Babylon Squared

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

Brent: I'm Jomprey chuckle nugget. And I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time. Jeff and I are two veterans star Trek, podcasters watching Babylon five for the first time.

Neither one of us. This isn't one of those, like somebody seen every episode and the other guy's new. No, no, no. We're both new. That's how this works. And in doing so, we're taking that skill. We've learned of overanalyzing and looking for messages, hope of the future type stuff. And we're trying to apply that to Babylon five.

Uh, because a lot of times people say that star Trek just ripped off Babylon five, honestly. Yeah. Like I think that's where the idea came from. So we're trying to see did it really, and, uh, we're trying to decide if we should watch this one sooner, which I think generally every week is like, yeah, we should have watched this 30 years ago when

Jeff: it came out.

Yeah. There are definitely episodes that we shouldn't have watched sooner and probably will never watch again. But as a series, a hundred percent, I think we absolutely probably should have watched this, but while we are star Trek, podcasters, this is not a star Trek podcast. And so we've limited ourselves to just three star Trek references a piece from right now to the point of the episode where we actually try to pull out and extract those kind of star Trek, like meeting, uh, meetings and stuff that come out of it.

Brent: Jeff, I'm just gonna tell you, get your finger ready on the buzzer when I'm doing the recap. Cause I'm gonna use all three. In the recap, that is very bold. I promise you they're all three gonna go. And because now we count the recap. Yeah. As part of the deal, you know, which fine.

Jeff: Well, I, I think I can see where a lot of 'em are gonna be, uh, used, but Brent, some great news.

We have a new five star review from apple podcast. Oh yes. This one's from, at the David wash on Twitter. He says I've known Brent for a few years from another non Trek podcast. I've not watched he Budd himself. He did buzz himself in the review.

Brent: That's great. Says I haven't watched beat up up wash. I'm sorry.

What's yeah. Wash. And I go way back, man. He has followed me through actually several podcasts now. Yeah. So big shout out to wash. He's a great guy, man. Has some amazing collections. Really? Yes. Oh it like his, his room, like, oh my gosh. It's good stuff. It's fun. That's nerd heaven, nerd heaven. He's

Jeff: so great.

It's a great place to be. You can follow him on Twitter at the David wash. I'm sure he share some of his stuff on there, but he says he hasn't watched babble on five for several years. Currently. I'm rewatching each episode prior to listening to you guys, I've forgotten so much of this series. You bring up points.

I never thought of it's like I'm watching for the first time. Definitely. You have to do Stargate after this series. Yes. Absolute frigging loo. Yeah, I think we're, I mean, I haven't signed, we haven't signed anything yet, but I wanna watch, I wanna watch Stargate. That's so good. And here, and you know, a couple years we have to go to faster

Brent: pace than this stuff I was gonna say is a lot star Stargate is twice as long as Babylon five and not nearly as well.

Yeah, it it's, it's a different animal altogether. Like it's not it's, it's so good.

Jeff: It's such a good show. Well, stay tuned here to Babylon five for the first time. Not as our drag podcast to find out when we become. Stargate except it'll only be my first time. Yes. Well, yeah, we'll

Brent: go back to that other, other way of doing it.

Jeff, I got a surprise for you. Okay. All right. So this is episode

Jeff: 2020. Yeah. We're almost, we, we are literally like a, Stone's throw away from the end of the first season,

Brent: right? Yeah. So when we get to the end of the first season, I don't know if we've said this live on show, but you and I have tossed around an idea about doing, uh, like season one recap.

Mm-hmm , you know, like just take, just taking like a one week and just kind of doing a, a little bit of review of season one before we move on into season two, that's a good, that's a good place to, to take a break and to do something. How would you like to do a give.

Jeff: What, uh, I would love to do a giveaway, but what do we, what do we have to give away?

Brent: Well, I've got this little package here. Oh. From our friend. Oh, look, I just put my address out there for everybody to see, uh, for, for, from our, here we go on the back side from our friend wash. Okay. Okay. This guy? Yeah. From, from, from wash. So, uh, I haven't opened it yet. I just, I kind of tore it open, so it wouldn't be like so hard to do it right here.

So I wanna unbox this and I was thinking, and actually it was David's idea too. We could give this away on our recap show. What do you think? Oh, wow. To one of our listeners out

Jeff: there. Okay. Or viewers. Okay. Let's do it. Let's let's see what it is. I love this. All right.

Brent: Why don't you tell them real quick and make up away real real fast for people to like be entered in or whatever

Jeff: doing this.

Okay. So I think, um, well, gosh. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. You wanna be entered to win this amazing. Thing. I'm watch, I'm watching Brent, I'm watching John pre as he's opening this, but if you wanna be entered to win this, go to apple podcasts, leave a review rating in a review, but here's the thing.

Get that real close to the mic. There's some ASMR people out there that might be into it. but no. So how does this sound go to apple podcast? Leave a review, but because it can take, well, sometimes a little more than a week for a review to get to us. And if you're reviewing us from outside the United States, we might not get notified screenshot, screenshot that review, and then you can send it to us.

You can send it to us, uh, by tagging us on Twitter at Babylon first, or you can send it to our new email, uh, Babylon five first gmail.com. It's Babylon the number five, the word first@gmail.com. And then, uh, wow. That gives us a what? Three, three weeks. Right? We got once, yep. Three weeks for you to get those reviews.

Uh, send us the screenshot either by Twitter or email, we'll do the, the drawing on, uh, on the recap. And then what do we, what do we got to give away here,

Brent: Jeff? So this is, this is super cool. There's a couple different pieces to this, just so I'm sure. Cuz it had to ship. So here's this first piece? No, here's this

Jeff: first piece.

That's one of the combat, like the hand, hand talker things. Oh, is that what that is? Yeah. Oh that

Brent: I keep making fun of, well, that's a lot smaller

Jeff: than I thought it would be. Is it wildly uncomfortable and unwielding? Yeah, it

Brent: doesn't. Well, because my hand is curved. Like the national human hand is curved and this is like a flat oh, like, which I'm, which, if you look at the ones on, on screen, like that's, that's the way it is.

And then there's uh, there's this little piece right here. So this looks like he 3d printed it. Okay. Like he designed it and 3d printed it. So there's the, that's the logo. Yeah. I'm gonna try to get that to focus in on you for you guys.

Jeff: It's the Babylon five, the, the TV show. It's the logo from that? That looks so cool.

It's on blue.

Brent: Okay. Let's hear. Oh, there's a, there's another, uh, hand communicator. Oh my gosh. There's two of those is amazing. There's two of those. And then this is the, this is the PS. this? Oh, wait, wait, wait. There's something else. This is like a stand I hope. Okay. Yeah. This is like, so here's a little stand.

Okay. Okay. And on that stand, you will put your very own Babylon five station. No way. Yeah. Check it out. That's unbelievable. Look, there's even like the Foy things and there's the dome, the, the whatever dome and the launch bays, the, the, uh, solar arrays, I guess this is dope. This is really

Jeff: cool, man. Wash.

