Sept. 26, 2022

A Voice in the Wilderness Part 1

That planet down there has a name...and A LOT more!!

Two veteran Star Trek podcasters watch Babylon 5 for the first time. Brent Allen and Jeff Akin search for Star Trek like messages in this series, deciding if they should have watched it sooner.

There is a massive discovery on Epsilon 3. Jeff and Brent guess what is coming through the jumpgate when the episode ends. Jeff also asks the question Londo meant to ask: is the hokey pokey really what it's all about?

Check out our friends at the All the Right Movies podcast: https://alltherightmovies.com/

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Transcript

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

Brent: No. My name is Brent Allen.

Jeff: Did I say Brent Allen?

Brent: No. I am watching Babylon Five for the first time.

Jeff: Wow. I was like, did I just mess that up?

Brent: No, it's just about as anticlimactic as this episode was, Jeff. That's all I was going for. Uh, but, hey, listen, we'll get into all of that. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasts.

Jeff: We just give the podcast. We just said it. There you go. There's the wrap up. Bye, everybody. Thanks. That's it, right? There we go.

Brent: We are watching Babylon Five for the first time and not comparing it to Star Trek, but we're using that lens that we've gained as over analytical Star Trek podcasters and applying that to Babylon Five to see if there's any message of hope, message for the future. What was it JMS was actually going for when he was, uh, developing the show? And should we have watched this one sooner?

Jeff: And while this is not a Star Trek podcast, we are Star Trek podcasters, so we tend to bring in the references. But honestly, Brent, we haven't had a whole lot of the Star Trek references.

Brent: No, I don't know that we will this episode either.

Jeff: We got probably one, depending on where we go. I've got one that I kind of have, but part of that is because we're really getting kind of entrenched into what Babylon Five is. But we put our game into place called the rule of Three, where we're each limited to three. No more Star Trek references to keep us focused on Babylon Five. When we make that, that's the Sandra here. Whenever there's a reference, you may hear up to six or seven, because I did that one. Brent, I am so excited to share with you some comments and emails and tweets that we got.

Brent: I'm so excited to hear them. Let's go.

Jeff: So, if you remember, last week, we got a five star review on Apple podcast. Uh, and whenever we get a five star review on Apple podcast, you get to hear this. Yes. So go click that right now. I'll remind you at the end again, but give us one of those so we can hear that. But TSF 76.

Brent: Oh, yeah.

Jeff: That's gave us a, uh, five star review and said that Babylon Five had a massive impact on his life. Brent said, hey, reach out to us. He did? Cool. He did. I was so excited. I got into the inbox.

Brent: I'm like, oh, there he is.

Jeff: So he says, that the life impacting bit, Jeff.

Brent: I'm sorry. I wonder if he heard our episode and then responded or if he just followed up on his own.

Jeff: I don't know.

Brent: I don't know the timing of how that came in. Go ahead.

Jeff: It's worth asking, though. This is pretty cool. And it's got some homework for you and me on it at the end of this. Okay. The life impacting bit involves Avonova, and I actually got to thank Claudia at a Babylon Confidential book signing. She's a pretty amazing human. He also shared about Claudia Christian's autobiography, Babylon Confidential, which that's going to have to go on our post series reading list. But there's some stuff that happens in season two with Avonova, and he was able to personally thank her for portraying that when, uh, you met her at the book signing. That's cool. Yeah, really cool.

Brent: All right, that's cool.

Jeff: I dig it on YouTube. Hi, YouTube. In the comments there. YouTube. We're kind of on to a go on this one, but Hobbyview says this is a short one. But all that needs to be said if you like Ivanova now, just you wait, she gets some of the best lines in the series. You'll be getting finger cramps from all the chef's kisses you'll be doing.

Brent: She already has some of the best lines of this series. Man. She had one today, too.

Jeff: Yes, she had a couple in this one. Yeah. So good. This next one, um this next one's not great and it's kind of directed at you.

Brent: Me?

Jeff: Yes. What did I do? Well, I'm going to read it. I, uh, just kind of wanted to let you know.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: But this is what we're going to do, right? We want to hear from all of you. We want to hear it all, and we're not going to sugarcoat things and make sure everybody loves us so much. They don't. All so this gentleman, e Mark M. Um, I'll cover up his last name for him okay. But went to our website, babylonfivefirst.com Number five wordfirst.com, and he said, I'm going to kind of put this together a little bit. I am serious, Brent. Like, it's not great to start. Okay, okay, go ahead. He says, okay, I'm going to try and keep from swearing as that's unprofessional, but every time that chuckle, nugget, John Prayer, whatever his dumb name is, every time he says Ivanova, uh, or Delon, I want to stop listening and unsubscribe. Hold on.

Brent: He just called me a chuckle.

Jeff: He did well to call you. Anything else would have been unprofessional.

Brent: Whatever his dumb name is. Brent.

Jeff: It's Brent. I don't think it's that dumb of a name.

Brent: OK, go ahead.

Jeff: But here's some icing on the cake. He says, uh, this is just after episode two, Soul Hunter, and it's already pretty infuriating. Okay, uh, I'm intrigued by your premise and want to give the show a fair shake, but this guy and he goes on, and this is kind of where I kind of lost it. The thing is, I have to think it's intentional. He has to apparently think this is intentional. The intentional mispronouncing of several major character names is indicative of an utter lack of respect for the material. There's nobody in the show who says the words Ivanova. It's just not the character's name. And they you clearly heard the name enough to get it wrong in a way that has to be intentional. Okay, so that's from Mark. E. Mark, please. Do I respond also, though, Brent, we're not going to be unprofessional. He has set the bar at no unprofessionalism for us.

