Grail | For the Second Time

[0:33] Welcome to babylon 5 for the second time my name is brent allen and i'm jeff akin brent and i used to be star trek podcasters and then we watched babylon 5 for the first time and that changed everything. This time now we're watching this incredible series for the second time, picking up on all the things that we didn't catch the first time around. But you know what we're still doing? We're still searching for those sci-fi messages we find in the series. You know, those things that give us a hope that things can be better in the future, show us a mirror to society, or just tell us how we can be better folks to each other, how we can be better to each other. Those are the kind of things we're looking for. Heads up to everybody out there. If you have not watched this episode or any future episodes of Babylon five past this point, this is your red alert. This is your warning. This is your get off now, because from this point forward, Jeff and I are full of spoilers. We could talk about anything from any episode of anything within the Babylon five cannon, extra cannon, uh, interviews, issues anything going on whatsoever everything is fair game for us to talk about this time around.

[1:45] If it is your first time uh we highly recommend stopping right now of course you don't have to but we recommend stopping right now and turns out we actually have a whole different show that you guys can go check out right here on the same channel on the same feed we didn't even change feeds go back to our first watch and join us for that and then catch back up with us over here and we'll look forward to seeing you back when you do that but for everybody else spoilers ahead today we're gonna be watching grail for the second time i remember my first time viewing of this not being great i don't remember enjoying this episode very much the the two things that really stand out for me on reflecting on what this episode did for me was david warner being absolutely incredible um.

[2:32] Killing the role, playing opposite a rubber monster and making it entirely, entirely believable. And I remember having feelings about Lanier. What were your early Lanier opinions? I don't remember. Oh, I did not like Lanier. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. I think that's right. I don't remember Lanier being in this episode at all. Oh, God. Not at all. I remember him like gross peanut butter all over it. Like it's just, he gets in all the cracks and doesn't clean up. And it's, yeah. Oh. Whoa. you know here's the thing i know exactly what you're talking about and it makes me like that is cringe that is ick that's so gross oh do you remember what uh your first time was was like what your first reactions were here's the thing jeff i i really learned after last week when we were talking about tko what i remember about an episode i think is entirely colored.

[3:24] By the rest of the series reflecting back on that episode like i don't i don't know that i remember you're going to ask me this. What is this? This is episode 14. So you're going to ask me this 97 more times, 96 more times. And my answer to you is generally going to be, I don't remember what I thought about it when I first saw it, but my impression of the episode right now is I think back on it. Does that make you understand the difference? Well, I don't remember what I originally thought, but my impression of it right now was bad episode, phenomenal guest actor. That's the thing i remember i also am incredibly aware that everything gets dropped and never brought back up again we never see the grail hunter thing again we never see jinxo again i know david warner's character dies but we never see anything this episode we never see the feeder again the only thing that we got out of this episode was basically just drilling down on information that we already know which is what happened to the previous babylon five station I listened to our last episode. Yeah, you did. You want to hear what you actually thought? How was it? How was it? Was it a good, forget the grail.

[4:33] Were Jeff and Brent entertaining? We were fun to listen to. Okay. I feel like we had thoughts on this episode and we had some fun with what we felt on it. Okay. Let's keep that spirit today. I think it's a good idea. You said that this episode is very season one. And your exact quote was, I don't not like it, but I don't like it. You had the idea of instead of us just playing the music and us doing this.

[5:02] For audio listeners, I'm just staring off into nothing while it plays to actually put together like an opening video to play. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. You know, professional YouTubers do that kind of stuff. Uh huh. I really liked the Londo stuff in this episode, but I thought that the soundtrack, I don't remember Londo either. Go ahead. Sorry. I feel like the soundtrack really took away from it. It made it feel like it was a sitcom. Was this a Chris Franke? I think he did everything at this point. Okay. Oh, yeah. I guess they don't really change their score or people. And I said, if this Grail thing doesn't pay off, I'm going to be very upset. Brent, this is me being very upset. You didn't even remember that until you watched or listened back to the episode. Yeah, not at all. No. We spent a tremendous amount of time talking about how great David Warner was. And then we talked about, for a tremendous amount of time, you identifying the knock-a-lean feeder as an adult film prop reject.

[6:14] But actually, even with it being that, you are hilarious.

