A View From the Gallery

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I am the one who was,

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I am the one who will be.

Jeff: and we're watching Babylon five for the first time For you, the one who is,

Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters searching for the important messages that Babylon five is trying to tell us in its own unique way.

Jeff: We're looking for those Babylon 5 messages, not the Star Trek messages. And since this is not a Star Trek podcast, we've decided that we will play. The rule of three that limits us to only three references total to Star Trek during the entire episode. That's it. Three. No substitutions. Exchanges are refund.

And if we make one of those, you're going to hear this sound that everybody loves.

Brent: Jeff, I wanna do something different there.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Why this? This is how we make it YouTube. Here we go. You ready? Why don't you play the Aladdin drop one more time and then just go with me on it. Okay.

Jeff: Okay, that's it. Three. No substitutions. Exchanges a refund.

Brent: And Jeff, what will happen if we do make one of those Star Trek references?

Jeff: All people are going hear this great sound.

Brent: That's right. Because while we are most definitely not a Star Trek podcast, those references could slip in from time to time. And along with our game, the rule of three, there is another game we like to play at the end of this episode or at the end of every episode to tell you the truth, where we try to guess what next week's episode is gonna be about, based on title alone, never having read a description, never having seen it first, never really even looking at a thumbnail if we can avoid that.

Well, this is the spot, Jeff, where it is time to play.

Jeff: Time to pay the pipe burn.

Brent: And this is where we revisit our prediction to see if we got it right. So, Jeff, what did you say A view from the gallery was gonna be about? And I'll tell you how close you were.

Jeff: I thought this was gonna be a Byron in the Telepaths episode, um, watching the day-to-day of the station and, uh, really focused on Byron's agenda.

Brent: Well, you got day-to-day of the station a little bit. Um, telepaths were in it. They weren't really watching much, so I'm gonna give you one 10th of a point.

Jeff: It's very generous of

Brent: Yes. Oh, I

Jeff: What did you think?

Brent: Well, I said that this was gonna be Star Trek's lowered X or uh, I said that this was gonna be Babylon five's lowered deck episode.

You know where we're gonna catch, uh, we're gonna catch some of the, the regular Joe's on the station and they're gonna bump into the main characters from time to time as they go about their daily business. And it's just gonna be that sort of show. Although I did say we were gonna be watching from the top down cuz it's a view from the gallery.

Not like lower decks, like where we're looking up. Um, and yeah, that's, that's what I thought it was gonna be about. A lot of regular Joe's on the thing. Maybe some dock workers. I thought there was gonna be dock workers.

Jeff: Much like my predictions in the past, specificity is what hurts you on this one. I'm gonna give you 0.75 though, because it really was, it was the average Joe's doing their day to day and then you had to dive in and like start trying to tell a

Brent: Yeah. Well, you know, Sometimes though, Jeff, my prediction is wrong, but in the details is where it turns out to be right. So

Jeff: very true.

Brent: me both ways.

Jeff: You gotta, you gotta work it and, and find out what happens. But hey, if you don't know what we're talking about, if you haven't seen this episode for a while, if you've never seen it at all and are listening to us anyway, which is cool. Hey Brent, why don't you remind us and let us know what a view from the gallery was all about.

Brent: Well, Mac and Bo are two ordinary, everyday blue collar guys on Babylon. Five. They're maintenance workers, the real heart and soul of the station. While people like Sheridan and Dalin and Captain Lockley and Corwin are running around making decision and push while Sheridan and Dalin and Lockley and Corwin are running around making decisions and pushing buttons, Bo and Mac are the guys that actually make the buttons do something.

Well, one day while they're working, the crew gets worded that some scout ships from an advanced race that is since. The crew gets worried that some scout ships from an unnamed advanced race are on their way to the station to see if Babylon five might be ripe for the conquering. Hey Jeff, haven't we seen this episode already?

Jeff: I

Brent: Didn't we do this once or twice or anyway?

Jeff: a couple. Yeah.

Brent: Well, captain Lockley is concerned and wants to get President Sheridan and First Lady Delin off the station, you know, just in case stuff goes down and there's not really a secret service on the station just yet. But also we know Sheridan isn't gonna wanna leave because we know Sheridan pretty well by this point.

