theory, Well, my theory is, is that Burnham and Crew are actually behind Bureau 13, and this is just, that's gonna be the continuation.

JMS is continuation of Babylon five that people are clamoring to get onto the CW and everything is actually gonna be the crossover episode. Wait, wait. Is

Brent: it, is it Burnham and Crew or is it George Jo?

Jeff: Georgia or um, just, just straight up, straight up Star Fleet.

Brent: Was it Star Fleet? Yeah. Maybe it's

Jeff: Prime Loca.

Yeah. That comes back and, and God, I don't know. What,

Brent: what we have just discovered is, is that Star Trek and Babylon five occur in the same universe side by side. In both exist.

Jeff: That's what we discovered. Well, we proved it last, last week with Barclay's Ho Deck program, Right. For everything. And then this week that at the same time Control is running all this stuff and Control is out there trying to get the Red Angel to do some stuff and is taking over.

I don't remember everything that happened in Season two Discovery. That was a long time ago. Hey Jeff, you know what, what? This is not a Star Trek podcast. I know. See, this is why we have the game and this is why we're written. It's two. I got two in there. I got one left. But, uh, I'm gonna ride this bad boy for a little while.

Brent: It is control and artificial intelligence that's like super smart and controlling everything. No idea. That's what it seemed like, because that's what it is in Star Trek. Exactly. And I had the, I was like, Oh my gosh, Is control is controlling AI if, because if it's an AI named control, I need, I need to see some non Star Trek AI out there also called control.

Like, I need this to be a thing that happens in science fiction and not a, a, a crossover.

Jeff: Yeah. So far, uh, my, my, my hopes have gone from high to non-existent Right. On this, So I'm just gonna ride the, ride the train. That, that's, there's a total crossover between these two at this point, or,

Brent: or I mean, at least for the modern day stuff that, you know, Kurtzman and the people that are creating discovery also were babble on five pins and this is like their nod.

Oh yeah. You know, it's, it's an homage. It's their nod back to Babel on five rather than just like, uh, we're gonna steal your whole concept. That would be cool.

Jeff: I would like that. So I have a theory on, so we're talking about control in 13, so the Cyop. Identified herself as 13, right? Mm-hmm. . So this, this is 13.

Do you think So? It said she was deceased and I think, um, I'm curious what you think. I figure it's either that, that's the record they kept. Oh, she's deceased. So, you know, just like falsifying records sort of a thing, which seems like a bureau of 13 ish thing to do. Mm-hmm. . Or is she also a cyber zombie who died and they plugged a thing into her brain and she's, you know, control is operating her in

Brent: some way?

I, I think the implication is that she is also a cyber zombie. Yeah. She's also a space zombie. I think that's the implication. Could it turn out either way? Absolutely. The writers have left that completely open. Who knows where that's gonna go in the future and the way it's actually gonna turn out. But I think the implication, and I think even the intent that they were going for right now is that yes, she is also a cyber zombie in this control thing is.

Uh, at the core of it,

Jeff: you know, and controlling them. Yeah. What,

Brent: what I wanna know is what are these 13 components? Cause it says, you know, 13 components have been deployed and I, I swear it said two Babylon, five. Remember, they're all in place. It said they're all in place and they've been deployed to Babylon five.

I may have to go back. I've only watched this one once. I have not done a rewatch on it yet or anything like that. Um, but this, this 13, and I'm just sitting here going, Okay, if there are 13 of these components, let's assume that these components are space zombies.

Jeff: Yeah. What else

Brent: could they be? What else could they be at this point?

Right? So there's 12 more of these space zombies. Okay, here's my tin foil hat. Are we now moving into, uh, silo territory with these things? That people interacting normally are actually space zombies. Might even not know that there're space zombies. And how are you gonna tell the difference? Is Gu Baldi in reality, a space zombie?

Oh wow. Has he been replaced by Space Zombie? Well, even he was knocked out. He can't be replaced, but, Well, I get hold cause they got the change link

Jeff: cloak things. So not even the changeling net thing, but he, he was out, down, and out in a coma for like what, three episodes after he got shot in Chrysalis. Oh my God.

And yeah, so Dr. Franklin maybe is part of this Bureau 13 thing. Oh, a little more time.

That would break my heart. That would break my heart of Garbo. Turned out to be a asylum.

Brent: and he didn't know it. Yeah, he was right. Cause cuz they said they don't just take the dead. It's the, the, the mostly dead. You see there's all the way dead and then there's mostly dead. He, he's just mostly dead.

Jeff: But turns out, it turns out his third favorite thing isn't actually t, it's treason and insurrection at the behest of control.

Brent: I love the fact that they brought that joke back. Yeah, that was so good. Loved the fact they brought that joke back. Um, I just wanna say, Jeff, with your opening statement of this whole thing, I a hundred percent agree with you. This is the episode I needed last week. Mm-hmm. , to be frank, like I was mad at B on five last week.

This is the episode I needed. Is this a great episode? In the grand scheme of things, Cause I pro I could hear some of the, the Blon five veterans being like, You guys really like this episode cuz it's not really a great episode. Like we don't really love this one that often. I can hear people saying that and.

Like this is an episode that I will simply say if it's not a great episode of Babylon five, this is a, this is a season two sci-fi episode that is marking the growth of the show. Yeah. Like the show could be way better than what this episode actually is, but this is one of those episodes that, that is a step function on the right way to the show.

Because, I mean, I tried to do the recap on this and make it smaller than it was, and I couldn't because there were so many things that they packed in and it was, it was last week's episode, Didn't know what it wanted to be. Right. Remember that? Mm-hmm. , this episode knew exactly what it was a, an espionage, spy thriller.