That is, that is, that is, that is wake. Wow. Oh my God. The detail in it's

Brent: really neat too. Yeah. You know, so. Anyway, so you can, uh, yeah, I kind of hate that I'm giving this away now. Like I kinda wanna keep

Jeff: it. I know. Uh, Hey Jeff, uh, scrub everything you just said about giveaway.

Brent: right. Make sure we edit that out of the show.

So anyway, so yeah. We'll give this away on, um, our recap show. Yeah. And I'm sorry, Jeff. I completely messed it. What other people have to do to get to get, you know, what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna put this right behind me right now. Yeah. So I can at least have it for a little bit,

Jeff: but what do the people have to do?

Go to apple podcast, leave a rating and a review screenshot that rating and review, send it to us by tagging us on Twitter at Babylon first, or sending that screenshot to our email Babylon five first@gmail.com. It's a number five, the word first@gmail.com. And if you've already left us a rating review, we don't wanna leave you out.

Uh, screenshot the review you already gave us, I guess, drawing or whatever at the, uh, at the. That's awesome. Wash. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's a, you're awesome. That is so cool.

Brent: Should double check and make sure I didn't forget anything in the, or miss, not forget, but miss something in there. Uh, anyway, so that's cool.

Uh, so that's what we're gonna do.

Jeff: Yeah. So that's how you do it. Now, listen, back to the episode at hand for those who have not watched in a long time, who are watching along with us or who are just watching or listening along, Brent, can you let us know, remind us what Babylon squared is all about? Well,

Brent: Sinclair and GU Baldy are having a little fun with a very sleepy Ivanova who says she was awoken early due to a distress call in good old sector, 14 wouldn't you know, it alpha seven and the camed out star fury should be arriving right about now cut to alpha seven something's flashing out there in the void of space.

Is it? No, it can't be, but it is. And then suddenly he's flashy, thinked himself kind of like, it seems like Sinclair was all those episodes ago. And while the exterior of his body is just fun. All of his internal organs have accelerated to become like a 90 year old man's and he just dies of natural causes.

Well, that was weird, but we get a lot of talk all episode long about T Kons and anyone who's ever watched an episode of Voyager will know that T Kons means something to do with time and shifting in phase and all that sort of stuff. And alpha seven has somehow managed to etch into his metal dog tags with what does he use to etch?

I don't know. Doesn't really matter. Show never tells us, but what he EES are the letters and number B four. Nope. That's not date's other brother. That I'm talking about. That's Babylon four, which was in you guessed it section 14 when it vanished. And that's when they receive a distress call from no, it couldn't be could it, but it is it's Babylon four and they're a little bit Blippy, but Sinclair doesn't wanna reveal that he's from Babylon five, you know, like four years into their future, cuz after all you wouldn't want any temporal agents on your tail now, would you?

So it's time for Sinclair and Garabaldi to grab every ship they can muster and head out to Babylon four, to try to rescue the people before it blips out entirely. Now while they're traveling, let's take a moment and talk about another traveler. The Lynn she's been summon to the great council chambers, where she is warmly greeted as one of the nine who's been missing time for morning.

Duco is over and it's time to choose a new leader and the great council without even talking to her has chosen the Lynn she's conflicted. Probably because she doesn't understand the fact that leading is serving, but she wants to serve, not lead. She also feels in her gut that she has a different role to play in what's to come.

So she declines the offer and that leaves her future with the great council in jeopardy, but she thinks a lot of humans and she's given a pretty neat Triforce looking thingy that we really still don't know what it does, but it looks awesome. I want one on my shelf. Okay. No, that was just about enough time for Sinclair and G man to arrive at battle on four they land or dock or transport over or whatever it is that they do.

And Sinclair says to hell what the temporal Accords and he tells the major who's in command of the station, everything. Then he goes to meet a caveman looking dude named RI who says he's from 2,500 years in their future. He's talking about a great war. That's still to come and how Babylon four is needed as a hope for peace to prevent the war or stop it or something.

All that also he's on a really big trip about meeting the one. No, not that one. His lifelong mate. No, no, no, not that one. The one who is jumping through time and is apparently in pain, lots of words later, we see that one he's in a blue hazmat suit and XUS quickly gives him a time stabilizer device, which will let him jump safely through time.

Well, that doesn't make the major happy. So they try to take XUS with them in their evacuation of Babylon four, but a falling styrofoam pylon, which is sure enough to even break the Hardies Clingons back falls on him and traps him right there on Babylon four. So Sinclair, and Garabaldi both having visions of different time periods, but there's no time for that anymore.

They've gotta get everybody off the station. So evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. And once they do. That dude in a blue suit shows up standing right over. Azaro like he's Michael J. Fox standing over his father in the past. And when he removes his helmet, it's a much older Sinclair with a pretty neat looking scar down his face and the hand of lens tapping him on the shoulder saying that they have to go.

Jeff, what did you think of Babylon squared?

Jeff: I had a lot of fun with this episode. I, uh, I enjoyed it, but there were two super different stories. Like what? I think one of the things I liked about it, two very different stories that at the end come together like a couple millennia in the future. Right. It's like, oh yeah, they, they, they totally converge sorta kinda, uh, maybe in the future.

I really thought all of the previous Babylon stations that's been kind of built up, you know, for a long time. What, what is, you know, what's going on? I'm pretty darn satisfied with what I heard. The story of Babylon four was. Right.

Brent: We still don't know one, two and three. Yeah. Like didn't, they, they blew up, like they blew up, like they actually got destroyed.

Babylon Ford just disappeared is what we heard. Mm-hmm yeah. And now we know what

Jeff: happened to it. And I think that, uh, my question much, uh, much to some of what you put in there is when is crewman Daniels gonna show up, right? I, yeah, he's gotta start putting Sinclair on the path to everything. What if

Brent: Sinclair is the shadow, man?

Whoa. Well, he he's

Jeff: minbar so we already have that. It's true. He can't be everything.

Brent: No, he can. He's minbar he can be everything.

Jeff: That's the deal. Apparently I, I maybe what he is though, is maybe the reason the Babylon forestation kept phasing in and out of everything. And the reason that Sinclair had to wear that, that 2001 space Odyssey look and suit was because they were actually trapped in a Holian web.

He was kind of between the two, he was Kirk in the space soup.

Brent: I, I don't know. I still see Michael J. Fox, you know, putting headphones on his dad while he is sleeping and just, or arm doth

Jeff: radar. You are the one. No. Haha bringing you van Haen right. no, I, I, I thought this was a lot of fun, like, like so many episodes in season one and this isn't like a bad thing, but it's also like, okay, so when does this stuff start happening?

I like literally like I've got my notes in front of me and I just have circled question, question, question so many more now at this point, I guess one of them to kind of wrap up my thoughts and hand it over to you. But if Babylon five is the last best hope for peace. Does that mean Babylon four is the first best hope or is it the last not best hope.

Cause apparently it's the station from which peace. It's gonna be fought for. Yeah.

Brent: You know, I'm still not entirely clear. I don't know that they actually have the right station. Oh, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like I think they could be wrong on which one they have. Wow. You know, and that it actually does have to come back to Babylon five.

