Lines of Communication

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

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

Jeff: and we're watching Babylon 5 for the first time. For you, the one who is.

Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veterans. Star Trek podcasters watching this. For the very first time searching our task, not a Star Trek podcast, but we are searching for Star Trek like messages that are contained within, but we're also trying to see how they're being done in a uniquely Babylon five way.

Jeff: Like you said, we're not a Star Trek podcast, but those references are very sure and very likely to make their way into our conversation. So to keep us on point, we play the rule of three. This is a game where we're each limited to no more than three references. A piece to Star Trek per episode. That's it.

Three. One of those, no substitutions. Exchanges a refund. Do you remember? Not too long ago, I was like, Hey, we have reviews on Audible and I'm gonna go to Audible more often.

Brent: And then you didn't,

Jeff: Yep. But I finally went and so here we

go. 

Brent: old ones.

Jeff: God found some pretty, pretty old ones. I've got, uh, five star review from Audible. Oh yes.

And this one's from Kindle Customer. Kindle Customer says, great show guys. I love the podcast, but I gotta say you guys like this show for the exact opposite reasons I do. The episodes you give high marks were all low points and the ones you give low marks to are all high points for me. Love the different perspective and don't think you guys will be disappointed going forward.

Oh, and Brent, live Long and Prosper, Jeff. Peace and Long life.

Brent: Wow. I love that. Um, what's up Kendall? Uh, I really apologize that you had to suffer through season three. Sorry. But thanks for the review. I appreciate it.

Jeff: Because that was definitely a high point for

Brent: You know what though, Jeff? It is in diversity where our strength is really shown and it makes us dangerous.

Jeff: Makes us very dangerous. The other thing that makes us very dangerous is another five star review. Oh yes. Also on Audible, Casper says, watching Babylon five for the X time. I love listening to these guys, is a Babylon five fan and a sci-fi fan in general. This is an awesome podcast just listening to see how correct, wrong almost only parts, their predictions are without spoilers.

This is the best Babylon five podcast ever. Just hearing the recap makes me remember the entire episode and makes me want to watch it again. Thank you so much and I will say peace, victory, and long.

Brent: What's up Casper? I love that review and I love your mattresses.

Jeff: Very much so. I love, we talked a while ago, we talked a while ago about how there's parts of this show that we put a lot of like effort and thought into as we write the recaps being one of them. And it's like nobody ever says anything about the recaps and like we take great pains sometimes to make those, you know, complete and entertaining.

So thank you Casper. I appreciate that.

Brent: know what? You're absolutely right about that. With the recaps, the, the end of the show was on, I know we've talked about recently, but Jeff, I think our recaps, if we just cut those, some of those recaps could be like award-winning recap, recaps, cuz some of them have been f. And I'm not just talking about mine like yours too, like

Jeff: I love when we crack each other up. Right. You know, it's, it's the best.

Brent: Jeff, there has been so many times where I've been reading and I see your reaction and I have to like move you off screen so I can't see you because it's so like my a d d kicks into overdrive and I just wanna laugh too. So.

Jeff: I can't do this.

Brent: Well, Jeff, uh, we love to laugh here at the show.

Jeff: We do.

Brent: Wait, mostly it's because we like playing a lot of games along with rule of three. Another game we like to play is when we get to the end of the show and we try to guess what next week's episode is so that all you folks out there can laugh at us or cringe or cheer when we get it right, wrong or indifferent.

And this is the part of the show where we look back at what we said last week, that this week was supposed to be. So Jeff, this week's episode is lines. Lines of communication. What did you say this episode was gonna be about? How close were you?

Jeff: Yeah, I was way off on this one. I thought that we were gonna get GU Baldi and learning about the lines, connecting him to Cyco or whomever's controlling him, and kind of the communication back and forth there. And I thought that we were gonna get a dive into the Centara stuff because we saw the keeper controller thing in the last episode.

Neither of those things even almost happened. What did you think this one was?

Brent: It might have Jeff. We'll talk about that. Um, I said that this was gonna be more on Mars resistance, which I mean, that wasn't really a secret. I did get that part right. Uh, but basically what I said was where Babylon five and Mars both have been cut off from communication back to Earth, they were going to establish a new direct line of communication between Mars and Babylon.

Five. Kind of maybe with Franklin and Marcus and what they did certainly seemed like they developed a, a type of an alliance almost what Ivanova did last week. It was last week or two weeks ago. It was the last week where she like got the smuggler guys in. So they're kind of developing their own allies and stuff that way.

Uh, yeah. I'm not gonna give myself too many points for this one cuz it's not that sp spot on at all. But Jeff, uh, since neither one of us, neither, neither,

Jeff: Neither, neither.

Brent: neither one of us, that's how they say it, where I'm from. Neither, neither one of us, uh, were, uh, correct on this. Why don't you tell the folks at home who maybe haven't seen this episode in a while, or maybe they're listening to us without ever actually seeing the episode ever, which is totally cool, but weird all at the same time.

Tell the folks what this episode was actually about.

Jeff: In July of 1984, cliff Burton, LAR Zrich and James Hetfield shared profound advice on how to deal with mutually assured destruction, which is Sheridan's new game plan when it comes to I S N and President Clark's propaganda fight fire with fire in an incredible leadership moment. He recognizes Yvanova's talent for being in front of a camera from back when she was updating the sector on the VLAN invasion and decides to transform the war room into a television studio.