What the heck is going on? Why does Sheridan know all this stuff? Yeah, he collects secrets. Dude, something's up with that.

Jeff: Agreed. Like there's a, there's a whole, like, I like to study, you know, the, uh, the Illuminati and the, you know, Masonic Lodges and the stu like, Oh, it's fun. It's a fun hobby to study this.

Then there's the person who does their own research, right? And I'm like, Which one of those is Sheridan? Because if he's just a collector and studying and stuff, cool. That's neat. People are very rarely we've learned this, very rarely what they appear to be on Babylon five. So what are we gonna learn about Sheridan that's not so great.

Well, he said

Brent: he had to pull a lot of strings to, to get a name or to find out like, what is he, he is more than just the captain of the Ag of Mimon who's been reassigned to Battle on five. I need to know more about this guy's backstory. Also, I still wanna know how he loses or how he gains a bunch of weight and still looks like that.

Jeff: I, He looks great. looks great. He looks really good when he's smiling. Like when Ivan's like, Hey, I'll take care of the, What was the, the TKA thing at the beginning? He's like, Ah, it's good to be casting. And he is just smiling. I'm just like, God, he looks

Brent: good. Look at that. He does. He looks Captain doesn't.

He

Jeff: does. Oh my gosh. I had one last thought on, um, 13. The, the, the, the Cyop. Yeah. My theory is that she is Abby, the person that Talia was assigned to when she first got to Sycor, like her buddy that she was paired up with. We heard the story about

Brent: don't she think that Talia would've recognized her from her picture or from

Jeff: seeing her?

I think she. Oh, I think she did recognize her. She went to the computer like she, like in the the mind thing. She was like, Could it be? And then she went like, Like how? From just seeing that face. Yeah. How does she go to the computer and look, if I see your face on the street and then I go to Google or Duck, Duck go and I like look up your face.

Yeah. I'm not gonna find anything. But if I'm like, Is that, is that Babylon five for the first times, Brent Allen? Is that who that is? And I go look for that. Oh my gosh. Is that Abby, such and such from Cy who became a Oh my god, yes it is. And that look on her face at the end. So I feel like we're gonna have on the shadow side, the personal stake of Sheridan's wife having been killed by shadows.

That'll pull him in. And then on the earth free Mar's stuff side, we're gonna have Talia and the tie to Abby, that's gonna be her personal stake.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: Interesting. Hmm. Maybe,

Brent: maybe I have a question about Talia. So a bunch of weeks ago we had that episode, I forget the name of it now. It's the one where like the little girl was the telepath and she like had puberty and it manifested and yeah, I think it was lace.

Yeah, there you go. And her and Iva, like Talia and Niva were like arguing over where, and like Talia wanted to send her to Sycor senator, her to Syco and her Sycor core. Didn't we have a whole episode where Tali met an old boyfriend who came in and he was being greatly abused by cco and then he like blasted her with some sort of like, I'm gonna give you like all of my gift.

And like that was supposed to supposedly turn her off to Cyco and like make her like all suspicious and kind of turn her against her and, and, and raise her side level a bunch and all that kind of stuff. Did I imagine that

Jeff: episode? Well, if we did, it's a joint hallucination. I remember the thing too, like it happened, but apparently there's no fallout whatsoever.

Right. My lover can get basically, I mean, he ascended and it was super cool for him, but Right. You know, get chewed up, you know, run through the ringer and he tells her horrible things about and she's like, And gets it. Yeah. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, sudden I wanna send the kid to por and then, eh, I, I have all these great memories of growing up with c I don't remember my mom and dad at all, but like I had Abby.

That's so

Brent: cool. Right. I'd be like, I want my mom, My mom and dad can come visit. Like I, if you gotta send your kid off to go something for a while, that's fun. If my kid turns out to be a mutant and Charles Xavier turns up on my doorstep one day, or if we get a letter from Hogwarts, listen, I'm gonna have to go talk to the dude because you're gonna have to make a special exception for me, cuz I'm coming to my kid's Quidditch practice.

Yeah. And I'm gonna be there for every game. You know, like, I don't, I don't need to, you know, I need to get to Diagon alley cuz I'm going shopping with him. I'm going to be in the dude's life. Well, and you're not taking my kid away. Sorry. Seor

Jeff: agreed. Yes. Isn't the Jedi Academy, You know, I'm not just gonna train her to get slaughtered by someone who's mad.

He didn't get a promotion. Right. But I think or argue . Yeah. Is that, what, is that what's happening, I think with her too, on not just the point of like, how is she still pro syco? But at the end of that episode, she had the little bit of telekinesis. She moved the penny. Yeah. Right. So in this one, Abels holding her down and she freaks out and, and she pulls the heroin in gray.

Pain. Pain. She says he's, and he is like, What are you doing lady? Come on. She should have rocked him to the ground. Given what we know from, uh, what was Mind war From Mind war. That, that should have been devastating. That was the episode we

Brent: met Baster.

Jeff: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and, and all the Jason Ironheart stuff and yeah, like it's almost.

it's almost like mind war never happened. Right? We've gotten two, two mentions. The bester. Yeah. Um, legacies. And then when, um, you know, dude who shot, uh, shot Gu Baldy mm-hmm. to the tip of the hat thing. That's it. And then Dahlia's completely unchanged from that whole thing, right? Yeah. Kind of a

Brent: letdown. I mean, if she was, if she was putting on an error because she didn't want to get in trouble or she was still investigating or something, but like, like, we, I need to have Talia do something here, because they set that up very specifically and they've done nothing with it.

And I'm kind of mad about it.