[6:18] We talked about the fact that they dropped, that we were worried they were going to drop the grail thing. And so we decided that the grail is the end of the personal journey of the seeker. So basically the seeker has some healing to do and the grail is their healing and then they pass it on to a new seeker who then seeks their grail i see okay i talked about my feelings on lanier, okay i called him a sickle fant and said that i really just want to punch him in the face and part of that was we learned right we had a huge huge realization with the minbari in this one and that's that they are from a cast system and there are two casts too that's right thank you to everybody who kept the two in line oh no i remember that comments all the time i was like dude they've only told us about two i don't think it was i don't know if it's this one is this where we started the no spoiler like we started really trying to get serious about the no spoilers stuff it might have been right around i wonder i wonder if this is where we're kind of getting into that because it it it's got to be soon yeah it was either here really going stop either here or legacies maybe because that's when i started getting into stuff is that the one with a girl that's the one with naroon and the girls in that one also yeah okay i think you called out.

[7:38] I can inadvertently a real pattern that we'll see throughout the series but oh yeah we saw we've seen veer take some steps of growth right like you stood up to londo not too long ago and stuff said this one's a few steps backwards.

[7:51] For him and we kind of see that right he takes a couple up and then he kind of steps back that's that's an interesting observation like knowing where veer's path leads him to you know all the way to the emperor ship without a keeper leading him to stabbing cartagia and what in the neck was it his neck it was right in the back it's chelsea right in the heart yeah yeah i mean yeah i was gonna say he's got more than one right yeah interest i just i had oh sorry i wanted to think about that for a moment yeah i think about like you know we see him get better and better Or then we have like, there's remarkable setbacks for him. Like, um, when, when Londo sends them off to min bar, right? Like that's a step back, but then he turns that into, yeah, it turns out he, he was awesome at it and became a freedom railroad train driver guy. Abraham O. Lincone.

[8:39] Uh huh. But all kind of like ramped up to that fifth season episode where he got the sword and went running. And he went fruit ninja. And from there, it just was up and up. He was great. Yeah that's what we talked about interesting in this thing uh you looked at the lurker's guide what did jms have to say yeah jms had quite a bit to say uh do you know the knockling feeder, we were talking about how you know really well done for its time this is the first fully cg character we've had in babylon 5 is it really our guest star david warner his character name is aldous.

[9:12] Gajik something like that something like that uh his first name is actually mira furland's husband's first name really completely a nod to him yeah just keeping it in the family just a nod to him that's cool uh this episode's written by christy davis davidson something like that okay um so this is not a jms episode although he did go into the the episode was running just a little bit short and he he was like this this gives me an opportunity to do something i've always wanted to do which is he insert the the alien scene oh yeah yeah like the court scene yeah yeah yeah he did he did that whole piece so um yeah that one was all jms nia in the chat uh christy marks christy marks there it is yeah there it is uh she did a lot of other like comic book writings and tv shows i think he probably knew her when he was doing like he man and real ghostbusters and that kind of stuff yeah um grail was not jms's favorite episode that's good it was not uh he he blames though his reason is he sees flaws in this episode that nobody else sees.

[10:15] Okay i really want to know elaborate on that like tell me like i want to know yeah you know um but he said he actually gathered some people to do some screenings of this episode and the reactions to it were generally positive but he still was like meh so he also notes though in in talking about the screening reactions that there were some people when they did that for the episode infection that they declared it as the best episode of the season wow so he's like take that for what you will this is what happens when you surround yourself with yes men uh john flynn is the director of photography for the show apparently he was had been an actor at some points in the course of his life so he got to step in and play the character mr flynn as well there was a question on whether or not the feeder is sentient yes did we ever talk about that we interrogated that deeply that's actually why i burned through my star trek references so so here's the thing uh What he says specifically regarding that is neither Sinclair nor anyone else on our side of the story ever heard it speaking. All they knew it was a killer. It was dangerous and it had to be stopped.

[11:19] That's all he said. He did not confirm whether or not it's sentient. He just said from our side of it did not seem sentient. Because it's got a scene where it's like, I need more food. Feed me. Even JMS talking about this episode says this story is fairly self-contained and there's not pretty much anything in here that's related to the arc. He fully confesses that. Yeah, good. I thought this was actually rather neat. It requires a bit of a story, so I can't do this while we're in the middle of the episode.