Well over a s Spoo sandwich. Mack and Beau discussed that, you know what? This is actually what they really like about Sheridan. He's not some kind of jerk from the office. He's an in the trenches sort of guy. Well, while they're enjoying their Spoo sandwich and trying to figure out what it actually tastes like, there's not much time to finish it because they gotta get back to work.

Bo heads up to Med Lab to repair a faulty console, and we get a discussion of what it means to save an enemy. Dr. Franklin is all on board about saving an enemy, not because he's a physician and dedicated to the preservation of life, which is totally something. Doctors McCoy Crusher, Bashir flocks and the like would've said, Nope.

Dr. Franklin likes to save an enemy because. His old man was saved by an enemy doctor and Franklin just wanted to be like that enemy doctor. Well, elsewhere on the station, more repairs continue to follow as our main characters work in the background. Finally, the attack on the station actually begins Mack and Bo wind up hiding out with Byron in the Telepaths, which.

Totally a great band name, by the way. That, that should be a T-shirt, Jeff Babylon 5 Bow and the Telepaths pads, you know,

Jeff: Holding the mic, right? He's all,

Brent: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, uh, Fabio, get on making that t-shirt for us. Okay. Where was I? Oh, there we go. There we go. Uh, so Byron, oh, I'm sorry. And while they're hiding out, Byron helps Beau fulfill a lifelong dream by basically mind walking him into a star fury by basically mind walking him into a star fury, pilot's brain, mid fight.

And from there it's a lot of pew, pew, pew. Eventually they get out from hiding and the station is attacked even more. They just happen to be passing by when Sheridan and Dalen at this moment are arguing about whether or not they're gonna evacuate the station, and Sheridan grabs these two guys and tells them to escort Dalen to an escape pod.

Well, Dalen being the ever cool cat that she is, actually takes the time to get to know them on their walk and talk. She asks their names, she recognizes them as cast. She recognizes them as worker cast. And to totally convince them to disobey. Mm-hmm. And she totally convinces them to disobey orders from the president because, you know, the only one who can actually override the orders of a president is, well, two-thirds of Congress or like half the cabinet or one president's wife.

Well, it works out because shortly after the White Star fleet arrives and Bowen Mack, woohoo. And celebrate as they look out of a. Glass window in the floor or something. The white stars make quick work of the invading ships leaving Mac and Bow to realize they're gonna have to be the ones to clean all of that up.

Jeff, what did you think of this episode? A view from the gallery?

Jeff: Two episodes ago we asked for a pallet cleanser and here it stands.

Brent: I'm not sure why. Why'd you, why'd you give yourself a buzz?

Jeff: cuz that's, that's a Star Trek reference.

Brent: it stands.

Jeff: We're here to seek out new life. Well, there it sits. A measure of a

Brent: Oh wow. That is a deep referential that that's not even a reference. That's an homage is what that is.

Jeff: No, it is fun. I liked it, but to me, I, I, I think that we are, we're, I don't know how much longer we're gonna be suffering. Suffering, oh, that's a strong word. I don't know how long we're gonna be feeling. The effects of the cancellation that came up. Right. Five

Brent: canceled

Jeff: arc, the what?

Brent: cancellation,

Jeff: Yeah, because I mean, yeah, right.

Five season arc canceled. Nope. New life at the last minute. I just wonder like how they can spend this much time on episodes like this in paragon of animals that are ripped from season one, you know, and like, here's your thing of the week and whatever. With a couple little seeds, it'll probably probably grow into

Brent: We have 18 stories with these guys left. And this is, or at this point, 19 stories with these guys left and this is what you choose to spend one of them on.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: it was fun. It was cool. I I, I love this trope, right? Like all the episodes they do, it's great. It's great.

Brent: yeah. Lower Decks is one of the best episodes of Next Generation hands on. They made an entire series based off of lower decks.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: It's one of the best.

Jeff: All in all, I love some of the leadership lessons in this one. Um, but they're the same kinda leadership lessons that this episode in other series also have. It was, it was kind of fun. That's my, that's my first thought on this one. What about you?

Brent: Yeah, I, I thought this was a fine episode. I did not hate this episode by any stretch of the imagination. I just didn't need it. It's fun. Maybe even it's a little bit of a feel good episode. I. But that's really about it. Jeff, I'm gonna spoil the rest of this episode for all of our listeners out there.

Jeff: Already

Brent: Yep.