Jeff: Yeah. It's just, I mean, yeah. For a thing that was huge and early, you know, we're gonna introduce you to Babbel on five with this mm-hmm. and then let it

Brent: go. Mm-hmm. so. What did we make of Talia? Straight up lying to Sheridan at the end of this episode?

Jeff: I think it ties directly to what Ivanova was saying when he was asking her.

That was such a cool interaction between them when they're up in C and c and you know, she's like, Well, you know how I feel. He, What do you think about Talia Winters? Oh, she's interesting. Oh, you never talk about that? Well, you know how I feel about tele. Yeah. You threw one out of the third story window , and then she's like, Well, there was a pool.

It's probably fine. He's like, Yeah, I'm gonna assume that you knew that pool was there, . I'm like, That's the yvanova we know. Right? That's the yvo we love. Right. Just throwing somebody out of a third story window. But she said very clearly, I trust Talia Winters, but she has an unhealthy loyalty to Cyco and boom, she proved it right there.

Yeah, it's, She's gonna always choose Cyco, even though everything we just talked about, despite that, she's still gonna go be team, team PC.

Brent: Right. And she, and you know, because Sheridan straight up asked her like, Hey, did you do this? And she looked and you're going, Yes, she did. And she goes, Nope. I, I need to know where that is.

Like what that whole, what that whole piece is, uh, with, with Talia.

Jeff: And I think part of it too is that I think she was thinking, again, Abby was this thing, and so she had more investigating she needed to do before she was ready to say anything. I, but

Brent: I as the viewer need to know that, you know what I mean?

And I, people out there are like, Oh, just wait, I can't tell you because I'm spoilers. Just wait. And I'm like, Awesome. Thank you. Just Awesome. Don't tell us, because don't even tell us if it comes back around. Don't tell us if it never comes back from, I, I, we'll find out and we'll, we'll get mad. We'll talk about this again later.

Um,

did you have a problem with Talia? Uh, Agreeing to go to dinner with uh, a Sigo or a sogi.

Jeff: A soggy? No. Soggy

Brent: A sogi. I feel like I'm back to Ivanova

Jeff: now. Right. . A sogi. I did and I had a problem with him hiring her for this. Yes. I think me too. The way it started, you know, it just kicks off. They're like, Oh, I'm happy to see you again.

Okay, great. So they've got a professional relationship. They're happy to see each other. Mm-hmm. introduce her to Amanda. Cool. They're doing business but then goes as far as say a father figure. I think it's a conflict of interest and I think going to dinner with him is cool if you're also not acting as his commercial telepath.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. And I like the note I wrote her. I was like, It seems unprofessional. Mm-hmm. , it might not be inappropriate for her to go to dinner with him, cuz she also was walking down the, the hallway arm and arm with him. At some point now. And that one really, I felt the father figure nest to that. Like it didn't feel romantic at all.

That felt very, uh, uh, ivanova and rabbi cost. Yeah. Awesome. You know? Yeah. Like it felt very, that it had that vibe to me. So her going to dinner, like I said, not inappropriate, just unprofessional.

Jeff: And I think, I think that carried through to the end. Like I, I liked the end where they covered for Amanda. They keep negotiating with future corp, do all these things, but Talia was so.

personally invested in making sure that his dream moved forward like she was over. She was, she was moved to hug her at the end. She was so personally moved by it. I, I don't think that she should have, I mean, there aren't a bunch of commercial teles hanging out on Babble on five. I get it. But Cyco has a very, very long list of very strict rules about how businesses to be conducted.

You'd think conflict of interest would be part of it.

Brent: Can we talk about the commercial telepath though? Yeah. A little bit more. Um, cuz first of all, I don't recall ever hearing that as the phrase that she is a commercial telepath, which to me says, and this is exactly what she is, her services as a telepath are commercially available.

Mm-hmm. , you can buy her services, but they're in a negotiation, The Mars lady and, and Sogi. Or in, in a negotiation and they're talking back and forth and she says something and Dalia goes, Nope, that's not at all what she just said. Like, when you're in a negotiation striking stuff, you have to play your cards close to the chest.

There is a legit, like, I don't need to reveal this to you right now, or you don't need to know this. And having a telepath there feels like that is actually not a good thing to me. Like I can understand why you might want to have that there as a negotiator, but like I'm going, I don't know that I would agree to have one there.

Cause we, we just

Jeff: need to talk. We've seen the commercial tele run a couple times, mostly in small deals. Back with, um, I don't remember Sinclair's girlfriend's name. Catherine Ska. Yeah. Yeah. So like with dealings with her, you know, Talia was around doing stuff. I think my, my, hmm. Problem. I guess with it.

Uhhuh, my wrinkle with it is there should be a telepath for both parties. Right? Like he was, That's a, or she should be declared neutral. Or neutral. Yeah. Yep. No, you're not. Nope, you're not. Yeah. Because it, it's, it'd be like you and I sitting down to negotiating me bringing a team of lawyers and you sitting there being like, I thought, I thought we were gonna talk in good faith, man.

Like, what's

Brent: going on? Yeah. Yeah. Now that being said, I have zero problem with a guy like Captain Picard having a Deanna, Troy's an empath to do the exact same thing for him.

Jeff: Different though, because I don't think it's like a commercial negotiation. Those are first contacts, diplomatic situations, potentially, you know, avoiding war and battle.

I think the stakes are different. The mm-hmm. , I don't think there's a reasonable expectation of I'm not gonna cover every possible base, you know, or at least transparently. Right.

Brent: So I feel better knowing that it's okay for me to have a problem with the way that this, uh, This thing works. Like it's not ne this isn't tall yet.