I, you know, I said last week, this is good TV. I mean, this is, this is good TV. Yeah. Unfortunately it good TV. Doesn't always lend itself to taking a bunch of notes and doing a deep dive on, on everything that it does. There's a lot that happened in this episode. Mm-hmm but there's also not a lot that happened in this episode.

Like in the end, they went out to babble on four where it was and they evacuated. That's it, you know, and then we saw Sinclair take his mask off at the end old Sinclair, you know, and then there's whatever happened with the one, like that's ultimately what it was like, you had scenes that like they're letting the people through five by five mm-hmm

Okay, cool. Uh you know? Yeah. And that's, I mean, it's all part of the show. Like that's part of the story, but so I say that just saying, I liked it. I am completely satisfied like you of the answer with Babylon, uh, four here's what I found new that I didn't realize. I was under the impression that all the Babylon stations were built in the same place.

Jeff: That's what I thought

Brent: also. Yeah. So we now know that that's not necessarily the case and I wanna know why and how did they pick where they are and all that sort of stuff? Uh, because my theory was that something on the planet is what destroyed them. Not, but yeah, I love, I love the, I love the reference to the flying Dutchman.

Yeah. That was great. Yeah. And I got it immediately. Like, I'm glad they explained it at the end of the episode, but like I knew exactly what that was. I, I thought it was, I thought it was great. The most intriguing part of this whole episode though, to me is the Dylan, the Dylan piece agreed. So she gave up her seat on the council.

Maybe, maybe not. They've gotta, they've gotta decide. Although if I could just speak to it at this point, you know, they get to the spot where like, you know, this may mean that you never get to come back to the council again. And they do their little voting thing. Like half of 'em say no half of 'em say yes.

And they're like, okay, well, we're gonna let you go, but we'll talk about what to do with you later. And I'm sitting there going there's nine of you. Mm-hmm she is one of you. Shouldn't you guys just talk about it with her? Yeah. Like she's a part of the council right

Jeff: now. Shouldn't they have talked about her being the leader with her also.

Brent: Oh, ah, well, I don't know leadership, dude. Yeah. Should you talk to a leader before you name

Jeff: that leader? So there's a big difference between being a leader and being named a leader. And I think that, yeah, you're gonna be a leader. That's what it is. But if you're gonna be named one, yeah. You talk to the person, you don't just throw 'em up there.

I mean, Hmm. Yeah. Very rarely works out well. Right. Do you think though, I was really conflicted. Like, I, I, I was fascinated with the lens storyline in this one, but I was mm-hmm I was conflicted. And I'm curious what you think, do you think it was selfish of her to turn down the leadership role so that she could go keep playing ambassador?

Brent: No. And I'll, and I'll tell you why, because I think she truly believes. That her place is on Babylon five. Not that that's where she just wants to be. Although I think she does want to be there. She feels like that's actually where she is supposed to be according to the prophecy and according to her own heart and they're following this own heart.

So, no, I don't think that it was incredibly selfish of her to do it. I don't think that the council should just straight out reject her either. Like they, they said, Hey, we wanna make you the leader. Well, if you don't wanna be the leader, then we're gonna kick you out. Like really? Yeah. You know, that doesn't make much sense to me.

Here's my question about the whole thing though. The last time we saw the gray council, they all looked pretty bad. And by that, I mean, evil that right? Yeah. This was not that like, these guys didn't have glowing triangles in their foreheads. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, these guys didn't look like people who were conspiring to take over the world or the, the universe, you know, these look like, like, uh, balance keepers almost well.

Jeff: And that's how they describe themselves. Right. They live between the darkness and the light. Yeah.

Brent: You know, but like, like I said, the last time we saw them, which was in Sinclair's memory and the visions and stuff, and then the dude who creepy came out of Dylan's, you know, bedroom,

Jeff: the guy lives in her closet.

Yeah. Right. he's like,

Brent: if he finds out, we're gonna have to kill him. You know that right.

Jeff: She's like, I know, I think though, the reason they looked like that was because that was the gray council in Sinclair's memory. And that was not a fun experience for him. So it's but not, I'm sorry. I'm

Brent: sorry, Jeff. I'm sorry to just interrupt.

Cause I thought about. But that's why I brought up the dude who came out of Dylan's closet mm-hmm because he looked every bit as evil. Like he came out like,

Jeff: yeah, yeah. And he had the triangle sticking on his head when he made that threat and everything. Yeah. I guess that is a good point.

Brent: So I, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I'm gonna roll with you on that one, Powell.

Jeff: Yeah, no, yeah. That's a good point. I think so. I, I think that it is selfish of her, um, to have made this call and I, and I understand why the council is at least debating whether she stays on the council or not, because it's one of those things that if, if you are so I, a couple years ago, ran for our city commission here locally, and I'm involved in our city politics.

And one of the kind of agreements when you get elected to the city council or city commission is you're up to be the council or commission president. And if something happens to the mayor, you're gonna take that role, like serving on the council or the commission. Kind of means you've agreed to the whole thing.

So for her, so they're confused, cuz this is unprecedented. No one has ever said no to this before, so they don't know how to deal with it. So mm-hmm, just automatically voting her in or out was, was pretty, uh, pretty, pretty weird. But then them saying, Hey, we're gonna talk about this. Yeah, I get that. Okay.

That makes sense. Yeah. She should be a part of that conversation though. A hundred percent. But I think that her saying, you know, my heart says it that I need to do this. I, I think that for her to just make the call, leave the council on the dust, leave the leadership role in the dust because she thinks that she feels she's the one that's gonna leave him to the prophecy that I agree with council guy, who is like, they're gonna think that's ego and pride.

That's what I heard now. I happen to know at the end of the episode that I think it was her hand, you know, that was grabbing Sinclair in the blue

Brent: suit. Oh yeah, absolutely. It was her hand, her voice, everything.

Jeff: Yeah. So, I mean, we can assume that either. She's right. And she's part of the prophecy or she's wildly wrong and things go horribly south because she made this decision.

I think, I think I could support her decision if they had a scene where she was like, I gotta think about this. I gotta talk to you about this. I, but she's just like, no, I'm gonna make this call because I want what's best for me. And what we've learned about them in BARR, just like you said in your recap, leadership is serving men are all about serving.

She's worried about what happens for she's. I, me, me, me is what I heard from her. And mm-hmm yeah, I didn't, I didn't like.

Brent: I, I am with you on the idea that frankly, they, there needs to be consensus, like, rather than just straight up saying no, she needs to build her case because this is a council. Yeah. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like there really needs to be, uh, a vote and if she's, if she's not, um, sure, because I, it didn't, I didn't catch that. She immediately said no, like, she really did seem to struggle with it. And she said, at one point, listen, I confess I would love to do this, but I just don't feel like this is where I'm supposed to be.

Now they use this flowery language of, in my heart and all of this, which you and I look at and go, look, you need to take this or you don't like, which just did my heart. I just, you know, okay, look, your heart's not gonna pay the. but in Menari culture, it does so true. True. But you know, I, I did wanna ask you about this cuz I know sometimes when you and I have talked about leadership before we may be talking about two different things using the same words.