I have one note. That's it. One. One. Do you know the last time this happened where I went into an episode with One Note? Do you know what

Jeff: Was that the, uh, king, was that the King Arthur

Brent: Yes. A late delivery from Avalon. Here's the difference though for me with this one in Late Delivery from Avalon. Late delivery pissed me off. This one didn't piss me off like, but people hear me.

I like this episode, late Delivery from Avalon. I wanted to like that episode. It started off so well and then crashed and burned into really an emotional thing. Maybe I'll appreciate it much more on the second watch, but on this watch through, I, I was so disappointed with where it went because I loved the idea.

Of what they started with. And then when we got the reality, it, it just, oh my God, it felt like a JJ Abrams show all over again. Uh, this one didn't do that. This one was exactly what I thought it would be front to end, uh, or front to back. Um, and it didn't make me mad. I would absolutely watch this one again, but as far as analyzing it and discussing it for 30, 45 minutes here on a podcast, Jeff, I'm afraid we're gonna come up short this week, buddy.

Unless you, unless you got a bunch of stuff and you're gonna carry this. I just don't have it.

Jeff: I have nine notes on this one, but a lot of them are observations. Right. Let, let, let, let me read one, just it's,

it's 

Brent: you, you do an observation. I'm gonna react. Okay.

Jeff: okay. Okay. Here we go. Let's see start. Oh, they have the newer star theories now, along with the classic star theories.

Brent: Yep. That happened.

Jeff: Yep. So it's cool. Um, The station got rocked.

Brent: Yep. That happened.

Jeff: Yep. Uh, Byron is no joke.

He's really powerful.

Brent: Yep, that happened.

Jeff: Okay. Those are my observations. That's like half of my notes right there. I got a couple more that dive in a little bit, so I do have some stuff

we can dive 

Brent: Mine doesn't 

Jeff: let's start with you. 

Brent: much, but go ahead.

Jeff: Let's start with you. Let's go into yours first.

Brent: Um, What is, what does Spoo actually taste like and don't say chicken

Jeff: Brava.

Brent: A Brava. Is that while it's still on the bottle or when it's on the floor?

Jeff: Yeah, if they scoop it up, maybe Spoo is just like, like fermented and cultured. Brava.

Brent: I don't know it. The fact it was on a sandwich I thought was really interesting because Jeff, I, maybe a week ago, two weeks ago, I saw a clip. it was either Heman or Shira, but it was Skeletor. The clip was of Skeletor, and I know he was in both shows. Right? Uh, this is from the eighties. Right. Uh, which we know j m s was writing on the show back then.

But, uh, this, this person like brought Skeletor a bowl of spew.

Jeff: Really,

Brent: sculpture was like, I hate spoo. SP's awful. And, and so to see it pop up here again, uh, it it's fun.

Jeff: I feel like, I feel like the sandwich though was more of a toast. Sp. of a thing. It just looked like a slice right out of the container of tofu.

Brent: yeah, it was something else. Um, I do really, I, I kind of wonder what it actually is. It's gotta be at least edible. If it's not delectable, it's at least edible. So,

Jeff: Maybe it's like a fancy cheese, right? Where the Sonari who have a more refined pal or like this. But when Mack is eaten it and he's had it a little bit and he knows he is shelled out some serious money, he's kinda like, yeah, it's all right. But Bow is just like this tastes likes Jim socks. I don't know why you would eat this.

Brent: yeah. There are delicacies in this world where I feel like that things, things that are supposed to be real expensive, and I'm like, why are you eating this crap? This is awful. You know, frankly, I feel that way about most alcohol,

Jeff: Really.

Brent: amount of money that people pay for alcohol to drink it. And the response is birds like for that response. And you're gonna pay that much money for it. Uh, I'm not, I'm not a teetotaler. Just, just so people know and people like their alcohol. Awesome. More power to you. That's just Brent's opinion. Uh, I like my drinks a little cheaper. And to taste, taste a little better.

Jeff: Oh, that's

Brent: For those out there wondering, fruity flavor drinks are delicious.

Jeff: I was just gonna ask, are you an umbrella kind of guy? Pineapple.

Brent: I, I am a margarita man. I will tell you that I, I love me a really good margarita, but it's not a strong if, if the tequila is overriding in a, in a margarita, I'm out. You know what? That, it's like when you drink a soda and the mix mixes off and you just get like all carbonation. That's what a, that's what a margarita with.