[11:49] So Jinxo. Jinxo survives all five Babylon stations. And he leaves the station as the new grail seeker guy thinking that all is well. And the name of the ship that he leaves on is the Marie Celeste. JMS chuckles, says this is a bit of perverse humor.

[12:11] He says, to quote, we're a sick bunch, but we're fun. Now, the reason why that works is because the reference to the Marie Celeste is a sailing ship that was found adrift in the sea in 1872 by the crew of the Digratia. Okay. Okay. Yeah. The Celeste crew was completely missing as was its single lifeboat, but there were a bunch of like half eaten meals apparently all over the mess hall, which is just evidence that they all left really, really suddenly.

[12:43] Investigators, however, had found that the captains of the two ships had actually had dinner the night before they both set sail. There was a lot of conjecture to say that the crew of the digratia actually stopped and attacked the marie celeste and just killed everybody on board and threw them in the ocean as you do but they had no evidence to support it so they had to let them go so you know the marie celeste is a ghost ship where nobody survives and now we're going to take jinxo who's leaving the station thinking everything's good and put him on the ghost ship where nobody survives maybe that's why we never got a follow-up to this is because jinxo didn't make it off the marisa list now here's the other one that i found rather interesting because i remember you and i having conversations about this quite a bit over several episodes but i'm curious jeff if we talked about it a lot during this episode did we talk about what a cycle is we did the time unit of Cycles. What's 300 cycles? How long is that? What does that mean? Okay, here we go. At one time, they were trying to work out what a time reference would be on Babylon 5. One of the early things they talked about were cycles, but in fairly short order, they decided against it because it just didn't mean anything.

[13:58] Didn't mean anything. They had nothing. You assume it's the number of times the station spins around, but what does that mean? It doesn't, there's just nothing. However, it wasn't until after Grail had been produced that they decided not to use cycles and they couldn't dub over the references. Oh, okay. They couldn't, you know, they couldn't get the lips, I guess, to work. So they left it in as cycles for this episode, but they never mentioned it again. Well, they've mentioned cycles in past episodes. Yes. So, but it was here that they were like, no more. Stop it. Draw the line here. No further. No further. Jeff, let's get into this episode. That's all. That's all we have to talk about. All right, cool. Let's go watch it. If you're joining us here for the first time, Brent and I are going to watch the episode right here, right now. And you get to join us. If you're on YouTube watching us and you're going to see the cut up kind of reaction to the whole thing. And if you want to see the entire unedited thing with the full episode and all the cool stuff that we do, you know, before, after, and in the middle, a little thing we call 63, 64, and 65, you can get that on our Patreon page, patreon.com slash Babylon 5 first. It's number 5 and the word first. With that, Jeff, let's do it. Let's get in there. Accessing file. Babylon Control, this is Transport Von Braun requesting docking clearance. Von Braun.

[15:20] Acknowledge Babylon Control. I like seeing, seeing, uh, what's her name, Ivanova just sitting there in her chairs, like, swinging. Right. Like, all right, whatever. You're good. Just listen. Once you're inside the station, don't fire your engines. That goes bad. Don't run into anything. Right? I'm surprised to see you here. Aren't you going to greet our distinguished guest? I wasn't informed. You will just have time to change if you hurry. Oh, are we down below? Yeah. Uh-oh. Okay, this guy comes back, though, yeah? Yeah, in third space, I think. Oh, is it third space? Yeah.

[16:06] With that accent, you know, like, there's something really not good about that. As a hillbilly born and bred, I'm a little offended. And I'm completely choosing it. She's Native American, right? Yeah, we talked quite a bit about that. I remember that now, yeah. There it is. Dude, she's about to get slapped in the face with a tentacle.