Okay. And so sometimes things get a little bit crossed for me, the not all leaders serve, but the best leaders understand that that leadership is service. Okay. You know, it's, I call it servant leadership. Mm-hmm servanthood leadership, right? Like, um, you know, your job as a leader in many ways is to help your people go from, from point a to point B.

And how do you get there? And you set them up to go. You, you, you are the one who's removing their obstacles so they can go. You're making sure they have the resources so they can go do it so they can make it happen. You are helping, you're serving them by getting everybody to move in the right direction.

Uh, that is the service mm-hmm . You know, uh, you're a custodian of that. Not, not a, a, a pusher, right? Exactly. All of that. Right. Um, do you understand that in the same way? Because it really struck me when she said I'm not here to lead, I'm here to serve, or I'm here to serve and I'm like, that is serving.

Jeff: And frankly, if you're on the gray council, you're leading, like you're doing both.

Right. And I think that there's the, and I, and I think when we talk, when you talk about same thing, different words, or, or vice versa, she's thinking about the position, right? So that's the job, the job of a leader, what I know and what I think, anybody who has been at any leadership level, or really worked in a, in a, in a, you know, regular job, Most of the time you're real leaders.

Yeah. They're they're on the floor doing, doing the real work. Like they don't have manager or director or VP as their title. Those people often are the barriers that the leaders doing the work are helping you figure out a way to work around. You know, you have that concept of managing up that you've heard before that just infuriates me.

But it's like when one of your peers says, oh yeah, man, Jeff, he's awful. Like you're gonna have to give him this presentation. This is all he wants to hear. Just tell him this, let me help you work around this obstacle. So you can do your real work, her take on it though of I'm here to serve, not lead. I Thelen has been my least favorite of the ambassadors.

I think I've shared that a couple times, but let's be honest. She's competing with lawn and Jaar . So this, this episode for me did, did not do her. Any favors. And that line was like the moment. And maybe that was painting my, my view of her being selfish when she's like, well, I I'm not near that late. Yes, yes.

You are like, you're literally doing it.

Brent: yeah, it it's, you know, I always try to be careful and I feel like I should just say this in no way, shape or form. Do I think JMS is trying to deliver a leadership talk in the midst of his episode here. Like I'm not gonna hold that against him. It just, it struck me that line struck me funny and apparently it did to you as well.

So I'm glad to know we're at least on that same page,

Jeff: frankly, send your chuckle nugget. Um, I have created a job out of watching a show that was not written to show great leadership. And that's what I do is pull leadership out of it. So yeah, I, I, can't not watch something like this and have D lens Jeff what's

Brent: what's, what's the name of that show.

If anybody out there wants to go hear more of you talk about leadership through a show that wasn't supposed to be leadership. Well, that

Jeff: would be the award winning star fleet leadership academy podcast. Check that out. It's here on YouTube. It's wherever you're listening to this. It's right there too. Is popover star fleet leadership academy.

Check it out.

Brent: Is, is that one, a star Trek

Jeff: podcast that is a star Trek podcast. Was that a reference? I don't think that was a reference that was just self hype. That was self-promotion that's all that. Yes, yes,

Brent: absolutely. I was trying to help, help set you up over there. Anyway, I would've, I would've appreciated this almost as an, a plot to have her actually like dig out where she should have gone.

And where like is what is this prophecy and what, and I, I know they're seeding this and we're gonna get into all of that later, but I, this one could have been, been an, a plot of an episode to me. Well,

Jeff: quick, quick rewrite then here there's, there's a lot of stuff that happened in this episode. We could just whoop take out, right?

Like, I don't need to see the, you know, the evacuation piece, like you brought up. And then the 16 times that Zs just runs away in the middle of a station where he has nowhere to run to in security, literally just. Oh, oh, he is running. Maybe we should, we could have lost all of that. And instead had two scenes added one with Thelen talking to the guy who lives in her closet and just saying, this is what I'm thinking.

This is what I'm feeling. And they could have seeded some of that prophecy stuff into there, and then talking to other council guy and having that same thing where they maybe it ends up in the same place. But instead, maybe one of 'em is like, no, you're ruining tradition and everything. And the other one's like, oh, I see where you're coming from.

But at least give us something. So it's not just de saying, this is what I want to do and I'm gonna go do it. So

Brent: Dylan gets a little Triforce thing at the end. Like he, he comes back and says, you, you may be, you may be expelled. You may not be. I don't really know, but here's this cool looking

Jeff: gift, the tri luminary.

Brent: And there's two others. Don't worry. It's like, don't

Jeff: worry. We got two more. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious what that's gonna turn into, obviously. Cause he said, they're not gonna notice it's gone for a while, but they will notice. So I mean, yeah, this, this was clearly a huge triangle shaped seed being dropped for us.

But one thing I did like about them choosing her as the leader and then even in my hope for like, I want them to bring her back in or allow her to stay because of the same reason they chose for her to be the leader. They want her to be leader because she's the most well-traveled she's right. Faced the most diversity across the like she's inter galactically competent out there.

Yeah. And, and men barrier into that, right? They're like, yeah, we need somebody

Brent: who knows that. He's almost, she's almost like a, like a being that the collective sent out into the wild to go experience stuff and to learn and eventually to come back and they can all learn by that one's experience, which I don't know if I've ever heard that storyline anywhere before.

Ever from a character. Yeah.

Jeff: I mean, it wouldn't be at all in line with, I don't know, maybe say like a small piece of goo that was sent from a certain quadrant of the galaxy,

Brent: but see, here's the thing de Lynn is not a small piece of goo. She's a fully formed humanoid. And as far as we know, she can't change her

Jeff: shape.

What, uh, what did you think of XRA?

Brent: Well, we'll get to him. Okay. Right after this break. all right. XRA uh, so , okay for the, for the people listening to the audio podcast, you have no idea what just happened. You actually, if Jeff hits the truncate silent, you won't even realize that there was like 10 seconds of silence right there.

So what happened was I just threw up a overlay graphic of Babylon. Jeff in the middle of this version on HBO, was there a commercial bumper

Jeff: overlay? A hundred percent just outta nowhere. It's like, this is gonna happen. Plon five. They didn't, they

Brent: didn't edit it out. Like I was like, what in the world? Zarus okay.

So he's cool. Do he's obviously not human, but I mean, like, I really thought this guy was like reverted back to like cave band status, you know? And obviously he's not, he's just, he's an alien. Who's trying to figure out how to speak our language, you know? And apparently pretty intelligent. He can do tiny by me stuff.

Mm-hmm um, I liked him. I thought he was kind of cool. I I'm okay. Not seeing him in too many more episode. Like I would be okay. Seeing him like an episode or two per season, but I don't need him around all the time, but I, I liked him. Yeah. I'd get a stuffed animal of him, like a little Funko pop, right?

Jeff: Yeah, totally.

Yeah, no, I, I, I liked him as well. It took me a little bit to warm up to him. I liked him, you know, better on my second watch through, I was just trying to figure out what the heck, you know, because he really reminded me yeah. Of the character and the never ending story. Right. So there's, uh, like the rock biter and then the guy who rides the snail and then there's the one who rides the bat and then who's eating the little twigs and just really reminded me of that character.

