Hunter, Prey

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

And

Brent: I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching .

Jeff: We did it now I'm gonna have to cut this out anyway, but he was doing the thing. Yeah, I was doing the thing.

Brent: I think, Hey, here's the other thing. When you screw up, don't start where you stopped. Go back to the beginning of your sentence. And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time.

We are two veteran Star Trek podcasters who decided to watch Babylon five for the very first time so that we could search for those Star Trek like messages within a series that we understand that our favorite show has ripped off. And we're trying to find out do we actually like this series as much as we

Jeff: like our other one?

And while this is not a podcast about Star Trek, we are Star Trek podcasters and fans. So there's a good chance that those references are gonna pop in. So we play the rule of three and that says we get three references, a piece that we can make to Star Trek. And that is it. That's it. Three. Three. One of those three,

Brent: no substitutions, exchanges are refund.

We also make a Disney reference here and there, which I

Jeff: love. I am pretty darn proud of a lot of the references we make. Sometimes some Disney stuff, right? We get some, a lot of Harry Potter that makes it way in

Brent: Harry Potter we got, we got good Princess Bride ones last week. Mm-hmm .

Jeff: You get a lot of Stargate ones in that.

I sit there and I nod my call. Don't even know the names. Those,

Brent: those might be my favorite references just because I know you have no idea, but you do the mass effect ones that I sit there and I like the chair is reversed cause I'm like, Yep, sure. Good for you. That's great . I'm glad they out there. Know what you're talking about

Jeff: cuz I don't.

Well I think people are digging them and then we've got some evidence. Brent, I've got a five star review. Oh yes. This one from Apple Podcasts Club Pro 70 says, I'm so glad I found this podcast. I re-watched this series every year, so it's refreshing to have a first timer's point of view after all this time.

As big Star Trek fans, I was worried they were simply gonna compare the two shows all the time. But they give insightful opinions and theories that demonstrate they're invested in the show and have really come to embrace the differences as well as the similarities. Thank you guys for helping me relive when I watched Babylon five for the first time.

You're very

Brent: welcome Club Pro and welcome to the

Jeff: community. I have another five star review. Oh yes. Also from Apple Podcasts. And I do not expect you to repeat, uh, this name when, uh, when we get there cuz I don't know if I'm gonna, It's, um, I O G d mj Okay. Yeah. I o g Dmj says, Really enjoying this podcast.

It's fascinating to see their theories and ideas of the show change the more they. I'm especially interested and a bit afraid to see how they react to all of the changes that are coming here As season two progresses, as both a heavy track fan and a B five fan, it's wonderful to see more fans of one series branching out to see what the other has to offer.

Some is better, some not, but the enjoyment of both can really lead to some great understandings of what makes great sci-fi. Keep up the great work. You have a dedicated viewer here,

Brent: Jeff. We're 13 episodes into season two. Are you telling me we're still catching up on reviews that we got from our season one wrap up for the giveaway?

Well, they

Jeff: said that as we're, I don't think, I think we're through those. Oh we are? Okay. Okay. I think cuz they said as season two progresses, so I'm guessing this is okay. All right, cool. Um, think I think , we got a lot. It was great. We got a lot. You got a lot back there. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Keep 'em coming.

We'll get, we'll get to yours here

Brent: soon. Promise. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna get to 'em. Well, I O D I O G D mj,

Jeff: look at you. That was great.

Brent: Um, talks about theories changing. Jeff and I O G D, mj. Buckle in cuz I've got a brand new theory. Oh,

Jeff: here we can. Oh, oh yeah, . I've got one more. This one is a message through our website, Babylon five first.com.

It's the number five, the word first.com. And this is from, we have a contact form on there you can send to us. If you don't wanna send us an email direct, which is Babylon five first@gmail.com. But either way, you can do like Iris and send us a message. Iris says, A few weeks ago I watched Babylon five, the gathering for the first time in a long time.

Oh, I saw this series back in the nineties. I was, and still am a huge fan of this show. Then I discovered your podcast and I think you are great. Aw, that's pretty cool. We think you're great. I watch every episode with you and it's fun to see how you see things. It's like going back in a time when I was a 15 year old girl, an eagerly awaiting, Sorry, I was trying to laugh too, cuz I remember when I was a 15 year old girl,

It reminds me of those days as a school child. It's like going back in time to when I was a 15 year old girl and eagerly awaiting each new episode. I was, uh, living in Germany at the time in the series. Only aired a year after it aired in the US and that was awful. I hope you will learn to love Babylon five as much as I do.

In no other series have I taken the characters so much to my heart, each in their own special way. Keep it up. I'm looking forward to it.

Brent: I missed this person's name. What was their name? Iris. Iris. Hello, Iris. Um, I just a couple of things. One, thank you for writing in because Jeff and I, we can see the demographics of our listener base.

And one place we would love to see more and more people join us is people who are, are female. We have a lot of males that, that watch this show. What's up dudes? We, we are inclusive. Like we love everybody. Right? Jeff? Like, totally like, so thank you, uh, Iris for sending something in. You mentioned watching along with us.

I have done this with a couple of other podcasts that I listen to. Like I'll try to watch like the weekly episode that they're going through or I've done a couple that are like kind of book clubs and podcast forum where like we read a chapter a week or two chapters a week trying to read along and, and keep up with the show.

Can actually, like, that's hard. Like it's hard one not to just like binge it and, and push all the way through it. But then like if you get an episode or two behind, you're like, uh, and then, and then sometimes it can like pile up because it just starts seeming insurmountable. Uh, so if you are keeping up, Thank you.

And that's awesome. If you feel like you're falling behind though, uh, this is just like, this is like Brent give out advice tonight. , Right. So here's my advice. Don't worry about watching along with us. Just, just pick up wherever we are. Like if you have to skip a couple episodes, skip a couple episodes, you get it down week, go back and listen to one of the old, old ones because it's tough.

I, I'm just saying. I know it's tough. If you can keep up that pace, awesome. Keep doing. I just know how hard it

Jeff: is. . Well, the challenge here is waiting a week to watch the next step is like, this is almost the opposite. I know. It kills us. Like every time, how many times have one of us texted the other and be like, Can we just do one early?

Can we just keep, like, I gotta get to the next episode. I gotta see what happens.

Brent: Well Jeff, you know, along with, uh, our rule of three game that we play, uh, there is another game that we like to play where at the end of the show, we try to guess what the next week's episode is gonna

Jeff: be. Brent. Brent. Hold on. I, Okay. I've been holding this for a little bit. Um, I don't know if I'm gonna cut this out or not.

Um, so we do play a game at the end of the show, Uhhuh. We also do another thing at the end of the show. And frankly, it, I, I'm kind of sick of it. Um, I'm okay. I'm not, I'm not cool with you cutting me off all the. So like, really, I say until next time, and I'm supposed to say peace and long life, Uhhuh. . That's it.

That's the whole thing. But every time you interrupt me, and frankly I'm not, I'm, I'm kind of not okay with it. I thought that was the

Brent: thing that we just established though. Like that's the bit, I don't

Jeff: like it. Okay.

Brent: Okay. Uh,

Jeff: sorry. I mean, it's just, I don't know. I just feel like a jerk every single time it happens.

And honestly it's kind of, I don't know. It's, it's fine. You too. This

Brent: just got awkward . Um, Jeff, I'm sorry buddy. I real, uh, I Okay. I, I hear what you're saying. I receive it. I apologize for places where you felt like a jerk. I

Jeff: will not do it again. I appreciate that. It's, and I didn't, I didn't know if I wanted to bring it up, but honestly it's just been really bugging me for like a couple of weeks and.

So I appreciate that. Thank you. I'll let you, uh, let you pick it up. Might want to

Brent: edit that outta the podcast, but we don't edit YouTube, so

Jeff: there you go. Here you go. So, and this is what we do, right? This is part of being co-host. We work through these things. There you go.

Brent: Uh, okay, cool. Uh, hey Jeff, you know, right along with our game of three, uh, there's another game we like to play at the end of the episode where we try to guess what next week's episode is gonna be about based on the title alone, Not having watched it before, not having read any synopsis, really not even having looked at in thumbnails or anything like that.

And this is the spot of the show where we get to look back on last week and see what we predicted for this week and just see if we got close or right. So, Jeff. What did you say Hunter Prey was gonna be about? Sure.