[16:30] Dude, that's dirty. Oh my god, it's Kosh that's doing it, and Kosh has tentacles. Well, was that his hand that he got slapped with? See, I'm still bothered by the fact he had a hand that they could poison with. At all. It said David Flynn III right under him. That was good timing. So bored. Oh my god. That's good makeup. It just took him away in a spaceship. It's so hard for me not to look at this and think the Asgard. Like, where we go with the Asgard and Stargate versus what they're saying. Like, because they're each putting their spin on the Roswell aliens, right? Do we have the privilege of greeting Aldous Gage? Gage. I did not expect to meet a person of such importance. You know, it's pretty cool he doesn't call her Sakai. Right. Like, he's clearly talking about her as a great council member. Right? Mm-hmm. And he is aware enough not to use that title. I sent information packets ahead to the ambassadors to facilitate my mission when I arrived. Which ambassadors? All of them? Because Sinclair is the Earth ambassador. I think he just means the Mimbari. Well, he said ambassadors are plural.

[17:55] Garibaldi just did what everybody watching this episode did. Yeah. Really yeah this is almost as bad as like hey what's your name arthur pendrigan oh is it but there is nothing about what he is saying that contradicts what i was saying about the grail not actually being a physical thing but being like the journey the journey and and being this healing thing that that they're actually seeking you know um and then finding somebody else and passing it on like yeah absolutely, He totally just pickpocketed in. How did Garibaldi see that? No way he saw that.

[18:38] Doesn't she have a clinical flop on her face? Did you ever read the book Flowers for a Spring? Yeah, way back. It's kind of the thing. Didn't they do the show called Charlie? Was it Charlie? The adaptation of that? What was it? I think maybe we're a new life. This is where we really actually get introduced to the concept of down below. Mary, I'm running, dear. Is it? Okay. Because he just kind of explained why people end up down there. Yeah. And if it is? This soundtrack right here that I'm listening to, or sound effects or whatever this is, is very space mountain-y. It really is. It's very space. It's very, we don't know what the future is going to be like, so let's make it this. Mm-hmm. Put me in jail. Make me clean the methane toilets. I don't care. The methane toilets. Jeff. We got to talk about what the hell a methane toilet is. Methane toilet. Methane is the gas that ekes out your woo-woo. Uh-huh. What is a methane toilet? I guess it's probably what the pochmarai use. It's the only thing I can think of. That's gross. So, yeah. Hey. That's gross. Put this stuff that smells like methane into the methane. Ooh. Ooh. That's gross.

[19:58] Onwards Wellington, if I could have a word. Approach. He's like, sure. Random person with a stick. Right? Come on up. 240 cycles, Leah. Counting down the cycles. It's a good thing to do that right in the middle of the court there. Deuce. Tell me. How did you get this Babylon curse? Don't you get it? No, that's why I'm asking. Do you ever remember what really happened to the first four Babylon stations? I did. I don't have the curse. I am the curse. I remember thinking this was going to be some big revelation. You know, for this being this guy's first IMDB credit, he's not doing awful. No. Here's the thing. I don't think he's playing poorly, right?

[20:49] But David Warner is just... Yeah. I mean, he's playing the character as it was written. How do you figure? Yeah. And I love this. Just reframe that whole thing. Perhaps each time you were exactly with me. I never thought of it like that. That would be $140. I don't accept insurance. Look at it. David Warner just sat there. Didn't move. And just... It killed. Quasi-sentient.

[21:28] In the casino. In the casino. Yeah. I'm almost disappointed this set went away. I'm looking for some information on a life form in Centauri jurisdiction, a knock-a-lean feeder. Yeah, I'm just randomly curious about this race, taking somebody else's drink. There couldn't be. Here? So you made a pretty huge proclamation about Michael O'Hare in this episode.

[21:56] You said, no. Yeah, I said a lot of stuff about Michael O'Hare around this time, and it's not a lot of good. Go ahead. Yeah. Uh, we were, we were bemoaning Sinclair, just not being into it and being wooden and all that. And you're like, you know what?

[22:12] I'm done. I'm just done. It's not that Sinclair is a poorly written character. It is that Michael O'Hare is a bad actor and I'm done talking about it. What a different perspective we have on him on this second viewing. Yeah. You know, like, I think, I think like we talked to, it was last week. He just looked tired, you know, or whatever. and he might be a little uninspired here but by no means would i ever describe him as a bad actor at this point he's not he's not the worst actor in this episode that's for darn sure by far you have been kind beyond my expectations he went through all that to make the drink and he's like no thanks there are two casts of minbari two casts warrior cast and the religious cast that's it no must warrior cast would not understand that's why we thought there were two casts they outright said he literally says there are two casts now you can retcon that and you can be like well yeah there are two casts but there's also a third one and that one does not necessarily you can you can you can squeeze that out but anyone anyone who is watching this for the first time with no further knowledge that's what you got you just heard there's two casts in the minbari culture.

