Endgame

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

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

Jeff: and we are watching Babylon five for the first time for you, the one who is.

Brent: well, as Jeff said, we are watching Babylon five for the first time. We are doing this as two people who have had a lot of experience in Star Trek. So much experience. We had our own individual podcast over there and we came together to say, we should do a podcast about Babylon five. Well, how do we do it?

And we looked at each other and said, I don't know. Let's just do what we do as Star Trek podcasters, but just do it to Babylon five. And we went, cool. And here we are.

Jeff: But this is not a Star Trek podcast, not one of our Star Trek podcasts at all. So to keep us honest and to keep those references at bay, we play the rule of three. That means each one of us gets up to, and no more than three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three one of those plays. No substitutions.

Exchanges are refund.

Brent: Hey Jeff.

Jeff: Hey Brent,

Brent: You know what happens in three weeks?

Jeff: I do know what happens in three weeks. Why don't you remind everybody?

Brent: We are going on a break.

Jeff: Yeah, we're gonna take like six months off.

Brent: Yes.

Jeff: Take a little vacation.

Brent: Listen, we've been going hard at this for over, over a year now, and I think we, I think we've earned it.

Jeff: It's time. I mean, it's not like there's anything coming up in the

Brent: Listen,

Jeff: or anything.

Brent: I think maybe we should just cut it down to one week. Let's take a one week break. And you know, that just means we just don't have to watch an episode that week and do like a Brent watches or do a Jeff watches or anything like that. Let's, why don't we just come together and we'll, we'll hang out for like an hour or change and we'll just kind of talk about season four as a whole, rather than jumping into anything new.

W we'll call it the season four wrap up. What is, how does that sound?

Jeff: I love that idea. That's

Brent: You know, you know what else we should do in the season four wrap up?

Jeff: What's that?

Brent: We should give something away.

Jeff: You think so?

Brent: Do you got anything over there on your shelf that maybe we could give away?

Jeff: Like maybe this, the Babylon five encyclopedia, the complete hard cover set in one massive paperback. Yes, I do have something we could give away.

Brent: Awesome. I think we should give that away. And you know what? I think the method we should use to give it away. Should be for the lovely folks who support this show so generously, month after month. Keep the lights on around here. Honestly, keep our wives at bay and, uh, allow us to keep doing this and, you know, upgrade some gear and all that sort of stuff that we pour into it and some software things and all of that.

Uh, so we're going to give this to our, one of our patrons. And all you have to do out there is be a patron or become a patron before we record the season four wrap up. I promise you this, if you wait until like Sunday at midnight, the night before the wrap up is supposed to come out, we will have already recorded

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: and we would still love for you to join us, but to be in the drawing for this, you just have to be a patron before, uh, we, we record sometime in the middle of that week.

Jeff: Yeah, so the sooner the better. Then you get your hands on the Babylon five encyclopedia donated by an anonymous listener. They wanted to remain anonymous, but uh,

Brent: It, it is one of the most least appealing covers I've ever seen in my life.

Jeff: I love it. It

Brent: It is so boring.

Jeff: straight to the point. There's no fluff

Brent: is. There is nothing on that.

Jeff: It's like, it's like buying a beer that says beer. This is what it is.

Brent: right.

Jeff: I love it.

Brent: Well, Jeff, along with giving stuff away and along with playing games like a rule of three, another game we like to play comes at the end of the episode where we like to predict what the next week's episode is gonna be out based on title alone. Lemme try that again. I, I, I wasn't another based on, yeah.

Lemme try that again. Well, Jeff, you know, along with doing giveaways and things like the rule of three games like that, there's another game that we like to play here at Babylon, five four, the first time. And that game is when we get to the end of the episode and we predict what the next week's episode is gonna be about, based on title alone,

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: never having read a description, certainly never having seen it, and never even really trying to look at thumbnails or anything like that, which actually is a lot easier than you might think.

Jeff: Uhhuh. Actually, it's surprisingly

Brent: just don't look, you know. Um, Jeff, why don't you tell the folks out there what you predicted last week that this week was gonna be about, and tell us how close, well, I'm gonna tell you how close you were, but you tell us what it was.

Jeff: So I thought we were gonna have Dr. Franklin take Ivanova to Babbel on five and use the quality of Mercy Machine on her balancing the draining of his life force to the pickup of her life force, that they'd both kind of recover together over the rest of the season. And then I thought that we were gonna go after Mars.

We we're gonna go after Earth, and that on Earth Clark was going to get blowed up on his shadow destroyer ship by his own people after a war of words between him and Sheridan.

Brent: You know, your problem with that prediction,

Jeff: It's very specific,

Brent: you got too specific. Yeah. See, the, the, the thing with, uh, having a great track record of, of predictions is you gotta stay general man.

Jeff: Keep it up here, keep it up here. And you're almost always right.

Brent: Right. Exactly. Exactly. What's the next episode gonna be about that character? I don't know what they're gonna do, but it's that

Jeff: They're gonna go and fight. They're gonna fight for Earth.

There you go. Oh, 

Brent: They told us at the end it's time to go get Mars and Earth. That's what they're gonna go do. Now, actually, uh, listen, here's what you got. Ivanova winds back up on Babylon five and we got that quality of mercy machine. Now, it wasn't Franklin. There certainly was not balancing life forces. It wasn't Clark on a ship.

You did get Clark, you did get, uh, Mars and Earth. You got that. Uh, although I think it probably went down a little bit different than what you were thinking, but that's okay. I'm gonna give you credit for Mars and Earth. I'm gonna give you credit for a vva back on B five with the quality of Mercy Mission, cuz that was a good pool.

I hadn't even thought about that one. And uh, Jeff, I'm gonna give you 0.4 of a star

Jeff: I love that.

Brent: almost halfway, but your two specific stuff gotcha. Not, not right at

Jeff: Yeah, totally backed me into a corner. What did you guess?

Brent: Well, I said that, uh, this was going to be the end of the Earth Alliance in, in uh, uh, resistance war. They're gonna get it, they're gonna get Mars and Earth and this one.

And, uh, it was gonna be the big battle. And this, for all intents and purposes, is the climax of the season, because that's what happens in episode 20, in Babbel 15.

Jeff: Time and time again.

Brent: And that's what happened.

Jeff: and once again staying up really high at like the 50,000 foot level. You nailed it so you get a full point. You got the whole shebang on this one.

Brent: Well, but the, I think the bigger, the bigger prediction here was this is going to be a climax level type episode.

Jeff: Yes,

Brent: And it was, it, it absolutely. Yeah. Like, next, next week, you want me, can I tell you what next week's gonna be about? I don't even know what the I, I, oh,

Jeff: You gotta wait. You gotta wait.

Brent: oh,

Jeff: they are rule games are games cuz they have rules.

Brent: you wanna know why? Can I tell you why I already have my prediction for next week? Because they told us in this episode what they're gonna do.

Jeff: Uh huh.

Brent: They already told us what they're

Jeff: I'm really excited to get to this part cause I have a feeling we're gonna say almost exactly the same thing.

Brent: Probably, probably. But you're gonna, you're gonna start adding details. I'm gonna be like, Nope, it's this right here.