Brent: This is a family friendly show. I'm not worried about professional. We'll keep this for the kids. There's little ears listening out there. Um, first, uh, of all, Mark, uh, thank you for your comments and your insightfulness. Um, I am going to summarily dismiss everything you said except for you're intrigued by the show's premise and you hope that it goes somewhere, because it does. You're on episode two. Frankly, I don't know that you're ever going to hear this one because this is episode 18. Okay. A clear lack of respect for the material. I couldn't have respect one way or the other by episode two because it was new, the characters were new. And yes, I called her Ivanova for a very long time. In fact, Jeff, I believe it was a handful of episodes ago, maybe more now, probably like half the episodes back. I said at some point, mid show, probably was like three or four shows in a row. I was like, I keep mispronouncing her name. Is it intentional? No. You don't have to believe that. And if you do have to believe it, then you're probably not going to believe me when I tell you, no, it wasn't intentional. I'm new. I don't ever recall calling Delinda.

Jeff: I remember that.

Brent: I mean, it might have happened as a slip of the tongue or something at some point. Okay, dude, you're on episode two. If it makes you that upset and infuriated that somebody who is brand new to the show is mispronouncing people's names, it shouldn't make you that upset. It just shouldn't. I appreciate that you're, uh, passionate and protective over the characters and the material. I promise you, Jeff and I are going to get there. If we're not there already. I have said so many times, Ivanova, sorry. Look, you've already got me doing it. I fixed it and now you've got me back doing it. Avonova is probably my favorite character on the show. I love her. She is amazing. I think the actress is amazing. I think the way she portrays her is amazing. I love the story that's coming out about Avonova and her life. And seriously, if you're going to let my mispronunciation of her name because you're now going to assign a motive and.

Jeff: Assume there are a thousand other podcasts, dude, go enjoy them, there's a million.

Brent: But I hope you stay with us because I think this is an excellent show and some of our listeners and viewers out there. And Jeff, you're going to have to mark this I'm going to leave that to you to clean up and edit and do whatever you need to do on the back end. Uh, YouTube gets the full, unedited version, but, uh, uh, I'll leave you to figure that out. But, uh, Mark, thank you for your comments and your response. That is always appreciated. And I do hope you make it to this point to hear this response.

Jeff: I agree. You're awesome, brent, you took that really well. You took that really well. Thanks.

Brent: You are, too. You know what I appreciate about you, Jeff? You seem to have gotten a little myth on my behalf, and I appreciate that. Yeah.

Jeff: Because here's the thing, right? There's what you want to think, and then there's reality. And the cool thing about life is you can choose to believe whichever one you want, but you don't need to force that belief on anybody else. You don't need to put that on anybody. And this has been a journey for both of us. We've, um, messed up the Star Fury name for the fighters. We've messed those up. We're in the middle of a weird thing around viewing order, and people have thoughts on the viewing order for against, whatever. Cool. Bring it all on. But when you come at us, either one of us, you come at Brent and you come at me and you start throwing lines like John Pray and Chuckle Nugget.

Brent: Chuckle Nugget.

Jeff: No, we're done, dude. And frankly, uh, I was going to have this be a private conversation between you and I'm. Like, dude, this guy is saying this stuff. But no, I think this is something people need to hear, because we've talked multiple times about how great the Babylon Five community is. We've experienced zero gatekeeping. We've experienced zero toxicity. In fact, we have people out there actively policing Twitter and other channels for us, warning us not to look at things for spoilers. And you're incredible.

Brent: We have people apologizing when they slip up and give us, like, spoiler that we don't even necessarily realize is one.

Jeff: It's fantastic. And there's one, right, one that comes in, and you know what? We'll respond. We will listen to anything anyone has to say. Doesn't mean we're going to change, doesn't mean we're going to apply. But we'll hear you. We will always hear you. But you get personal. There you go.

Brent: I will say ten points for Chuckle Nugget, because that one's brand new. I've had a lot of insults in my life. Chuckle Nugget. That's the first time.

Jeff: It's kind of fun.

Brent: But don't call me that again.

Jeff: No.

Brent: Cut you.

Jeff: I will carve your bones into flutes.

Brent: Wait, what you say in this episode, Avonova is God, I will rip your throat out. Your lungs out. Sorry about that part.

Jeff: Yeah. Some really great stuff from people. And I will tag that just by once again saying, TSF. I'm so glad you reached out to us.

Brent: Yes. That is amazing.

Jeff: I can't wait to learn more about.

Brent: Your awesome story and everybody else who comments and all that. You guys rock. Uh, like, seriously, Jeff, you nailed it on the head when you said, we have experienced zero of the toxicity and gatekeeping and stuff. That honestly is very much alive and exist in other all of them.

Jeff: Like all of them.

Brent: Yeah. The Babylon Five community is amazing. Absolutely amazing. And that one guy I'm going to assume the best. Not what he did for me, but I'm going to assume the best of him, that it's just that he loves the show so much and he's just that protective of it. And he'll get over it. He'll get to this episode and we're good to go.

Jeff: Yeah, that'd be good.

Brent: We'll be best friends. We'll be besties.

Jeff: While we're upsetting people and getting them all fired up, um, let's wrap, uh, back to the game that we play that a lot of people really enjoy and a lot of people can't stand at all.