Jeff: Didn't get as close as you, I thought it was gonna be about like they're gonna bring, um, like human hunting, like island of Dr.

Morrow kind of stuff and bring that onto Babylon. Five. That you, What do you mean you

Brent: didn't get close, Jeff? That was like the whole secondary plot to the know what episode. I

Jeff: guess you're right. I, I totally thought about it as like for sport, but really they totally were just hunting a, that's literally what they were

Brent: doing

Jeff: with the other side.

Wow. I didn't, I guess I was just so reading it as just like, you know, dudes like, like scoping somebody out or whatever that I didn't even, didn't even think of way they had little scanners trying to scope Right, I know

Brent: while they're in the middle of surgery.

Jeff: Yeah. And then like completely inappropriate, grabbing people by their faces.

Cuz you have to do that to scan them apparently. Right. But yeah. Right. I already kind of said it, but what, uh, what did you guess?

Brent: Well, you got half of it, Jeff. I got the other half . I said, Kosh episode, it's about time. And my, my reasoning for that really is just if we go by what we saw in season one, and we carry that through, Kosh just sort of shows up every couple of seasons and like, just sorta, uh, uh, you know, back hands, everybody, he drops a mic.

He, he just sort of does what he needs to do. And one, we need to start getting to know a little bit more about Kaha. And we've said that since the gathering, right? Uh, because remember like that episode, that was the pilot episode, right? Mm-hmm. like the whole, he was the McGuffin of the entire show and he got a minute and a half of screen time, like

Jeff: and then like a minute and a half over the next six episodes, right?

Brent: Right. So I said, I said Kosh, um, I wasn't exactly sure in what form that would take place, but I mean, Pardon me while I put my crown back on , Right as the king of predictions

Jeff: because, Woo. That's pretty good. Pretty good. And Sheridan spoke for all of us in this when he said, It's about time we learn about Ambassador Kosh.

Yeah. Well, Jeff agreed.

Brent: Well, Jeff, it is about time to learn about this episode for those who haven't watched or who haven't watched it in a while, or maybe you're trying to watch along with us, but you missed it. Looking at you there. Isis. Hopefully you didn't miss it. Iris. Jeff. Iris. Iris. Sorry. Iris. Jeff, tell us what Hunter prey was about.

Jeff: The rats are jumping off the ship and the cracks are starting to show for all the presidents. At least a little. The president's personal physician and the keeper of a lot of potentially damning information, Dr. Jacobs has taken off and is on the lamb. It's a big enough deal that they've sent out a powerful chapter of Earth Force Special Intelligence, a chapter familiar with those on the lamb.

They've sent out the head of Lambda, Lambda, Lambda, Derek Cranston, Sheridan and Garabaldi agree to put the Babel on five security force on the case right away, but they're not, But they're also not sure all is on the up and up. They go for a walk to talk about it and Sheridan notices a red ribbon tied to the nineties decorations on the wall.

Sheridan heads off for an almost forgotten meeting after he sees. Sheridan meets with someone apparently sent from General Hag and while she has important info for Sheridan, it's clear that she hasn't quite finished her stint in acting school before. She heads off to CSI Miami in a few years. Well, she shares that Jacobs has evidence and can testify that President Clark now President Clark wasn't actually sick when he left Earth Force One before it blew up killing.

Then President Santiago, he doesn't have enough info to take Clark down on his own, but he's an important part of the puzzle. Sheridan updates Garabaldi with his info, so Garabaldi decides to run his own investigation as well. Cranston and B five Security are tearing through the station trying to find Jacobs.

They have these little scanners that might find them cuz all Earth Force big shots have a tracker implanted in them. Well, Gar. Well, Gar Baldy asked Franklin to help him out because Jacobs was one of his professors back at Harvard. Franklin is true to who he is though and refuses to believe that Jacobs would ever turn on Earth force because reasons.

But like why would Franklin ever bother believing anything that someone else made up? I mean, even if every bit of evidence points to it, why would he let anything sway his already made up mind?

But while all this is going on, Sheridan and Avan ponder the vlan, specifically KO's ship. Sheridan is in awe of it. He thinks it's a marvel of engineering, putting the Voor on at least a thousand years ahead of them technologically, he decides in that moment he's gonna crack the great egg that is Kosh.

Jacobs is bumbling around the station. He's been on stems for days. He tells everyone that he meets how much he loves, how much he loves Sand Dimus. Right. So crates, anybody? Okay. Well he ends up getting kidnapped by a big gangster dude in his life. I'm sorry.

Brent: I'm sorry. . Is

Jeff: that the guy? That's the guy that's So you was so Crate.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: So awesome. Oh my gosh. Best guest stars ever in this thing. Speaking up. Gangster dude. Max calls up Cranston and wants 10,000 credits for the doctor and his data. Crystal Cranson agrees and Max replies. Oh, okay. But Gar Baldi in Franklin Track, Jacobs down and are working to smuggle him out. Max comes back ready to get the package and pick up a lot less credits than he probably could've ransom to Doctor for.

But all he finds is a fired up garabaldi in the earlier fray where they freed Jacobs, he got stabbed in the arm and he is not happy. He fires off a few PPG shots. Max needs a new pair of pants, and then he hands over the data Crystal, Hey, they've got everything they need now. How to get the doctor off the station?

Sheridan runs into Kosh and blows it. . It's like he built up all that courage, you know, to talk to the super cute girl in school. And then he makes a complete fool of himself. Comes on way too strong not to be deterred, though he finds Kosh again. Actually, Kosh finds him and this time he makes more of a connection.

Trying to figure out why Ksh came to him in his vision on that alien ship a few episodes ago. Kash says that no one is ready to see what he looks like yet, and he says that he's going to help Sheridan understand himself so that he. Can fight legends. Oh, and one other kind of maybe sort of important thing.

Turns out KO's ship is organic. Yeah, like way back in infection. Franklin's other professor body totally guessed right. The von do use organic tech. For some reason, Kash allows his ship to be used to smuggle Jacobs away from the station long enough for Cranston to finish his investigation and look like a jerk.

Cranston leaves, Jacobs comes back and says the ship was singing to him. Sharid hands the data crystal over to the CSI officer and I imagine maybe, probably Jacobs got whisked away to somewhere safe. Brent, what were your first impressions of hunter prey? Pardon me?

Brent: While I, uh, adjust my crown here. Organic Tech, you say.

A bit of that. Yes. I believe that was, was that last week or two weeks ago? I don't

Jeff: remember. Very recently. Yep. Mm-hmm. ,

Brent: It was very recently. Um,

Jeff, I don't know how you felt about this episode. I loved this episode. Really, this was a great episode for a season that has been marked mostly by down episodes for us. Both. This one, this one's a high point. Like this is easily a a, you know, this is definitely a top fiver for me, maybe even a top three er.

Um, I had so much fun with this episode, the whole cost stuff. Diving into it, it didn't necessarily answer well, it did answer some questions. Mm-hmm. , but those questions led to more questions, which again, you're moving the ball down the field. I'm not circling around the same, What the heck is ko? Drain more, like we're seeing more of him and we're getting more of, of, of these pieces.

And as you said, you said so beautifully. Sheridan spoke for all of us when he said, it's about time for this to change, you know? Um, and then in the whole, the whole, I'm gonna call it, there's a plot and then a plot two. Mm-hmm. , like the second alo with, um, Jacobs and everybody running around. I mean, it's a hide and seek.

It's a man hunt. It was well done. It was action oriented. It was fun. I mean, not for Jacobs, but like as a viewer, you know, you're, you're pulling for 'em. I loved the, I loved the group that came together to rescue him between Garra, Baldy and Franklin and, and you know, Sheridan Andon working their side of it.

I loved the, the re entrance of. Section 31 person, you know? There you go. Uh, I love, I loved that coming back like, Hey, you're here and this is what's really going on, because it's exactly what we were all thinking, and I'm glad they just said it and confirmed it and were like, Let's put you on the right path of what this is.

So I quite enjoyed this episode. I I, there, I think we've got a lot to talk about throughout the course of this episode. A lot of like, What the heck is this? What the heck is that, Jeff? I've got my corkboard with a couple of dangling red strings that I'm ready to tie off here and make some connections for you, at least as far as what I can tell.