And dub ivanova the voice of the resistance. That voice is desperately needed, the resistance, they're not doing so well on Mars. They've been hitting civilian targets, and in the latest 10 civilians were killed. Number one comes unglued. At this. Franklin pulls all the resistance leaders together to deliver the messages from Babylon.

Five. They're outraged over Mars and Proxima three s treatment, and they're working to free them, but very specifically, they are to target President Clark, the man, not the office of the president. This is not an overthrow of earth gov, but a fight for their independence, which Sheridan guarantees because.

Of course the captain from some random disenfranchised Space station can guarantee the terms of the fight and the surrender of earth gov. Well, Franklin shares one more message and that is the bombing of civilian targets stops immediately. Number one, is pretty wise to this though, given the limited communication between Mars and Babylon five, there's no way that Sheridan knew that kind of stuff was happening.

Franklin owns up to it and later that night, while Marcus Stan's watch, he's rewarded within, oh, Stephen, for his creative thinking on Men Bar. There are more and more rumors the Warrior cast establishing its own council to rule them Inbar, and they're starting to play Dirty Dalen. Along with, with an honestly Distractingly beautiful Minbar.

Pharrell are also going to have to start thinking creatively. But they're helped along in this by seemingly unprovoked attacks on their allied worlds from an unknown attacker. They head out in a white star to see what they can learn and hopefully provide some protection, but they're too late. The unknown alien vessels have destroyed their targets.

Dalen has Lenier do their first contact thing, not repeating the mistake. When they first met the humans, they kept their gun ports closed, right? Broadcast friendship messages and language codes so they can communicate. But these guys didn't need that. They very quickly show that they understand and speak Men Barr, and in that moment we are introduced to the Jock Dalen Wonders.

How is it possible? They already know this language? And Pharrell pulls a gun on her. He is desperate to hook these people up. He says The jock are friends and he forces a meeting. So Dr. Dude comes on board. He's all warpy, kind of timey, wimy, and weird. Pharrell explains that the Warrior cast actually has already stood up their own council.

They're expelling religious cast from their homes and letting them die from cold and exposure. Pharrell, and I'm guessing some others have brokered a deal with a drug to provide protection from the warrior cast in exchange for, you know, just a little territory for their people. He explains that four episodes ago, these people lost their home world to a natural disaster.

Dalen, being a master math magician quickly carries the one she solves for X and realizes that the Dr are the minions and allies of the shadows, and they're looking for revenge. An exciting firefighting en sues white stars. 16 is destroyed and Dalen ship nearly is as well in an epic scene, she and Lanier cut the drop off at the pass and unleash hell on the mothership, blasting it to pieces, but Pharrell is killed in the exchange.

Dalen returns to Babbel on five, just long enough to update Sheridan. She's going back to Minbar to try and slow its plunge into Civil War. Sheridan kind of says that he's got his own civil wars going on with himself over his changes since dying on Zaha Doom and in his conflict with Garabaldi, with the Draw is an apparent wild card outta the shadow war.

Sheridan tells us all and leaves us with the wisdom that the duration outlasts the war. Brent, what did you think of lines of communication?

Brent: Honestly, Jeff, I found this one kind of dull.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I did. It was slow moving. It was plotting. That being said, there were elements about this that I liked a lot. There were parts that made me laugh. There were things that I thought was really cool. Um, despite the size difference in the complete unbelievability of for me, that the white star is gonna take out the mothership the way it did still, it was kind of cool to see.

Um, but overall, Jeff, I think this is one of those episodes for me anyway, where the individual parts were greater than the whole. Um, but I will tell you what really has me excited is I have come to a conclusion.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Do you know how in Star Trek, chief Miles O'Brien is the most important man in Star Fleet history?

Jeff: He is. We learned that in lower decks.

Brent: Oh, we've learned, we've known that for a while.

Jeff: Well, we've known it, but they codified

Brent: justically codified in lower decks. Yes. Yes. Uh, well, I have

Jeff: Well, hold on.

Brent: fair enough. Uh, I have determined who the true and greatest villain is in Babylon five history.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: That person is named Dalen.

Jeff: What?

Brent: Oh, yes. That person is Dalen.

Jeff: I gotta hear this.

Brent: Oh, you wanna talk about it now?

This is opening thoughts. I was gonna let you share your thoughts, but you wanna hear it now.

Jeff: you know, we'll, we'll get it. I, yeah, we'll get to it,

but, 

Brent: bad guy. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Jeff: Okay. We'll see.

Brent: yep. How about you, Jeff? What'd you think?

Jeff: One of the things we've heard about Babylon five is that it develops its characters unlike many, many other series have done. And what we know in TV is when you develop your characters, you can really lean on them to make some pretty Dr. Storylines exciting and interesting, and I think that's what I'm definitely experiencing on Mars right now.

Like so far, this Mars stuff is about as paint By numbers I mean from cliches being spewed out by everyone who's talking archetypes, playing a lot of the, the personnel that are there. But then you've got Franklin and Marcus who I'm I I could watch all day, like I love them together

Brent: Franklin has blossomed 

Jeff: a hundred 

Brent: buddy cop movie here with Marcus.