[23:29] And that's the information you got to go on. That's the revelation from this whole episode. The warrior cast and the religious cast. Nia in the chat asked a really poignant question. Who are you going to believe? The show or the fans? She, whoa, whoa. What she just said there? Mm-hmm. Yes. And when they do, it's a terrible thing. That line is entirely different having seen atonement. Mm-hmm. And seeing what happens when the warrior cast and the religious cast look at each other and be like yeah go get them bad things bad things that's got to be what she's talking about in that moment oh 100 yeah absolutely but then does it play it all the way through to when dylan reforms the the great council and the whole government and does so on the back of naroon essentially you know with not like her stepping on him, but, you know, his sacrifice. It was such an extreme disagreement that he actually crossed casts to come to the other side. And then something that we can presume is great came out of it. Well, I forget all he says, but he goes, but my heart is religious cast. Was it really? Or, you know, you just realized that you were being a dillweed. Like that's anyway.

[24:56] Let us hope it never again happens in our lifetime. Yeah your fault the lead is your fault yeah you cast the deciding part that means you're fully responsible dude his face there was amazing like that was great who authorized it i don't care how old the quarantine is fear just looks like he has a severe case of bed right now and i certainly don't care about how much trouble it is for you now you know what's really interesting to me about this scene right here that he swiped to end the call it was so ahead of his time no the pillow on the couch behind him it's so bright and the colors pop off i mean so it's sitting on this deep purple couch with a velvet blanket over the top of it and here's this pillow with bright royal blue a black and white checkered thing some pink roses it looks like in it and maybe a brown kitty cat or dog or i don't know what that is but it's so like like the color is so different than everything else in the shot you know they're like we need a pillow and like well jake sisco's not going to wear this thing let's just make a pillow out of it nor is wesley crusher yeah.

[26:11] I was hoping with a long trade history i'm sorry jeff i don't mean to keep pausing this but ben brings up something in our council chambers that maybe it should have been a feeder that was the monster in grade 17 that would have been bad how would that have changed that episode you think i i don't think it would have outside of then people couldn't be like well But look how dumb the monster looks. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, Ben. That's a good point.

[26:36] Ben also says headcanon pillow is a gift from Garibaldi. That's why he's his dear good friend. Exactly. Between Earth and Centauri, that you would make a good very long time.

[26:50] But eventually I went back to work. But the numbers didn't add up anymore. Nothing made sense anymore. So finally, one day I just left. I love that. He was an accountant. He went back to work and the numbers didn't add up anymore. I love that. It's a good metaphor. Uh-huh. I have been spared. Survivor's guilt. Man, he's saying it while he's whispering. He said he was the last of his car. And now I'm the last. But the numbers add up again, Dolph. I like that. I believe everything he's saying. You know? Mm-hmm. Until such time as both the defendant and the plaintiff can counter some reasonable solution to the problem of jurisdiction, this court will recess for 30 minutes. Oh, bathroom scene, right? Where he gets Jackson? Uh-huh.

[27:48] Right into the methane toilets.

[27:54] I have 82 cycles left. He's got a big A stick. Y'all better leave. And he is a Jedi. I was going to say, you see him about to go Yoda on these days. You care so much for the people on this station. He's setting him up already to bring him on board. You are a fine, good man, Thomas. See yourself for what you are not what others try to make you, that's really great advice uh ambassador no get away from him get away we've got to get out of here he'll eat your mind, that was a bad acting spot right there the way he's going around to all the ambassadors he sent letters to other ambassadors he just didn't send one to Sinclair who is the de facto ambassador He should have sent one to Sinclair. Although I think he doesn't care about talking to Earth. He's searched Earth. He's from Earth. That's fair. That thing's spinning really kind of fast. Uh-huh. It'd be a lot of cycles. That feels like it could take a minute to go around. Yeah. David Warner puts on a clinic in this scene, right? Excuse me. while I whip this out. This man is under my protection. What are you doing? Save yourself!