And, uh, yeah, that's how I felt about this episode. I'm really high on this episode. How about you?

Jeff: I like this episode. I'm not nearly as high on it as you are though. Really? Yeah. Like it was really, it was okay I think, and Okay. I think for me, This isn't fair. Right. I'm sure like the story was great. Mm-hmm.

I'm so excited. So excited. We got some Kosh, I mean, and just some insight into the lon Long overdue. Yeah. And even though it's still like cryptic, you know, it's still very cautious, everything he said. Mm-hmm. , there's a path forward and I have some red yarn to add to your border. Maybe it's the same, just based on so much of the stuff that, that Kosh said.

Yeah. I also have a lot of questions about like how much of it is stuff they're having to repurpose from Sinclair to Sheridan and how they're kind of gonna maneuver around that. Yeah. But I'm sure it will be, It will be great. Um, the Jacob stuff was to me, I mean, it was fun a little bit, but there. Some holes.

I think Babylon five security looked pretty inept in a lot of spots doing what they were doing. And, and it's just like, okay, I'm glad it confirmed, you know, pretty much what we all already knew. But also it was, it was a lot of screen time to do that. And what, And so the things that killed it for me overall though, were the, the, the acting just, I couldn't, I couldn't with the guest acting, um, the Socrates dude, just, there's a reason that they didn't have him speak a lot in Bill and Ted's, I think.

Oh, oh, yeah. He just, I mean, I didn't buy, He looked like a bumbling idiot. It's like he'd never been out in the real world before. It's like he lived his whole life, you know, and like in an asylum and just got out and was like, How do I communicate with a shopkeeper? And I, and I get it, he was on stems, you know, the whole time, but I just didn't buy it.

The

Brent: see that, I mean, just, just to respond to. I didn't notice that at all. Really? Like, versus Leonna? Kimmer. Remember her? Oh yeah.

Jeff: I'll never forget Leon.

Brent: Yeah. Like every word she spoke, you're like, are you reading this off a cue card? You are so stiff. This is not, I didn't pick that up on this guy at all.

Really? Then you had the opposite of Jinx, so, Right. Mm-hmm. , who's like, so overplaying it or, or, or what's the, the dude with the scar

Jeff: on his face. Oh my, um, Ben Zane. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Like, they're so overplaying it like that, like this guy was just, he was going through his lines and he was on Stems like, it, it didn't it.

I didn't catch that. I might the next time I watch it, but I, I was fine with it. I thought he was

Jeff: great. It's definitely a step up from anything in the first season. Guess, you know? So like David Warner, you know, this is a step up from a lot of things. Second season? Even in the second season. Yeah. The, um, the, the General Hague girl, the one who goes on to be in the CSI Miami in a while.

Like, Oh, I mean, just, I, I think between her and then the, the Cranston guy, they, they just, anyone who comes from Earth Force at this point mm-hmm. is just so, such an archetype, you know, like, I'm here because you're gonna win for the good guys and it's very important that we do these things. Shera did, and for like her, she was so wooden and stiff, and then for him to be Bruce Box Lightner, you know, and be sharid and be cool, he is like, Wait, you, It's a Mayo with that too.

Like the, the whole jing between their styles just didn't, Yeah. Didn't work for me. But the thing that killed, like immediately set me on the wrong path for this whole episode. Mm-hmm. is one of the first lines in the whole thing. Sheridan and Avan walking towards CA's ship. Yeah. And he's like, It's beautiful.

It's amazing. And on my screen, , I don't know if it's just cuz they upscaled it or what, but I literally have like this yellow, green black blur that Yeah, I mean, I get it. It was they, you're acting but

Brent: Oh yeah. I mean clearly they're in a green screen. Clearly they tried to CG this. Mm-hmm. pre toy story.

Yeah. You know, like, we're not quite there yet. This is a shoestring budget on

Jeff: tv. Now. Somebody out there is saying these were the first people to put CG on tv. That's a big deal. You know? You know what? There's a reason no one else had done it. . Yeah. It wasn't ready for prime time. They've done a great job babble on five station looks better, Star Furies look amazing.

The ships that are coming. But like for an up close intimate scene like that, all the way to where it like kind of morphed into writing. Yeah. Not ready. Not

Brent: ready. Yes. It. . It really is one of those. Cause didn't they say that they went in and remastered the effects and stuff? I think so. I think

Jeff: so.

Brent: They must have missed this one because there's a lot of the effects that are actually really well done.

Mm-hmm. , you're right. I'll give it to you. This, I mean, this one looked like they were standing in a green screen room. Yeah. The whole way. It, it really did. It didn't take me out of the episode. Like, because I think in my head I'm like, okay, this is nineties. Like in my head, I just knew that, And you know what it is like you forgive that sort of stuff when you're as old as we are.

Right? Like, Yeah. You know, our parents forgave all the styrofoam rocks that fell on, on, on

Jeff: anything that happened.

Brent: Everybody back in the day and you know, the old gun smoke and the poo poo, you're like, That's not what a gun sounds like. Like they forgave all that. So we're gonna forgive, or I can forgive really shot.

CGI

Jeff: effects. Yeah. It just, I dunno, It pulled me out and it made it hard for me to, to get, and especially when that ship was such a key part to the resolution of everything, it's like mm-hmm. , ah, God, it just doesn't look good. And I know it's not that it doesn't, not even that it doesn't look good, but it's not even up to the caliber of the other c

Brent: around it.

So, I mean, I think that might have missed that one in there. . Yeah. Their upscale. Can we talk about the ship? Yeah. I mean, and, and I think honestly just everything having to do with Kosh. So there's saying we gotta find out more about Kosh. Here's the ship. He's only taken it out two or three times since he's been on the station.

That's just to go home. They don't know what's going on with it. Um,

I wrote this, Jeff. Okay. I, I'm, I paused the video and I wa and I wrote this down during this opening scene. I wanna read my notes to you. Okay. Here's what I wrote. I said last week, maybe two weeks ago, I don't remember. I said that the shadows are this organic tech thing that we saw from season one, that episode infection, and we've seen them be super powerful and take out civilizations in a blink of an eye just gone, right?

We've also seen Kosh tell Morden, these ones aren't for you as if they're speaking like equals, right? We've also seen Ksh being super powerful, like what he did with Death Walker, where just a swat of his hand obliterated that person, right? Mm-hmm. Kosh operates as if he is above everyone. Right? Get out your red string, Jeff.

Okay, Here we go. Here we go. You ready? What if, what if the VLAN and the shadows are both part of the organic tech thing? What if they are both. Two sides of one coin. What if they are the prophets and the Paul Rath? Oh

Jeff: wow.

I have the same piece of yarn. Yeah. Where I didn't go that far. Mine was just, they are from the same group, the same everything. One splintered towards the side of evil, one splinter to the side of what we're assuming is good. Right. Right. Because I think what, what Babylon five has taught me, it's not a binary good or evil sort of a thing.

So it's like shadows appear to be pretty evil at this point. Like I, I'm not ready to say that KO is good mm-hmm. yet, but he's clearly not as evil. He's not as chaotic. Evil, Yes. As the shadows are.

Brent: Right. I, by the way, I could have chosen to not use profits and power reef to compare this. There is a great Stargate reference I could have used.

That because you are going to go into this, I'm not going to say it now because I don't want it cycling back in your head later on. Um, but there is, there is, uh, uh, for those who have watched Stargate think the bad guys from seasons nine and 10, you know exactly who I'm talking about. How many

Jeff: seasons of Stargate

Brent: are there?

There are 10 seasons of SG one. Holy crap. There are five seasons of Atlantis and there are two seasons of, um, Stargate Universe. All worth watching.

Jeff: Has the ink dried on the contract for us to do that one. That's a lot of TV . That's a

Brent: lot of tv. That'll be, I know, that's, that's, I, we've said that show's gonna have to be different than the way we do this one.

Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. So I think, you know, with, with co. And the ship. I was, um, I got the impression, so he was hiding in the back while Sheridan Andana were talking and he came out and like, they spoke like he said, you know, and then it like, put writing on there, Uhhuh. I thought that was really inter, I, I guess I would've imagined there'd be more of a telepathic link or some sort of a technological link between them that seemed pretty low, a lot more low tech than I would've expected.