Jeff: Yeah, I'm, I'm here for those guys. Like, just all, it's all day long. They're great. I love all of it. The, uh, the Ivanova stuff and her and Sheridan together, it's great. We're getting, just like last week, we're getting those glimpses of, of the ivanova that we, we, we got back in season one and a little in season two.

And it's, and it's awesome. And then apparently we're gonna stretch out the shadow stuff a little more. I mean, we're doing that anyway, you know, with, we, we

saw them expelling, but yeah, here we are. We're adding a little more to it. I have a lot of thoughts on these jock and, um, I don't, I don't know. Um, I feel like I should have been blown away.

And I think on my first watch through, I was kind of like, you know, mouth a gate, like, oh my gosh. But on my second watch through this one, I was just kinda like, there's stuff going on here that doesn't really add up to me. And some real missed opportunities, I think. But, um, I will say, uh, For Pharrell, the actor who played Pharrell, and his, his, his approach to acting made me question, uh, some foundational pieces of who I am and, and what I have historically identified.

Uh, as, as a, as a heterosexual male here in this place, I was all about Pharrell,

Brent: Really.

Jeff: oh my gosh. In, in a primal, weird way. I can't explain it. We can have a whole podcast just about my weird, and, and I even looked dude up, like he's done almost nothing. I don't know why not though. I just, yeah. All about him. That was

Brent: Jeff, I, I can, I can say at least within the confines here of Babylon five for the first time, you are completely alone in that. Hey, listen. What? Hey, uh, what? What'd you say? Um, uh, whatever tweaks your freak, bro.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, that's, it's fine. Hey, you know, I, I, I've, I've been all on all my own, on, on worse things before, so I'll, I'll, I'll gladly plant the

Brent: Yes. Yes. Um, yeah.

Jeff: in all, I, I, I, I think, I think you, you summed it up great. There were great parts to this one as a whole. It just didn't

quite 

Brent: And I like, I know that because I, I can hear the comments now, like we watched you on your reaction video. Enjoy the episode. No, no. You watched me Enjoy parts of the episode.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: But the episode as a whole was kinda, I don't, I don't know. You know what? I feel like, Jeff, I feel like we're back in season two

Jeff: yeah,

Brent: you have really high, fantastic episodes and then you just have these kinda meh episodes.

Jeff: yeah. But I think in season two, those meh episodes, some of those were terrible. They were bad. We haven't had a terrible episode

Brent: that's, we really haven't, this wasn't a bad episode. There's,

Jeff: No, not

at all. 

Brent: at all. It just was dull.

Jeff: Yeah. And even like you, you said, I loved the scene, I loved the scene where the white star, they were, you know, doing the, uh, what do you call it, the skin dancing on the mothership, you know, and coming around and blasting it, making no impact whatsoever. Not even scratching the hole of the mothership, but then just as their white star, I don't know, white star 47 or whatever it was, was, was all but blown up.

It somehow was able to maneuver around, cut 'em off, and then had the guns that blasted

Brent: Well, it, I mean, it's, it's when it, it, I mean, all in one scene, Jeff, this went from Babylon five to Star Wars, because I was, I was in my reaction video going, you know, hit the exhaust port, hit the exhaust port. That's how they'll blow up, hit the exhaust port to it, gets to the end of it, and then it turns into top gun where he's gonna hit the brakes.

They'll fly right by him. He flips around, he flips 'em the bird, and then shoots a gun right up their nose and splits the whole thing in half with a ship that is like a 12th of the size of the big one. Like, uh, I don't, I don't know 

Jeff: The, the 

Brent: maybe they hit the exhaust port in the front,

Jeff: maybe. Yeah, maybe that's how it worked. The scene was great. Dalen end this. What a great

Brent: you know? You know what, what made me just, it was so, They're making, they're going really fast to the jump gate or whatever. She goes, go faster. We'll be or be faster. I was like, that's a command.

Jeff: Yeah. That's good. Hey, hey, hey, boss. I'm having a hard time doing this thing. Cool. Do more of it,

but okay. What do I do with that?

Brent: Yeah. So let's talk about the draw.

Jeff: All right.

Brent: Um, okay. At first, I, I mean it, Jeff, do you remember in season three there is an episode that everybody hated that we didn't,

Jeff: The gray 17.

Brent: 17 is missing, and I think one of the reasons why people really hate it is because j m s apparently actually apologized for that episode.

And if I understand it correctly, primarily because of how the alien was done and it was, it just didn't even look right. Like it was awful. I honestly didn't mind that there, this alien was awful.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I feel like I should be apologized to for this guy. I mean this dude straight looked, he straight up looked like they just went over to Spirit Halloween after Halloween, like on November 1st

Jeff: Yep. Yep. What's

left? What do you got? 

Brent: and like maybe picked up a yard decoration and then some other stuff and smashed it together and then told him to go just act like a zombie or something and whatever. Weird direction. And he's just standing there and he's still moving weird and stuff. And.

Jeff: I'm pretty sure what they said was, this is, I mean, I know it says, you know, 15 years afterwards, but this is an audition to be on the Thriller music video, so just give, gimme your best thriller dance moves, and don't stop

Brent: Right.

Jeff: at all ever.

Brent: I mean, and the, the blurry effect and what it was just, it was bad. It was, so the, he's got the little device in his hand, which I guess was a communicator or something, universal translator. It was, it was awful. There was nothing scary about this guy. There was nothing imposing about this guy. I felt like I could've blown on him and he would've fallen over.