Jeff: I'm gonna get very specific again. That's, that's where I mess up. Well, for those of you who want to get specific, who are wondering just what exactly happened in this climax level episode, episode 20 of season four. Brent, why don't you tell us about end game.

Brent: Well, hey, you remember all the way back. Lemme try that again. Well, hey, do you remember all the way back in season two in the episode with Captain Swamp Rat, that we had this big old discussion about the nature of hyperspace and how people can just kind of hang out in that thing? Well, that comes back to payoff in this episode and the entire resistance fleet, both Earthship and Alien, are gathering and staging for their final push in hyperspace.

Everyone's getting their game face on

their. Endgame face on

everyone that is, except, I'm sorry.

Jeff: You were soaking that in, like you're just like, go ahead, keep clapping. Keep clapping. I know it's good.

Brent: Well, I was also, I lost my place. I was trying to find my, but yes, I wa I was Let it hang for effect. Pause for effect. All right, here we go. Everyone that is, except for Marcus, who is standing watch over a comatose of Vva. That is until Dalen comes in to tell him that a vva is about to head back to Babylon five on that is until Dalen comes in to tell him that Ivanova is about to head back to Babylon five on a Imari ship so that she can be more comfortable while she, um, dies.

Marcus doesn't like it, but he leaves to take his spot on the bridge in command of the white star down on Mars. The resistance is meeting with Captain Kelly. She is helping the resistance sneak 30 of the shadow enhanced tele pads onto President Clark loyal ships cryo chamber and all. It's not gonna be easy, but she'll get it done.

Meanwhile, Garabaldi Franklin and Litta and a team of red shirts are out on the Martian surface and they're taking over several of the ground stations that control the Mars defense grid. Once they have control, Franklin outfits, Lida with an antenna booster and Snow White and the seven Dwarves are all in position and ready to go back in.

Hyperspace not really going anywhere at all, cuz you can just stand still in hyperspace Sheridan relays the plan. We're gonna take Mars super quick and then we're gonna turn and go straight for Earth and to keep it all legit, only humans are to be in command of the ships engaging the battle. All alien commanded ships are to remain behind and be support only and only defending themselves along with the resistance fleet.

Earth Fleet is also ready in command. General Leko an old instructor of Sheridan's from back in his days at the academy, LEF Court got this job because he knows how Sheridan thinks. He communicates to the entire fleet and reminds them that the enemy is the enemy. They have to forget that all those people over there are folks that they know.

They are nothing more than targets to be destroyed. That is all. And with that, The battle begins with Aldi's help. Marcus opens a jump point inside Mars's atmosphere, buzzes the tower, makes the dude spill some coffee on his shirt and then moves on. PS Marcus is pretty much a badass. Sorry Jeff, because he is performing this extremely delicate and super dangerous maneuver.

All the while he can't even stop thinking about Ivanova. His mind isn't even on the mission at all and he's still doing this. How awesome is that? Left court doesn't fall for this distraction though. But he can't stand not knowing what Ace Sheridan seems to have up his sleeve. That's when Lida using her big antenna thing, wakes up all the shadow Telepaths, 30 of Earth Force 35 ships have one of these guys on them and the first thing they'll all do when they wake up.

Search for the computer to merge with it and take over. We get a short discussion on the ethics of using these zombie tele pads in this way, and then it's immediately onto the next wave of the attack. Sheridan advances and yellow swirly things open up all over the area. And that's when we hear the falcon say on your left, as he flies by over on the other side, black Panther and the crew walked through, and then Spider-Man and then the guardians, and then all the girls superheroes as well.

But the shadow Telepaths have done their job. There are only a handful of ships left in the fight, and it's time for the space battle, which actually doesn't take very long at all because Earth Force is way outnumbered, even left courtship. Even left courts ship becomes disabled too. And with that, the liberation of Mars is complete time to turn for Earth.

But not so fast. Marcus completely abandons his post Mid Battle. Does a quick Google search on the archives and discovers that device from quality of mercy that Jeff predicted Marcus desserts, his crew, and heads screaming for Babylon. Five. I got myself a plan.

10 points to anyone who gets that reference.

I'm so disappointed in you. Jeff Sheridan is a little miffed, but he can't think about that right now because he is staying on mission and he's gotta get to Earth. It's time for the Battle of Earth except there is no battle. Sheridan just comes over the loudspeaker to encourage the entire citizenry of Earth to rise up.

And as they do, we see Clark in his office scribbling on a piece of paper, punching some buttons and earth's defense grid turns to take on the fleet. That's right. The fleet is fighting the grid. The ai, while Clark takes a P p G and does the unthinkable, he shoots himself just as his office door is breached by the resistance led by Senator Crosby.

It seems that Clark has activated the scorched earth protocol just before offing himself. Scorched earth means that Earth's defense grid will now turn on Earth itself. This is not good. This is where the big fight truly happens. Several ships are lost getting in the way, but there is also a lot of defense grid platforms that are lost.

The only one that remains, and it's pointed right at me here in Florida. I'm sorry, only one of those defense grids remain, and it's pointed right at me here in Florida. But Sheridan ship, the Aga Memnon has been disabled. And so Sheridan does the only thing he can do. He orders ramming speed. If he can't shoot it, he'll plow into it.

But hold the phone. Dun dun dun. A jump point opens. And a fully operational u s s Apollo commanded by General Left Court arrives just in the nick of time to destroy the final defense grid. Save the day and we get a money shot of the aga Mimon flying through the fiery debris unscathed left Court welcome, Sheridan Home says he is still gonna have to face the inquiry board though.

But you know, welcome home. And with that, our old reporter friend for I S N Jane is back on the air. She's a little emotional, as you can understand, but she has replaced the very fake lady reporter from Clark's time of I S n. Jane seems really grateful to be back because the last few years have been bad.

She says now it's time for humans to come back together and begin the process of healing and reve. She says, it's time for humans to come back together and begin the process of healing and rebuilding. And now we go out on a cut to Marcus, who was caught up with a ivanova at Baby five. Sure enough, he has found that device and he is transferring his life force into Ivanova.

And for the first time out loud, he declares his love for her. Jeff. What were your impressions of this episode? End game,

Jeff: I feel like I need to say the star I, this was a great episode. I need to start out by saying that I loved all the Mars liberation stuff. I kind of love general left court, right? The whole game, recognized game thing that he had going on

Brent: Jeff, I feel like, I'm sorry. I feel like that's a future episode of Star Fleet Leadership Academy

Jeff: the left court piece. Yeah. Seriously. Cause like he's just doing his job but he is old school, but also like what came at the end. There's a lot to dive in there. I love the call back to jump gates in the atmosphere. I think that was messages from Earth when we saw that the first time and that was leaving an atmosphere.

But it's pretty cool they, they brought that back. I liked the plan for the popsicles, like I'm okay with what they did. It's pretty dark ends, justify the means kind of stuff, but they never made any bones about it, you know what I mean? Like from the minute, like Franklin kind of, even Sheridan was, was weird about doing it so good with that.

But I kind of, I kind of hate to say this about like an episode 20 in Babylon five, but I was pretty disappointed in quite a few things in this episode. Like quite a few. Um, so I thought last week of the quality of mercy thing, how come like no one else thought of that Sheridan or Franklin or anybody.