Mm-hmm. , I dunno if that hit you in any

Brent: way. I,

I wasn't sure what he was communicating with. Was he communicating with the ship? Was this people back home? But regardless, like,

I don't know, because what I noticed out of that was there was a point when Ksh bowed his head, Yeah. Mm-hmm. , okay, I serve you. Like, Yes, my Lord, I will do that. Or whatever it said, and it's got me wondering what's, what's up with that? It's pretty, That was, that was the thing that stood out to me

Jeff: was like, did we always, Who's over?

Gosh, we always think of the, the, I'll say humanoid creature controlling the ship, but what if the ships are the ones who co-opted the humanoid people? Well, the tech

Brent: itself, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that, uh, uh, because KO is maybe an energy based life form or something. That's my best guess is KO is an energy based life form.

What if,

Jeff: what if Kash is the ship and like the encounter suit, like their one thing and that writing piece was maybe, like you said, him, like some communicate back and forth to the home world or so. Maybe, maybe not. Cuz like, uh, what was his name? Dr. Kyle saw him. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know

Brent: maybe because I mean, No, Dr.

Kyle saw Kosh in his full glory, which is what we assumedly saw right before she went into her little chrysalis cocoon

Jeff: thing. And then Ksh, very bluntly told Sheridan, You are not ready to see. No one here is ready to see what I am. Dylan is the exception to the rule apparently. And

Brent: I want to get to that, but we're gonna save that one for a little bit.

Uh, so with Kosh, so what did we learn? Let's just, let's just throw that out. What did we get from Kosh out of this episode? There's the ship. Mm-hmm. , they confirmed for us later on it is organic tech. From that episode infection, there was another reference to infection. Mm-hmm. from Gar Baldy talking to Franklin where he is like the.

I forget, I forget what they called it.

Jeff: The, it say, the last time one of your doctor friends came on here, they blasted up the whole station, right? For

Brent: a Carin something. Was it a Carrin? A carrin,

Jeff: I think.

Brent: Yeah. With the car technology was like, Hey, that's a, that's that organic tech thing. So they seeded that for us.

Um, so KO uses organic tech. We know that. We know, we know from infection. That's a Karin, not vlan,

Jeff: right? Well, we know the Karins used it. It might not be a Karin technology, but I think the Carns are a lost race. And so like, yes, it's, there's a whole time.

Brent: I'm sorry Jeff, let me, hold on just a sec to everyone out there watching, Please don't clarify what Jeff and I are getting right or wrong in this moment.

Like if you're typing that comment, Stop, stop. , like stop. Don't clarify it. This is a part of the process of being in this episode right here. Okay. It's cool. You be like, Oh, well back in season one you missed all of the No, no, no. That's a part of the rewatch when we go get that, we'll pick up with that.

Yeah. I let us, let us pull threads and just enjoy laughing at us. Whether we're right or wrong,

Jeff: like maybe the Acars way back were part of the split between the shadows and the VO or there's the shadows, the VO and the

Brent: acars. And what if the shadows and the vlan are the split of the accords? Oh wow.

Jeff: All starts with the accords.

We lit. Literally the second worst episode behind Soul Hunter is the basis for all things Babylon. Five. Right. At least that'd be a slap in the face. . No, I'm not gonna, I don't know. We're only, we're not even through season two yet. It still could be soul hunter.

Brent: It still could be. That's, that's fair. Right.

Okay. So, um, they use organic tech. Their ship is that the ship comes out. Uh, what is the, the deal with the music? Cause Ksh keeps talking about, I want to hear the song, Dude says, I heard them singing to me. Kash said I was, I wanted to hear what he said, like I appeared in your thoughts and it all became a song.

Mm-hmm. , what did we make of this?

Jeff: And then the workers who worked in Bay 13 would hear the, So a song in their head. You know, like when they would go to see, Right. If I remember right. And I could be, I could be way off base here, but if I remember right, there was the episode in the first season where Kash hired the vicar and they wanted to get into Talia Winters mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was, he told her something about listening to this. It was like lyrics in the song, like he made some reference to music with her. Yeah. If I remember right. But I don't know what that is. So my mind went, cuz right now I'm doing a reread through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

Is amazing if, if you have a tremendous amount of time to sink into reading books. Cause I think there's like 47 of them. So many. And they're not

Brent: small books either.

Jeff: No. Thousands of pages. Some of these. Yeah. And uh, but they're great. But the tu aha on the tinkerers in there are also on a search for a song.

And that's kind of where my mind kept going. I know it's not that. Right. But, um, it was just interesting too, cuz he said, um, was it in reference to this song where Sheridan asked him if that had ever happened before? Like he, where he caught onto someone's song and was, and then has that ever happened before?

And he's like once and then walked away.

Brent: I forget what exactly he asked that in reference to, but Yeah,

Jeff: it was, Which makes me think like, here's, here's another one of my theories just if, if I'm remembering it right, is that he, whatever he experienced with Sheridan, He also experienced with Talia and he experienced that with Talia as a result of her experience with Jason Ironheart.

Right? The elevation that she experienced. So there's something in her that Kosh picked up on, and apparently that's something in Sheridan as well, is my guess. Yeah.

Brent: It's that mumbar soul that keeps drop on to everybody I know.

Jeff: Um, if I wear a face mask, can I stop that from getting to me? Like, is that a, a way to, I don't know if I want one of those souls, but everyone seems to be catching

Brent: them, right?

Hey, by the way, uh, we're kind of on the backside of it at this point, but with flu seasons, hey, flu season's really bad folks. Um, you remember all that stuff we did for Covid? Guess what? The year after Covid, we had almost zero cases of flu. You know why? Cuz people wore masks when they weren't feeling well and they were washing their hands and they weren't breathing each other's air.

Keep that up just for general sanitation stuff, not even covid. Just if you feel bad, wear

Jeff: a mask. So acknowledging that like there are literally keyboards on fire right now, leaving comments below. And I love it. I, I travel quite a bit, you know, the last, last couple of months have been, I've been, I've been all over the world again, which is great.

I love being able to travel again, but Right. I wear a face mask on an airplane. Um, not so much because I'm worried about covid or the flu, but because it is disgusting. And when I flew during Covid, I remember thinking, how did we not wear face masks on here before? This is gross to put this many people in a hotdog sent a metal hotdog.

Yeah. And yeah, like, I'm, I will forever wear one on an airplane because it's just, it's just cleaner to do it. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. I just, you know, like I say, I, I, you know what it was, Here's the rabbit trail. You might cut this one out. You might not, I don't know. But here's what YouTube gets as the rabbit trail. I was watching the show.

Shits Creek. Yeah. I love that show during Covid. . Right. And there's an episode where the, the, for those of you who don't know the premise of Shit Creek is a family is having to stay together in a hotel room. Right. And in mom and dad are in one hotel room, then brother and sister in another hotel room. The, the sister Alex or Alexis or whatever, she, she was not feeling well and she was confined to the hotel room.

Guess who was wearing the mask inside the hotel room? It wasn't the other three who were fine, it was the one who was sick. She was doing the good work of keeping her stuff to herself. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. like, and, and that's when it clicked in for me. And, and you know, like we're, we're always around medical people and you know, over here in my world and stuff.

And they'd been telling it and I was like, that's when I think the final Tumblr locked into place. Like I was getting it before then. It's about keeping your own crap to yourself. It's not, not breathing in everybody else's stuff, though. That is also beneficial. It's just keeping your own stuff here. You know, the reason a doctor wears a mask when we go into surgery is so we don't breathe our stuff into the open wound that is in front of us.

Jeff: Like I give you, I'm keeping it to yourself. I give you five deltas for that. That's a very strong Star Trek message right there. .

Brent: Thank you. Uh, and look, I hate wearing 'em as much as anybody else does. I really do. But just, just, And you know what? Doctors don't wear n 95 masks when we go into surgery.

Either. It's just a regular paper mask cuz it does the trick. Mm-hmm. anyway. Not Babylon five. What we,

Jeff: what we were talking about Jeff K We're talking about Ksh and the song

Brent: Ksh has his own suit that he keeps his breath to himself. Um, what is the song? So he keeps talking about the song. That's, that's a big question.