Jeff: Just talk and he couldn't even talk for himself. Furl had to do all the talking for literally all he said was, you know, uh, yes, whatever. Hell of a thermal

detonator. My exact note though is if these Dr. Are always gonna look and sound like this, I hope we never see

Brent: me too. Oh, me

Jeff: sounded ridiculous. They looked ridiculous.

Unless there's some, like, they're between worlds or between time, like if there's some explanation or something. But I mean, outside of that, I hope we, I, I am very underwhelmed by this new, big, bad guy.

Brent: Is it the new big, bad guy?

Jeff: I sure hope

Brent: I, well, I mean, but you would think it is. So you interpreted it the same way I did. These were at least some of the people that were leaving Zaha Doom when Zaha blew up.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Right. Um, so you know how last week, yeah, yeah. It was la it was last week with Captain Jack. Right. And he said their people came and planted this eyeball thing on me.

Was that the drop?

Jeff: I, I,

Brent: I don't know how they would've, I don't know how they could have snuck in on him.

Jeff: right, if you are listening to the audio, you're not gonna see this, but on the YouTube you can see it like, how do you sneak up and just place this thing when this is, I mean, it just doesn't ch so, so either one. This is just ridiculous. And these are, this is a terrible alien design or two.

There are other allies and minions

Brent: let's go with both.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: go with both. Um, so the dr are not the little eyeball watcher dudes. 

Jeff: I sure don't

think so. Cuz those were pretty stable. They sat there pretty, pretty still.

Brent: Right. But, but I mean, cuz there was one point where I was like, wait, wait, is this guy a Dr or is he, cuz he said he was the emissary, not necessarily a drunk. So, uh, whatever. I'm gonna say that he's a drunk, uh, totally from Zaha.

Yeah. We're probably gonna be seeing these guys again.

Jeff: probably.

Yeah. I thought was what was sad in the whole thing? Like, so, so kind of the stuff, right. So we've, we've been postulating for a long time. The warrior cast is gonna do something Last season we thought they were gonna ally with the shadows. Uh, that, you know, it turns out it's the religious cast inadvertently allying themselves with the shadows.

But, uh, so they formed this council. They're trying to establish rule on minbar worlds and expelling the religious cast. So there's basically, um, Tacit warfare going on between the casts

Brent: I called it cold warring. They were 

Jeff: okay. Yeah. Yeah. Which is also appropriate given their method of execution. But what I so Dylan's doing the math that this jock dude must have had contact with the Minbar before, and Pharrell's immediate reaction is to point a gun her, to which the Lens's like, dude, what are you doing?

I know you're not gonna kill me. Like, we're in bar, we don't do it. He's like, yeah, but I can hurt you. I'll hurt you. My immediate thought was, dude's got one of the controller things on him.

Brent: Yeah, I thought so too. I thought so too. Yeah.

Jeff: All the way through. I'm believing that tell you story. It's like telling his story, and I'm like, and his story has merit and even Dalen as she hears a story, she's like, Farrell, I had no idea.

I'm so sorry. And I'm like, why? Why was his first reaction to whip out a gun and not be like, Hey, Dalen, let me tell you what's going on. Over here and then I brokered this deal. Like the whole like mechanism that got us face-to-face with the drug just felt so manufactured and unnecessary.

Brent: Absolutely. I had to bring you out here cause I knew you'd say no. No you didn't.

Jeff: He didn't know that

Brent: No, I mean, you, you gotta, you gotta say something. As a writer, you gotta give him a reason for doing it, and that's your reason. But you know, yeah, whatever. So, Jeff, here's where I'm gonna talk about it. Dalin is the biggest villain in the Babylon five universe.

Jeff: Okay. Let

Brent: This is, this is all, everything here is her fault. All right?

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Let's start with Minbar. Oh, Dylan goes in, makes everything all about herself. I'm the chosen one. How do you know? I don't know. My heart just tells me so, and I'm gonna follow my heart. So I'm gonna take this trialer and I'm gonna do this thing, which is really against our rules and really against our law.

But, you know, I'm following my heart, so I gotta do what I gotta do, and I'm gonna turn myself, halff human, and then I'm gonna go be a savior of the universe and I'm gonna go do all this stuff. Oh, by the way, I don't like the great council because they, they, they told me they didn't like what I just did.

And so I broke up the Great Council, and then she pieced out and went back to Babylon five. They broke up the great council, and then she pieces out, if you're gonna break something up, if you're gonna take something out, you have to have something to fill in its spot.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: You just do. There's a, there's a old, um, parable from the Bible where basically the idea is, is, is if you, if you have a bunch of robbers living in your house, you don't go in and clean up the house and then don't move into the house, because if you do, then you'll come back and you're gonna have even more robbers living inside your house, right?

And that's the idea is, is if you're going to take something out, you've got to fill in the void. And because of this, Dalin is responsible for Mbar culture, fracturing. And separating and turning to Cold War, which could blow up the hot war. Sounds like at any moment it is her fault. She is to blame for the dissolution of Mbar culture. Also, when she went in and had her role in the shadows and she went in and killed the shadows or took them out, she left a leadership void among shadow allies. Didn't even consider that the shadows. Might have some friends out there, didn't even think about it. And now that the shadows are gone well, they're trying to get in control themselves.