Too much tequila to me is like, it's like, oh, like,

Jeff: I think tequila is gross. Uh, I'm a, I'm a bourbon scotch guy. I love, I love a good

bourbon. I'll, I'll usually take, uh, I'll usually take the scotch with a little bit of water and I'll usually take the bourbon on, on the

Brent: On the rocks. Yeah.

Jeff: yeah, maybe, maybe some ginger beer in there. Uh, I like that quite a bit, but I had to like train myself.

To like and appreciate it because at first it was just like, Hey, let me try this thing. Oh my God, it tastes like fire. Who would drink this?

Brent: Yep. Yep. As a, as a, as a native born Kentuckian, I have a healthy respect for bourbon. Literally, if you've ever heard the phrase, grandpa's old cough medicine, that's what it was. Little, your gums are hurt and they rub a little bit of bourbon on your gums back there. You know, it, it's it, and it would make you cough, but it'd cur, it'd cur you

Jeff: Yeah, it works. So I had a theory two weeks ago, three weeks ago about Captain Lockley.

Brent: Who, by the way, we saw her in the first episode. We didn't see her at all in the second episode. Did we see her last week?

Jeff: Nope.

Brent: Okay, so four episodes in, we've only seen her half the episodes.

Jeff: So

Brent: So main character, she is not. Okay. Got it?

Jeff: Yeah. One of the sidekicks, she's, she's a linear, she's a veer.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: That's

Brent: Oh, did we replace Lanier with her?

Jeff: Oh, ooh.

Brent: missed Lanier. I want Lanier back. Go ahead.

Jeff: But i's whole theory about how she was gonna kind of be a. Bad guy, like be a villain and be Antis Sheridan and all these things. And at the end, near the end they, they left a little of that sort of open when they talked about, have you heard the rumors about the new captain? And Bo was like, Hey, there was people who were fighting cuz they were told to fight.

And then there were people who were fighting cuz they wanted to fight. And the rumor is Lockley is one of those, but first dang Lockley does. After Corwin kind of gives her the breakdown and she's like, we need a life pod, we need the president and the first lady set up to go. If she was anti Sheridan and wanted him dead, she that would like, she's at least doing her job.

So a good chunk of my theory I think got got killed in this

Brent: yeah. Lockley strikes me as a person who was definitely on Clark's side, but because she is sworn to obey the orders of the president of Earth Force, and while she may have personally thought that he should have been the president and might have agreed with the policies and those sorts of things, I also think that if I, I also think she would've obeyed the orders of President Santiago, or she did obey the orders of President Santiago, or if President Santiago's opponents had won, who were wildly on the other side, um, that she, I think she would've obeyed orders more than, uh, went looking for a fight.

And more than, Lining up with her own personal political beliefs, like that's just the way she strikes me.

Jeff: Yeah. I liked how she just. Pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Like she didn't, and they did this with Ivanova also a couple times where it's like, we're not gonna stop and go get beautiful. I got woke up and pulled into the c and c. This is who, and you're lucky. I showed up dressed, which Ivanova didn't do one time, you know, in her dream.

But, uh, I liked, I liked that little touch. I liked Franklin in this one. There was a moment where I feel like he fought old Franklin in his brain when Bo was just like, well, why? Why would you help these people? You know? And, and he stops and he's like, why, why would I do that? And like in that moment, old Franklin is like, shut this guy down.

Tell him how wrong he is. But the new Franklin was like, no, I'm gonna open up. I'm gonna be a little vulnerable here, actually. Like, have a conversation with this guy.

Brent: We, the, the, the spot where he was talking about his dad. Um, that event where he was rescued by an enemy doctor or saved by an enemy doctor. That happened way before Groose

Jeff: Way before happened way before the Minbar war happened. Before the

Dil 

Brent: Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I was gonna say cuz that was his inspiration for becoming a doctor. Like, like where he wasn't referencing something that happened during GoPros because I remember he, his dad, I was like, I don't think his dad got captured during robos, you know?

Um, but yeah. Okay. Just clarifying.

Jeff: Literally

Brent: feel like, well, with, with that, just with Franklin, I do feel like that that would've been really good information in the episode. Groose

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: Gro Groose was an episode that was designed to humanize Dr. Franklin. It was, it was designed to sympathize us with Dr.