Mm-hmm. , because this, this is going to be much bigger than

what we even think right now. Cause this feels like something. They're, they're definitely seating. What really interested me about K was that final conversation between him and Sheridan. Mm-hmm. , where Sheridan's like, Okay, what's happening or what's going on? And, and you'll have to help me with exactly how the conversation went, but it was basically he said, uh, no, you are not ready, or Can you tell me what's going on?

And he says, No, cuz you're not ready. Uh, or he is talking about everybody as a whole. Yeah. You know, not just Sheridan. Right. And Sheridan then goes, Fine, well, am I ready? And Kosh looks at like, Kosh took a moment and he went, No, you're not ready yet either. And then beautiful. Next line then can you help me get ready?

Yeah. Which I thought of you immediately from a leadership standpoint. Uhhuh and helped me get ready. Right. And Kosh went, Okay. Ultimately, right? Like that's mm-hmm. . Yeah. There's some back and conversation went mm-hmm. . And then he left. He dipped, right? .

Jeff: Mm-hmm. . But he, but he dropped some huge stuff before he just, he, before he just took off, talk about it.

So it was literally so that, all that back and forth that came down to, Well, and I'm, I'm gonna talk about this in my closing thoughts, but it came down to know thy self. Right? You have to understand you before you're ready to do this thing. Well, what's this thing? Well, this thing is to fight legends. Okay.

I thought that was a, that was a really interesting word to use. Legends. Yeah. Cause like, in my mind, and again, people know, like I, I'm connected to combat sports or, or combat, um, entertainment and sports and all that good stuff. Um, does he mean legend, like hoist, Gracie Legend, like Rick Flair, or does he mean a legend like Paul Bunion?

That's a story or a legend, like a Greek God. Right? There's, there's the legend you look up to, it's al mighty and all powerful. Then there's the legend That's. Just a story or, or

Brent: does he mean and I, Oh gosh. I'm gonna catch, I'm gonna catch so much flack from people over this one because it's current to our own day.

Does he mean a legend? Something like the anti-Christ? Oh, like it, like it, like it hasn't come yet. Like it's, it's the legend of this is going to come and take everyone out. And I'm sorry. The antichrist is the only thing I can think of right now that is relevant in our world today of it hasn't happened yet.

It's the impending doom. Mm-hmm. . Because where my mind went when he said, I'm gonna teach you how to fight legends, was I'm gonna teach you how to fight the shadows, which have only existed in legend. They've existed in myth, but turns out they're actually out. Did you interpret that as, as him meaning shadows, or did you think he meant something

Jeff: else?

I thought he meant shadows. Like I thought that was it. Cause I mean, but you're right. Like it's a legend. It's in the book of Jaquan, you know, it's a legend. But, but I also thought, I just thought it was interesting because we've thrown the word shadows around so much. Yeah. That it was just interesting to me that he didn't say, teach you, prepare you to fight shadows.

Right. Like, he chose legends.

Brent: Legends. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because I think there's clearly certain, certain, uh, uh, alien cultures have had these legends about the shadows that earth clearly hasn't. Yeah. At all. Right? Like, this is the first we're hearing about it, but clearly the nat have had this legend. Clearly the mbar have had this legend.

I have no clue about what this, this centara might just be so self-absorbed that they don't even care about this and the earth just hasn't had it. Um, what do you think he meant? When he said, you've got to know yourself. Was he talking about the Mumbar souls? Is he talking about being able to transform into what Jason Ironheart transformed into?

Is it something else? What, what did you

Jeff: think if this was Sinclair, it'd be the mumbar soul. And this is me going back to the cork board where I still think that Sinclair has vain inside of him. Like I am. I am planting my flag on that theory, and when it's proven wrong, I'm gonna feel like a jerk. But remind me,

Brent: Vain was the, was

Jeff: the guy, the holy man.

He brought together the great council. He was the big leader that united all the men bar. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I think that like, if this was Sinclair, that's what knowing yourself would've meant, like unlocking your interve. I don't know for sure that Sheridan got, I'm I'm sure we're gonna find out he is.

Got him in Bar Soul like

Brent: Sheridan. Oh, I think he has to, right? Yeah, totally. Cause I mean, are we, are we relatively. In agreement that whatever the plan was for Sinclair has just sort of gotten morphed. Yeah. And absorbed by Sheridan. Just with a few maybe tweaks

Jeff: here and there. They have to blend it in.

Right. Let's, Yeah. It'd be, it's like with me editing a podcast where, Oh, I gotta take these things and Mel them together. Let me use a little cross fade and some automation on the, on the, That's all they're doing right now is Sheridan, so. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I think it is. It's whether it's that or maybe it is an Ironheart thing, right?

Maybe, maybe Sheridan has some latent, some sort of power that no one knows about yet. And Ko is saying, You, you gotta unlock that either Menari soul potential or you, we'll call it the Iron Heart potential within you.

Brent: Yeah. Like, because the iron Heartd thing, cuz it still occurs to me that whatever cost is, seems like an ascended being.

And that's what it seems like Ironheart did. Mm-hmm. was that he ascended into that level. So, um, the idea that we could, we are capable of getting there. You just gotta get there and you're not ready. And, and again, this goes back to, we've seen this in so much sci-fi over the years. There's the ascended being, and it's, it's when you achieve a certain level of enlightenment that you shed your mortal coil and your conscience elevates as a form of pure energy.

We saw it in Star Trek. We saw it in Stargate. We've seen it in, uh, I'm pretty sure we probably saw it in Battlestar Gala. Galatica probably saw it in The Expanse. I don't know. I haven't watched The Expanse yet. Seen it in Dr. Who I'm sure at some point, like in a way

Jeff: out there. It's the Matrix in a way.

Right, Exactly. You reach, Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: You just, you reach this level of, of clarity and it really seems like, to me, that's my best guess right now. The von and and the shadows are the ones that are, did the same thing. They just went bad. Mm-hmm. . Uh, but the vlan are ascended beings from the universe. Not necessarily earthlings.

I

Jeff: got it. I got it. It's the dark crystal where they were united and there was the crystal, Crystal or whatever that held them together. And, and maybe the crystal is the song. Now there's split and it's the dark crystal and you got the sketches and the mystics. Right? And so the shadows are the sketches and the verlon are the mystics.

And they, There you go. They are quite mystical. If not, where did the techno majors fit in all this? Cause I want them back. They're the ones that are actually holding everything together. Like that's the most magical part of all

Brent: this. I'm looking for techno majors right now. That's my, that's my thing. Uh, cuz I want those

Jeff: guys back.

I, I had two things on the Kosh piece. One, just as a quick piece. Sheridan trying to make the big deal that, gosh, you have an interest in me. Right. You visited me when I was on that, uh, the Strive ship. But also he is like, I've looked at records and you've been at more council meetings than ever before since I came on board.

And I'm like, Oh, contrary, Mora . He's been to one , he's been to one council meeting since you got here. Like, no, no. You don't get to repaint that and tell me that Koshas been here in season two. All along. He literally just showed up. Mm-hmm. . . So that's Kosh. The last, the last thing I had for was, uh, Sheridan.

He's frustrated, right? And he's trying to figure out how to communicate with Kosh, and he says, Dude, what, what is it? What do you want? And Ko is like, Don't you ever ask that question? Yeah, right.

Brent: I loved that. I mean, he, like, K got mad in that moment. Like, don't you ever say that

Jeff: again. And so that tells me this isn't the first time, right.

That there's been a Mr. Morden out who's been prepping the lesser races for something like mm-hmm. . Yeah. That was, that was excellent. Mm-hmm.

Brent: makes me also wonder is Morden is morden human? I still don't, I don't think that he is because I mean, I, I think that's been my understanding is that he's a human who somehow is connected to these people serving.

But you know, you've also seen ascended beings descend. And what if that's him? He has decented. And this is him now walking around, you know? Uh, so, so that's Kosh. Um, did you have anything else with that side? Because the only other side we really is the whole Dr. Jacob's

Jeff: side. Yeah. That's pretty much everything on the Kosh stuff.

Brent: Okay. I don't know that I have a ton on the Dr. Jacobs side. That was more just plots I had a ton of fun with. Can we just call him Indiana Garabaldi? Right. .