They're try again. You took this person out and you left a leadership void. And now this is happening with, uh, the jock. the greatest villain of the entire series. She finally realizes it at the end of the episode and says, you know, I shouldn't have been gone this long. She says, she knows it's her fault. And so she's gonna go back to Minbar and try to fix some stuff. Now what's gonna happen with the jock? I don't know. She can start where she needs to start. But basically what I'm saying is this whole thing, the Earth Barr war, her fault, the fact that the earth, I mean, imagine what would happen if, if the Mbar just obliterated Earth,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: okay?

Would've saved a whole lot of trouble, you know? Um, but no, she had to go in and stop that, and she broke up Mbar culture. She was a big part of getting the bolon in the shadows to, to leave and shake up the, the void that is there. She's just, she's going in, taking things out, making it about herself, and then piecing out, leaving people to figure stuff out that my friend is a villain and she is the biggest villain.

Of the Babylon five universe.

Jeff: So I think where I'll push back right out of the gate is on the, the, the, the drop piece. Cause Sheridan didn't think of that either. No one, no one thought about the allies and men's, and in fact, if you wanna say anybody should have, it was Sheridan because he had londo in war without end. Say you didn't think about the allies and mins of the shadows and they've been here for 20 years doing this stuff.

I put that at Sheridan's feet not to

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: And I think also we talked about when, you know, in, um, an atonement how I felt duco letting the gray Council make the call to not reach out to the humans and make first contact was the right call. Tell if they're doing something foolish. Show them that they're a fool, and let the truth, you know, work itself out.

I think to, to take what we learned about Dalen and Atonement. And then piggyback on what you're

saying, Duco was allowing some chaos to happen. He was allowing the Menari to make mistakes and for people to get hurt as a result. But I have to believe, given what we saw of D Kott, he had a plan, right, to kind of step in, try and insert some control.

If Duco hadn't been killed in that attack, the Earth, Menari war likely would not have happened. He would've brought some form of order because Duco was a leader. Who would step in and say, yes, this whole thing, scr messed up. It was awful. Here's how we're gonna move forward and find peace. But instead, what we got was Luke Skywalker.

So we had Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi. You had Dalen in Duco. Luke wasn't fully trained, and he went to fight Darth. And as a result, we got that horrible, you know, the, the, the beautifully horrible end to Empire strikes back cuz Luke didn't know what he was doing. That's what we have with Thelen now. Hey, I saw Du Kott let these people do these things and step in and do stuff.

What he didn't see was the great leadership and the strategic planning and the high level stuff that he was doing behind. So she's not doing those things. I, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna disagree that she's the biggest villain in the series. What I'm gonna say is the, she is the most dangerously empowered, ignorant person in the galaxy.

She doesn't know what she's doing. But she's swinging such a huge hammer that she's destroying intergalactic structures. God. And to go back to when she did break up the great council, what authority did she even do that under at that point? She's random person coming in who broke a staff. They didn't have to break up.

They like, but still, like, who, who are you lady? I said it a couple episodes ago. I'll say it again. Naroon from back in. Was that, um, interludes and Examinations? I think it was. He was not wrong.

Brent: oh, 

Jeff: when she, when she's, when she saw Sheridan and the summiting come out and be like, ah, blah, blah, blah.

And then she ran up onto the catwalk to be with him too. Oh, there's a spotlight and there's power. There it is. She's an ignorant, ignorant person who's addicted to power and people listen to her and that is the most dangerous type of person in the world, or the galaxy at this scale.

Brent: I don't think there's a difference between what you and I just said.

Jeff: Yeah, I think a, I think a villain has

Brent: I, I, I'm, I'm obviously being a little facetious, but Jeff, I will say this. Do you remember back in season two, you and I took a hill?

Jeff: Oh, yeah.

Brent: Towards the end of season two. What, what, what's the other side of the face? Turn 

Jeff: Yep. Uhhuh. Yeah. We want 

Brent: Uh, I think we just turned heel again because we're sitting here crapping all over Dalen.

Because d I mean D like Dalen should not be in charge of this. Dalen it. Here's the thing. She really shouldn't be in charge of this. She is not warrior cast. She is not trained in tactical battle. Sheridan or Ivanova should be here with her to guide her. She should not be in charge of this

Jeff: no. Or, or Naroon. Lean on the people that you have close to

Brent: She, he didn't he come and ball to her or something and be like, Hey, I'm on your side now.

Jeff: Call her in Tila,

right? Like, 

Brent: be here and do it. It's like, where's Ster? He said he was gonna be on their side. Where's Naroon?

Jeff: but you know what? I'm not gonna put that on her. I'm gonna put it on Dalen. Dalen needs to go get in a

Brent: Yes. She's a villain because it's all about he.

Jeff: It is all about her. I agree. I agree. And, and, and I know we like to you what you just said, we just alienated a lot of people here and I'm sure there's things that happened, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I am gonna stand on this pulpit and I'm not coming down.

When you are a person with the power, when you're a person with the prestige, and not just power G but power given, not power taken, but power given that Dalen has, you do not get to be that ignorant anymore. You do not get to be that irresponsible.

Brent: I agree. 

Jeff: But she does. And here we are. What happened, what was his name?

Um, ashon, right? The guy like, um,

Brent: was the guy that was trying to accuse, um, Sheridan of killing the other dude.