Brent: That is true. This one is a little divisive, but.

Jeff: Brent, what, uh, did you guess based on the title alone, what a Voice in the Wilderness part one was going to be about?

Brent: Yeah, I said that this was going to be straight, uh, out of the Bible, that we're going to get like John the Baptist rolling up in here. And I said that it was going to be a Mumbari. I remember that there was something about Mumbari and it was probably going to continue. The threads that we had picked up last week in the episode legacies. I don't know that it did that. Maybe it does, maybe not. We didn't really finish a whole lot here, but we did get an old Mimbari dude.

Jeff: We did.

Brent: I don't know if he is the voice in the wilderness or if it's this other dude who's flashy thinking like Obiwan Kenobi rolling through. I'm guessing it's actually that dude. But, uh, that was my guess was it was going to be very big religion. Somebody preparing the way for something to happen.

Jeff: My guess harkens. Back to an old comment. I think it was on Twitter, uh, who said, wouldn't it be funny if all of your guesses from here on out were that you hope it's a sequel to Believers? That's what I was thinking it was going to be, right? Yes, it was way off. Not even touching. But for those of you who haven't watched this show in 30 plus years, for those that are watching along with us, for those who are just listening to this and not watching the show, brent, why don't you remind everyone what a voice, um, in the Wilderness, part one was about.

Brent: Okay, well, let's see. Um, first there's this new guy coming onto the station, except at least this time he doesn't seem to be the bad guy. At least we don't think he is. We really just don't know yet. Because we didn't watch part two. This guy's name is Drawl, and he's a member, and he's looking for Ambassador to Lynn. Turns out he was a mentor and a teacher of hers. He's concerned that Minbar is changing into something that he doesn't even recognize anymore. That feeling sounds familiar. He feels like his people have seemed to become lost and he's powerless to help them. Course correct again. I really feel like I know that feeling. Apparently, he's also dying, so he wants to go out to the sea so he can be of some usefulness before he bites it. Which is weird, because when he was talking about going out to the sea I just thought that that was a euphemism for biting it, but I guess not. Anyway, that's really all that happened with him so I'm sure we'll catch up with what's really going on in the next episode. Meanwhile, back a little closer to home. And by home, I mean Earth, not Babylon Five. Over on Mars, people are rioting and rebelling against the Earth's provisional government. It's bad, and it's sad to see. On the news we learned that Sinclair was born there. He doesn't really know anyone there. Everybody has moved away since then, but Garrett Baldi sure does because that's where he was right before he came to Babylon Five just a couple of years ago. He's concerned about an ex girlfriend, one that he was pretty serious about for a while. It was actually him accepting the assignment on Babylon Five that caused their break up. But she refused to leave, and now he's concerned about her. He asks Talia to contact that super secret Cyclops base that's on Mars that no one except for Cycles is supposed to know anything about to find out if she's okay. Their response is, what super secret base? We don't have a super secret base here on Mars, and neither is your girlfriend. She's not on the list of survivors, but she's also not on the list of dead or wounded. So maybe she's not even here at all. Inconceivable, Garabaldi says. And that's where this thread ends for the episode. I'm sure we'll find out more next week. All right, now, while all of that is happening, Epsilon Three, which, by the way, Jeff did you ever know that the name of the planet that Babylon Five is orbiting is called Epsilon Three?

Jeff: Yeah, I learned something today.

Brent: I didn't even know that they were orbiting a planet. I mean, I guess it makes sense. It acts like an anchor for a point in space, but sure. There we go. Epsilon Three has begun to act really funny. They send a team of scientists down there led by Dr. Tasaki. Strangely, a beam of light begins to be emitted from the planet. It's a beacon of some kind. Don't worry, everyone's okay. They're not just red shirts down there. All right, well, they're going to try it for a second time but this time around, they're going to take some Star furies with them who totally don't do their job. And now the supposedly uninhabited planet is shooting missiles at them from 5 miles below the surface. That seems weird. So Sinclair and Ivanova are going to do what Sinclair and Ivanova do. They're going to go check it out together in the same shuttle pod. What could go wrong there? When they get down there, they find a cool landing pad. They find a huge subterranean system with machines as big as buildings, and eventually, they find a single humanoid who has been appearing as a vision to several people on the station asking for their help. He says that if Sinclair and Ivanova don't help him, it's going to be bad for everyone everywhere. All their people are going to die. So Sinclair opts to take them back, pull them out of the machine. But there's a cave in that they're going to have to figure out their way around. They only have so much air, and those breathers that they have, it's literally not a problem at all because there's a smash cut to them getting back on the shuttle pod and they just slowly make their way back up to Babylon Five. But while that's happening, the jump gate activates and the ship emerges through the jump gate, apparently a really, really big ship, and it leaves Garibaldi's jaw on the floor. And that's where it ends. And I'm sure we'll figure it out next week.

Jeff: Do you know, I don't know, was this, like, part one and then next week was part two? Or do people have to wait, like, three months?

Brent: I don't know. I have no idea because I feel, like, very different. Good cliffhanger.

Jeff: Yeah, it's a good cliffhanger.

Brent: I don't know that it's quite as good as commander, uh, wharf fire.

Jeff: It's definitely not a who shot Jr. No, I, um, still hold as the greatest cliffhanger in history.