Franklin quite a bit. That bit of information. More than just, Hey, me and my dad and I are fighting. But actually, no, no dad. I became a doctor because of this thing that happened to you. Like his dad is still his inspiration. Right. And I, I, I just think it would've been, it would've been better served to be put there because it does, it does humanize Franklin quite a bit.

Now he still has some question memorial standards, but,

Jeff: but Groo's did not, it was not successful in hu. I mean, Groo's big win for me was it humanized and made me care about Keffer.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: For eight, eight minutes, you know? But it didn't do anything to make me, in fact, I think it pushed me back against Franklin even more cuz like, oh my God. And of course he's got this family, and of course it's just, but yeah, this would've made a difference I think.

Definitely. Literally my last note, well, I have two notes that, that I'll touch on, but one more of a reference of, of substance. The one before, as I said, Byron's, no joke. Like he's really powerful. He said a thing on this one that he also said to lead a last week that, uh, I, I think is gonna turn into something when Bo was like, I really wonder, you know, what it's like to be out there piloting one of those star theories doing this stuff.

And he asked him, is it, is that very important to you? To know that, and he asked Lida, you know, about the, the people helping with Garibaldi stuff. Is that very important to you? And once they said, yes, it was, he delivered. It's an observation. And then we got Alando and Jaim that ended hilariously

Brent: a properly placed londo in JA car scene after what happened in a very long night of Londo Malar.

Jeff: Exactly. Now it makes sense.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: They walked away. How long have those two been married? Ha ha ha. But it was a great observation. Kar made, you know, they're talking about their child, their, their childhoods and Kar observed that. Londo never grew up. He just grew old.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: It was kind of a cool little, little addition to his character on there.

Brent: You know what it made me, uh, what? It reminded me of the Mighty Ducks.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. I wanna say it was Mighty Ducks. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't the Mighty Ducks. I don't know. It was an episode where, uh, somebody, somebody was talking to somebody else who was basically big, Mr. Grumpy puss. He was like, didn't you ever want this when you were a kid?

No, I was never a kid.

Jeff: Um,

Brent: I, I was just this, maybe that wasn't Mighty Ducks. Maybe that was something else. Whatever. Somebody out there knows what I'm talking about.

Jeff: and they've, they've already

Brent: With that, that vague of a reference. I never was a kid. Oh, well, okay. I wouldn't know. I was never a kid.

Jeff: Right.

Brent: I think it might have been Mighty Ducks was It was maybe in the limo scene.

Jeff: maybe.

Brent: the limo scene when they went out on the ice in the first one,

Jeff: And I do think if you're gonna talk about anyone who is never a kid, like that's a Emilio.

Brent: right, Emilio?

Jeff: A Emilio, that's a reference. A lot of people got.

Brent: I hope so, because if you didn't.

Jeff: Yeah, you're missing out. You are missing out.

Brent: Mighty Ducks, man. Emilio Est. Alright,

Jeff: Well, I think we're at that. Were we, are we there already?

Brent: you know what, we're at the 27 minute mark. Would you remember that episode Infection? This was the mark at AT at Infection, where the whole thing flipped and turned into a really good episode. So let's go Jeff.

Jeff: Let's make it happen. Brent, we've reached the part of the show where we boil this all down, see if the episode has any deep morals or messages to it. Maybe it's holding up a merit of society or giving us hope that life will be better in the future. And at the same time, we also see how much does it deliver that message in its own unique.

Babylon five way. You're gonna do that by rating the episode on a scale of zero to five white stars to see how strong the message is and just how Babylon five it was delivered. So what do you got for us?

Brent: So Jeff, this section is always real interesting to me because you can watch just about anything and pull a message from it.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: This is what I got out of it. This is you. You could do that with anything whe whether that piece of art intended for that to be a message or not. Um, you can pull a life lesson, you can pull stuff like that out of it.

That is not necessarily the type of message we're looking for here. We're not just looking for anything that you can pull out of it. You mentioned earlier there's some really cool leadership stuff you can pull out of this. I think there's a ton of great leadership stuff. You, this Jeff, would be an episode that would be rife for a star Fleet Leadership Academy treatment

Jeff: Totally.

Brent: It.