Just the way, like the, the kind of noise, like mouth noises he made and stuff. But once I kind of got his rhythm down, I, I wanna know more about this guy. Like I'm really? Yeah. I'm really interested.

Brent: Where did he come? How did he actually get there? What does he know? What does he not know? I mean, maybe he is Daniels.

You're right. He's Babel on five's version of Daniels. Like, he's just gonna show up as the guy who jumps through time, trying to, trying to save and, uh, and fix it. Yeah. Um, Yeah. Did he die at the end? I didn't quite,

Jeff: I couldn't tell. Yeah, I wasn't sure. I don't. I I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess. No, I think if he did die, like they made him such a central part of what happened.

I think if he had died that would, we would've, there wouldn't be a question for us. Right. We would've been like, oh yeah, he totally died.

Brent: Right. Because I mean, old Sinclair showed up and saved him or something like that. Yeah. You know, and Dylan's like, we gotta go, honey, we gotta go. Do they become a thing?

Jeff: So I was gonna say, I wanna, I wanna start talking about that whole thing from the one sure. And their, their whole thing, because like blue suit guys there, and it's the one rou find the one and do things TROs will help the one Zhara, this SRO that mm-hmm and then Sinclair goes to touch him and it blows him halfway across the bay, which science fiction is taught.

So when

Brent: Sinclair went to

Jeff: touch Sinclair yeah. Well to touch the, the, so I don't know that that's Sinclair. So, okay. And then, and so, okay. Things that in support of it being Sinclair, we saw him right. Took off the moment. It was him looks just like him. We hear Len right there. So there's obviously the relationship Dalen and Sinclair are somehow linked.

But when Sinclair went to touch, the one Sinclair blasted him across the bay, which science fiction has taught us. That's what happens when you touch a future or past version of yourself, right? It causes a big reaction of some kind mm-hmm . But when Sinclair first walked into the room to meet Z Z, looks at him and says you no, Nope.

Not the one. Nope. Not one, not the one. So, so, so my thing was is, is Thelen the one and Sinclair Soros Gras. You have a destiny Sinclair. Mm-hmm you have to go. And I think like the, the, the shining light is, well, Sinclair is clearly the one. So that's his destiny. I think his destiny is like, Somehow propping up or launching something for D and maybe D is the one

Brent: interesting, that's an interesting take on it.

I think what the episode was trying to tell us without physically telling us, which means they could actually change it later, or they could rewrite it or whatever, retro re con it. Mm. I think the episode was trying to tell us, Sinclair is the one or at least lead us to believe. Yeah. That Sinclair is the one that this is a, this is, uh, oh, what's that dude's name?

John Connor. Was that his name from Terminator? Oh yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm , you know, like, Hey, he's meeting himself from the future. Who's sending him back to what, you know, and, and the guy from the future, he's older and he's hardened and he's got a scar on his face and battle commander and, and whatever, you know, he's that kind of a guy, that's the one.

And then delin is there, you know, delin said she felt like she had a different role to play with the prophecy. And obviously, I, I mean, it, can't not be, Thelen like, it's gotta be her. Right. So I think that's what they're trying to lead us to believe. Does it stay that way? Yeah. Right. Or does it change there?

It's certainly, you know, if, if they get down the road and cast members change, sometimes mm-hmm, let let's, let's say that Michael here decides to leave the show. Right. Mm-hmm they could easily shift that to Thelen

Jeff: yeah. Either way right now. Yeah.

Brent: And that's a, that's a good point, Jeff. I didn't think about that at all.

Jeff: Well, and as you were talking to, it made me wonder, so there was this, I didn't catch it until my second watch through, but at the end of the episode, when Sinclair in the space suit walks into the room that Dylan is in. So he is all on the space suit, the door is closed, and then there's a little line that says, uh, time atmosphere is now safe to breathe and he takes his helmet off and goes in.

We just see the lens's hand. My question would be then what was she breathing? If it wasn't safe to breathe? And did they not show her because she's gonna somehow evolve change so that she breathes some different atmosphere or some time thing? Like she becomes, no, we haven't really touched on time travel in this whole thing.

Right. But is that a thing she is gonna like. That's part of the prophecy and she's gonna somehow be able to start bending time and she has some physical change because of that. And this was JMS specifically making sure, like, not to give that up.

Brent: What, what you make me think of here is, um, was it our last episode or the like the very last word of the episode was Chrysalis mm-hmm yep.

Yeah. You know, like is, is, and I think, you know, is that somehow tied to, to this is Glen gonna go into some sort of Chrysalis can become a butterfly or become a she's gonna go from Mumbar to

Jeff: human or yeah. Or some something.

Brent: Yeah. I don't know. I, I mean, okay. Did I, I mentioned it in the recap. I just wanna throw it out there.

Did you notice the star fury had camouflage on it? I did. I did just like, like a little, just little patch of it, right on top like little camo spot. I was like, why

Jeff: is that on there? So my, my thought was, it's a total like, uh, in Battlestar. Galacia right. And the, the reboot, they kind of personalize up their Vipers a little bit.

Yeah. So yeah. You know, like she, when she said, yeah, sent was alpha seven or whatever, I was like, oh, okay. So we're gonna start naming pilots now. Like that's gonna be a thing and always got a camo one. So I, I wonder if, I mean, obviously not alpha seven cuz he's now the alpha 7,000 and is dead mm-hmm but uh, if other ones like were to start getting some personalities, you know, out of.

The star theory pilots. I think that would be cool. All

Brent: right. So Jeff, let's, let's kind of wrap this in, cuz I don't think we can get outta here without rightly actually just reviewing the history of Babylon five that they revealed to us in this episode. So Babylon's one, two and three, all got destroyed.

Mm-hmm they started building Babylon four, which was a green station, which does not look like Babylon five. Like I would've thought that all the stations kind of looked the same. It

Jeff: looks different. And the impression I got is it was smaller than Babylon five, right?

Brent: As soon as it became operational and it said what?

Within 48 hours of it becoming operational, it somehow slipped into a time thing. Mm-hmm right. It phased. It just flipped out. But right before then Zhara appeared on the station. So something happened with the station. And what they're saying is is that at some point in the future, maybe 2,500 years in the future, Or maybe Zora is just moving through time, whatever.

There's a great war, not the great war that was fought 10 years ago between the Earthman BARR and everybody. But there's another great war that could wipe out everybody. Okay. Help me out. Somehow the Babylon station itself, specifically Babylon four, is going to give them a place to come together and talk for peace, which is what Babylon five sounds like it's supposed to be mm-hmm or what it is.

Yeah. Uh, and so Zen is in, in blue suit, Sinclair and handy. Dylan they're coming back to take the station and blue suit Sinclair like threw the, the station out of the time loop just long enough to get everybody else off the station, four years down the road, like they unli like their, like Thanos came back and just let 'em come back to life.

Like they unli like. Is that, is that, what is that? What they're saying is happening. And then he just continued to

Jeff: take it. I think there's one piece missing. And that was when he said Tolen I tried to warn them. I tried to tell them again, but they're not hearing me. Or I tried to tell 'em that, you know, not to let this thing happen again, Uhhuh I don't remember him telling anybody anything.

Right. He

Brent: said it happened exactly the way I remembered it happening before or something like that.