Brent: I'm putting best of both worlds above it, but really, I put them both in the top three. I don't even know what number three is. I'll put them in the top two. Now you know what the best cliffhanger to me ever was? It was a show called Lois and Clark the New Adventures of Superman star terry Hatcher and Dean Kane. And it was the season finale where Clarke gets down and asks Lois Lane to marry him. And she goes, who's asking? Clark Kent. And then she rips off his glasses and goes, or Superman.

Jeff: Done.

Brent: I was, like, ten. And I went, that was a good cliffhanger. Anyway, go ahead.

Jeff: Last week, I just had this weird feeling where everything kind of felt uncomfortable to me and I just couldn't wrap myself around the episode. But that wasn't the case with this one. This is Babylon Five again, but I think part of what helped it is kind of the point you've been making is we've been talking with the pacing and how much story was in this. There were a whole 92nd scenes of showing people just doing their jobs, which is cool. I don't not like that. It gave a lot of room for scenes to breathe. What I'm terrified of, though, is we got, like, 35 minutes episode in a 43 minutes time slot. I don't want the next one to be a 60 minutes episode in a 43 minutes time slot.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: Because we've had those two partners in other series before where it's just like, hey, we didn't get everything in the first one. So now we're going to make a ten, uh, episode season, and eight of the episodes are going to fill in the blanks that we should have set up in the first. And yeah, we don't need that.

Brent: Or you get the other one where it was about an hour and a half worth of time to fill. But they really only have about an hour and ten minutes worth of story, and they spread that between the two episodes, and neither episode feels complete.

Jeff: Yeah, I just hope the other one isn't so overloaded. What saved this episode for me and that I loved was my gosh, so good. But honestly, delene as well. I got so much out of her, just the way she was portrayed. She was legitimately excited and happy and moved and sad. But I think this was a really good, like, setting the table. I'm legitimately excited to find out all the stuff out of Epsilon Three. What happens in Mars, and is Drawl really Delane's best friend, or is he here to train the new human troll hunter, James Lake, Jr. I don't know if anybody's going to get that one.

Brent: I'm not there yet. I'm still in the first part of Troll Hunters trying to, uh, make my way through it as best I can.

Jeff: Such a great show.

Brent: Yeah, I'm loving that one, too. Anyway, I, um, got to be honest, Jeff, I don't understand why we're watching this one in two episodes. We had this discussion last week, like, are we going to watch it as one episode? Are we going to do two? We were advised to do it as two.

Jeff: Mhm adamantly you do this as two, these things are packed. And that's what freaks me out about part two. Are we going to be done here in 20 minutes? And then next week, are we going to be on here for three and a half hours to get through? I hope not, right?

Brent: So I trust the person who told us to do it in two slots. And I'll recognize the idea that we're only halfway through this, but this feels incredibly incomplete, this episode, to what you were just saying, Jeff, felt like it moved at a snail pace and didn't really do much. I understand that it's set up a lot, and next week it's probably going to be a lot of action, action, action. But frankly, at the end of the day, there's not a lot to talk about. I think a lot of our conversation around this episode is going to be like, yes, that happened. I don't know why. We'll figure it out next week. I think that's going to be the majority of our conversation tonight.

Jeff: Well, I think there's some stuff we can talk about in the traditional Babylon Five way, because so rarely are things answered. But looking at Delen and Drawl coming, uh, together when he came around the corridor and she was coming into her quarters, I've never seen a beaming smile from Dalen.

Brent: Oh, she was so happy to see him.

Jeff: That was so good. Great relationship, good chemistry. I desperately hope that this doesn't end with him going to the sea. I want to see more of him and Dalen.

Brent: Can I make a prediction? Okay, so the dude that they pulled out of the machine at the end of the episode, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, it's going to be something where he's not doing something in the machine. Right. Like he's about to die and he's at the end of his whatever that's holding back this beacon that's just called through the junk gate, whatever it is. And I think this dude is going to be like his replacement down there. He's like the new battery to get plugged in to hold everybody back or something like that. That's my guess. I don't want to say. Hopefully that's where that goes, but that's all I can think. I don't know.

Jeff: I don't know anything about talking about that. A little more later.

Brent: We don't know. This was the premise of Lost, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Like the whole premise of Lost was the caretaker of the islands looking for replacement. Right. Can I tell you what I noticed about this guy? Has nothing to do with the story.

Jeff: Is it the wingy pointed headdress thing?

Brent: From our conversation last week, he had the W headpiece, and Delin has the single pointed one, which made me wonder maybe it's not religious cast versus wear cast, because this guy definitely felt like religious cast. Maybe it's just more male female.

Jeff: Actually just looked at linear. He's got the w also.

Brent: Does he?

Jeff: Yeah, I think it might be a male female thing.

Brent: Okay, fair enough.

Jeff: Which is interesting.

Brent: Uh, it is.

Jeff: Well, one, because there's so many other opportunities, but also in the gathering and really for the first little bit of Minbari stuff, I think we had speculated that they might be like an androgynous people, like, they're non binary androgynous kind of a, um, race. And I was like, oh, that would, uh, be really one. Clearly no, they're clearly male and female characters. But also to go as far as to be like the skullet headdress thing is also your gender, I think it would be a little disappointing.

Brent: I don't have anything else about the Draw situation. I don't know why he went to go meet London. I don't get it. He's going out to sea.

Jeff: I want to talk about Londo, though, really quick in that, because I thought it was really interesting that Delaney brings him, uh, into your friend of Delen. So you're a friend of mine. Basically, he chose of the billion and a half topics that he could have brought into this conversation with this old friend of the lens. He brings in the hokey pokey. Why do you think he did that?