Jeff: Oh my gosh. That whole scene. He looked amazing by the way. He did. Except it was funny cuz that hat was just a little bit too big. Yeah. And I don't know if it's just like his fluffy, spiky hair where it couldn't quite fit all.

Like it kept holding the hat up a little too high for him. But I wonder if in like, if this point in the 24 or 23rd century here that we're at for Bible on five, is it retro? Like is it a retro fashion time or did fashion just freeze in 1990? , right? Like he's got that like multi quadrant, no collar button up shirt.

That was cool for literally four months in 1994. Well that

Brent: was, that was the, in the nineties. That was the, this is what we're wearing in the future stuff. Right? Is that was the Wesley Crusher stuff? That was the young Jake Cisco stuff. That was the, you know the civilian outfit, right?

Jeff: The Upul Street. It's on a charter bus somewhere, but we're gonna let Jake wear it.

Is

Brent: that my third? That was your third. I think that's my third.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. That's alright. It was well used. Well used. It was, I, so I, I, in my, at one point we were talking, in this episode, I said that I felt like Babbel on Five Security looked pretty inept. Mm-hmm. in this, Did you get that impression at all or was I just reading it?

Brent: I don't think I re, I don't think I recognized Bal on Five Security. I just thought they were, whoever Cranston brought with him and they were associated with. Is really what I was thinking, but I didn't care. That wasn't the thing. I was really, God, there was just this dumb

Jeff: scene, this dumb scene that just bothered me so much.

Right. Is it the one where they walked right into Med Bay? That one bothered me a lot too. Okay. But because I mean, like, they were, they were getting ready to do surgery. , you

Brent: know, I'm sorry, folks. Med lab. I, I, I mispronounced it. My apologies. There

Jeff: you go. Don't wanna apparent. I'm not allowed to mispronounced stuff.

People get, you're really upset when you do that, but No, the, um, so they're in a hallway and like, they're literally grabbing lurkers by the hair and like yanking their faces back to scan them. And I'm like, One why? But also at the end of the hallway is the biggest door you've ever seen in your whole life.

It's massive. And Jacob's is like, I don't know how to open this thing. Like what do I, what do I do? And like security guy in Kanick are watching through scan people. They don't even look towards that. And then all of a sudden, Ka Nicki's scanner starts beeping Boo. And he's like, Oh, I wonder what the, And they're staring at the scanner pointing right at Jacob's.

Right. And they're like, I don't, I don't think this is a, And then he sneaks through the big,

Brent: he opens and you could see through, you could see through the door. And I saw him on the other side. Yes. It was like a

Jeff: net, like, Oh my God, that was just, No, that was whoops. And stuff like that. That gave me that kind of just dirty,

Brent: See I just smiled at that cuz I just went, It's just ch like, it's

Jeff: just fun.

Like I just don't wanna see ka Nicky look like an idiot. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. Our buddy Zach. Yeah.

Brent: Oh, is that who that was? Yeah. Oh, okay. So the med lab thing really bugged me. I never thought about this before until this particular episode, but this is something we see in sci-fi all the time. The the med lab, the medical bay, sick bay, whatever you have, you walk into these places and it's bed, bed, bed, bed, bed, and it's fully open.

They will perform surgery on this bed while this person over here is getting a burn wound healed up. And while this person's getting a shot, like there's no privacy here,

Jeff: right? Not even a curtain,

Brent: there's no sterile environment. And I get it. This is the future. They've got tons of stuff, but there's not even a curtain.

These guys walk right into this dude who is laying, splayed out on a table and they're dis, they're having a full discussion of what's going on with this person, and they walk right up. I understand HIPAA may not be a thing in the. But dad gum it. At least put a curtain around these folks. Like, or wash your

Jeff: hands.

Like try that. Like before you go in and scan the artian, laying on the table, wash your stinking hands.

Brent: Yeah. Like, you know, I, if you cannot just walk right into a doctor's office and start scanning stuff. Yeah. Even if you're the cops, we are, you can't do that. And the

Jeff: police have to stop at the desk, show them paperwork, go through the process, the whole thing.

And also, I think what was interesting too in that as they bumble in and start just, I mean, and again, just like, Oh, I'm going to point this thing at you and be so it's a scanner for goodness sake, but Franklin's walking those kids around, this is like the second or third episode in a row. Yeah. He's been like, training new

Brent: people.

Well, I, I just, I assume it's, those are our medical students

Jeff: I think. But yeah, it's a lot of airtime on a show that uses its airtime. You know, pretty, in a pretty planful way. Yeah. But I'm watching that as a scene

Brent: sometimes. You gotta get through the minutes, man. You gotta fill so many minutes. Well, and I think part of that, Joe, you're three minutes

Jeff: short.

Like, I think part of that was the scene when Garabaldi and Franklin were eating the nineties. Uh, Cereal Kellogg. Cereal bars, , Uhhuh, , and Franklin's. Like, who was a great professor. I'm gonna sit here and talk for 90 seconds about stuff that doesn't matter about how he was a great professor.

Brent: I really thought that something was gonna happen there.

Like, I thought Gar Baldi was gonna turn something on Franklin, or, or, or something. And no, nothing, nothing

Jeff: really happened. It's just them trying to make us connect to like still shoving him down our throats.

Brent: Yeah. Uh, so, okay, Franklin, we've given Franklin a crap ton of hard time on this

Jeff: show. Ready to keep doing it.

Brent: See, this might be the most I've ever liked Franklin. What, like, this is the most that Franklin's ever been on my side, I've ever been on his side. Let's put it that way. I thought he actually was pretty cool in this episode. He goes in, he's, he's doing his thing in med lab. They interrupt him. He goes over and gra like, he's all frustrated as he should be.

He goes and catches this, this calm thing from, from Garra Baldi, and he does the freeze frame and he is like, Okay, got it. He's down to go do whatever he needs to do. He dresses in civilian clothes. They go out, They're, they're just, I, I, I was like, Okay, I can get with Franklin on this. He didn't seem to be so my way or the highway, like all the stuff that we ni him, that we neg him.

Jeff: He, I still got all those because he came in there was like, there's no way he can beat this. I mean, I know that you're showing me evidences and I haven't talked to the guy in at least 12 years, but I know what I know and there's no way he could possibly You're wrong.

Brent: He just was. But when you, when you know a person though, Jeff, like it's been 20 years.

Ive known this guy for 12. I've known this guy for 12

Jeff: years, but he hasn't seen him in 12 years. And, and when he last saw him, he was a professor at Harvard. Now he's in the, the, the president's personal circle in his staff. There's a lot, there's a leap there that happened that could change a person. But not if you're Franklin, not if you're Franklin here.

Here's

Brent: a piece that gets me. This wasn't his friend, this was his college professor. Mm-hmm. . We all, speaking of the episode infection, we also saw that from the episode infection. He talks about this guy who was his teacher, as if he's like his best friend. What in the world was Franklin when he was in school?

Jeff: the biggest, like the biggest teachers suck up. Yeah. Yeah. Possible. I mean, and that's what we have now. He's not, I don't think he was willing to help Garabaldi cuz he was down to help Garabaldi. He was down to help Garabaldi because Garabaldi needed him. You know what this guy looks like, You'll reckon and he'll talk to you.

He's on the run. He'll trust you. Franklin's like, Yeah, you do need me. So I'll come because I'm still the most important part of this puzzle. I just, I, I felt, I don't know, I just think Franklin, I have zero for him at all. And this didn't help.

Brent: I, I was gonna say, I, I am still with you. I still don't have much for Franklin.

This is just the most tolerable I've, I've found him so far in baby one five. Maybe eating

Jeff: cereal bars gets you there. Maybe that's the, maybe that humanized him a little

Brent: bit. Okay. Let's talk about the one thing that I think you had to have loved about Franklin in this episode. Oh, Jeff, I need to borrow one.

Jeff: Shoot. I still have all three of mine. Okay. Can I borrow one? Yeah, I think I do. I'm gonna borrow that one. All right, here we go.

Brent: The Jim Kirk double handed Judo chop. Yes. If that doesn't give you five deltas, just because of that.

Jeff: I love it too, cuz like, I'm gonna say some things about how I think this episode specifically dealt with Star Trek.

Uh, I, we've talked before about the fight scenes and how like they do the roundhouses and the flying kicks to be like, we're not Star Trek, but Franklin is like, Yeah, we kind of are though.