This is just how it works in their society. Like I, I don't like having that in the, in the way future stuff goes. I don't know, maybe it would actually be helpful and prevent a lot of the shadiness that happens to, So I

Jeff: think that's part of the idea, you know, is like we, in, in the 23rd century, they're not negotiating in the same way that we in the 21st imagined negotiations.

Like there's sure. More transparency maybe, and hopefully a little more honesty maybe. I don't know. But it would, Yeah. I think there's a better way they could approach it. But I'll tell you, I did, I loved you mentioned it, the, the garabaldi antalia interactions in this I thought were Yeah. So well done.

Like, they were, they were a lot of fun. That scene in the elevator when he , like she's all sad her, you know, her father figure just died. He's gonna hit on her . Right? Right. Pulls a Franklin, but she holds him on it. Right, Right. And then unlike Franklin, he gets the message and he is like, Oh, oh, you need a friend right now.

So cool. I will be a friend. Like, I'll do that for you.

Was he hitting

Brent: on her though? Oh, I think so. Yeah. You think so? See, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't pick up on that when they were first talking in the elevator. Like, I, like this was one of those, like, it was the most sincere that Garabaldi has ever felt, uh, particularly when it comes to tall winters. And he was, and, and once he, like, once she let her guard down and just let him be since.

Turns out they were kind of cool with each other.

Jeff: I think it was after, cuz he, I forget what he said, but he said something about, you know, well, hey, I can, I can do this thing or whatever. And she was like, Are you serious? Like, this guy just died and all you're hitting me with is this whatever. And he is like, Oh yeah, I'm sorry.

I'm, he lost this person just being a yuck. Can you tell me what that word means? ? And they're like, Ha. Cause he, he took the feed, right? He's like, Oh yeah, this isn't the time. Like you're, you're not looking for that kind of comfort, right? I'm not gonna take a page from Dr. Franklin and take it to my quarters.

Cause I feel like you need me to cress your face and kiss you even though I'm a professional. Instead, he's like, Oh, okay, I hear you. You just need a friend. You need somebody to joke with. Guess what? I am the man for taking care of that.

Brent: So our Talia and Gar ball, because we have heard and we know that Jerry Doyle and whatever the lady actress name is, who plays Talia like in real life, we're married during the production of this, um, Is this, the writers, like, kind of putting them together, Are they gonna hook up as a, as a character set?

Like, like what,

Jeff: what do you think? I've gone on the record on here a couple times on how anti ship I am. We both hate that word. Yep. Right. But I am all for these two hooking up. It makes sense. They're not in a chain of command together. They're barely even coworkers. Right. They're just two people that work on babble on five and they're awesome together.

Like they just have, have a fun chemistry. Listen,

Brent: I have been all for the Ivanova gu Baldi hookup. Like, I, I really haven't, I, I still think that'd be a fun one. I, I'd love to see that as a relationship. Cause I think that, I think you could have a lot of fun with the dialogue and what that looks like. But I'm also all for Gu Baldi and uh, uh, Talia, a hundred

percent.

Jeff: I think he'd be a great partner. Like he would, I. Like he'd, he'd be a great guy to date. I think.

Brent: Speaking of Garabaldi, something I've never noticed before as a person, as a human, he has very hairy hands. Oh yeah. Oh my God. Could you imagine that? How much does it hurt to take that thing off and on his body? Like Yeah. All also in real life, but even just like in universe, like he's gotta slap the thing on and take it off.

Like, like that's gotta be not comfortable man.

Jeff: I hope he gets hazard pay or something like that. That is rough.

Brent: Like, you know, does he get COR lotion as a part of his job? Benefits package or something, or,

Jeff: I got, I have one little kind of funny thing I want to bring up and then we can start maybe talking about, um, Abel in the whole story with, um, with him.

But at the beginning when a Sogi and Amanda were meeting each other right, and kind of laying their cards out on the table, he says, uh, your great grandfather John, who piloted the first colony ship to Mars, would really like to see this thing happen. Did you do the math on John's name? No. Amanda Carter.

So it would be John. John Carter. Carter.

Brent: Oh my gosh.

Jeff: It could just be a coincidence, but I was like, Oh my gosh. That's funny. I think, I think those were because the movie that got awful, the movie came out just a couple years ago, but the books are pretty, They've been around a long time. They've been around for a while, right?

Yeah.

Brent: Right. Uh, was that movie bad? I always thought that movie was, I, I think I've only seen it once, but I remember like liking the movie and. Kind of knowing at the same time it was never

Jeff: gonna get us sequel. I don't have good memories of it. I don't remember a lot. But

Brent: let me, I'm gonna see if you can, I'm gonna see if you can decipher one of my notes.

Okay. Because I wrote this down and I don't remember what it means. I said, Okay. The door gag was funny. Yes, Mr. Wizard, let the wizard have a go. I do not remember what this means, but it's written in my notes for some reason. So there's a,

Jeff: there's a, there's, there's a way I wish this scene went down, but how it did go down was great.

Sheridan had figured out that the little cyber zombie tracker thing would set off this weird kind of benign radiation and thought they could track him down with that. But I can't get these computers to find it because it's this, you know, obscure thing. And garibaldis like, let the wizard take over. I got this cause apparent.

He's some sort of hacker , you know, and never been a part of his character before. But he sits down, you know, does the whole like, crack the knuckle things and Uhhuh sit and he is like, Oh, you just do this cross reference to this database and the medical files and there you go. And then the door opens and closes instead.

And then he is like, Oh, yep. Yeah. It's more complicated than you thought it was, than he walk off. That's right,

Brent: that's right. That made me laugh. Yeah, I, I thought that was the door opening and close like, and like he goes to leave but like he actually has to stop and like climb himself up so he can get through.