Brent: It could be literally what he was just looking at. And it was just top of mind and it was really bugging him. And that's what they walked in on him. I feel like he was looking at something else, though. And this was a diversion. Although something true, because there's a great line that Londo and DeLind, a sentiment, really, that they shared of like, man, these earthers, they seem awesome. And then they're a complete mess all at the exact same time. There's no accounting for these people, like, what's going on with them. And I was like, yeah, that's earth. That's what we are. And they're like, they have this litany of just culture and amazingness, um, and they can write these symphonies and they can do all of this. And then they teach their kids, every generation teaches them this song. Do you know the song I thought that they were going to go to?

Jeff: Was it Happy Birthday?

Brent: No, that's what I thought it was rockaby Baby. I was thinking it was going to be Rockaby Baby, which is a horrible nursery rhyme. Most are a kid falling out of a tree.

Jeff: Go to sleep, little one. It's all okay.

Brent: You're about to die. But, um, he goes to the hokey pokey. It means nothing.

Jeff: I think it means something. And this was a seed planted for probably a small pay off. Somewhere down the down the road, there'll be something. And he literally figures out that the hokey pokey literally is what it's all about. Putting it in, putting it out, shaking it all around. Like, that's what it's all about.

Brent: Jeff, this is a family friendly podcast, buddy. What are you doing?

Jeff: Wow. You're the one that went there.

Brent: My face is getting redder on your behalf, jeff family friendly pal.

Jeff: Got to keep that in mind. But to use that as a segue and to pivot into kind of the Mars stuff and everything. There the scene where London sat down with Garret Baldi in the bar.

Brent: Oh, such a good scene.

Jeff: So good. Incredible. But I loved London. Just sitting down with them, sharing, um, the story and then just telling him, like, dude, you just look like you need a friend.

Brent: Yeah, he's going to go spread happiness.

Jeff: Throughout the station as ambassador. That's your third and out. And I almost want to count that. That's just mean, man. To compare him to Neelyx.

Brent: Oh, man, I love Neelyx. My dude, man.

Jeff: There's. Somebody that does, that's fine. But Garb Aldi was upset because of was her name, uh, lease, uh, was the girlfriend.

Brent: It wasn't Lisa. Yes, you're right. It was Lisa. Like, maybe short for a lease. Maybe Harriman or Harrison or something like that.

Jeff: Yeah. Uh, and I caught in the recap. You said his choice to go to Babylon Five was really what tore him apart, but I think there's a lot more to it, and I think that his alcoholism had a lot to do with it, and just a lot of that the trouble that followed him from job to job. And so I don't see Garrett Baldi being an easy guy to date. Let's say Mars Garrett, maybe that one and five garb Aldi is and, hey, maybe Talia Winters will find out, because he is sure overly aggressively pursuing.

Brent: Oh, we were back to pervy Garibaldi in this episode.

Jeff: Yeah, and shame on Sinclair for not being like, hey, because not only was he in the lift waiting for her, but he was there, and he just had this look on his face like, yeah, hi, I've got a spot for you here. And Sinclair is like, yeah, let's go somewhere. No, dude, step up and manage that guy. That's inappropriate conduct.

Brent: I would be like, dude, you're supposed to be his wingman. Like, help him out there, brother.

Jeff: Okay, you're waiting forever for another lift. You need to get in there.

Brent: Yeah, I forgot something back, uh, in my office. I'm going to go grab it real quick, let you all ride together.

Jeff: Stop. Just freeze those lifts for him. He's like, I don't know. There seems to be a power failure. We'll have that done here in about 47 minutes.

Brent: So Mars is attacking?

Jeff: No. Mars attacks.

Brent: Oh, you know, I never saw that movie.

Jeff: What?

Brent: I've never seen that movie.

Jeff: All right, we're done. I think we're done here. It's a classic. It is so good. That's the sound, uh, of you.

Brent: I would not describe Mars tags as.

Jeff: A classic just because you haven't seen it.

Brent: Okay, fair enough.

Jeff: It's so good. Yeah. So Freemars has stood up and looking for freedom. Yeah. But I have a theory. I have a theory on Freemark.

Brent: Go ahead.

Jeff: Psychor has a notsosecret secret base. It's right next to one of the cities. It's a quarter mile away from the fighting, so it's close to the cities. There. When we found out through the Iron Heart storyline how Cycor is basically the big bad from Earth, I think they've been there on Mars telepathically fueling the fires for free. Mars trying to bring them to this crescendo they're at now. In the meantime, we learned in I said they were out buying weapons and arming themselves for this whole thing, and then Cycorp is the one that flipped the switch. I think that when they shut Winters down for the communication, it wasn't just like, we're secret, and we need to stay secret. We're basically mind controlling a war zone right now, and we can't have you in the middle of that stuff, especially.

Brent: Not some government guy like Garbaldi.

Jeff: A security government guy.

Brent: Yeah. I don't think you're necessarily wrong, Jeff, but I have no idea because the episode didn't finish.

Jeff: I don't think we're going to get resolution to free Mars next week.

Brent: Oh, probably not. No. This is definitely a, uh, seeds are planted fuses lit. Uh, yeah, it's probably more of the seeds are planted. That thing has germinated and it's sprouting.