It would. Which by the way, if you guys don't know what that is, please go check out Jeff's other podcast, his actual Star Trek podcast. The Star Fleet Leadership Academy and, uh, you will be blessed. Don't you hit that buzzer. I am past that point. Anyway. Um, so that being said, I want to dive into one of those leadership things because I do think that there is actually, that, here's how we define it, right?

A deep, deep moral message, a mirror to society or hope. That things are gonna get better in the future? Are we tackling an issue of our day? Are we, uh, are we really, uh, hitting up against a social issue? Or are we talking about the fact that mankind can just be better? I don't think those, I, I don't think any messages I pull pull can really catch that criteria except for possibly this.

But let's dive into it. There's a moment in this episode when Dalen takes a moment and asks the guys their name. She realizes in that moment that their worker cast and that she, John Corwin, Garabaldi, Lockley, all of them, that everything that they're doing is actually for them. This is a callback to when they reinstituted the great council and she doubled the amount of worker cast.

By lessening the other two. And she says, these are the guys we're actually serving. We exist to serve them, right? Um, they are the one to actually make things go. And in that moment Dylan seems to recognize that she takes it to heart and later on she honors them by remembering their name. That right there, Jeff, is a huge leadership lesson.

That I'm sure you could dive into. Uh, those of you who are listening to the audio podcast later, not the video podcast on YouTube, Jeff is just nodding his head up and down going, oh yeah. Like Kool-Aid,

Jeff: huge.

Brent: Yeah, it's absolutely, absolutely. But is that a deep moral message? No. Is it a mirror to society? Not really.

Uh, is is it giving us hope for the future? No. However, I do think it reminds us, and I think it reinforces us, and I think it reinforces for us something that Babylon five has already talked about, which is the idea of recognizing the little guys and recognizing who it is that government works for. If I, if I were to talk about that, that's where I would say that this goes.

It's not a deep moral message. Uh, is it the merit to society? I would say yes in that it's kind of the way it should be in that so many times our government specifically, uh, cuz we're dealing with a president here and a first Lady and commander of the station, which is still government, right? Uh, let's call the, let's call the commander of the station, the speaker.

Of the house, right? Like that's where we are. We're we're, we're physically running stuff. They work to serve us, the people who actually make things run. It's not the bosses, it's not the big wigs. We don't live to serve them. In a moment when these men were supposed to be serving the president's wife or serving the president himself by getting his wife off the station.

They stop to remind us that it's actually them who serve us and we would all do well to remember and respect that. Now, that in and of itself, Jeff is a leadership lesson. You can apply to businesses or leadership situations anywhere. However, that is the best thing I can pull out of this episode as far as any sort of a white star, uh, Delta star, fury, anything.

Out of this, this whole episode is just a reminder, a, a view that those people exist to serve us and you would do well to remember their names. I'm gonna give this one, one white star.

Jeff: It's a huge message, and you're right, I, I could do an entire episode of the Star Fleet Leadership Academy on that alone. As a, as a leader, a person in a job where I'm actively leading many people, one of the most powerful things I can possibly do is walk up to a person who's showing up and doing their job and say, Hey, drew, how's it going?

Tell me about this thing in your life that you've shared with me before In that five minute conversation, I, I have changed dude's life, not because being a leader makes you anything special. Or anything like that, but just by virtue of your position and the way our society holds those positions and those titles in a, you know, in a way there's power in that recognition.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: But what I would offer, oh, go ahead.

Brent: I was gonna say, there's a reason why, Jeff, one of the things that I love about this show, and you and I say this all the time, you and I are just two knuckleheads. Who happened to have microphones and access to a computer, you know, uh, we put this out there. It's why I try to take time to get to know the people that listen to this show, because we exist for film, not film for us, you know?

Uh, and, and I think of our friends, Alyssa and Lynn and Chris, and I'm gonna stop naming names cause I'm gonna, I'm gonna not name somebody and then they're gonna be offended, 

Jeff: Well, we would be remiss if we didn't specifically name Mia because all of this, we all exist because Mia allows it and makes it so.

Brent: Allow you to say Mia? Uh, yes. No, absolutely. Mia is one for sure. Uh, ni Nico, I think is name on YouTube. Uh, I don't know how to pronounce it correctly. But anyway, all of the, like, all of you guys out there, like when, when Jeff and I, when you guys don't understand the amount of comments between podcast, YouTube, Twitter, Patreon and Discord that Jeff and I are, are in, and Jeff and I make a, a legit effort to comment on to, to, to respond and have those conversations because we want to recognize and respect our listeners out there who take the time to comment and say, you know, we can't get to everybody every single week.