Jeff: Yeah. So that's really what it is. And so maybe it's one of those things of, one of the things we know about Sinclair is he's like, he he's a good person. Like he cares about the people around him. So he is like, let's whatever it takes.

Let's get back to this time just so we can get the people off. Right. We need to take care of these people. Also. Maybe I can do something. I don't know what that is. That'll set things on a different path, but right. He didn't, he clearly wasn't success.

Brent: Right. Do you, do we think that this version of Sinclair, this future hardened grizzled version is a future version of this Sinclair in the timeline we're watching here?

Like, is he going to become that or is this like a different universe Sinclair or like who, what is, what

Jeff: is he? Yeah, I don't know. And, and that's where I just, I, I always go back to Zha when he first saw Sinclair and said, you're not the one and I can't let go of that. Like mm-hmm, sure looked like him.

Right? Sure. Sounded like him. But if he,

Brent: so I look at that though. Right. And like he sees Sinclair and like, oh, you look like the one, but then he goes, oh no, no, it's not you. Or it's not you yet. Or the, no, the one I'm looking for is the one of you that's in pain. Like, you know?

Jeff: Yeah. I just caught that. He is like, yeah, not you, like, it's not you.

And, and I just, I don't know. I thought that was interesting, I guess, you know, but mm-hmm I know, but yeah, that's, that's, that's kind of where I think everything. Comes down is that's, you know, let's get it off so we can get this thing B one, try to stop it from happening. And two, if we can't do that, go back and go fight for peace.

Brent: But before we get to the, the boiling it down piece, what questions do you, do you have moving forward? You just, I just heard you say you have a theory, so I wanna hear this theory too. So whatever

Jeff: order you wanna go in. Yeah. And, and I think that, that, so I've talked about my biggest question, which is just like, who was the one?

Like, was it Sinclair to lend somebody else? Um, but I think the other one is tied to they. So there were two kind of flash forward, flash vaccines, one, uh, score one for Jeff Aiken here, least Hampton showed up again, right. In a flashback, in a flashback. Look at that. Unfortunately didn't do anything to move, uh, care of all these character anywhere, except for like, they took a second to show him like, uh, you know, totally distracted, but I, I, I think they're gonna do this Lee Hampton thing.

Right. I think it's gonna be good. Yeah. But in Sinclair's flash forward, they, I mean, that was pandemonium, right? Just, I mean, Kara Baldy, you know, take some, take some, take some and just blast. And, but what I noticed on my rewatch was all of the babble on five people. And I'm assuming this was on babble on five.

I don't know that I'm making the assumption, but all the babble on five people were like randomly like spray shooting in the air. And then Aldi was just like, had this, you know, big like Vulcan

Brent: gun that had to have been so fun for the actor. Totally. That seemed to like, get up there.

Jeff: It just like, I'm sure like direction was just like, just yell, right?

Just like, go, go nuts, go crazy. Yeah. But I think that they were shooting the invisible people and we saw back in the war, prayer that earth force has developed individual cloaking technology, right. Where it has like the black light camouflage. I think it was called. I think earth force is going to attack Babylon five.

And that, that attack is the one that lady Laira saw and signs in port 10 that caused Babylon five to explode and get destroyed, which she also told us in there it's one of many possible futures. So this is here. I go back to Doon as I often do. Right. But one of the things that, uh, muah de and Alito II that God emperor knew was they saw every possible future.

And they tried to steer things so that we ended up on a path that was good. This was a moment where blue suits Sinclair was like, I can go back and tell old Sinclair how to get off this. Cause the path we're on now is the one lady Laira saw where Babbel on five blows up and all this stuff goes down. I need to go back and tell him something so he can get onto a different path he failed.

So Jeff believes that at this point, we're on a path for theory, earth force to attack Babbel on five and then for it to explode and that lead to some massive, great. So

Brent: the show, Babylon five, at some point, the station's going to blow up and Babylon four is just hanging out in time somewhere and like, Hey, now I hear

Jeff: now it showed up.

I think they'll, I think it'll be one of those things. They, they, they somehow are able to avert it and get it onto a different path or do a thing that they beat earth force or whatever, and it doesn't blow up. And then that changes all time. But I was just gonna say,

Brent: cuz like if they blip Babylon four back in to be the sta like it's kind of a station they're holding in reserve for when Babylon five blows up, like, are they gonna write and get a special dispensation from earth force command to change the name from Babylon four to Babylon

Jeff: five?

Right? No. What was that? The, uh, sand and whatever it was called. And then all of a sudden, just one day they redid the paint and it was the defiant. I'll take that one for you.

Brent: That's Jeff. I'm pretty sure we're up to like 10 references between the two of us.

Jeff: I think that we just hit the five. I think I have one more.

No, I think you,

Brent: no, I think, no, I think I, we might be over or you're. That was your third one. I know I've used all mine.

Jeff: Well, I know you've and you've skated pretty close on a couple of AB yeah,

Brent: yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's okay. It's that kind of, uh, that kind of, uh, episode

Jeff: last, last bit of analysis we needed to do really quickly.

How absolutely amazing was that opening scene with Ivanova Sinclair and GU Baldy?

Brent: Oh, it was so good. It was like, that's the comedy that we need. Like we need levity in this show. I, if I can criticize this show for something that it has not had a lot of it's levity. Okay. Watching lawn and Chicago go at it is, is hilarious, but it's also tainted.

I'm going to kill you. Yeah. They wanna kill each other. Yeah. You know, like lawn sitting there going Woohoo, like this is fun, but he's screwing with him in a not great way. You know, this particular one was just officers sitting around, messing with each other. That is not meant to be mean, you know? Yeah.

And there's, there's just a little bit of, of, uh, it's a breath that you get and, and we just don't have that really in this show that much. And I don't know if that changes or gets better as they go, or, or if this is just the show we've signed up for. That it's, it's, it's all serious all the time. Like, you know, Christopher Nolan takes on the Batman series and it's dark and gritty and there's no

Jeff: room for smiling ever.

Yeah. You know, like, but maybe what that does is just makes these moments like this stand out all the more and be that more special, you know? Cause it was like, I, every single beat of this scene was amazing and hilarious and perfect. And, and just made me be like, I, I wanna work with these people. Like, yeah.

I wanna be a part of that crew.

Brent: Winston, Claire leans over and he's clearly trying to put a VVA back to sleep. Yeah. I don't know that I've liked Sinclair more than I did in that moment. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Jeff: Like, well, and there were two things there for me, one that he studied and trained under Jesuits, like that's a big deal.

Was that true?

Brent: I didn't, I didn't feel like that was true. I felt like that was, he was completely BS in that in the moment you think that was true?

Jeff: Yeah. I, I actually feel like we've heard it before. Really? I do. Okay. I'm not sure, but I felt like, oh yeah. I feel like I should have known that

Brent: somebody's commenting right now on YouTube.

They said it at this episode, at this time, mark, which is awesome. If you guys know where that is and it's before this episode, so it's not a spoiler, please let us know. Cuz I'd love to know if

Jeff: we missed it or not. Yeah. Yeah. But that was great. And there's the, and then you breathe in, breathe out, breathe in.