Brent: Yeah. We're gonna go back to 1960s Western fighting. Here we go.

Jeff: That was great. Um, that whole fight scene was pretty weird though.

I mean, like when Gar Baldi got stabbed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole thing just was

Brent: weird. I didn't realize he got stabbed in his arm until he had his shirt off and Franklin was trying to like fix him. Yeah. The whole time. I'm like, what got stabbed in the, in the. The, the

Jeff: side is what he studied. I, I saw the little thing go into those arm, but his react, like there's nothing that could have happened to that arm that would have had the reaction.

You know what I mean? I'm just like, was it a, was it a pain giver ? Right. Was it, was it a flashback to that? And Gar Baldy can just kind of, Nope. He just got stabbed a little bit in his

Brent: bicep. Okay. Can we, this is the last thing I have on Gar Baldi, though. Can we talk about Gar Baldy turning into John freaking McClain?

Dude.

Jeff: Seriously. Right outta Die Hard, Right, Right out of like, almost lying for lying .

Brent: Oh, I, I hope somebody tell me. Okay, this, you can tell me down in the comments. Did JMS do that on purpose? Was that an homage to die Hard in that moment where Gu Baldi, I mean, he's shooting around his dude's head, freaking him out.

Oh,

Jeff: it so good. I loved that scene. I, I had a hard time with Max. I don't know if you did, but my, but I want to own it. I think he did. I think Richard Mall did a great job. Portray him, but my wife and I are watching night court on Prime right now. Like literally we're gonna get done recording. That's where he was from.

You didn't know.

Brent: No, Doug. No. Cause like, like I even said it on the thing, I was like, I know who this guy is and I I'm not placing it. Who like, Oh, oh, that's

Jeff: who it was. Okay. Aristotle, Nostradamus Bull, Shannon. Yeah. Like it's him. Yeah.

Brent: Yep. I know exactly who it is now.

Jeff: Absolutely. Yep. And he was great. I loved him in the role, but because like literally we're gonna get done recording, I'm gonna go downstairs and I'm gonna watch an episode of Night Court with my wife before we go to bed.

Right. Like he, I, I couldn't not see Bowl in him. And so yeah. I'm not counting that against it in me liking the episode cuz I totally own, That's my bias. But that scene where , where Gar all's blasting at him and he's reacting to nothing. Right. Cuz we've seen the behind the scenes of any, any show . Right.

That was great. Right.

Brent: Okay. So Sheridan talking and just completely faking out Cranston with downtown. And sending him down that way. I, I just, I thought that was that. And then the, the whole final conversation with Cranston where he is like, Hey, Ava's gonna get you, everybody you need. We're gonna get you off.

The whole thing about sending Jacobs out on the ship and then getting him back and you've scanned it, now you gotta leave. That was, that was something Sinclair would've done. Yeah. You know what I mean? I could totally have seen That's a, I mean that's what you give the captain to do, uh, as he goes. And I love diva's response like you knew this whole time.

And she's like, You didn't ask Uhhuh . And we're not really sure that it would've worked anyway, but you weren't

Jeff: nice. You get more, you get more, uh, you know, whatever with honey than, than vinegar. Right. Walked off. Avanto had some great lines. Like she had that and then there was the , like the first time I watched the episode, like I had to pause the episode.

I was laughing so much cuz they were trying to, um, Cranston came on board and says, you know, hey, here's the deal with Jacobs. We gotta, we gotta find him. We're going on a manhunt. Mm-hmm. . And so Sheridan's like, Hey, we gotta slow down departures and stuff like that. Just tell 'em, tell 'em we're having mechanical problems.

And Yvanna was like, Oh yeah, they'll believe that. like, like of course, of course we're having mechanical problems. So we do here

The, the only last thought I had that, I mean, doesn't mean anything, but it's kind of a, Well, I have two actually now. One does mean something maybe, but one of them was Max, you know, kidnapped Jacobs and then he calls up Kran and he is like, I want 10,000 credits for this guy. And Kranz is like, done. Did Max have to have in that moment and be like, Crap, , I could have gotten so much more

All, all

Brent: that I heard in that moment was I. 1 million.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: Everybody starts laughing like, okay, sure.

Jeff: Here you go. Like,

Brent: so the ask for

Jeff: more right? Said not to do. It's just so funny cause she's like, Yeah, I'm gonna get 10 K and it's like, you're, you're a moron dude. That's, Yeah. But the last thing, so Sheridan's in the little meeting room with uh, the, the general hag resistance fighter person, he's like, I got the data crystal.

Two things. One, did he keep a copy of that data crystal for himself? It is. Yeah. I'm guessing he did. And two, she ended it with Nice job Captain Sheridan here. You've won one for the good guys. The good guys don't ever say that. Brent

Brent: You know what else the good guy. My buddy Matt over it beat me up. Always said this. You know What else? Good guys. Never say it's for the greater good. Yeah. If you say for the greater good, you're automatically bad. You are a

Jeff: villain. Does you have anything else?

Brent: I'm sorry. I'm gonna use your other one. You said you had all three.

You haven't used a single one. There is somebody else who said this. What? What did he say? He said Chuck won up for the good guys, or Cisco, like in his big, he did. This is a huge victory for the good

Jeff: guys. That's a good one. That's a good one. And arguably, Cisco was not the most goodest guy of the captains.

Cisco's pretty awesome once he, He was, I mean, he was awesome. But I mean, as far as like, Oh God,

Brent: Jeff, I just thought of something. . Cisco got awesome when he shaved his head and grew his goatee out. Uhhuh, . So help me if Sheridan shaves his head and grows a goatee right about the end of season three, right?

Oh my word, .

Jeff: That's Then who's copying who at that point? Right.

Brent: Well, yeah, because I, I guess in, in TV Land Deep Fish nine would've been out for so long and we, we know for a fact Cisco growing out as Goe and shaving his head had more to do with the actor. Yep. And that's how he looked normally than it did anything to do with the character.

In fact, it had nothing to do

Jeff: with the character. Yeah. They had 'em all clean cut because he had just come off his, uh, what Hawk the show where he was Hawk and he had the shaved head go to and they wanted to make sure there was separation. And they're like, Yeah, that was a mistake.

Brent: No, the no, no, no. Oh, no.

Call it out. What it is. They didn't want him to look the, the word was street. Really? Yeah. That's, that's, it's in the Deep Space. Nine documentary, like behind the scenes. Jeff, this is quickly turning into a Star Trek podcast. It is. I just always, Yeah. A Star Trek podcast, but I'm gonna call that out for exactly what it was.

It was racism at its finest. They're saying he looked too black. Yeah. I'm not gonna argue with that. And they, and it took them three seasons, four season, uh, three seasons I guess, to let them go back.

Jeff: Yeah. Cuz season three he still had the, he was still had the hair and then the goatee and then they're like, Well just the last couple

Brent: episodes.

Then they're like the last couple episodes. And then,

Jeff: yeah, just, just do you man. And then he got awesome. You have anything else? Right Brent, we have reached that part of the show where we boil all of this down. We see if there's a star Treky message to it. We're also gonna talk about how much we liked it and we're gonna do that.

I'm gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five deltas as to what the Star Trek message, Star Trek e message is. It morals, themes, a mirror to society, can we be better in the future? And you are gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five star theories as to just how much we enjoyed this episode. And I think this is a surprisingly star treky.

Really? I think so. You think so? In moments, In moments when they're eating, they're cereal bars sitting down, down below, Gar Baldi says they're he and um, Franklin are talking about how the future's not all it's cracked up to be. Mm-hmm. , like Franklin compares it to the kid who wants that toy at Christmas and then they get it and it's kind of, uh, and then Garabaldi had an incredible line and he says the future should have come with instructions.

Said some assembly required. I loved that. So it's actually the opposite of a Star Trek message is what this was. Trek shows us that a better future is possible. I'm gonna steal a concept of yours, Brent, that you've used on here a couple of times. Mm-hmm. , Star Trek shows us it's possible Babylon five shows us that we're going to have to fight for that future.

Yeah. Maybe. Possibly at the end of this series we'll show, they'll show us that it was worth fighting for. Mm-hmm. . But I feel like that whole scene was literally like directed at Star Trek, right? They're just like, Yeah, future actually sucks just as much as the present does. It's just different. But I think hidden in there because it's science fiction, right?