Jeff: Yeah. Lavelle, right? Yeah. Of killing Lavelle and Ashan called her a freak. Right. You know, and then we got, so, so we went from her being fully ostracized in an mbar society to her being able to come in and break up the great council. And now her apparently being the only person who can come and bring order to Minbar, it's a savior complex.

Brent: Here's the thing. She probably will do a much better job bringing order and being a savior to minbar than she will commanding a vessel in battle. Because she is trained in how to lead her country and lead her culture. She is not trained in how to lead the warrior, the, the, the, the battleship,

Jeff: So that's a thing that I, I caught out of, out of this episode now, wanna. We, it, it's a thing that on reflection we've seen through the whole series, but in this one it became so

apparent what really prompted her to grab the white star fleet and head out to see what was going on is the religious cast had committed to protect these small member worlds that, that they, they have cared for.

Why is the religious cast offering military protection to places the religious cast are the ones who have crude the white star vessels and built them? How do they know how to do all that stuff? Like what, what are these casts really? Because it seems to me there's not much difference between the warrior and the religious cast other than the warrior cast are clearly bad guys, whereas the religious people tend to keep, the religious cast tend to keep it a little more under wraps.

Brent: At least that's what they say. That's what they purport Maybe. Maybe the warrior cast really are the heroes of Minbar society,

Jeff: Right.

Brent: you know? So, look, Dylan is our hero of the story. She's one of our heroes of the

Jeff: One of them.

Brent: you know? Um, They're going to write her as they write her, for her to sit there and in strength go faster or be faster. Did it occur to you that she made the same call here after all those people died and they said, no, you go after these MFS and make them pay for what they've done. Is that not the same thing that she did back when Duco was killed instead? No. Mercy make them pay. has Dalen actually learned? Look, folks, Hey listen, I know you love Dalen.

I know you love Dalen. I know some of you have even, uh, taken on her name and that's awesome and I get why you would do that. But in an actual analysis of what's going on outside of the. Fluffy narrative. This is a, this is not a good look for Dylan. This is not a good positive Dylan episode.

Jeff: No. No.

Brent: The last Dylan episode was really positive for her.

This one, honestly, this episode set her way back to me, you know, because it, it, you're right, it should have been Naroon or Sheridan on that bridge. By the way. Her telling Sheridan at the end, like, you gotta stay here. I've gotta go back and try to try to go fix this. Um, and I'm sure you're gonna get into this in Star Trek messages later, her sitting there telling him something I've studied about human culture is your diversity that brings you together and that is your strength. But you stay here. I'm gonna go back there by myself do this myself.

Jeff: Not even use it.

Brent: Your diversity is your community that you build and the way that you do this. But I'm gonna go do this over here by myself.

Jeff: Well, I think that's what we've seen from the Minbar, through and through. They are isolated, they're racist, speciesist, whatever. Um,

Brent: Xenophobic.

Jeff: yeah, that's the word. For, for a society that is enlightened and is the elder race, you know, for what we know. Oh my gosh, there, there is, there is very little from this society that I, I think anyone should ever wanna model

Brent: I

Jeff: outside of some good sound

Brent: the, listen, the further we get into this, the more I'm going. Honestly, the minbar kinda jacked up.

Jeff: You know what I almost see fast forward, fast forward a million years, we'll call it the Age of Ironheart, cuz that's, that's when Jason Iron Hart's supposed to come back million years. There's gonna be the legend of the shadows, the legend of the Volans, right. Or whatever. But instead it'll be the legend of the menari and the legend of the humans.

So we're gonna have like, yeah, every thousand years or so, these menari come outta hiding and they just start blasting people until the humans come. We're setting up for the next cycle with, cuz right now we got this great partnership like apparently the shadows and the Volans had,

Brent: Yeah. Ooh,

Jeff: and that did not turn out

Brent: I was gonna say, I mean, you know what, what if humans get to a spot where they really can go toe to toe with the mbar and force everything into a stalemate? And that's, that's where it goes, is things devolve between the mbar in the, uh, in the humans, and that some new species has to come in and to pose the two of them.

And Lian comes back to get those two. I listen, there's, there's. There is a lot wrong here. I am going to, I have to leave this episode with, and I'm making a, a conscious choice. Jeff, despite this, what I think is very accurate analysis of what this would be in a real world situation, I am having to choose to sort of leave this stuff here in this episode because Dalin is supposed to be one of our heroes

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and what she is doing is supposed to be the right thing. And I'm going to, I'm going to go with it on the assumption that she is doing the right thing for the right reasons, with the right heart in, in a pure way. Even though you and I would both sit here and be like, that's all BS and this is actually awful. In reality, this is awful and I. I'm always trepidatious to bring this back out as, as a, as a thing.

You know what it reminds me of right now, professor sch Snape from the Harry Potter Show, uh, uh, books. Okay? Uh, spoiler alert for anyone who's not read or watched the movies, you can fast forward for about 34 seconds in 3, 2, 1. All right? You get to the end of Harry Potter and Snape, everything's revealed about how much he loved Harry's mom, and always he loved her always, and oh, how sweet that is.

And he's always been protecting Harry because of it, and blah, blah, blah, blah. Until you stop and think about how creepy that is, that this dude has been hung up on her since he was a kid and never got over it and stalked. You know 

Jeff: And her 

Brent: And her kid. Yeah. And, and, and it was, it is not good. It is. The, the truth about SNA is he's a disturbed individual, but he's written as an archetype.