[29:23] Here we go. So did you and I think this is what Kosh was when we first saw him? No. He's got a third leg. Now, if I remember right, we questioned whether or not this was a Horlon or whether this was... A little bit, but I think we knew it was a feeder. But thought maybe. What we end up doing is saying that this is the prototype for Species 8472. Cool, because of the way it's walking. What's the situation? My parents went away on a week's vacation. And they left the keys to the brand new Porsche with a mind. Well, of course not. He's holding that thing like a staff weapon. Right, yeah. Like he's going to shoot it. We have to get slapped with a tentacle, right? Peter's like, well, I mean, no one's watching as well. Slip this in. Sometimes you need more food, richer food. I feel like I should try that and see if it works.

[30:30] Okay he got shot in the shoulder high up on the shoulder too i would say he got grazed and he took it in the meat of the arm, this makes sense they didn't see it do anything and it was literally setting up to attack so note by jms at this point an early version of the story had actually actually had kosh appearing out of nowhere to scrag the feeder he says okay currently those are words that jms uses on the regular and then he was going to say the line some things we do not allow but they thought it seemed kind of uncosh like on one level and it repeated the death walker finish so yeah good move good call let sinclair be the hero here although i get i get the the poetry of this thing's been posing as kosh for kosh to show up and be like ew also that's my tuesday suit, right yeah i've been looking for that yeah please sanitize it in return i had to wear my wednesday suit on tuesday and i was not happy medical emergency in brown nine I name Thomas, heir and successor, everything I have. Which is like the stick yeah.

[31:48] Wouldn't it be great if the stick was just full of like gold coins right just like oh and you're You're now rich. The staff was actually the grail. Been holding it the whole time.

[32:07] That's a pretty peaceful way to die from a PPG shot. Yeah. It's very calm. I love this. Well, I mean, when you get shot in the shoulder, it's just an easy way out. That's how I want to go out, really, is being shot in the shoulder. Totally. That's the way to do it. Yeah. I wonder how many people die a day on Babylon 5. I mean, it's a town of 250,000 people, right? Yeah. I thought Jinxer was supposed to be the same. So people should be born every day and die every day. Oh, yep. Like, that's a big enough population, right? Yeah, well, it figures. Also, you'd figure you'd have more than just an ombudsman. Right, just a one? Yeah. You should have a whole courthouse system. He looks like he's wearing his dad's suit. He kinda is.

[32:55] Move this on the ground where he rests and crush it. It's a ladybug. We hate them. Here, it is our way with all true seekers. And now you're going to get one. Thank you. If we find your body. If we can salvage anything. Right. I wonder if Delin has gone to bow her head and her head bone hits on. Good luck. She just bowed a little too deeply. For what it's worth, I hope you find it. Hey, take care, Jinxel. Thomas. Oh, look at that. I'm a grown-up now. My name is Thomas. Me llamo Tomas. That sounds really cool, Jeff. Are you sure it's dead? I'm positive. How do you know it's not just resting? Feelings are sneaky, you know. Yeah, it's pretty smeared on the ground, the deck. When they're about to attack, they get quiet. So the key is, as long as you can hear them, as long as there's noise around, you're safe. But if you ever hear nothing... Run. That's interesting. Very interesting. Londo's buying that. Shutting him out.

[34:14] Londo! Oh, here goes the music cue. Time for the ha-ha. Ambassador? It is hilarious. This is pretty hilarious. Open the door, Londo. Ambassador, it's not funny. I like how he has that 90s, like, I'm going to wear an undershirt, but then I'm going to wear the short-sleeved overshirt on top of it. Yes. Long-sleeved undershirt. Toss.

[34:38] You never did tell me what you thought about that curse. What curse? You know, that bit about if he leaves Babylon 5, the same thing that happened to Babylon's 1, 2, 3, and 4 would happen to us. So what? No. If we're going to get all four of them, we're going to blow up and disappear. Nah. Into time. No boom? No boom today. No boom. No boom today. Oh. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. That one line right there justifies this entire episode. Look, somebody's got to have some damn perspective around here. Boom. Sooner or later. Boom. All worth it. The last three hours and 14 minutes. You know, she's not wrong. Sooner or later, even Babylon 5. Yeah. I mean, it was more of a... Yeah. Sorry to draw tears out there, folks. Well, Brett, that's it. We just watched Grail for the second time. Anything you want to touch on that we watched in that?