Like why did Jeff have to think of that? And then Marcus had to do a Google search to find it like that. That, I dunno, that kind of bothered me. Yes. In the back.

Brent: Um, excuse me. I believe that the reason that nobody thought about it was because Franklin said that we can't use this again under any circumstance for any reason.

Jeff: That's the thing that

they said. 

Brent: it out of their mind and they wouldn't have used it even if they thought about it.

Jeff: that's the thing Franklin said in his personal log on this episode. Sheridan never said that and probably never heard it, and Sheridan probably would've dusted it off for his good dear friend of Ava. I would think, like, think, think about that. Like if you had a dear friend, colleague, someone that you'd, you know, gone to the mattresses with and you know, just really come through some stuff and you got a thing back here that could save their life at potential high cost, but could do it, are you gonna not say anything about that?

Brent: Well, yeah, I mean, what I would've, here's, here's what I would've done. Cuz this seems to me the answer. All right, I'm gonna hook up for for 30 seconds, then I'm gonna get off, and then you're gonna hook up for 30 seconds. And what we're gonna do is we're all gonna pull our life forces together and give a little bit and she's gonna get all of her life force back.

Jeff: Yeah. We're gonna, we're gonna donate blood, this whole thing. We're gonna each give a pint. I would think that's the thing, but, but no. Nope. In instead, we had to have somebody go rogue. Um, the

liberation 

Brent: Let me, ask you, can I, can I ask about that

Jeff: yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Okay. Here's the, here's the other thing. Now Marcus certainly qualifies this, but Sheridan's a soldier. Ivanova is a soldier Franklin, while a doctor grew up as a soldier's son and is also a soldier, right? Uh, Gar Baldi is a soldier, although he wasn't really a part of this. understands the fabric of life.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: All of those people accept death as a very real possible outcome for the job that they do.

Jeff: Yeah, that's fair.

Brent: And, uh, and that includes Ava, you know, and, and coming back from the dead like that man. I mean, if you've watched any sci-fi whatsoever, you'll know that that messes people up.

Jeff: But she wasn't dead yet though.

Brent: Well, yeah, that's true. But you know, she should have been dead. But Reg,

Jeff: I'm thinking last week when she's there and she tells Sheridan to get on the egg mek, Sheridan should have been like, I'll do that. You head to babble on five and here's the game plan. Like, let's do that.

Brent: yep. Yep. Go wait for us and here we go. I, I agree. I just, the, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to give you an answer for why in universe, because out of universe, what's the real answer we needed, we needed Marcus to go be crazy and do something stupid. You know, like that's the real answer.

Jeff: Yeah, no, and I don't disagree at all. I think it makes sense. I'm just thinking in terms of TV where it's

like, 

Brent: But in universe, yeah.

The in universe answer. Uh, the only thing I can really come up with you on that is just as soldiers, they accept that this is the, this is the lot, and we're not gonna use that even on a soldier.

Jeff: cuz it's a terrible thing.

Brent: yeah, that's the, that's the only thing I can come up with

Jeff: Eh? It makes sense. It makes sense. I think, I don't know. I don't know. Just

didn't sit, it didn't sit great.

Brent: let me grasp those straws a little

Jeff: They're good straws though. I mean, they're graspable, they make sense. I think those straws work better than some of these other ones. They were grasping at like,

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Hey, let's go to Earth and we're gonna take this down.

And Sheridan gets on, you know, the on the communicator and starts talking out, and then literally like four seconds later, Clark shoots himself. Like there's no buildup. There's no tension, no explanation. Just scribbling codes on like. What was that? Right? Like, it made, to me, it made no narrative sense without a chunk of stuff in between that we never, ever got, like, and then, and then he is dead, so it's just over.

There's no sequel fans. There's no wells, there's no night watch people coming up to be like this, that and the other. It, it was anti-climactic to me. The whole thing was just anti-climactic. The whole Clark finish was just like, oh, I, I, I, I guess we're done. I felt rushed, and honestly, I feel kind of cheated after all this time.

I mean, we're looking at three seasons of President Clark and him doing all of his stuff, and he just randomly decides to kill himself and everything's done and solved. Now the space battle, that thing with the Apollo coming out and hitting it and that scene with the aga coming through, like, that's, that was awesome.

That was epic. That was huge. It was great. But that stuff just kind of, I don't know, but I do have one last thought. And that is, and this is a, a thought and a message directly to j m s.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Don't you dare kill Marcus. You do not harm a he a hair on his beautiful head. Don't you dare kill him. I will come for you.

Brent: I don't, I don't think, I don't think we're losing either one. Jeff.

Jeff: I don't

Brent: Like, I, I was really worried about Ivanova last week. Like, you know, cuz I, I mean, think about it. When did, uh, when did J Z A Dax die? It wasn't the final episode. It was the next to last or next two to last or something like that.

Jeff: What was the la next to last of the second to last season?

Brent: Right. What I mean, that was, that was a contract thing. So she, she was gone, but it's not like they killed her in the final episode and let her go away. Like it was, they killed her and then dealt with it a little bit in that season. So I was, I was thinking of Honora was gone when they did that last week and we saw her, the halo and everything.

I was like,

Jeff: That's it.

Brent: well actually, when, when she got hit, I was like, oh, she's done like that is Oh. Or does she leave Odo? And then I saw the halo and I was like, okay, maybe they're gonna do something. Um,

Jeff: Hold on.

Brent: Yeah. But here, like I, I could see both of them Lea uh, uh, surviving. But right now, and it will, I guess I'll just spoil this piece also. Either one could die or both. Or both could die. Both could be leaving the show,

Jeff: that'd be big.

Brent: you know, cuz here's the, somebody has to like, somebody has to die in a war. If somebody that you don't know, if the only people who are dying are people you don't know or 

Jeff: It doesn't 

Brent: about, then it doesn't matter, right?

So in order for this war to actually have teeth, somebody on the DVD cover has to die.

Jeff: God. And it's gotta be between Marcus and Ivanova.

Brent: And it could be either one at this point.

Jeff: it be Franklin? I mean, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I'm on the Franklin train. I'm good with him, but like, if I gotta pick one of 'em, it's gonna be him.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Maybe even Le, I don't know. Is she on the cover? I don't know.

Brent: Yeah, well, she's in the opening credits.

Jeff: Well, what did, what were your, what were your thoughts on this one?

What did you think of it?

Brent: Uh, well, I'm, let me, let me start this by saying, I, I really loved this episode. I enjoyed this episode all the way through. Um, I could sit here and, uh, nitpick little things like what, what you've got, um, I'm, I'm simply just gonna say what is wrong with you, Jeff? This was a fantastic, fantastic finale to this whole deal, even with Clark and these pieces.

Look, I don't need, I don't need Clark in a, in a thing trying to figure this out. He knows the end is up. He's done. There's this, this, where did Senator Crosby come from all of a sudden with all these people? I don't care. Because you know why Clark has pissed off so many people and, and you know, we got the one line from Sheridan saying, listen, we know you've been scared to rise up because of retaliation.

Don't fear it anymore. Go do what you gotta do. And they said, we, oh, sorry.

Uh, they said, we going, let's go. And, and I, you know, I could even see a little bit of a progress of time. And Clark knows, Clark knows the, the game is up. He knows it's done. And he would rather go out because he has, uh, d dictators control with, with a fingernails grip. You know, and he realizes that all of his fingernails just got ripped off.