Jeff: Yeah, the seeds were planted in Eyes. Now it's coming up, and then it will blow up along with Home Guard and everything. This is some of the slow burn stuff that's now just starting to burn.

Brent: Yes. It was really interesting, though, watching Sinclair and Ivanova. I think it was actually we saw Sinclair watching it, but we heard about it from the others watching on the news. This thing happened, which is obviously so far away from where they are. Whatever's happening on Mars isn't going to touch them directly. They might be indirect. Whatever is processed on Mars, whatever supplies, however that's working, but there is still a connection. That's our place. That's the part of our deal. And frankly, that's what I felt like on January 6, 2021, watching crap happening at our capital and going like, I'm completely helpless to do anything about it. I'm really sad that this is happening. And honestly, it's so far away from me, it's not touching me, you know what I mean? Like, I'm going to get in my car and go to ball practice after this, you know what I mean? I go back to watching 911 on TV. That's another huge event in our nation. I was in Clearwater, Florida, the day that happened. Not anywhere near New York or Washington, DC. Or any of those places. So it was an interesting watch seeing how they responded to that kind of stuff. Just like they were emotionally hit by it, you know what I mean?

Jeff: I think it's that difference between I'm in Clearwater, Florida, and that's New York and whatever. And I'm in Clearwater, Florida, but moved here from New York. When I saw the video of the tower coming down. I remember when I used to cross the street there kind of a thing.

Brent: Because I remember, like, my buddy, his dad was working in the building that day. Thank God he called in sick that particular day. Wow. But he couldn't get through to find out what's going on with his dad. He just thought his dad was at work that day. It wasn't until probably noon or lunchtime that he found out his dad stayed home that day.

Jeff: I think it says a lot about the foresight depressions of, uh, JMS and how, one, this was pre 911. Things like this haven't happened. I think it might have been somewhat close to the Oklahoma City bombing, and that was our big terrorist event on US. Soil at that point.

Brent: That was one of our own, too.

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: That was one of our own. That wasn't a foreign power company or a foreign terrorist group coming in.

Jeff: That was our frame of reference. But he was able to portray in that little scene like, this is what's going to happen in eight years or seven or eight years from when this episode aired. But beyond that, kind of rewinding a little bit to where you had mentioned when Drawl was talking about how he sees Minbari society falling apart, he could have been talking about our society here on Earth right now, today. Right. People that are lost, drifting, anger beneath the surface and growing every day. And the one that really hit me that like, wow, that's us. Is that self involvement above the needs of others? And this was in. Yeah. Here we are 28 years later, literally doing that or not any better.

Brent: That's where the analytical lens that we use for the show comes into play.

Jeff: There, Jeff, because that literally flips back to DELN when Delen and London and Sinclair are doing the trade route negotiation piece, londo talks mhm about how he and the Narn will hate each other forever because it's physics, right? An equal and opposite reaction. So they'll hate us and we'll hate them, and they'll hate us more, and we're just victims of mathematics. And then Delane is like, we have to do better, because if we don't do better, there's no point to life.

Brent: Yeah, well, Sinclair said, you don't have to respond that way. I mean, you don't have to believe what you want to believe about somebody else.

Jeff: You don't have to believe that someone else's intent is what you think that it is.

Brent: Right. You can make it believe that. And you can choose to respond or not respond wherever you want to go anyway. Yes, you're absolutely, uh, right. And it was a revelation through my time doing Beam me up, and still as that's going on, the number of times that something is happening and they're doing this in the mid 90s, they're doing this in the early nineties, even in the like, here we are in the whatever, and we still haven't figured it out. We might actually even be worse now than we were then. Like, that's just crazy. Come on, guys. Let's get it together, folks, right? We can be better. We can be better.

Jeff: Choose how we react. Follow the words of Sinclair. That's it.

Brent: There you go. All right, let's talk about, I guess, the big thing.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: This is the Voice crawling in the wilderness. There's a planet that they are orbiting around. Cool. It's an anchor point. That's what I'm assuming. It keeps them in orbit. It's an uninhabited planet. There's absolutely nothing down there until it turns out they're shooting off a beacon. They kept calling it a beacon, and apparently it called whatever the ship is. That came into it very much reminds me of season one of another. So, uh, it turns out this planet probably was really inhabited, and there's this dude hooked up to a machine down there who's asking for help in a telepathic way or holographic way.

Jeff: One of the two could have been technological.

Brent: It could have gone either way. I'm not really sure which one it was. And he's been down there, apparently alone, I guess. Big stuff happening. This planet isn't just a planet.

Jeff: I loved when his hologram or telepathic thing showed up. I loved what he said. I loved how he looked at him, and he said, this is set to offs of five, but we did the scans and there was no one here.

Brent: It's not supposed to be there. And something is obviously there, and it called this big thing to them and what the heck is happening? I don't know.

Jeff: So here's my question. At a more meta level of everything, knowing what we now know about Michael O'Hare, was it an absolutely disgusting, horrible taste to have him be one of the people that saw this vision that no one else?

Brent: I was thinking that.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I really was. I don't know how much JMS fully knew at the writing of this, um, writing of this episode, because from the way I understand the story, michael Hare really wanted, like, he was trying to protect the show and didn't want things to shut down. So if they already kind of had this in the hopper, if they had this planned out and he was going, no, don't change this because of me.

Jeff: Maybe you know what I mean?