And I believe science fiction, especially in the nineties, was built in a way to make us believe that better things were possible. So this was about showing us that it will be better, can be better if we fight, if we take the time to do that assembly. But I think KO really works into this one a lot too. I referred to it earlier, core to his message to Sheridan was that he has to understand him.

and mm-hmm. . That's how you develop your emotional intelligence, right? You develop self awareness, learn self regulation. I could literally do, I have done whole episodes on that. That's the Star Fleet Leadership Academy. But there, the Star Trek message here is know yourself so that you can know others, which hits beautiful.

And it hits on a theme that we've talked about before. Usually under the, the concept of be, do, have. Mm-hmm. . And that is for you to change others. You first have to change yourself. Kosh is setting Sheridan up on a journey of self-discovery that's gonna help him know himself so that he can help others.

Yeah. And to. There's no bigger Star Trek message than better yourself so you can better others. Now I wanna score this higher than I'm going to, Um, cuz but, but the, but the overall impact of these messages, we're not gonna know till we get to the end of the series. Yeah. So I, I wanted to hit this like in the fours or I teased five in my head, but I'm gonna give this one three deltas.

Brent: Jeff, if you and I were both teachers in the school , we'd be fed. Your students would hate. No, they would hate having you grade their tests. . And they would love me cuz I'm a much easier grader than you are. . I think, cause I think I gave last week, like it's a five at

Jeff: Deltas series. Last week was great. I can't, I wanted this one to be, I wanted it to be, but it, it just hangs too much on what, what they do with what they dropped.

You

Brent: know, I gotta tell you the, the comment, the, the words that came outta Sheridan's mouth when he was talking to Kosh, there felt like you could have put Patrick Stewart in that role. And you would've heard Picard saying those exact same lines. Totally. They really did. And uh, that's, that's where I got to it, but I didn't go as far as you do with it, so, so excellent.

Um, I get to do star theories. How much do we like this episode now, Jeff, you and I, I think this is a rare occasion. I don't know how often this has happened. We're in two different places on how much we liked this episode. Yeah. And fortunately, I'm the one who gets to say how much we like this episode this week.

Uh, I love this episode. Absolutely. I had so much fun with it. Uh, it gave me answers. It moved the ball forward. The whole hunting down Jacobs, I thought was, it was just fun. He got captured and then you had bull from night court going like, I know this guy. I know this guy. Where's he from? You know, it, it, they went and got him back.

Sheridan's having to play that whole thing with Sheridan and Ava and having to play like, Yeah, we're working with you over here, but. We're also not because we know the truth of what's going on. Like I just, it was so good. So I'm going to give this one a solid four star series. Wow. Four star furious. And that's me just not doing five, just because

Jeff: letting my potential rating of two star theories influence it.

Just a little bit. Yeah, just a little bit. Just a little bit. I appreciate that. Well, Brent now is where the money really hits the road here. Starting here in season two, we are developing the definitive ranking of the episodes here in the second season. It is a hundred percent accurate. It's objective.

This is the ranking, and you get to rank this one . So our top five sits currently. Number one, the coming of shadows. Number two, erase through dark places. Number three, all alone in the night, four soulmates and five. The season premiere. Points of Departure. Brent, where do you place Hunter Prey?

Brent: You know, Jeff, these are, I, I look at just the top five list here and I think were 13 episodes into this season.

Coming of Shadows was awesome. A race through Dark Places was great. All alone in the Night was amazing. Soulmates was fun. Mm-hmm. Points of Departure, did some stuff, changed some stuff for us, but it was a good episode. Everything after that has been very, you know, like, yeah. In fact, I might even say that soulmates and Points of Departure really should be more middle of the road episodes and not top five episodes.

So for that reason, uh, I am placing this episode Hunter Prey.

At number four and it's gonna push points of departure out of the way. I'm gonna leave the top three alone because I think the top three really, um, I really enjoyed this episode, but I think those had some, some bigger, better key moments. Uh, and, and a little bit more explosive, uh, type stuff. This one, this one straddles that line between fun like soulmates to me and awesome because it's pushing the ball down down the way, like it's right there in that middle.

So I'm gonna put this in it. Number four. Okay,

Jeff: well I'm not gonna argue with that mostly cuz I can't. That's the rules. dems the rules. But Brent, that's it for Hunter Prey. Next week we get to play another game here right now and this is the game where Oh's that game. Yep, this is that game. So next week we're gonna watch their All the honor lies.

So we don't look these up ahead of time. We don't look up screenshots, thumbnails, synopsis, anything whatsoever. Literally. Brent just heard the name of this episode. So based on the name alone, Brent, what do you think there all the honor lies is going to be about

Brent: you say honor, and three names come to mind.

Garra Baldy, Lando, who has some big honor stuff going on right now and a Lynn, those three names. So I'm going to say, and I'm gonna go out on a limb that this is going to be a show that features not one plot, not Alo B plot, but this is gonna be an A and C plot featuring Delin, Garabaldi, and Lando. And we've been predicting it.

And I'm gonna keep predicting it cause it's gotta happen soon. This is redemption of Longo, or at least it starts down that path. I still don't think we've started down the path of redemption of lawn, but this will be like lawn's gonna come face to face with where his honor really is. Where that lies.

He's gonna have to do that. This will be one of those where all three, like the, the subplots, all interweave and work together maybe give you, What was that episode? Oh, tko. Remember tko? I do where you had dude fighting and you had Aon a grieving. Those two plots had zero to do with each other until you realize that their intercut and their metaphors of each other.

Mm-hmm. , I think this one might be like those three plots work together. Like it gives you three different looks at the exact same idea. You're gonna see Delin, most likely's having to deal with some of the fallout of losing her seat on the Great Council and where she is as a a, as a just an ambassador now, right?

Like where her honor is. Yeah. And uh, Garra. Baldy is, he'll be the comic relief of the episode and something. That's my guess. What about you Jeff? I

Jeff: love that you called, called up tko. I love tko and I'll tell you what I want this episode to be about. . It won't be, but what I want it to be is a call back to tko, Right?

The Muai and honor everything that comes with that. When Walker Smith went and went toe to toe with Gio, Oh man, I remember everything about this. Oh wow.

Brent: Yeah. Your, Jeff, I gotta say your recall of being able to pinpoint episodes and titles and exact lines is phenomenal. You're way better

Jeff: at that. That, and I, I got a lot of long ways to go, but I appreciate that.

But I think, yeah, so when they go to, they fight to a draw that opens the door for humans to fight in the mut tide. So I, I want a return of Walker Smith in the Mutai, but I doubt that very much. So what I think this one, here's my official guess, we haven't talked about the shadows in a long time and this, this season is called the coming of shadows.

So I think this is gonna be. Out on the rim, they get uh, you know, some update, some attack, some something of some kind. And this is gonna bring back Keer when he was lost in hyperspace. And he's gonna be, I I cuz he is still in the freaking opening credits , right? He's the commander of what, Zeta Wing or whatever.

Right? Right. And he's been Mia so it's gonna bring back Keer and his whole thing when he was in hyperspace trapped there. And he is like, I'm gonna find those guys. And so this is gonna be about his honor going out to find, find the shadows. Ooh, I like that one. Well, we're gonna find out here next week.

Thank you all so much for joining us. We appreciate it very much. If you haven't already, if you're watching, if you're listening, wherever you're doing that pop over, click hit the subscribe button and hey YouTube, this one is to you. We know that almost half of you watching have not subscribed. So I'm gonna pause, I'm gonna give you a moment here and I'm gonna ask you to go ahead and hit that button.

You do it. Awesome. Cool. Thanks. Appreciate it. So hit that. Now go over to Apple Podcast, audible pod chaser, good pods, wherever you want. Write us a review. That'll be the greatest thing in the world, and I cannot wait to share it with you here on the podcast. So, Brent, until next time,

Brent: def, def, I'm cutting you off again.

Jeff: You, uh, you really enjoyed that, didn't you? Jeff?

Brent: How could you even suggest a thing?

Jeff: It's, it's just a foolish thought. It's foolish

Brent: thought. Yeah. Well, I'll forgive it this time, .

Jeff: Peace. Peace and long life.