You know what I mean? And he, and he is fallen. And rather than get taken out, he's, he's gonna go out on his own terms. Um, yeah, I, I, I thought this from, from start to finish, I thought bringing back Ivanova, uh, and Marcus and setting that whole piece up, I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated the idea that Marcus deserted his people to go after this girl. That he just couldn't get his his mind off of after to go. Marcus is a soldier to go after a fellow soldier.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: That was, that was so out of character for him. But I understood. I got it. Listen, Ivanova for three years or two years, however long Marcus has been around, hasn't barely given him the time of day. And now he's gonna go be like this. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Not in the middle of battle, not in the middle of battle with no word to anybody.

That's,

Jeff: battle. Like not just a battle, but the battle.

Brent: Exactly. Um, and I, I was so mad dramatically, I get it. If he makes it through this, Sheridan needs to kill him.

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: Like he, that is irre redeem,

Jeff: What do they do to rangers? Right? Like I could see that being a Minbar thing. Well, maybe not cause Minbar don't kill other minbar, but I could see like some horrible exile that they do.

Brent: you know? You know, when I saw that final scene of him sitting there kind of leaned over Ivan's body, um, I ki like, two thoughts came to my mind. One, I kind of saw like, is this gonna be a Romeo Juliet thing?

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: Like, she's gonna go down, so he's gonna come sacrifice, sacrifice himself for her, but then she's gonna wake up and try to like kill herself.

And they're both basically gonna wind up dead here at the end. And you know, like, and then they're both leaving the sh like I'm saying, like, they both can't be leaving. There's no way. There's no way. Um, but then I also wonder is like, was his badge gonna shed those tears that they talked

Jeff: Oh, that's

Brent: Like, I wanted, like I was watching the badge to see if it had any tears coming down and I didn't see any.

Jeff: Well, I think on, on that there's a, there's a very hard and fast rule in at least science fiction, if not a lot of other genres as well. But until you see the body, dude ain't dead.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. If you don't, if you don't see 'em take their last breath on screen, they ain't dead. And even if you do see them take their last breath, just wait because we'll bring 'em back anyway.

Jeff: Somehow. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. I could think of one character in particular that I've seen die three times now

Jeff: Yeah. Lemme look up, hold on. Lemme see if

Brent: visually on screen. I've seen this character die.

Jeff: just gonna see if I have any data on that drop.

Brent: Well, you know,

Jeff: I'll take that one.

Brent: just, just, it's in the lore out there

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: of how things work and, and you've, you've gotta look for it, um, before you find some other things. And, and you know, I mean, maybe Brent just needs to get a spine or something, maybe.

Jeff: maybe you could find a song to sing or a song to sing or something about that. And

Brent: Jeff, it's about nuan. Why don't, why don't we continue here?

Jeff: it's a good idea we're we keep la la la in our way around, uh, the issue.

Brent: Uh,

Jeff: But hey, you're right. This was a great epi. I'm not saying this wasn't a great episode. I'm just saying that I,

Brent: Hey, do you know, do you know what I spotted?

Jeff: up?

Brent: Did you see the cat? The

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: spot?

Jeff: oh, dad.

Brent: Come on, Sherlock.

Jeff: Oh, I see what you're doing.

Brent: Hello? Do you need to open your chest? Pull the phone out. Let's go

Jeff: It's Shakespeare and around.

Brent: the Raven Nevermore.

Jeff: We'll keep going. We'll

Brent: Oh my God. Oh my God.

Jeff: Well, listen, we're kind of on the topic. Do you want to just talk through the Marcus Ivanova stuff? Anything that else that's in there?

I don't know what 

Brent: honestly, I've talked, I've talked through it.

Jeff: I think the only thing I, I would, I would say the only thing I would add is I completely agree with, with the, the, the irresponsibility and how it doesn't line up with markets for him to take off.

Understanding that he needed the speed of the white star. Had he taken a shuttle or something other than a white star off the field of battle, I would understand Sheridan not killing him. But not only did he take himself off of the field, he took one of their primary weapons off the field as well. And I just, I, I, I, I don't wanna see Sheridan kill him.

I don't wanna see him die. I was very clear about that. But what he did was it was inexcusable. And even if his little badge doesn't cry, tears, it ne he needs to no longer be a ranger

at a minimum at the end of this.

Brent: Yep. Yep. There, there does have to be a little bit of com compartmentalization. And you know, I mean, the other thing, look, Marcus apparently has never been in love before. He thinks he's in love. He thinks he knows what love is. I would posit he doesn't know what love is. Um, but he's, I mean, he's just got his head all wrapped around this.

And just because she said she spoke mumbar to him now and he sees, he sees hope and like things were done differently in the nineties, Jeff, this was a heroic thing. Go sacrifice yourself for the woman you love. This was, this was, you know, this was not supposed to be anything bad that he was doing, but yeah.

Jeff: this is what the kids, let me make a super old man statement here. This is what the kids call mid. This is a middle school thing to do, right? Oh my gosh. She, she held my hand and now she's in love with, she didn't hold your hand, she got close in her hand, brushed up against yours, and now you think it's on and you don't even know what on is, but you're gonna go sacrifice everything for her.

Brent: I'll, I'll tell you, I'll tell you one that always jumps out to me, um, is, uh, in, in the Harry Potter series, you have Professor Snape and the, I mean, people have tattooed this on their arm, gets all the way to the end, and he's all this time, he's, he's held this secret thing for Harry's mom. And after, you know, he goes after all this time and he goes, always, dude, you were in school. That was 15, 20 years ago. 

Jeff: you are a 

Brent: What are you, you have never gotten over a childhood crush and you have maintained this thing this whole time. Dude, that's not sweet. You need help.

Jeff: Yeah, it's creepy and you need help

Brent: That is, that is, dude, you've got to let that go. She said, no. Move on to someone else. Oh, Jeff, we're getting so many emails from me saying this right now. 

Jeff: but he was 

Brent: from their own life. No. Listen. No, that was, that was, it was, it was sweet in the book and in the moment, and it sounded good,

Jeff: Well, here's

Brent: but when you really think about it, Uhuh.

Jeff: If you, if you are in love with and you're still with or whatever, your high school sweetheart, good on you. That's amazing. Almost all the time. That doesn't work for you. It did. And that's beautiful. I love it. But most people it doesn't. And also if it wasn't a high school romance, it was a high school rejection.

Uh, you moved

Brent: you've maintained that?

Jeff: Yeah. It's not healthy.

Brent: she said, no, dude. She said no. Move on.

Jeff: So on Mars, you brought up, was it, uh, uh, Kelly, captain Kelly, or somebody?

Brent: I don't know that she was a captain. I'm pretty sure her name was Kelly. I think I heard, I, I don't, I just called her Captain Kelly.

Jeff: I like it. I didn't catch your name, but I, you know what I got out of this? Between her, uh, the people in the bunker, the, like, the one lady who was just like, Hey, what's going on out there? The same thing that's going on in here. Boom. Like, it's cool to see that the resistance actively has people throughout Earth force, you know, kind of, kind of doing their thing.