I loved it

Jeff: cuz they called out in this one that garal the, and shared and don't have the relationship that Garabaldi and Sinclair had. So I like that they're taking these moments, you know, to kind of build that.

Brent: Are you good with, with this like, like I am with this relationship taking time to develop, like I need to see Sheridan and Garabaldi.

Come together. But I'm glad for that to take

Jeff: time. I like how they've done it where Sheridan and Ivan have some history, so they have a place to start, but they also have to rebuild it cuz it's been years or whatever. But he and Gar, Baldy, you know, they don't know each other from Adam and so they're having to build it.

I really like the way they're doing it. I wish though, in that scene he would've set shared insight and said, Hey, let me show you how to handle this. See, all you have to do is call Ava and ask her to do it.

I thought that would've been a cool thing for him to kind of prop her up. And then I'll remind us as the viewer that, uh, Ava is always right. She

Brent: is always right. I saw Claudia Christians and not too long ago, it wasn't last week. I don't know, maybe it was, maybe it was a couple months ago. Uh, but she said something, somebody had tweeted out, like Ivanovo was always right and she as a person was like, This is some advice I wish I would've taken more seriously when I was younger.

I was like, That's funny. That's, that's good. That's all right. I got, I got two things before we get Okay. In, into, into this, the, the much bigger discussion one. Um, so in the future they have tri quarters mm-hmm. . Yep. In this world. Oh,

Jeff: that's your three, is it? Yeah. And I only have one left. That's

Brent: okay. I'm good.

I, I'm, I think actually I'm really good. I think I'm, I'm fine. Okay. Uh, but they have tricor, like, Huh? Listen, we just said that they're in the same universe now, so. Exactly. So it

Jeff: makes sense. Yes, of course

Brent: they do. Yes. Okay. I tried to call this out in my recap just a little bit, but I just, I really have to point this out.

So what we have is a representative of an earth based company that wants to have a meeting with somebody from Mars, which Galactically is like just right over there. And they're both gonna travel across the galaxy in order to have this meeting. I'm like, that's like a toy maker wanting to meet with the president of, of Walmart in Antarctica.

Jeff: Right.

Brent: So that they won't be overheard or whatever. Like why? What surely you can find a place to meet that is not Babylon five. Now I know we have the sets existing here in baby I five, so it makes it easier, but

Jeff: still they threw a couple words at that. Right. Like he even said, he's like, That's why I chose here Babylon five to have this meeting.

And Yeah, because, because it is a neutral place for all the races and everybody to come and do business. But yeah, it's pretty b go to io. Right. You know, I mean it's, it's really it. Yeah. That was, that was very much about, Hey, we need to, uh, We need to have some stuff go down with Talia here. We need a telepathic around, We need it to impact people in Babylon five, so we're gonna do it there.

Brent: I, I get it. Plot reasons, but I was just like, that is just Stu because here's what we know about Jump Gates. It's not like, um, any sort of instantaneous teleportation technology that like, Hey, I'm just gonna pop over here and I can go across the universe and do that. Like, and it's expensive. It's costly.

Right? And there is a time of travel from the jump gate to your point of origin or destination, like, like that's, that's not an easy necessarily, uh, effective

Jeff: way to hold. Well, it's kinda like, you know, I'm up in the northwest corner of the country. You're down in the southeast corner of the country, and if we were gonna get together, it would make sense for us to say, Hey, let's meet in the middle somewhere, do a thing.

What would be. Stupid. Mm-hmm. is to say, Let's meet in South Africa. Right? Like, let's just dumb, you know? And that's, it's what happened here. Cool. You're on Mars, I'm on earth. Let's meet somewhere in the middle io. There's a whole thing on io, right? Mm-hmm. . So, Okay, cool. No, let's go to the farthest point we can think of.

Brent: All right, last thing for me. So Sogi was Mars's best hope for the future. My question was he their last best hope

Jeff: for the future? Well, no. Cause now we have Amanda Carter. She might be the last best hope though.

Brent: And there you go. Right. He was the best hope. She's the last best hope. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so let's talk about, I mean, I, what, what do you got on this?

Jeff: You know, not a lot to be honest. Okay. I think it's, it's cool. Like, uh, yeah. The, the, the concept is cool. Yeah. Let's take the leader of this terrorist organization, throw 'em in. There are obvious implications that happen from this. I thought it was, I I appreciated a really minor callback they had in here because , the note I took here, and this will be a deep cut for a lot of people, but the first time we see him is when son roller skates passed Xou to grab a sogi by the throat and choke him to death.

And then he heads off, Cause Michael Beck was xou and was awesome. Okay, I get off that. But my immediate thought was, Hey, that's what that, uh, slavery Gene Simmons guy did back in born to the purple is he grabbed people and shocked them. And then when Sheridan and Garabaldi were like, problem solving, he's like, Oh, you mean like a slave?

No, no. This is a much bigger thing that's like, that's where

Brent: that they said that and I was like, I feel like I should know what that is, and I don't know what that is. Now I remember.

Jeff: Yeah, I thought, I thought that was such a ridiculous thing in that like, he's doing what, and then they pulled it in here.

I'm like, What again? Oh, cool. Okay. They're doing it. He's got Darth badder hands, so I get it. That makes sense. But I really, he was a tool, right? Mm-hmm. , I mean, like, I mean, they could have put anybody there. It led to some good dialogue between him and Amanda Carter to do some stuff. Yeah. For me, the best thing, the best thing about Able Horn was Michael Beck, the actor, he was called on to do some ridiculous stuff, body seizure things and whatever.