We just, it's impossible. But, uh, you know, yeah. We're with them,

Jeff: Very much so. We are their worker, cast, or I don't know, something like that. Or there are, I dunno. We're all cast. We all help each other, but we are here. We're here for you. But I think what I got out of this one in addition to that was near the end where Mac, Mac is kind of complaining a little bit, right?

So day is saved, everything's awesome. And he is like, yep. So they go off, they get to do all the, they're celebrated, they're gonna get all the glory, and then they turn the corner and there's just this whole landing bay filled with dead bodies.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Franklin's going body to body kind of, you know, Pulling the, pulling the blanket over their face and, and I think that that perspective of the grass is not always greener on the other side.

Yeah. You're the person who has to go to brown sector and do the work in brown sector and that's awful. You're the one who has to come in during a battle. And get the secondary system online because a bug that made it through, you know, the, the, the food stuff a year ago got, got through everything. And those are not what we would consider glorious jobs.

But I think without those jobs, nothing else can happen. And Sure that Star Fury pilot gonna be celebrated, gets medals, people know their name, you know, whatever. If you're Marcus, people know your

Brent: they're gonna build a statue of Marcus, all that sort of stuff. Yeah,

Jeff: There's never gonna be a statue for Bo or Mac, but that doesn't mean they're not equally as important.

And it's a question of pri, the price you pay, the value you offer, and all of those pieces, and that price you pay has been a theme throughout Babylon five. We talked about it in season four a lot in terms of power. The, the, the cost, the price of power. We see it again here. Yeah, you're gonna get glory for these things also.

You died and trading that off, that, that last scene, it hit me. It hit me especially hard, like I saw it on, on my first watch through, but on the on, when I watched it the second time, it really hit where I'm just like, oh, oh, this is the message that just because you're worker, cast or whatever doesn't mean you're any less important, less critical, less vital.

In fact, I would go a step further. The show didn't say this, but I'll say it. Maybe we should be celebrating. Those people, maybe that team who shows up every Friday morning outside my house at 6:42 AM to pick up my garbage, maybe I should be celebrating them a whole lot more cuz I, I don't know what I would do without them. So that's kinda what I got out of this one.

Brent: Yeah. The, the one thought I had out of that and I didn't, yeah, I'll go there. Uh, I've, I, I have said multiple times that I, I run in a lot of circles that deal with a lot of physicians, specifically physicians. One thing we love to celebrate in this country are, are our nurses, the ones that do the work, that get the job done.

And, and if anybody's confused about any sort of division of labor, typically within the medical community, the doctor goes in, the doctor makes decisions, the doctor writes orders, and then the doctor leaves and the nurse executes the orders. That's the ver at a very base level, that's the division of labor there.

The nurses, 1000% deserve to be celebrated and honored for the work they do, because a lot of times it is, uh, it, it's not glorious for sure. From the physician side of it though, the physicians are the ones who are making the decisions. The physicians are the ones who are making life and death decisions every day, life and death.

That is the importance. That is the weight. Of what they are making. And that final scene reminded me of that idea where, yes, what Mac and Bo do every day. They're the ones that make, when, when Corwin pushes that button, they're the one that makes that button do something. It is a, uh, a hundred percent that is something that needs to be done and that should be celebrated, and that should be honored.

However, the weight and gravity of those who make decisions, particularly life and death decisions, they have to live with those decisions and the results of those decisions as well as we saw on full display in that final shot of the episode. Uh, that takes nothing away from the nurses. That takes nothing away from the worker cast.

That takes nothing away from Bo and Mac. It also. Highlights the gravity of the leadership role of that decision making role and what that can actually mean.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: It's a both, it's a both. It's not either one. It's a both.

Jeff: It's an all really, like everything that people do matters.

Brent: You know, there's, there's a great, uh, there, there's a great, it's one of my favorite pieces out there. It's like, you know, For a body, not every body part can be the head. Some parts need to be hand. Some parts need to be a foot and a foot doesn't say, why am I the lowly foot? Why am I the one that everybody steps on? What happens if we don't have feet? It's a necessary part. You,

Jeff: know what part I don't want to be, but I'm thankful for every day is the colon. I would not want to be a colon, but man, thank God it's there doing its job.