I feel like Earth went all in on Mars though. Like, like you said in the recap, they fought the defense grid at Earth. They had 35 destroyers at Mars. Wow. And where were those Big Omega class ones? Right? The big shadow ones was that, do we already

Brent: they were there. Yeah, they were there, but they didn't, I mean they, so they did the, now that was a disappointment because they did this big thing where we got these shadow, shadow souped up ships. And it made no difference whatsoever. I promise you people are hitting in the chat right now. All the ways that it actually made a difference.

It did not make a difference.

Jeff: It made a difference in that it damaged the white star that Ivanova was on so that they could run into a piece of shrapnel and, and, and hurt her. That's the difference it made. They could have done that with regular destroyers as well.

Brent: yeah, yeah. It, it was a, it, it's not like, it's not like the, uh, the Telepaths needed to have the shadow enhanced ship in order to merge. It's Cause it sounded like they could just merge with whatever computer

Jeff: Yeah, and we saw that. We saw that when, uh, Carolyn was at Babylon five. She

Brent: That's right. With the computer, not with the shadow thing at all, are you? Right. You're absolutely right. Um, yeah, I, I that talk about a dropped thread, you know, and what I mean, what if that shadow ship that you say Earth has is still out there? The area 51,

Jeff: Yeah, and, and is gonna show up here later in the season. A last ditch thing.

Brent: I guess. I

Jeff: I'm a lot less confident they have a shadow ship though at this point.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: But I appreciate it. Like the Marsy had a lot of great callbacks. You know, I had the jump kit in the atmosphere thing I brought up before it had, um, the, the gear that Franklin was loading up on Lida, that was the whole, um, exercise of vital powers thing when they kind of figured out what the stuff was doing.

So

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: I thought that was really cool. My question

though, so, oh, I was gonna say, uh, I, I have two questions on the Sicle thing.

Brent: mm-hmm.

Jeff: first one is I wonder if Carolyn was one of the 30 that was sent out,

Brent: How many, how many, how many popsicles did they have?

Jeff: know, in, uh,

Brent: they sent 'em all,

Jeff: the illusion of truth. They talked about it and I, I, I, I wanna say 50. So I don't think they sent all of them.

Brent: So they held some back. Okay. Why would you send 30? If they have 35 ships, just go 35?

Jeff: Yeah. But, but also they probably didn't know if they were gonna have 35, you know? I mean, how did he know what they were gonna have and load it? Because they had, they had to do a lot of moving around. But here's my big question for you.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: What did you think of the Sicle plan? Like given everything that was built up about it and then they played it out?

What, what did you think of it?

Brent: The entire plan hinged on Lida being able to do what she did with an amplifier. I thought it was a very risky move. Um, I thought that it was a very ballsy move, um, play this game with me, Jeff, if that didn't work, what happens?

Jeff: It all falls apart.

Brent: Does it?

Jeff: I think it

Brent: No. No, because, no, because at that point now you just have an all out battle between the.

The earth ships and the resistance ships, which how many of, again, I go back to how many people actually defected from Earth. If all they had was 35 left, right, but five went before lunch on one day and more were coming every day, right? Like how many of these ships actually came over? Plus all the white stars, which we saw white star take out a shadow ship.

Surely you can take out an old earth ship.

Jeff: but they're not trying. So the thing to that I see though, one, they don't want to take out the ships, you know, cuz they're moving surgically and slow and they gotta go through that whole process of who wants to surrender and all that stuff. Then on top of that, the plan was a hit and run on Mars to get to Earth because if they didn't, then Earth would stand up more defenses at Earth and they wouldn't have enough to, to make that stand.

And I think, I think that got played out when they realized Marcus took off and Dalen called Sheridan up on the Aon, and he was like, well, let's go after him. And she's like, we can't, like,

Brent: We're

Jeff: there's the other way around, you know, Hey, do you want to go after him? We, we can't, like we're pot committed at this point.

And I think that if this plan with the popsicles and Lida didn't work, earth would've been off the table for them. They would've made a stand at Mars and not been able to move on.

Brent: uh, they, they, right. But I don't think that it would've all fallen apart. I think they, they would've made their stand on Mars. Maybe they couldn't have turned to Earth just yet and they would have to stop. And, you know, this turns into next week's episode or, or the, the week after when it all falls. I mean, cuz that makes a good, honestly, Jeff, that makes the cliffhanger.

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: You get it set up, get it set up, get it set, she goes and goes in, wake up, and then nobody wakes up or wake up and they all get out and they're moving and they're moving and then all of a sudden, like soldiers just shoot them in the head. Just shoot 'em in the head cuz you are some zombie thing and nobody really takes over, like, doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

And, and then, and then you go, oh no, they're not able. No, we've gotta still fight them. And then you come back in your opening shot next week is the fight

Jeff: The actual

battle, Yeah. 

Brent: you know, and then you move on to something, you know, while that's happening, people on earth decide that they have had enough of Clark and so they're gonna rise up on Earth as well and

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: whatever.

But your point, Jeff, I want to, I want to take what you said and that, uh, the white star fleet was not trying to blow up the ships. Put a pin in that. I wanna come back to that,

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: um, question. This might actually back up to the discussion we were having on Marcus before we get too far away from that. When he goes in and he starts doing his little Google, Google search, and he comes across Franklin's thing. He says he mentions a name, uh, Caitlin James has died. Was that the lounge singer from Walkabout?

Was that a shout out to, to the, to that.

Jeff: Yeah, I, I appreciate that. That was pretty cool.

Brent: Jeff, I have a question for you.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Question. What did you think of Earth Gov or Earth Dome or whomever sending, uh, general left court to take over command of the ship from the captain instead of just sending him to be in charge of the fleet and let the captain be the captain? Let Charlie stay there. No, no, no.

He actually took over command of the ship, frankly, against Charlie's will. What's your thoughts on leadership One Guru.

Jeff: I, I honestly, I don't have enough context to have real thoughts on it. You know, I don't know this other guy, he apparently seems good. Left court, thought he was future general material or whatever. I saw it really almost more as just a mirror of what was happening on Agame Agamemnon. You know, Sheridan was commanding the fleet from a ship he had.

The blessing of the captain was, is the big difference. But I think it just kind of shows. That difference between the two where Sheridan can command from that ship with the support of everyone where left court has to be ordered in to take command of the fleet to, to do it. But I also understood the, the reasoning behind it.

You know, I mean, we saw he understood Sheridan's tactics up to a point. You demonstrated that. And I thought that was, that was cool. But, uh, but I mean, in, in a, in a high level thing that's messed up to do, that's straight, messed up stuff. Like you don't do that. But there's a lot of pieces on at play here that we, we haven't seen and, and don't have for me to really have a real opinion of it.

But I saw it more as just a, a way to mirror the way Sheridan is running his crew versus Clark is running his, you were talking earlier about like just shooting all the tapes in the head. Nope, that didn't work. And I thought that was pretty funny how. On the Apollo, and I love that they got the same actor from, uh, from the exercise of Vital Pirates. I love that guy in his big eyes and like, he's just great. But they got him in and then like he, the guys, the, the security guys busted in, used a PPG again to shoot down, you know, doors through a bulkhead, which I didn't think PPGs could do, but apparently they, they do, we've seen him do it quite a bit now.