And she's great. Right. Yvon would just, just kind of slow, like the whole, like you, you know, everything that's gonna happen and just plays out mm-hmm yeah, that was such a great.

Brent: But that scene also, they just have dirty dishes sitting on the bench next to them. Right. Ready to change it out. Like,

Jeff: well, not only that, those things come from, not only that, but like she faded and they just made eye contact and did it, like they were fully prepared.

Like, it's almost like they're like, you know, one of these times she's gonna show up and be tired. We can play this prank on her. Both always have dirty,

Brent: dirty dishes next to us. So we can play this prank on her. Like, yeah. It's not like somebody was walking by with a tray and they turned around and grabbed it off the dude's tray.

You know, like I'm saying, like, what was GU Baldy? Did he have a full meal before they, that the others joined him? You know? And he just set that stuff off to the side.

Jeff: Did you see his plate? Like, so when they, they, when she went, you know, and, oh my God, I'm late. I'm gonna go and went off and they put their food back on.

Did you see just a sheer, horrifying amount of food he had on his plate? No, Uhuh, Uhuh, like, I, I can put it down. Right. Especially breakfast. Yeah, love breakfast. And it thing was just. Massive. It was like, it's like he went to Denny's and he was like, ah, yes.

Brent: I, no, the one I was noticing, I was noticing Yvanova's like fruit cup mm-hmm he had strawberries and Kiwi and, and different things. Like that's what I was

Jeff: noticing in there. So in, uh, the episode with, uh, with Ben, Zane and heroin gray, um, she heroin Herman gray comes to talk to her. She's eating a fruit cup thing there also, I wonder, I wonder, I hope it's not the same

Brent: fruit, you know, like literally the same fruit, like,

Jeff: like just keep it behind the bar.

We'll just bring it out for another scene. Dust it off. It's probably fine.

Brent: Now, speaking of prophecy, mm-hmm I want to know what the prophecy is. That's a question she talks about the like the prophecy is why they stopped attacking.

Jeff: Is this the first time we've heard about the prophecy?

Brent: I think so. I think so.

Yeah. Like this is, this is a, a furtherance of. Why they just pulled back. All of a sudden there was a prophecy that they realized was about this particular group of people. They had thoughts about what humanity would be, and then they changed their minds on what humanity could be. And we'll talk about that in just a moment.

Mm-hmm so I wonder what this prophecy is. What is the change that is coming dilin referenced to, you know, she's supposed to be there for the change that is coming. Is that the crystals thing? Is that where she evolves or something? Like what, what it, maybe that maybe that's it. She wants to evolve. Yeah.

She's tired of the little head thingy and you know, the, the last Airbender

Jeff: blue mark, I wanna get out of the makeup chair every day. So I wanna evolve and just, you know, just have to put on a uniform. She

Brent: wants wings, you know? Yeah, yeah. Uh, but what is the change that's coming? I wanna know what happens to Babylon four.

Yeah. After like, so he stopped it just in time to get everybody off because they didn't need to go skipping through time. Like, so what's, I mean, that's like somebody hijacking your ship. And then like, Hey, I'm gonna stop. And like, let everybody off. I'm not abandoning them. I'm I'm waiting for you to come so I can give them to you, but I'm still taking the station.

Yeah. So what what's he doing with that station? We'll keep an eye out for that. I'm sure. We'll take a very long time to figure that one out. I wanna know what the deal is with this great war. Is it avoidable? Cause I, I like you keep referencing that lady who did the prophecy earlier was like, this is only one of many.

Yeah. So is the great war avoidable. Um, and then also I think Sinclair coming in, what was he trying to tell them and who is this day that is waiting for them? Because the hand said, Lynn said, they're waiting for us. Yeah. So who, who is they. Those are, those are a lot of the questions I have. I, I don't really care if delin gets back in the great counselor or not.

Yeah. Like if she does cool, if she doesn't fine, I, I don't care. Like, I'm glad to know what that is for her story, but I be, I'm happy with

Jeff: it either way. I think it's a fair way. Like I'm invested in the outcome, you know, like, I, I, I want her to be accepted back in personally, but also whatever, like the show's gonna be fine one way or another

Brent: delin will be fine either way.

Yeah. Either way. All right, Jeff. Well, I think we've actually reached that part where it is time to boil it down and you and I have been avoiding these words and I'm sure we're both on the same track, but it is time to see, oh, we're on the same track. Oh, it is time to see if this show has any of that star Treky quality to it.

Does there a deep moral message? Is it holding up a mirror to society? Is it giving us hope that humanity can be better in the future? And then we're gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five deltas, Jeff. How many deltas are you given this episode? And what does it do

Jeff: for us first off, I really enjoyed this one.

We've talked about that quite a bit. There's a lot of it that really stood out, uh, from just a high level of liking it. I think this, I I'm starting, I'm starting to not appreciate some of the pacing choices in the show. I, I don't think they use their time very efficiently and that just might be first season stuff.

Right. And figuring out things with the network. But I think it hurt part of this show could have been better. This episode could have been better, but I, but I really enjoyed it. The star Trek message stuff for me comes from the minbar and from Dylan, right? Delin gave this very, very impassioned monologue, you know, really about how humanity is the best of what we can be.

And they're on this path and they need help and they need guidance and they need these things. And literally I'm like, That is what star Trek is. star Trek is the help and the guidance because humanity is the best that we know of in the galaxy star Trek. I believe we're number one. We're number one, us go earth,

Brent: earth, earth, earth, earth.

Yeah,

Jeff: us E us E yeah. Yeah. But you know, I think, I think that star Trek shows us that a better future is possible, right? Like it doesn't show us necessarily a better future. I mean, there's still a war and there's stuff, but it shows us that it's possible. I think that what we saw from the, from Thelen and this one shows us that it's possible to show a future that's possible.

Right? Like, does that make sense without star Trek, like star Trek, lets us see that possible future. The lens lets us have star Trek to see that possible future. I think that, I think that she, as much as I thought it was a selfish choice. I appreciated the ongoing theme of her sacrificing everything for what she believed was right.

And leaving the door open for the gray council to support it. I mean, we see stuff like that and star Trek all the time, right. You know, where Picard says, you know, to hell with star fleet in their orders, we're gonna go do this thing, cuz it's the right thing to do. Also we see where he is like, oh, we should totally do this thing, but there's the prime directive.

So we're not going to, which goes back to our point that not every star Trek episode is a great Delta star Trek episode. All about to say, I think this had a great, great piece of star Trek in it, but all in all, this was just a really good Babylon five episode with a little bit of a star Trek, like message a little bit in it.

I'm gonna go two and a half deltas on this one. Where are you at on it? So

Brent: I, I kinda wanna bounce off of what you were just saying about, uh, star Trek and Babylon five. If I could reword what you just said a little bit, that'd probably be helpful. Star Trek shows what humanity can be. Because it's already gotten there.

Star Trek shows what humanity is when it's there. Mm-hmm Alon five, I think is showing, Hey, we can get there, but we're not there yet. And I don't know that it's gonna show us how we get there. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm but like star Trek is a, we've already gotten past all our crap. We've gotten past the, you know, the need for the accumulation of wealth.