Brent: And when it's not doing its job, bad stuff happens.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: We're all part, you know, it, it's, it's, you're all a part of the body and we can't all be, can't all be the, the head.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Well, Jeff, uh, with that, um, you know what else we do this, on these episodes,

Jeff: What I thought we were

Brent: we are creating a list, an accurate list. A completely 100% definitively correct. List ranking the episodes of season five of Babylon five. Jeff, your turn is to place this particular episode in its spot, our top three episodes cuz that's all we really have so far.

Our number one, the very long night of Lonnda Malawi. Number two, no compromises. And number three, paragon of animals. Jeff, where do you place this? One of you from the gallery.

Jeff: This one is not hard for me. The very long night of Londo Malawi, I think will stay in that top spot that, that is the episode two beat, right? Like it's there until something comes along. Yeah. Huge to knock it down. I I will not be surprised if we get to the end of this, uh, season and it is in the top two or three spots at, at the very end.

Uh, no compromises. Great season opener. It's fun. Uh, I think it was your favorite season opener so far. My second or third, but so great, great season opener, uh, perigon of animals. Not a fantastic episode. Not, not bad, not fantastic. I, uh, so I take this one and I ask myself, um, which one would I watch again?

And it's this one. So this is gonna be our new number three.

Brent: I, you could have plated this at three or four, and I couldn't have argued with you. Like you would've been right either way. Uh, but I happen to agree with this particular nuance. I would rather watch this one over paragon animals again, so

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I can curse her.

Jeff: Excellent. Well, that's it for a view from the gallery. Next week we're gonna be watching Learning Curve for the first time. We've never seen these episodes before. We don't look at thumbnails as much as we can avoid it. We don't look at synopsis descriptions or anything. And the fun prediction game, we like to play that we eventually next week will call Time to Pay The Pipe Burn is guessing and predicting what the next episode will be about based on the title alone.

So Brent, you get to go first. What do you think Learning Curve is gonna be about?

Brent: I think this is one of those nail on the head type episodes. Uh, this is, I'm gonna go with Lockley specifically, although everything I'm about to say could be Sheridan as well. Could be Gar. Baldy. Frankly, what I'm saying is, or maybe it's all three of them. We've got people, oh, even Len, all of our people, with the exception of Lando and Kar.

Maybe even Kar. They all have new jobs this season. They're all in new roles and there's a learning curve that comes with that kind of stuff where you're not doing your job very well, your job is very difficult, and there's a learning curve. And as you learn it while you're on the job, you get better at it and it doesn't become as hard.

I think this is a Jo. I think this is an episode about that. I think we're gonna stay in these sort of mundane, episodic. Uh, type things for a while, you know? And, uh, yeah, I think that's it. Lockley is trying to get a handle on running Babylon five. That's hard. Char Sheridan's trying to be president.

Garabaldi is trying to do this, uh, covert operations thing, whatever that's going on. Kars trying to write constitutions and be the Secretary of State, which is, seems like what he's trying to do. Lao's being l I don't know, Lao's gonna go be emperor. I, it's something, uh oh. We haven't had Londo, Gobi, an emperor yet.

That's supposed to happen early this year. So that's my guess. Jeff, what do you got?

Jeff: well, I, you can get my whole guess on this one in the 22nd episode of the Star Fleet Leadership Academy with the same name learning curve. Has nothing to do with this one, though. That's a whole different episode. I, I am really almost beat for beat the same for you. What I think this one is gonna be, it's gonna be focused on Lockley, uh, learning the, the station, but I think it's gonna be really focused on the, um, division to duties or kind of the division of stuff between her and Sheridan.

And it's gonna start. Kind of patching that, that road together for, um, for their conflict and where we really get some more information about her role in the Earth Civil War.

Brent: All right.

Jeff: We'll find out right here next week. Thank you everybody so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. Leave us a rating and a review and please share this podcast with someone who either already loves Babylon. Five. Or is just waiting to fall in love with this incredible series.

So until next

time. 

Brent: Jeff.

Jeff: Yeah, man, what's up?

Brent: So what did you think of the edit I had this week for the print watches? Cause this was a tough one.

Jeff: I think it was, it was kind of like spew, to be honest.

Brent: Spew

Jeff: Yeah. You know, tastes like chicken.

Brent: get the hell outta here.