But he like shoots Force Lightning at them and, which is like, you don't even see, you just see it come out of his fingers. They don't even anything and they just, they just shoot him and kill him. But he did lasting damage to the computer systems that, that whole scene was kind of weird. Like, I get what they were going for, but had they never showed him shooting the Force Lightning, it would've made a lot more sense.

Brent: We've seen, we've seen that a few times in the show, haven't we?

Jeff: the Force Lightning.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: All the way back to Born to the Purple, where Jean Simmons, the slave driver guy, had those, those shock gloves.

Brent: right. That's right, that's right. I gotta tell you though, Jeff, on a completely other level, no one does a, a good harrah speech like Bruce Box

Jeff: Oh my gosh.

Brent: We've, we've heard a handful of these from him over the course of his time here in Babylon, five, we are coming home.

I'm just like, yeah, I'll follow you to the and back.

Jeff: Last week you said we should do a top five list of ivanova things. We should also do a top five list of Sheridan speeches. Oh my gosh. Yeah,

Brent: I do it. Let's rank 'em.

Jeff: they're great. This one was so good. These are your sons. These are your daughters. Their loyalty has never wavered. Oh, so good.

Brent: So good. Um, okay. Let's just talk about clerk shooting himself outside of your issues with that. Uh, I did not see that being the end for clerk.

Jeff: No.

Brent: I didn't see that being what was coming. Like, I didn't see it coming at all. I was like, oh, that's that. Okay. That's the way he wants to go out.

Jeff: I clearly had a very different view, you know, of what was gonna happen in my prediction, but once he did it, like to your point earlier, like that's the dictator thing to do. Hitler did that, you know, instead of getting captured or whatever, I'll do, it makes like that's on brand.

Brent: yeah, yeah. Yeah. If, if, if you have the ability to do that before you get captured, then. Otherwise because if they capture you alive, you didn't think they were getting ready to capture you,

Jeff: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brent: cuz you know, not good stuff's about to happen. Um, I don't know that I liked the Apollo coming out of the jump point at the end to save the amendment on. I like, that's the bad guy. He, was against this whole thing and now he's coming in de sex Mauna. I hate Deo sex Mauna. And that's what he was like. He comes in right at the end to say like, let Sheridan and the aga blow. But you know, Ram right into the guy Sheridan doesn't have to die. It'll be a fine, it's a big ship. It can take it, you know?

Jeff: It's a massive ship, and he's way back in the back,

you know, in the little 

Brent: the on the only thing is they are ramming into like, A housing thing for missiles and stuff, that all goes boom. You know, so that might make some things 

Jeff: But it's not necessarily all armed or whatever. But I don't know, I, I, I was, um, it

Brent: That's where, that's where, that's where Marcus should have come flying back in with the white star that he stolen after having done whatever he did with I Vava and now he's back and he shoots it as he goes, or

Jeff: yeah. Would've been a little better. I, I don't know. I think it felt contrived. Just the whole, like, there's one lift and we are the only ones close. Really,

Brent: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. Contrived exactly what they needed for the narrative. They hung Alana, they told you, yes, this is what we're doing and okay, let's go. Let's do it.

Jeff: yeah. I literally, when I was watching it, and you could see me watch it the first time on our Patreon, and if you join our Patreon, you're in the drawing to win the Babylon five encyclopedia. But like, there's that pause and like, I'm just like, ramming speed and it's just, just this hap this is what

Brent: What movie is that from? There, there is a movie or a TV show like Reming Speed and I, I cannot pla I hear it in my head. I cannot place it.

Jeff: It's, it's all of them. Like, I think it's been said so often,

Brent: yeah, but it's, it's, I

Jeff: but there's one that, that, that's hitting you.

Brent: Yeah, yeah. There's one in specific,

Jeff: But I was, I was okay with the Apollo thing for the narrative arc. The, the message

Brent: oh, wait. Isn't, isn't it Wharf in The Defiant,

Jeff: was it?

Brent: wasn't it? Perhaps today is a good day to die. Rapping speed.

Jeff: narrow it down at all. What him saying that,

Brent: Nevermind. Go ahead. Sorry.

Jeff: why would I'm gonna look it up?

Won't even let me search. It's literally like telling me to not do it, so I just won't, I tried. I'm honestly okay though with the Apollo having done it because I think there's this, like that message narrative arc I talked about last week around, you know, I just follow the orders. I'm just doing my job, so does that make me evil or not?

And what we saw was literally the second the chain of command switched left court was like, oh, okay, now I'm not gonna blow you up anymore. Like literally five minutes ago, I told my crew to not think of you as humans, but to think of you as an enemy and blow you away. But now one guy died and so everything changes and now I'm gonna come in and save the day.

To be clear, I also hate it, but I think it supports the ongoing narrative of people. You know, it's Clark giving the orders, but everybody else pulling the trigger.

Brent: Um, The only way that I could say that is if he is really loyal to Earth gov, not to the person, right? Which means even if the wrong person is in, he's still loyal to G the Gov. He could recognize that it was the earth gov that deposed Clark after he shot himself. And this new earth gov immediately doesn't wanna blow up Sheridan.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Like that's the only thing I can give you on that. And that's a stretch.

Jeff: a stretch, but it's reasonable and I think it still supports that thread of, I'm just following orders.

Brent: in, I mean, unless he got orders from earth gov that says Stand down, do not harm Sheridan like and I, and I need to see him get those orders, or I need to hear it in the next episode, somebody say, we gave him orders to not shoot

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: You know, because Jeff, you served on a submarine. The entire movie of Crimson Tide was based on this concept.

You are given orders, your communications buoy gets severed.

Jeff: You follow those

orders? 

Brent: no way of getting new orders. Do you continue following those orders or do you do something to where you can reestablish and double check to make sure you're still supposed to follow those orders?

Jeff: Yeah. And Crimson Tide explored that really well. You'd basically follow those orders unless something else comes in. Because we talked about this a couple episodes ago where like they don't want automatons. They want people that can critically think, but you still follow orders until other stuff presents itself to show that you know something.

And that's what kind of what happened in Crimson Tide here. I don't know if any, like you said, I don't know if anything was presented to him. He was just telling people to murder people and then showed up and saved the day.

Brent: Like I said, I don't, I don't like that he was the one who showed up. It. I, it doesn't sit well with me at all, but I still loved it. I was 

Jeff: was great.

Brent: Dude, the money shot of the ag coming through the fiery fireball. Oh my gosh. So

Jeff: And len's screaming right at John and then he comes through and it's great. And the music picked up and it was, yeah. Great scene.

Brent: And then, and then you go to the Is n Reporter, Jane, who is like in tears over being back on, said it's been, it's been however many, it's been over a year since Marshall Law was declared and oh my

Jeff: she was great. So emotional, like that was really good.

Brent: I'd honestly forgotten about her. And the whole is n thing, like, I'd forgotten about her, but as soon as she was on, I was like, oh yeah, this lady, I remember her. Uh, the other thing too is I'll say, um, Des, despite dude being the guy who saved the day when he said, yeah, of course you're still gonna have to stand before the board of inquiry.

That is a hundred percent fair.