As an archetype, and we are supposed to go with it. So I am making that choice to go with Dylan on this one, even though I think in the final analysis. Dylan's messed up, man.

Jeff: Yeah. I think though also what I know of some people who hold the character in very high regard is a lot of it, this, her story is her struggle and her growth. And, and we've seen that so far, you know? And so, and, and, and I have to believe, just as we've talked about, you know, we, we've seen, we've seen the, uh, attempt at redemption for Lando in what will be his last moment.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: We, I, I gotta believe out there that hey, Dalen something, something

Brent: Hey, red, red sector. Fire it up, Jeff. This is my next to last note. It's time for the redemption of Dylan of bin Bar. Fire it up. Red sector. Make all the memes you want. There you go. They love my redemption out. Uh, arcs.

Jeff: I do. Well the last, last real note that I have on this whole Dr. Thing. Is, um, other than just a couple other thoughts, like why did they just let him walk through the ship on his own? Like, what was that all about? But when these first saw their ships, did you read vlan?

Brent: I 100% dead. I was like, those look for lunch ships. Those look for line ships. But then they had a different, they, you know what they look like. They looked like, um, if you take the claws out of a claw machine and set them on a side, that's what they look like. So it wasn't quite vlan uh, but I definitely, I was like, it has that organic tech look to it.

It has the, the color and the situations and everything. Looks a hundred percent organic tech. So what is this now? I'm going until I hear differently. I'm going to assume that the DR are using organic tech as part of their ships, just like the Bolon and Shadows both did because the shadow, the shadow ships were organic tech too.

Right?

Jeff: I think

Brent: That's, that was my interpretation of it. Anyway, um, hey, listen, for those of you out there who wanna write in, cuz I know some of you guys are furiously firing up the keyboards and say what you will please remember, no spoilers don't tell us what happens with the Dylan. This is just where Jeff and I are right now.

Jeff: Yeah, there's still a season and a half to go,

Brent: All right, well we've been talking about one bad girl. Let's talk about another bad girl

Jeff: number. one. 

Brent: Thank you. Um, I'm gonna make this as a declaration. Number one lady, the actress, I don't know who, what her name is. Uh, she is going to give Leona Kimmer a run for her money and worst guest actress in the entire.

Jeff: Why? Because you can literally see the cue card that she's reading from

Brent: in the reflection of her eyes.

Jeff: Uhhuh.

Brent: is. She is awful. And when she gets in there and she starts like hammering people, there is no threat whatsoever. I, if she came in and said that stuff to me, I'm gonna use your brains for cat food. Ha, are you not?

Jeff: I'll give you 20 bucks to try. Let's do it

Brent: I listen, using your brains for cat food is No, I'm gonna turn your bones into flutes for my children.

That is a chilling threat. The other

Jeff: That, that actor, she's gotta be six foot tall. If she's anything, like, she is a, she's a tall,

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: imposing woman. Like I'll give like, definitely looks the part, but the minute she opens her mouth and starts trying to like put some sta on it on there, I'm just like, like if I was that, I would just like, what did he say?

So, so you treat all your former lovers. I would just be like, I can't believe I'm one of your former lovers. I'm so embarrassed for myself right now.

Brent: listen in the dark, it's all, anyway, um, she is one of those people whose voice does not match her face.

Jeff: at all.

Brent: know what I mean? Like, it's, it's you talking, you're like, you don't, there's something like, did somebody else come in and overdub your entire lines because something is off all

Jeff: has, she has an almost Michelle Forbes quality to her voice, like, and I, and I'm thinking Michelle Forbes specifically Battlestar Galactica, like when she's just, you know, she's got that, that sharp commanding voice, but then without any of the gravitas behind it, but just kind of the gravel. I, I like the way she is written though.

Like, I have to say, like, I like how she's written. I really feel this is an, an, an acting and directing execution that's making it not. Because that, that, that cat food insult delivered correctly is epic. That's a great insult if you deliver it right?

Brent: Yeah. It could be. I just, it nothing about it came out as imposing. Um, when the, when the stuff came across, the thing that there was this explosion at the hotel was a terrorist act, they thought that it was a resistance thing.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: I immediately went, of course, it's a resistance thing. Th this wasn't something that Earth didn't, trying to pin it on them.

No, no, no. They absolutely did this. That's the way it's gonna come out. I didn't think that it was gonna go out the way it did, where somebody went and did something unauthorized. I thought she was fully gonna be in on it, and just faking like, oh, I can't believe somebody would do that. Which I thought it was you and you're bad.

Like, that's kind of where I was. It might have been better actually, had it gone that way. But the whole, the whole Franklin and Marcus thing here, Jeff, I mean, you said it earlier, you are a hundred percent in on Franklin and Marcus.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: They were great. Um,

Jeff: They were great.

Brent: I like, listen, we're against Clark, not against the, the office of the president.

We're against the person. And don't blow up civilian targets. You gotta stop that part.

Jeff: Yeah. Very reasonable stuff.

Brent: Sure.

Jeff: My issue with the whole thing though, was people started attacking Sheridan. So apparently Sheridan played a role in suppressing some food riots a while back, and they're, they're, they're keep keeping him, um, tied to that. But as soon as anybody spoke ill of Sheridan, Marcus, like a little puppy dog, a sequel fantic puppy dog would jump up to be like, no, but he's great.