We've gotten past, you know, bigotry, although we haven't, because we still see examples of that. Yeah. Uh, and, and I would say mostly, there's always exceptions to the rule, even within humanity and within star fleet and over in star Trek. But it, again, it shows that having already been achieved and this is like, no, they're not there yet, but they have the capacity to get there.

I, I, the end point is the same. It's just different places along the path that being said, I give this one, a half of a Delta. Wow. Wow. Yeah, really. And I'll tell you why. I I'll tell you why. And I, like, I think I need to go back and amend some of my other deltas. Because Dylan gives this really impassioned speech.

Right. Which is just awesome. I loved, I loved listening to her. It was so good. But all that speech is, is a little bit of exposition at the end of her story. For this particular episode, it didn't affect anything having to do with the episode. You know what I mean? It wasn't some bit of discovery throughout the episode or it wasn't, uh, us seeing what that could be.

It, it wasn't any of that. It was just a, Hey here's thelens story. Hey, here's Sinclair and Garabaldi story. And at the end of the Lynn's story, she's just having a conversation with a friend saying, you know, this is what they can be. So it's really not that star Treky of an episode to me, it has this awesome little.

But that, that bit of exposition that doesn't really affect anything else in the episode does not a Delta give. Yeah. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, but I like, cuz I really was gonna go, like I heard that speech, like this is so star Trek episode. No. And I was like, and the more I thought I was like, no, it's really not.

Jeff: I, you bringing up a good point and I I'm, I'm feeling self convicted a little bit. And I think that you got to this point before I did drop bit drop it, do it. I'm not gonna drop it. I'm gonna stick to it. But what I'm gonna say, and especially as we move into future episodes, I think honestly, I, I want this to be star Trek, you know what I mean?

And so I think I'm actively looking for reasons. So I grabbed that monologue and I'm like, there it. There's the thing, but you're right. It's more than a moment, like to be a real star Trek thing and like a five Delta episode of star Trek or babble on five or Stargate or whatever, that's the point, you know, far beyond the stars.

There's not a speech that happens the entire episode is this piece. And I think,

Brent: let that be your last battlefield, right?

Jeff: Yeah. Is another one. Gotcha. You know, so perfect balance of terror. And we could, yeah, go, go

Brent: on whole episode. Does that qu a quality of mercy, which I know battle on five has an episode called that as well, but strange new world's episode, quality of mercy, same thing.

Jeff: You're exactly right. It's it's the whole thing. And I, I, I'm gonna start watching these episodes a little differently. I think you are you're exactly right. Well, and

Brent: I think I said, was it last week or maybe it was in legacies? I don't know. One of those two where I said, I think this is a dividing line.

Mm-hmm this is where Babylon five is becoming Babylon five. And not star Trek, like star Trek's off on its own deal. Babylon fives off on its own deal. They're they're too Babylon five has established itself. Yeah. I wanna say that was at the end of legacies. I think so you said it then. Yeah. Um, and I think this is that continuation.

Like they're both hitting these similar themes, the similar idea of where hum the, the idea that we can be better in the future. Like the, it that's the idea it's that Roddenberry vision of the future. It doesn't have to be star Trek. He could be anything we're better. We're we can be better than what we are.

Human's got a lot of problems. We, I hope we can be better than what we are. This is, this is what makes sci-fi so good. It really is. And it's why I don't like the, oh, this is gritty. This is more real. It's like, that's not what I want from my sci-fi to be Frank with you. Yeah. You know, I wanna see us being the best people we can be and I don't need 'em all to have USA American flags patches on their arms.

Let, 'em have all the various countries around the world. I'm I, that is beautiful. Mm-hmm yeah. And amazing. Anyway, that's, that's where I, I go with a half Delta and, uh, yes, I would absolutely watch this one again. It was, it was great episode. It's

Jeff: good TV. Yeah, a hundred percent, like I said, great episode of Babylon five, like for sure.

And just good TV. That's it. That's Babylon squared. Next week we are gonna be watching. Well, you know, we play our games on this show. One of our favorite games is to guess what the next episode is gonna be based solely on the title alone. Next week. We're watching the quality of mercy for the first time.

Brent, what do you think that's gonna be about? All right. So

stop

Brent: me if you've heard this one before. Okay. Submarine warfare. Oh, okay. You got one captain. You got the other captain. They're basically the same dude, but they're just on the other side of the line. And they develop a, a keen respect for each other, even though they've never really met each other or talked to each other, but I think it's gonna be a riff

Jeff: on that.

So basically a riff on the greatest singular episode of star Trek.

Brent: If you're saying balance of affair is the greatest episode of star Trek in 800 and some odd episodes, you and I think so much more alike than I ever

Jeff: knew. Really. Yeah. Cause it, it is my number one star Trek episode. It is

Brent: absolutely my favorite, not, I don't know that.

I'd say it's my favorite episode of star Trek, but it is, it is my go to, this is what star Trek

Jeff: is. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's amazing. It's so good. And to riff on that. Yeah. I think that this one is gonna be where the future Admiral pike tells captain pike not to send any letters. Oh, that's that? That's a quality of mercy, not the quality of, oh, is it?

Oh, that's the difference. An article there totally different, totally different show shows you how just important, you know, knowing the English language is and what a powerful, uh, how powerful words can be. But no, for my, my guess, I'm going to throw a little bit of respect to one of our regular Watchers and commenters on YouTube, retro robot, radio Uhhuh, who introduced a concept on both YouTube and on Twitter that, uh, he believes that every single one of our predictions should be that it's gonna be a sequel to believers.

and I do. I think that something's gonna happen either extra the family. This is the great egg people, right? This is the great egg people. Okay. And I think that Dr. Franklin is going to get a little comeuppance and he is going to learn. We are going to learn through his comeuppance, the quality of mercy.

Does he get fired? No, he's not gonna get fired. He's on the DVD cover. Yeah, he's gonna last, but I think he's gonna get either, either be faced with some form of accountability or actually be like brought up on charges of some kind and then he'll make some impassioned speech in front of an ombuds about something.

But yeah, this is my sequel to believers. We're gonna find that right here next week. Thank you so much for joining us means means the world to us that you spend this time with us watching this incredible show. Go ahead. If you're watching us on YouTube, like subscribe, hit the bell. If you're listening to us on your podcast app, go in, leave us a rating and review.

And if you leave us a rating and review on apple podcasts, screenshot it, send it to us on Tagus on Twitter at Babylon first, or email it to us at Babylon five first gmail.com. It's the number five, the word first you'll be entered in our big giveaway for our season. One recap for that incredible. Blon five thing that, uh, David wash put together for us.

Yeah. Pretty awesome. So Brent, until next time. Whoa, wait Jeff. Yeah. Hmm.

Brent: Okay. We forgot something seriously. I gotta ask. Okay. Do you Fasten and then zip or zip and then Fasten. Yeah.

Jeff: I'm seriously. Which kinda guy are you? I'm not having, I'm not having this conversation.

Brent: I'm a, I'm a

Jeff: fastened zip guy. Okay, great.

Uh, Hey, live long in Zabi and I'm a fast.