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: Sheridan's coming back. Hero of the whole deal. You're still gonna have to go through that piece. You're gonna be fine. But you still gotta go through that whole piece,

Jeff: Yeah. I, I think, I think that's what, like due process is built around. You know, it's whether you're, whether you saved the day or not, you did things and, uh, and we gotta figure that we gotta, we gotta go through the process and I think, and we'll talk about this in, in a while, we get to predictions, but I think that, uh, compared to, I'll just, uh, keep it super high level and say, compared to other people who took shots at an established government in our recent history, um, I believe Sheridan will be honored, eager, and willing to step forward and answer that, that that investigatory board or whatever it is, He will show that he was right.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Well, Brent, I think we've reached that part of the show where we boiled this all down to see if the episode had any deep morals or messages to it, maybe held up a mirror to society. You're gonna do that by rating this episode on a scale of zero to five deltas as to how strong the messages were and just how Babylon five the messages were delivered.

So what do you got?

Brent: Oh, Jeff, here's what I got is a question of what do you value? Do you value life? Do you value life? Sheridan decides to use the shadow telepaths as weapons, and he gets called on it, or Franklin rather gets called on it. Uh, you're just going to use them. You're using them. You're not respecting them. You're not using them. Now, Franklin was able to go in and reason his way around it. They're dead anyway.

They're, you know, it is almost like the Borg, like, why should you kill the Borg? Why should you, why, why should Picard not have used Hugh as a virus? I mean, th this was that question, right? And you can't buzz me cuz we're past that part. Um, so it, it's that same question now that stands in sharp contrast that is juxtaposed to what General Left Court did. And it's this one line that he says, he says, remember despite knowing who those people are, you've gotta forget that they are targets to be destroyed. Nothing more. That is all he basically told his fleet, told his people, dehumanize them. Take their humanity away because they're nothing but a target. Do not respect life.

Just destroy, destroy, destroy. If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of watching and podcasting about Star Trek, science fiction, or anything else, the bad guys are the ones who disregard life and destroy, destroy, destroy. The good guys are the ones who remember, even in battle, just like Superman.

No. Superman cannot kill the villain. No, he, because he respects life. Like even in the battle, he's going to respect the life of the person across the line from him, even if they don't respect his life. You know, spider-Man, same thing. You don't, the hero doesn't kill people. The bad guys do. To forget life and destroy, destroy, destroy versus Sheridan.

Let's go back to that thing we put a pin in earlier and pull that pin out, you said, and rightly so. Sheridan and the white star fleet are not trying to necessarily destroy, they're doing everything they can before destroying those ships because they, why They respect the life that is there. They know those people.

They haven't forgotten that fact. We can look at the Telepath thing and I think you really got to look at why they were taking those people out. The idea they're dead anyway, like that sucks. But if we sacrifice these few needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Um, it's gonna save 30,000 people, and that sucks. They don't have a choice. Now, Jane Way would've probably not given them the choice either and just done whatever, because she likes to take people's choices away from them and, you know, destroy their lives.

Two Vics, uh, but sorry.

Jeff: It always comes down to two Vics

Brent: always comes back to Jux. It all does that, that would be the, the, the name of the next podcast. It always 

Jeff: It always comes down. 

Brent: and that's, you watch every star fleet show, every star, every sci-fi show, whatever. And it all comes back to the Tu vx conversation. 

Jeff: Every time. 

Brent: That's, there's a podcast for somebody out there to go make. You can have it. Um, my point being the good guys respect life. They don't take the humanity away. They remind you. They, they remember that the bad guys don't. Um, I find this is true in life. Racial ra racism. Racism only works because you dehumanize people, right? As soon as you politics, I'm not even gonna take a side on this one. Politics only works when you dehumanize the voter.

When you dehumanize the person you're voting for and you just look at party cuz they're no longer a person with individual thoughts, ideas, opinions, uh, uh, philosophies on how things should go. It's just the liberals, the conservatives, that's all it is. You know, the Republicans, the Democrats, the labor, the, sorry, my folks in British, I don't know what the other party's called.

The Tori,

Jeff: your people in British?

Brent: my, my People in Britain. My people in Britain. Um, again, You dehumanize 'em, you give them a group, and now all of a sudden they're easy to hate. Okay. Trans, oh, all those trans people out there. Well, I can hate until I meet my friend Robin, who is a person you want to know, frankly, Jeff, you want to know how I got over a lot of my old, my old hillbilly mindsets?

Jeff: Huh?

Brent: I started meeting people.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I, I met a person, um, when I started listening to people's stories, when I started listening to my black friends' stories and not dismissing them. Not being how, well, you gotta know what happened in the video before they started the video, or ah, you know? Yeah. But if you ju No, no, no.

Shut up and listen to their story and take it for what it for, for their experience being what it is.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: That's how. You elevate humanity. That's how you keep humanity on the forefront. Jeff, this is, this is the quintessential Star Trek message. We value life over all else, and we don't forget the humanity. Uh, this is an episode that is about respect for life versus respect for no life.

Was this the intentional message of the writer when he sat down to write? No, I don't think so. But was he very intentional in the idea that they disregarded humanity and just kill, kill, kill, versus this group over here who, Sheridan. I mean, how long has he been going through this whole battle saying, I'm not trying to kill you?

He had a whole Jim Kirk monologue of saying, why doesn't he just surrender? I really don't want to do this. I really don't wanna do this. He, this has been consistent for him all the way through Jeff. I'm giving this one four Delta Furies, and the only reason it loses one is because I don't think it was the intended message of the entire episode, but it was their replete all the way throughout and I could be talked into giving it five.

Jeff: I'm gonna back up here for specifically when it comes to Lida and the, the tapes that they sent onto the ships because, That's a sticky, it's a sticky situation just in general, you know? And, and I appreciate that. At no point has anyone tried to even pretend that it was an okay choice. You know, it's the only choice, you know, is, is kind of how they came down to it.

But when Franklin is justifying it and the bunker in there, he's like, look, they're, they're, these are the people that are beyond help, you know, they were gonna, they were gonna die anyway, so, you know, we, it, it, it's cool or whatever. I am reminded of the T n G episode, the Quality of Life, which is the exo comp, exo comp episode, which is excellent episode, and it culminates where Picard and Laforge are over on this.

This mining tool and it's radiation and it's gonna blow up and they're going to die. They sacrifice themselves. So while the scientists and minors could get off the tool, the only way to potentially, possibly maybe save them is to send these exo comps in to, to do some, do some science stuff to, to get 'em out.

So Riker is like, do it, send them over, disable the thing inside of them that makes them somewhat sentient or have, uh, feelings or, or makes them hu human, you know, alive and, and send 'em over to go save our, our, our, our favorite people. And it took data standing up and saying, look, I know that it's a court marginable offense for me to disobey a direct order, but I have disabled the transporters and I will not disable the thing.

You have to ask them. If they're okay with it, you have to give them the choice. If this was a Star Trek episode, they would've found a way, just like they did in quality of life, to ask and give them a choice if they wanted to go or not. They did that and the exo comps chose to go and they even sacrificed one of their own, uh, to get back like they were, they were true heroes in this case.

The, the, the, the telecasts that went over were heroes, but they were never given a choice. And so I think, I, I agree. Where they hold humanity in the highest esteem possible, compromised it in this moment, in the needs of the menu, outweigh the needs of the few. But there, there had, there, there would have been a mechanism shoot lead that's connecting with them telepathically.