Brent: Like, if he was the one that kind of put the kibosh on that, I don't know. But I did have that thought. You know what I'm not going to do, Jeff? I'm not going to assign a motive or an intentionality to JMS on this situation, but it did occur to me. That's fair. That's very fair. Yeah, it definitely occurred to me. Okay. Two things that I loved about this whole thing, and they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. One, when the shuttle pot is going down into the fissure, the nose of it was red hot.

Jeff: That was great.

Brent: I love that it took a half of a second of screen time, but I so appreciated that they went through the trouble of actually doing that as a special effect.

Jeff: Well, in a show that we know has a short, tight budget that cost money to do that, they made a financial, uh, choice to put it there, and it was awesome. Added a whole layer of realism. Yes.

Brent: I'm going to spout my love for Ivanova.

Jeff: It's time.

Brent: She was amazing in this episode. So many ways through one. Let's talk about her discussing with the Star Fury overcom. You're going to say this to yourself? Evanova is always right. Uh, I will listen to Ivanova's orders and her advice. Ivanova is God, and if this ever happens again, Avonova will rip out your lungs. She ends the calm, and she looks up to the sky and goes, just kidding about the God part. So good. It was so funny. And then the other one, okay, the line where she goes, commander, I've got to go to the bathroom. Yeah, that was funny. I can just picture her in the ADR studio, like, the little booth throwing out, like, 15 different lines, and that was not the line that I wanted them to pick in that moment. You know what I mean? It was funny, but it just didn't hit the same way it took me out of it.

Jeff: I think it was a very Ivanova thing to say. What she should have said is not a thing she would have said.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: And I think with her relationship, it made sense, but especially the second time I watched the episode. And one how very clearly in the sound engineering, that whole piece is 80 yard, like, that pops out at you, and then it's like that's just could have said, okay, yeah, that's Ivanova thing to say. But there are 14 at least other Avonova things that could have come across.

Brent: Yeah. I mean, it really is like they just said, okay, Claudia, just add live some stuff. See what you come up with. And they all laughed at it, and they said, all right, we're putting that one in because they wanted to put it in.

Jeff: Yeah, that's the one that will be so funny to put that in there.

Brent: Yeah. And you know what? I'm okay with it. I've done that on a creative level. I'm putting it in because I want to put it in. Makes me happy. Yes, I don't care about anybody else. I totally get it. But I loved when they're pulling the guy out of the thing and she's talking about, like, okay, so we've got to get back through the rocks, and we got the breathers to worry about, but we can't just leave him. She's like, oh, no, I'm with you. It's just, as a Russian, we have to list off the level of stupidity so we can compare it for later or something like that. Here's my question, because that stood out to me. We have heard Ivanova do this several times now. I mean, this is probably at least the third or fourth time we've heard her. It's a Russian thing. It's a Russian thing. It's a Russian thing. And it hit me in that moment. J. Michael Strazzynski is he of Russian descent, and are these things that he's writing into the show for her character that are things he has experienced in his own family? You know what I mean? I don't know. I don't even know if he is Russian. Uh, yeah, he definitely kind of has that Slavic deal. I'm not trying to, uh, be disrespectful. I just don't know all the different. I don't know how to parse that out, but I would like that in my head. Cannon. That's just JMS talking about his family.

Jeff: Yeah, that'd be cool. I think it would be better than what I think it is, which is, hey, we don't really know a lot about Russian culture over here in the United States. So I can say these things about, hey, we're Russian, and it kind of sounds old worldly and mystical a little bit, and they don't really know. So it's a way to add some flair to her character a little bit.

Brent: And without actually respecting the culture that's out there. Yeah, which that could be it, too, to be honest. And it's a little cringy today. But you know what? Sometimes you just got to laugh at it and let it go. But I really do hope that it's JMS kind of going, no. Like, my family's Russian.

Jeff: My dad did this all the time. He's like, here's all the dumb things we just did, and we're going to do another one.

Brent: Yeah, right.

Jeff: That would be cool. You don't play a lot of video games, do you?

Brent: No, the few video games I play, I tend to play a lot of yes or maybe not a lot of I tend to play the same handful of video games again and again and again.

Jeff: Do you ever play any of the, uh, Fallout games? God, they're good. Fallout New Vegas. So this is going to mean nothing to you, but to the 40 people watching your listings, we have a ton.

Brent: Of commenters on YouTube that are all like, yeah, every time you mention one of these, they go crazy. So have at it, dude.

Jeff: Epsilon three dude is totally Mr. House. And my theory so in the Fallout world in New Vegas. Which is Las Vegas. 200 some odd years in the future after a nuclear apocalypse. There's this guy. Mr. House. Who's hooked up to life support. And he's about to launch this robotic thing to take over Vegas. Which would take over the Mojave and make him king stuff. Set a bunch of things in motion before the bombs fell. So that then when they did. He could pick up the pieces. Pick up the ashes. And be the big guy. Uh, what if this guy and his people, or just this guy, set a lot of stuff in motion decades, centuries ago that set all the races at each other's throats, that's now come to a head where not only are the Narn ready to take down the centauri, the Minbari are apparently kind of falling apart. Earth is eating itself alive, and he's in his little life support machine where he can still see everything that's going on and hear things that are going on or whatever, and he's like, you have to help me now, or what I put in motion way back is going to blow up, and you're all going to die. Beat for Beat. Missed your house. Boom. Okay, sure.

Brent: I'll take your word for it. I feel about, like that the way I feel about this episode. Like, I'm watching. I'm like, okay, I'll take your word for it.