[35:45] You know, Jeff, back when we watched By Any Means Necessary, we talked about how we would have just rather watched Star Trek than that episode. We also talked quite a bit in our first response of like, I don't ever need to see this episode ever again unless I'm doing a rewatch. That's how I feel about this episode at this point. I honestly came into this episode feeling this way. And i'm if i'm being real honest and i i really wish that i was way higher on the second watch, i'm feeling the same way leaving this episode as i really kind of kind of went into it like i still think it's a fine episode you could put it on at any point david werner is phenomenal you know what i find myself saying coming out of that cool i don't care yeah i just like.

[36:43] How about you i actually got quite a bit more out of it this time did you so there's two sides two sides i'm glad somebody did jeff i think i'm really glad somebody did go ahead i think on one hand the first time viewing was maybe a little more exciting because we kept looking for things right like oh will this be something will this be something and there is stuff they talk about in here that you're like oh that's going to be something it turns out it's not but i think knowing that it's not, this time, a big part of my brain kind of shut off, right? It's like, I'm not going to look for those seeds or whatever. And I think that opened me up to like, I like...

[37:25] One of the things that I often talk about to people, we've talked about it on this program and on our Stargate show as well, but like the Gandhi phrase, right? Be the change that you want to see in the world. You know, that whole thing, like just be the thing. That's what all those guys did. Like his presence alone made a difference in the lives of a lot of people. Thomas, most remarkably. But also, if you remember the very first scene when they said, searching for the grail, and Garibaldi rolls his eyes and then juxtapose, that with the very last scene where he's like, hey, careful with that thing. Treat it with respect. Right, right, right. Right, with the thing. Like, his whole perspective changed. And Warner didn't do anything. He didn't preach nothing. He didn't, you know, talk about, well, the grail this, the grail that. He just was. He simply was, and he changed people because of that. Even the feeder, right? The feeder's like, okay, I can take this little countersuit thing off because you're cool. I liked that part of the show. I liked it.

[38:39] Also, I don't ever want to watch this one again. I'm okay. Yeah. I'm good. I'm good. Did you get any other message stuff out of this one? I i mean there's the the surface level um messages seeking and finding and respect and this that i've got to imagine we covered all of that in the first run yeah and i don't want to rehash all that like it like everything everything that this episode is saying is so right there in front of you yeah you uh you gave us one three deltas on the first uh the first go yeah really focused on how uh aldous's whole thing was to lift the people around him yeah you know and i think yeah that's what we saw here right we'd you know see yourself for what you are not who they think you are and uh the line he said you know my brother's burden is my own yeah whole whole thing there i gave it one delta um i said yeah i had some really great stuff about mentorship in it but no real message, and I feel about the same like yeah there's that stuff in there but it's not a message it's just the story.

[39:48] I'm going to stand by my three Delta rating on that. Cause I do like, I do think there was a lot of messages. Were they intentional on the part of the writer or were they just contained within the story? I couldn't really tell you. I don't know. I am just fully confident. We tackled them all already. Yeah. Well, we are creating the absolutely definitive and objectively correct ranking of the second time viewing of Babylon five. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and i'm gonna read our bottom five for us uh we have in number 14 last place right now survivors 13 is soul hunter 12 is infection number 11 is mind war and number 10 is midnight on the firing line brent where are you putting grail you know jeff you're right to start at the bottom instead of the top for this particular group so here's the question here's the old litmus test here which episode would i rather watch again yeah all right let's start at the bottom and work our way up right survivors would i watch david werner or leanna kimmerer again i'm gonna watch david werner again i would take this episode over survivors okay soul hunter.

[41:10] I'm stopping you're thinking because let me tell you what when we watch soul hunter the second time around knowing what we know now so there's so much more in soul hunter than we ever knew, so much more in soul hunter than we ever knew is it still a great watch, I think it's better than we remember. And this episode is exactly what I remembered it being Jeff for me right now.