There could have been a way to give them a choice, and I think that could have pushed this to a five Delta Fury episode.

Brent: If they had figured out how to communicate. Um, I, I think the only thing that makes it justifiable that they did not give them the choice was they didn't have a way to communicate

Jeff: But they did, she communicated in exercise of vital powers, like she

Brent: that. Was that communication. No, no, no, no. But was that actual communication, was that sharing thought back and forth, or was that, I heard this voice, I shut it down. He woke up and we were doing this weird Miami mirror thing until I got distracted, and then he

Jeff: That's the beginning of communication.

Brent: Maybe. But 

Jeff: that much more to get there.

Brent: maybe, possibly. I don't know.

I they didn't explore it. The the point being they didn't explore that piece. So,

Jeff: Yeah. And I think that

Brent: right, you're right. I, I think I, that's a good point because the tea thing is the most sticky piece that they didn't get their. Involvement or permission. You know, you know what actually would've made it even a little better for me if they were soldiers.

Jeff: Mm.

Brent: If they were soldiers who had died in or who had uh, uh, something, they were a combatant, where death is a, is a real possibility, you know? Um, yeah, that'd be the only thing that would, that would piece it up for me. Well, Jeff, I did delta furries. You get to rate this one, you get to put this one in our ranking.

Our 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of season four, Babylon five. Jeff, you get to decide, I don't get to argue with you, our current top five ranking. You tell me if this breaks the top five. If so, if not, where is it gonna go? Number one is into the fire. Number two, intersections in real time.

Number three, no surrender, no retreat. Number four, the long night. Number five, atonement. I'm kind of scared for what you're gonna do, Jeff, because even though you told me you loved this episode, I don't think you really did. Where are you putting it?

Jeff: I loved this episode. It has tremendous flaws in it, especially for what it was intended to be. I will assure you of one thing. This will be a top 20 episode. That was, that was really cheeky of me. It will not be a top five episode, I'll tell you that, but it's gonna be right outside. I'm gonna make it the new number six, right above between the darkness and the light.

Um, and, and, and, and I wanna be really clear. This isn't just me like bagging on this episode. Oh, we're doing it at the same time. I'll be, I'll get out. I wanna be really clear. This isn't just me bagging on the episode when I look at that top five, right? This episode with its flaws and even the things that make it great, just doesn't crack what's in that top five. It's an amazing, that's an amazing set of episodes. Season four has been incredible so far, and I, and I think that's the thing, like maybe, maybe season four has been so good that my expectations are so high that I just really wanted more out of this episode than it gave. And I, and I still believe that it's, I want more that it could have given me.

The flaws I see with it were solvable problems that, uh, they, I feel they just really glossed over. But I, I, yeah. I'm gonna make this number six.

Brent: Well, Jeff, I, I'm not allowed to argue with you one way or the other. Um, if I were to rate it, I would probably be looking around, no surrender, no retreat in the long night. It would, it would bump up into the top five and I would hate to lose atonement out of that top five, cuz that's the delin dreaming episode, which was just terrific.

Jeff: And that, that was kind of my, kind of my test. There was just that point of like, holy crud, is this, is this going to get above atonement? I,

Brent: It's, it's tough. And so that's, that's what, like, I, I would, I would be looking at somewhere in there cuz I thought this was just an incredible episode all the way around. But I don't get that, say

Jeff: It's how the game works. And Brent, that's it for end game next week. Isn't that weird? We had an episode called End Game, and now we're gonna talk about the episode that comes next week. But here we are and it's called Rising Star. This is our prediction game that we like to play. So we haven't looked at thumbnails, we haven't read show descriptions, we haven't watched ahead or anything.

Brent just heard the title Rising Star on this one, and now we're gonna guess what we think that the next one's gonna be about. We'll be, uh, judged by each other next week on how we did. So, Brent Pen to paper on this one. What do you think Rising Star is gonna be about?

Brent: All right. I said earlier I don't even need to hear the, the, the title for this one cause I know what this episode's about. However, since hearing the title, I'm gonna keep what I said this episode was about, but I'm gonna add to it.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: All right. What I was gonna say this, you know what this episode's about Sheridan standing before the board of Inquiry, they just told us what was getting ready to happen in this episode.

Right? Um, now this is gonna be in the aftermath of the war. Uh, everybody is free and I think Sheridan is going to be getting more and more and more famous. He is the rising star.

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: Sheridan is the rising star. He's getting more and more famous throughout earth. Uh, he's getting more and more clout. I think he is gonna be offered some new position.

He's gonna be offered a promotion. Is what I think is gonna happen. Uh, Jeff, there is a particular job that has just opened up

Jeff: Right.

Brent: the role of President of Earth, right? Uh, that job has opened up, but probably more than likely a general, uh, some sort of high ranking level. And Sheridan is gonna have to decide between this job and returning to Babbel on five, which of course he's ultimately gonna return to Babbel on five because we still have season five to get through.

Um, so that's gonna be a, also, we're gonna clean up the Marcus of Enva stuff because as you said, we didn't see them breathe their last breath on camera, so they're still alive as we record this. They're, you know what they are, they're in, in Schrodinger's Space Station,

Jeff: They're both alive and dead.

Brent: ER's Med Lab. Like they're either one until we open it up and find out.

Uh, but I think that's exactly what it, what it's gonna be. Sheridan's gonna have to choose between this new position in Babbel on five. And I I think he obviously takes babbel on five. What do you think?

Jeff: Well to uh, parrot some of what you said, he will turn himself in and he will face the inquiry board. I think though he's going to use the inquiry board as a platform to unite all of the world's under one singular banner. The Babylon five banner, if you

Brent: they're already united. They just gotta bring Earth into it now. Right.

Jeff: Pretty much.

Brent: Like Earth is the missing piece,

Jeff: Although I don't know that they're united. I think they were united in a cause,

like what I'm thinking

Brent: because there, because the agreement was just to send the fleet out and, and support of Sheridan. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: And I'm thinking, I'm going back to our season three wrap up where I said that, uh, Sheridan was going to bring everyone together into a alliance called Babylon, and they were gonna take on, I thought that was gonna be what took on the shadow. It was gonna be Earth and the shadows together, but they're parsed out.

So I think that this is where Babylon gets born.

Brent: You're, you're, you are, uh, you're, you're sticking to your guns on that one. Huh?

Jeff: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And

Brent: you're hold, you're holding onto that one.

Jeff: and it's right here. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. We'll find out for sure right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. Listen, if you haven't already, go to patreon.com/babylon five first, that's the number five, the word. First, make sure that you are supporting this show at any level whatsoever, and you will be eligible to win the Babylon five encyclopedia.

The complete hard hardcover set in one massive paper book. We'll be giving this away the season four wrap up in just three weeks from now. So, Brent, until next

Brent: Hey Jeff.

Jeff: Yeah, man. What's up?

Brent: So you know the, this, this war really only started like a couple episodes ago, but you know, if you think about it, tell me if you agree. Hasn't this war really been going on since like the end of season one?

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, like since Santiago died. Yeah, totally.

Brent: Yeah, it seems like they should have just called this episode Infinity War.

Jeff: Wow. Oh man. In Valen's name.