It never looked ridiculous like it looked, I, I bought everything he did.

Brent: I honestly thought he was Brad Dorf, like the first five minutes that I saw him and then like we got a real close up and I was like, No, that's not at all who

Jeff: that is. Yeah. I say colored his hair or put a wig on him or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause he had that quality to him it was really great and really well played. This is, if this was first season Babylon five and they threw this in here, acting would have ruined so much of this story I think. Right. But they had, the acting was really good and I think, I think it took it, um, I think it really took it to a higher level.

But my question was, he was phase one right. And then they said, Go kill Talia cuz she saw, and then we'll execute phase two. So what's phase two and what are the other 12 elements that are out there? Oh,

Brent: okay. So, so let's do that here. Let's recap what we learned because this, this episode was obviously a bit of an information dump.

Mm-hmm. about what's going on. Okay. So there's a bureau 13. That is a rogue agency within Earth's government and they have 13 components, which we are assuming are space zombies.

I'm saying that it's gonna turn into a human if, if it, it'd be awesome. I think it, I mean human silo type. It would change the whole feel of this show. Oh my gosh. Wish it would. And it, and I almost feel bad because I've seen Battle Star Galatica and it feels like it'd be that story all over again. Mm-hmm.

it would be different here. I mean, you know, we called out Gu Baldi earlier, like he absolutely could have been one of those people anyway. Um, Oh, and rewriting Franklin. Mm-hmm. and that whole thing. And maybe that's why I don't like him.

Jeff: Exactly. I would like that actually now. And he's just not a piece of garbage.

He actually has a purpose.

Brent: So there's cyco. Now Cyco has an outpost on Mars, like a big, deep outpost on Mars, Right. Uh, that nobody's supposed to know about. Also, they have, I'm assuming it's Cy, this might be Cyco, maybe it's whatever. This Bureau 13, actually, I guess is Bureau 13. But you have a Cycop or a side cop, or a former Cycop who is in charge of this headquarters, of this bureau 13, or she is the 13th component.

I, I'm not entirely sure, but there's an outpost in the San Diego Wastelands, which is kind of a cool concept. Mm-hmm. , um,

Jeff: they a lot different than San Diego does today. By the way.

Brent: zinging them down there, Man. I, I'm just gonna steal over here in Florida in my swamp land and, and let y'all have it over there. Um, but there's a project called Project Lazarus that Sheridan somehow knows about. Which I think is, there's some stuff there and it takes dead people or almost dead people and turns them into zombies that Cy Core or Bureau 13 can use to do their bidding while that body is kept in a perpetual state of reliving the moment of death.

And if they start flashing out of that, they can glitch and they like shock back into it. But if things go really, really bad, then they can just self destruct. Like they're a freaking, um,

clone,

Jeff: replicate re is that where you're going?

Brent: Yeah. Like there's something of that nature anyway. Um,

we know that earth and there's that. Yeah. And there's plant and there's the other 12 components out there somewhere, which again, we are assuming are more space zombies. Yeah. That's, is that.

Jeff: That's the only thing. I think that's the only thing I can think of. I think we also know that, um, the other thing we learned is that Earth government is actively trying to stifle anything that could lead to Mars independence or potentially bring up a thing.

The matriarch of the blue family who apparently was a senator, thinks that she can command Sheridan around. I loved how he stood up to her and he is like, Yeah, that's not my job, lady. Back off . But yeah, that's kind of what we learned through this.

Brent: And this is apparently entirely separate from the whole shadows thing, which we keep hearing about.

This isn't touch on, so we're gonna, we're gonna get this multi fronted thing, which I, I still am not entirely sure that I understand the political. Set up and nobody out there, tell me, because I'm sure the show is gonna make it more clear, so please, you don't have to explain it to me. But at this moment in my watching as of season two, episode six six, uh, I am not fully comprehending the, the political Association of Mars with Earth.

What is your understanding of how that whole thing's working right now?

Jeff: I think right now Mars is a colony of earth. So it's, it's kind of a, kind of a Puerto Rico situation, right? Where Right. Totally subject to a whole lot of things. You're not represented in the, in the overall

Brent: government. Right. And there is a group that wants Mars to go be its own free thing.

Mm-hmm. , And there's obviously people who don't, and there's a provisional government on Mars, which is. More than just a sh a puppet government set up. Very active. Yeah. Very active. Very active in doing something. So, and there's been a rebellion where they've tried to go off and get free and do their own thing.

I think that's my best understanding of it right now. Just trying to put the pieces together.

Jeff: Yeah. And there's a lot of ties, a lot of ties to Mars. Right. Sheridan said that he and his wife had special friends on Mars. Talia had been stationed on Mars. Garrett Baldy had been stationed on Mars. Mm-hmm. . So there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, stake in the game Yeah.

For, for people there. I also think we talk about the political situation. When we first saw 13 talking to Control, we didn't know anything back when 13 was still Dr. Klaw. Mm-hmm. , We, they had, uh, President Clark on the tv. Yeah. In there. So she was watching the news, apparently Uhhuh, and he was talking about something about.

um, you know, we're gonna focus on earth and earth cultures to align with the President Santiago's vision. Right. Really beating that drum where I think he's trying to rewrite history. Yeah. In that, hey, everything, everything we're doing is what Santiago wanted all along. Of course. Mm-hmm. , one quick note on Project Lazarus.

I am more and more convinced, and in fact I'm okay with people telling me this. Mm-hmm. Mass Effect. So inspired by Babylon five Project Lazarus is the program that brought Shepherd back at the beginning of mass effect. Spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't played this game, but Shepherd sort of gets d he dies, he gets almost dead at the top of mass effect too.