[41:39] Recency bias being not even a thing an honest objective and correct assessment of this right immutable i would rather watch soul hunter again so this is our new number 14 pushing survivors down to 15 infection and soul hunter are higher than the david werner episode wow wow, what a change from our first time ranking where where do you think we ranked this uh first time this had to be way higher because in you know what it was i think we had the david werner glasses on yeah you know you know what happened jeff okay let's let's let's just say this you and i have a lot of respect for david werner yes you you and i as two star trek dudes particularly but david werner's so good and we have a nostalgia with him we look at this episode the way that some of the folks out there look at late delivery from avalon fair right they see michael york they they saw michael york in another role they absolutely loved him in and they put these rose-colored glasses on over that episode yeah i'm calling it out you and i i think the first time around we saw this episode but then we saw david warner and we're like yeah but he just made the episode so much better and the episode i do think has messages contained in it although very surface level so i could see i'm gonna guess okay you asked me to guess i'm gonna say it was number.

[43:09] 11 not bad number 12 number 12 number 12 okay yeah it was it was above infection and soul hunter, mind war survivors midnight on the firing line born to the purple and parliament of dreams, so we we very like even from the stuff we watched so far we had it very high up yeah um now but but think of the switch here between this and by any means necessary we came out of the first watch of by any means necessary going i never have to see that episode again i come out of it now going i could watch that episode again yeah yeah by any means necessary was number 11 for us so they were right next to each other i also didn't like signs importance a ton like it was fine i didn't like it a ton the first time we saw it and it's like our current number one yeah so yeah and it ended at number eight for us the s&p did all right brent well that's it for grail next week we're going to be watching eyes for the second time do you brent remember your prediction for eyes, um yeah let's see here i said it was going to be a love story.

[44:21] This is like taylor swift this is the taylor swift episode of season one is what it is it's a love story uh somebody's going to be up to something and um basically it's like they're going to see somebody like the first person walking on the station or something like that and like the first person they see they're going to fall in love because they take a potion or a.

[44:41] Alien thing that just does whatever and they suddenly fall in love or i don't know they crack out of an egg and the first person they see they latch on to and you know eventually you go on to become like a really badass x-men so i'm gonna totally like just watch whoever the first person is on the station probably ben zane and be like there's the love interest oh my word this is the Ben Zane episode and the the the Jeffrey Combs episode yeah yeah he's not great in this but still I gotta tell you I am really looking forward to watching this one for the second time no you're not just because like it was so over the top terrible the first time that like it's either gonna be a fun ride or it's just gonna be so bad either way I think we're gonna enjoy it my My prediction was that it was going to be an espionage episode. I think my exact phrasing was someone will be doing some spying on something. Very specific. Yeah. Someone. I used to be doing some spying on something for some reason. And maybe the message was self-destruct. Possibly. I used to be so much better at these general predictions. Had that kind of nailed. Yeah.

[45:59] Next week, we get to watch this memorable, if nothing else, you can say this is absolutely a memorable episode. We're going to watch it here next week. I sure hope you're here with us again, just like this week. If you are joining us on YouTube, please make sure you're subscribed. You've hit the bell so you see all the stuff that comes out. Comment down below and hit that little thumbs up like button. If you're on a podcasting app, hit the stars or the recommend or the thumbs up, whatever is on there. And if you're able to write a review, we sure love reading and sharing those. So go ahead and write a review also. If you're watching this on our Patreon, thank you for being here. We could not be doing this without you. So thank you so much. And a special shout out to our Council Chambers tier of Patreon that join us for our recordings and have been participating along with us here today. It's great to have you.

[46:52] And so with that, we'll see you here next week. It's been great to have you. Hey, Jeff. Yeah. what's up right what's going on hey so you know we do this end of the show joke thing, well i've i've thought of a way we can make it better oh thank god how um we need we need to call david werner call his agent whatever and get him to come do some of these with us write him for us teach us how to act him a little bit better he would elevate this whole thing for us He totally would, but Brent, David Warner passed away. What? Yeah, like three years ago. Oh, no.

[47:31] Did we know? Yeah, it happened during our first watch. We recorded this episode, and we even had to put a little thing at the beginning that, hey, we recorded this before we found out he passed away. So we're talking about him like he's alive. So like as we were recording, he passed away. Man, that's heavy. Well, R.I.P. David Werner. Indeed. Oh, man.

[48:02] Music. This one did not go the way I thought it would when I first started writing it.

[48:04] I mean, we're not some deep space franchise. This station is about something.