Jeff: Great.

Brent: See what happens. So big beam apparently call somebody through the jump gate. And there we go.

Jeff: I want us to guess not now, but I want us when we guess what the next episode is going to be about. I want us to put our chips down on what we think came through the jump gate.

Brent: Oh, I very specifically know what I think came through the jump gate. Okay, we'll talk about it. I'm worried on that, Jeff. Let's get to that part, though, where we now talk about this episode analyzing, uh, it for mirror held up to culture hope of the future. Uh, is this episode trying to say anything?

Jeff: I think that I'm glad that we're watching this one in two parts because in the back of my head, this next one is still going to be so overly packed. This is like, our calm before the storm. But how I feel about the episode overall, I'm going to hold off until we watch part two. This was table setting across the board. So, yeah, I'm going to withhold overall judgment. But for Star Trek, for Delta's, I think Delan had some real gems in this one. Right. The piece on, um, without the hope that things will get better than life is pointless. And I liked it too, where she said that evolution is overrated. So basically saying we have to get better every single time or the whole thing is a sham. I liked Dr. Tasaki a, uh, lot. First off, he was just like a dude at work. Just like, hey, yeah, we're going to do this. Meet me at 08:00 a.m.. We'll grab these, uh, things, loaded up. Any questions? Cool.

Brent: Did you see the awesome patch he had on his uniform?

Jeff: I don't think so.

Brent: It said, you remember where they had pain stick or not even the pain giver.

Jeff: Pain giver?

Brent: Yeah, right. Or like, just the lame names. They've come up with stuff. Literally. It just said Earth Force Science Team. They were the entire team for all of Earth Force.

Jeff: All of it.

Brent: The whole Earth war science team.

Jeff: Just hi. We got a little bomber jacket that says, we're this.

Brent: We're the science team.

Jeff: But he loves science. Oh, my God.

Brent: It's all about it.

Jeff: Yeah. He's like, this is no day at work. We're happening to discover, like, unbelievable things that we've never fathomed before. But, uh, going to do it well.

Brent: He says this line, and you guys can go back and watch my reaction video because exactly how it's going down. He goes, can you just imagine? I can't just imagine anything better than dying in the name of science. And I'm sitting there going like I said out loud, I can think of a few better things than dying in the name of science. Better ways to go than dying in the name of science. And Ivanova says that exact same line as I'm saying it. It was great.

Jeff: She was like, Is it multiple choice? Because I got a couple of ideas, but I think that the emphasis on, like, we have to be better, we have to do things better, and the focus on science and discovery, that's Star Trek those things there. But this episode highlighted the carnage of a terrorist attack. It set up a massive discovery uh, and a possible threat, but didn't do anything with it. So I want to give credit. We're due I'm going to give this one two deltas, what about you?

Brent: I'm going to cheat. Okay.

Jeff: Fair.

Brent: I'm going to abstain from judging this episode until I see the next one.

Jeff: Okay. Yeah.

Brent: Because it's so incomplete. There are lines in this episode that you just mentioned, a few of them we talked about a few of them before that are incredibly Star Trek. They are incredibly holding up a mirror to society. But those are individual lines. It's not a message of the show. I'm going to have to abstain for this particular episode until we see the conclusion next week. I assume it's a conclusion. I don't know.

Jeff: I think it's conclusion comes at the end of season five, from what everyone's told us. We shall see. That's fair. And I will put my little asterisk that I can go back and I can bump up or down this one based on sure. The next step.

Brent: Absolutely.

Jeff: Cool. That's it for a voice in the wilderness. Apart one. Next week we're watching part two. Who came out of the jump gate? Brent I think it was the vault ons. I thought the same thing. Yeah, absolutely.

Brent: 100% big, huge, A Vhorelon thing. That's what I thought.

Jeff: In Death Walker, we learned that they interject themselves. They get involved when the stakes get high enough. Stakes are high enough. Here they are. And I think that they are going to come to get Mr. House, snag him up and scoop up all that tech. That's going to be their goal. Yeah.

Brent: I'm still going back to my head. Canon of Delane's. Um, friend, uh, Drawl, he's going to be the new battery. Uh, really?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Something's going on with this planet that's, like, of ancient consequence or something like that. Although mhm the idea that they happen to put this station around, uh, this planet that was supposed to be uninhabited, and now something's happened. Maybe we have an answer to what happened to the first four stations.

Jeff: Yeah. Because were they here?

Brent: And if they were, I assume they were all here. Yeah. They were all built in the same spot.

Jeff: Yeah. Mr. House is like, no, not this one.

Brent: Although they dealt with those missiles pretty handily like, it didn't seem to really faze them that much.

Jeff: Well, we're going to find out if it was the Vaurel on. Honestly, if it's not the Vorlon, I'm going to be pretty blown away. In my opinion, everything this season has led to the Vorlon coming and being like, no, this is the hour of Scampering and you best get to Scampering because we are taking over, right? Yeah. But we'll find out next week. Thank you, everyone, so much for joining us. If you haven't already, pop over to Apple podcasts. Give us that rating, give us a review. We'll read it here on the podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe on YouTube. Hit the bell so you know when our new stuff is coming out. And so until next time hey, Jeff.

Brent: Before we sign off, can I get you a drink?

Jeff: Yes, it'd be great, honestly. It's kind of late, though. Like, I don't know. Can you give me some water?

Brent: Water never touch the stuff.

Jeff: Well, Zabagabee!