And Project Lazarus rebuilds him very much straight out of the, straight out of, out of this episode. Just, it worked really, really well with Shepherd.

Brent: Do do. Do people get as mad about mass effect ripping off Babylon five as they supposedly do about Deep Space nine,

Jeff: getting, I, I am making those, Like I've, I have never heard the two were in any way related, but I, this is like the third or fourth D like there are scenes of Babylon five that are played out in mass effect, Uhhuh, and then stuff like this.

I don't think there's, So tell us in the comments, right. Are you, are you upset about this? Right?

Brent: Like, Yeah.

Jeff: Because if you're not here I go, If you're not upset about it, then it proves my point that it's more about timing than anything else. Had Star Trek, Deep Space Nine and Babylon five not aired simultaneously, we wouldn't still be having this conversation right now.

Mm-hmm. because we're not having it about mass effect, or we are, and I'm just not included in them for some reason. Right, Right.

Brent: I don't, Jeff, it feels like we're going to continue to go down this rabbit hole of. Uh, Deep Space nine slash Babylon five. But let's save that for a future episode. And, um, why don't we get to that part of the show where we boil this down and actually do the star Treky thing and see if this episode has any of that Star Trek equality.

Maybe there's a deep moral message to it. Maybe it's holding up a mirror to society. Is it giving us hope for a better future? I am going to discuss my side of it, and then I'm going to rate this on a scale of zero to five Deltas to see how exactly Star Trek this episode is. Jeff, you on the other hand when you are going to do your analysis, but I'm gonna ask you to rate it on a scale of zero to five star series of how much you just enjoyed this episode.

Jeff, I'll let you go first.

Jeff: Oh, wow. Geez. So, I don't know if this was recency bias or not, right? But my initial reaction was that I loved everything about this episode. I'm like, Oh, this is the best thing ever. But on my second watch, It was still super, super good. Just not as good as I, as I first thought.

Yep. We're seeing some of the older ivanova, again, the, the, the great attitude that swagger that, that confidence that she has. And I loved what we got in Garabaldi. This was about, like I said, this was about reminding us about the Earth and the Mars stuff, and then moving it forward a little bit, introducing Bureau 13.

But I really enjoyed this episode and for me, the ESP espionage stuff was done really well. Mm-hmm. , it made sense. You know, I mean, like, I, when I watched it the first time, I felt like things were a little string strung together and maybe didn't make, but on the second watch through, there were just a couple cuts that, like, when Talia's bodyguard got killed, it was just like, Oh wow.

That was kind of outta nowhere that that happened. Okay. That's just an editing thing. But that was all fun. Gar, Baldy and Talia though are what really moved this up for me. Without the gear of all the antalia stuff. This might have been like a two, two and a half for me. But with that, I'm gonna give this 1, 3, 3 star theories.

Brent: So this episode, I think for the first time, had a real star treky type message to it. Um, and I'm gonna fixate on a single line because I've noticed this is kind of how Babylon five does it. It sort of throws it out there and then it just leaves it and lets you pick up on it. We could talk about respecting life and what do you do with the dead bodies and, and all of that.

I, I don't think that's really it, but there's a line where the senator lady talking to Sheridan, she says this, she says, Practicality is more important than principles. And I went. Oh, that's what this episode's gonna, and she said it so early, that's what this episode's gonna be about, is them exploring that concept.

Are your principles or better, do your principles override the practicality of just getting it done? You know, uh, and we have seen that done and played out in Star Trek so often. You know, when, when the rubber meets the road, are you gonna stick to your guns? Uh, I, I'm always reminded of Kirk's words. Uh, I think it was at the end of Corbin Might Maneuver where he says, It's time to see if our high sounding words actually mean anything.

Right. Uh, we see this happen in Voyager all the time with Jane Way, like any, you and I were talking about before we went on Mike tonight, like anytime the Voyager crew gets off kilter of the Star Fleet values, the Star Fleet principles, things go bad. It, it's the sticking to them that sees them through in the end that has held them together.

Uh, certainly in next generation. We see it all the way through. We, we see this again and again. Even now in Prodigy, we're seeing it a lot in that, um, did they do anything with it afterwards? That's what's been running through my mind. Like, so she says this line practicality wins out over, over principles and, and we have to sit there and go, No, it doesn't, and this is gonna show.

I don't know that they showed a whole lot of principles in this particular episode. Like again, this episode seemed to be much more of a information dump, but the fact that they brought that up gives it a lot of weight to me and. I'm sure if we were to really sit here and dissect it even more, we could dive down that rabbit hole.

And I'm not sure if the writers intended to go there or not, so I won't, but I will give this one, two and a half Deltas, because they mentioned it. They brought it up. I don't know that they landed the ship. Yeah. You know what I mean? They did. They didn't bring it all the way home, but it, they floated it out there and certainly they pla, I think they played with those ideas a little bit through, They just never went anywhere with it to kind of, They didn't give you the guy who was betraying their principles and just working on practicality.

And then the person who's struggling. Should I or shouldn't I? Like, we didn't have that. It wasn't that clear of a thing, you know? So yeah. I'm gonna go two and a half, Uh,

Jeff: Deltas, I like that. I think, you know, especially back in the early episodes that we did, we awarded some Deltas based on what, like our optimism or pessimism about what we think is gonna happen.

Mm-hmm. , and I think it's really easy to see this one being an information dump, introducing some new players and things that they have that theme. And I can very much see that Sheridan playing in that space of conspiracy junkie being where some of those themes do play out through this, this story arc where, you know, we could this, but they're doing, they're doing it this way.

And, and I, I can't let that happen because I believed, like I could see this being the road paved for Sheridan to really drive home some of those

Brent: messages. I really kept trying to find it in the Bureau 13 stuff. and the, like, that 13 components, like I, I didn't know if we were gonna see her again later in the episode or the San Diego thing, but I, that kept running through my mind after I heard that of like, this organization, whatever, whoever these people are, they're taking the practical side and we're gonna see our babble on five crew have to struggle against the principal side.

Yeah. And it, it, like I said, it never really materialized. So I, I'd like, that's where I really wanted it to be, but that was, I think, me trying to force it. Uh, admittedly well with that, Jeff, here in season two, we've started doing something where we are ranking the episodes. And for the first time, Jeff, something's gonna have to fall out of the top five.

And, uh, we are gonna do this, we're gonna set this, when we're gonna rank this episode amongst its peers. This is gonna be the absolute 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of Babylon five, season two, Jeff. Where are we gonna put spider in the web currently? Let me just remind us. Number one is points of departure.

Number two is geometry of shadows. Number three is revelations. Number four is a distant star. Actually the fifth spot is still blank because we kicked the long dark out last week and didn't even let it sit in the top five.

Jeff: Doesn't be the first time we actually have a top five, right? Yeah. And I'm gonna put a spider in the web in spot number two right behind points of departure.

Brent: I wholeheartedly agree. Yeah, that's exactly where I was hoping you would put it because reasons. Yeah, it's

Jeff: great episode. But so it's good departure. Yeah.

Brent: Good. It makes me eager to see next week's episode now. Exactly.

Jeff: And there's a lot more to come,

Brent: not because I want to get this one out of my mouth, like I don't want to like just move on cuz this one sucks.

Like I'm now excited to

Jeff: continue on with the story. That's a good point, . Cause I think that's where we've been in the last couple weeks. Well, Brent, that's it for a spider in the web. Next week we get to play our game. Now next week we are watching. Soulmates for the first time. Now, we've never looked ahead.

We've never seen these before. We've never talked about 'em. No trailers, no synopsis, no pictures, no anything based on the name alone. Brent, what do you think soulmates is gonna be about?

Brent: All right. I'm going to, I'm going to continue to speak this into existence until it actually manifests. We are due for lawn and Kar.

This is going to be a lawn and jaar episode. I will even accept a lawn or jaar episode, although I personally prefer lawn. Um, could this be lawn and jaar being soulmates of each other? Not necessarily in a romantic way. Not in a romantic way, but in a way that they're, they're like inextricably linked together kind of a thing.

Um, hopefully it's not tallia and gu baldy, you know? Um, Because for both of them, we've had, like somebody from the past come up, like with all you. We had Jeremy Irons and Jeremy Irons, Jeremy Iron Side.

Jeff: Jeremy Iron. Iron Heart.

Brent: Jeremy Iron. Was it Jeremy? Jason. Jason. Jason. Oh my God. Wow. Jason. Jason,

Jeff: you know what I'm wrong.

I'm probably wrong on this too. Dude who ascended?

Brent: That's who we had. Yeah. Yeah. And then with Garabaldi, we had, uh, his ex-wife who went off and did the castaway thing where she got married to somebody else. Um, we've had both of those. So hopefully it's not like that. Uh, I do wanna see Orlando and Kar episode.

And, um, does maybe Lawn finally finds a new, Didn't he say he already has like three wives? Maybe he finds a new wife. Is he Oh, is there, Wait, wait minute, Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is there a thing in Sattari culture where like, like almost like Delan, like you get three. But in order to get us new one in, we've gotta bump one of the other ones out.

Right. And that's, you know, this is my soulmate. I've gotta, And so now we get to, we get to, uh, did we meet one of the wives

Jeff: before? No, I, I think we saw their

Brent: pictures, ma. Yeah. Yeah. And he Oh man. He loves his wives, doesn't he? Yeah. Like the,

Jeff: the horse beat apo

Brent: years. . Right, right. So that's what I'm going with.

I'm going with lawn and Jaar, but Lawn has met a new girl and he is fallen in love and he's gotta kick out one of his old wives to try to make room for a new one.

Jeff: So I feel like the more you talk, the more the closer you are gonna get to my guests and I think we might be able to meld them together.

Okay. Because I thought this was gonna be, um, the sequel to Born to the Purple. And Aira who he sent off to go do stuff. Yes, Yes. Her.

Brent: I liked her. Yeah,

Jeff: exactly. She was great. Yeah, I think, I think ad's gonna come back and they're soulmates, but I want to add that onto yours, that she's gonna beat the, like, that's the gonna be the drama is this young former slave is gonna take me a malar wife that, you know, and we're maybe get one of those.

So we will marry our predictions in an episode where predicting will be about marriage. I,

Brent: and it's jaar is gonna be floating around somewhere. Like Of course, of course. That's, that's, that's

Jeff: he'll be the best man. . He's gotta plan the bachelor party .

Brent: You can be the best. I'll be the better man. Right. I'll

Jeff: show you.

Well, that's it. Uh, we're gonna find out next week right here. Thank you all so much for joining us. We appreciate it more than you can possibly know. If you haven't already, please subscribe wherever you're listening or watching us. And if you haven't already, Run over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a review.

I love reading your reviews here on the podcast. With that, Brent, until next time. Hey, Jeff.

Brent: Hey Jeff. Yeah. You wanna know, You wanna know what my third favorite thing in the universe is?

Jeff: Oh my sure. Yeah, sure, sure. Interrupting your closings. Oh, , you do. You're so funny. Well, hey, peace. Peace and long life.