You don't understand. He's great. And when Marcus was coming to his defense, I had this little voice over here, Michael Garabaldi telling me like, see, it's about Sheridan and it's not about the cause. And I was like, oh. Maybe he's right.

Brent: Sheridan is the greatest villain of the series.

Jeff: Exactly. And he's so

Brent: Oh, maybe the one, all three of them is the greatest villain of the series.

Jeff: right.

Yeah.

Brent: Somebody get Zs on the phone, let's talk to 'em about that.

Jeff: Yes. You The one who is the one who was one will be all bad, all bad.

Brent: They were not the one.

Jeff: Not, not the one, not the

Brent: Um, okay. So. Did they actually get this group of resistance fighters on their side? It kind of seemed like it, but it wasn't definitive. They weren't

Jeff: yeah. She said, uh, I forget the line, but she's like, yep, got the votes. You know, they're, they're gonna do it. Still got a couple people that need some convincing though. And, and Franklin, you know,

Brent: That's where, 

Jeff: him. Did his 

Brent: I'm sorry. That's where you go get Ka Nicki. Well, you need some convincing. Let's do it. Huh? I'm gonna, I'm bust up some heads. Let's go Grease Lightning

Jeff: Oh, do it on Thunder Road.

Brent: for an extra 50 credits a week. I don't how to say no.

Jeff: Yeah, Franklin gave it his best. I mean, he really gave a compelling argument. He's like, we need you to trust us. We need you to be patient. You know, two lines that always work that, oh, you need me to trust. Okay. Okay. You

Brent: He said, what? What was the line? He's like, oh, what? So if Sheridan like came flying in over New York City, you'd believe him, or you know, we're supposed to believe that. I was like, he says if anybody else said it, no, but if John Sheridan said it, I'd say, stop over on the west side and pick me up some bagels. I was like, that's funny.

Jeff: That was good. That was good.

Brent: Again, individual parts greater than the whole put together of, of the episode. Um, okay, so there's that, there's the Dr. Deen's Bad Franklin or Sheridan's bad. You know what Make, what's kind of making me mad about Sheridan? He keeps watching that news channel. I get it. It's the only channel it gets.

Doesn't even get the adult channel anymore. Poor guy. Um, uh, but I was just sitting there thinking like, people that just watch News Talk tv, I'm not even gonna name a station. Uh, cause all of them. Yeah. Uh, or if you just listen to News Talk radio, all you're doing is winding yourself up like a Chief, chief Watch.

Cause they exist to, to, to. They exist to make you watch and to keep you str strung along cuz that's how they make their money. That's actually how media works in general. But

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I mean, stop watching. I mean, that stuff's not good. It is not good. Stop it babe. Like, like, I mean, you watch what you wanna watch. I ain't gonna tell you, but just understand when you get in that, especially if you're in, because they're all politically biased one way or the other, whichever one you watch, you're just gonna be in an echo chamber and it's just gonna get you riled up where you don't really need to be that riled up.

Jeff: Especially when you're the subject of what they're talking about.

Brent: Exactly. So, uh, so stop that. Anyway, um, I have one more note on this whole episode,

Jeff: Okay. And then I have, I have, I have a little exercise. I want us to do a little game to play, so give your note

and then I have a quick 

Brent: time's ticking man in the 

Jeff: It's a quick 

Brent: we go. Uh, this is the very first time in the entire series, Jeff, that something has happened that Ivanova did not wake up. Absolutely beautiful, fresh from the hair and makeup trailer.

Jeff: Looked like she was actually

Brent: She looked, she looked like, or she didn't have makeup on. Her hair was all flat.

Now it wasn't like Bedhead messed up, you know? She still, yeah, like, like she was not a, I'm not saying she looked ugly, I'm just saying she did not look perfect like she has every other time. We've seen her wake up in the middle of the night,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: like for the first time. Uh, also, we did get a little flash of old school Iva in this one.

If you weren't my commanding officer, I swear I'd shoot him dead.

Jeff: That's good. That was really

Brent: All right. What's your, what's your exercise, Jeff?

Jeff: So this, this, this episode ended pretty on, on what they tried to make a pretty funny note, you know, with Marcus sand guard and just to hear the, uh oh Stephen, I would like for us to do a little rewrite of that ending.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: uh, I'll, I don't know if, if, if I'll I'll set it up and then you can kind of go and then I'll give you my idea.

But like, it was funny, but I feel like it could have been funnier

Brent: Yes, I know exactly how it could have been

Jeff: Okay. Yeah. Cuz I think this, this is kind of your jam, so like, yeah.

Brent: So you go first. I'll go second.

Jeff: Okay, so what we saw was Marcus bored sand guard flicking his menari pike, and then you hear, heard the thing and he is like, oh, okay. What it should have been was just Marcus kind of sitting there looking around little bored, and then you hear the, oh, Steven and then

Then he hits the Menari Pike. Fade to

Brent: Oh, the implications of that. That would be funny. That would be funny. But do you know what one of the funniest jokes in comedy always is?

Jeff: The aristocrats,

no. 

Brent: No. That is an awful joke. Uh, no. Is is the callback, 

Jeff: Okay. 

Brent: I mean when I say the callback?

Jeff: Bring, bring something up.

Brent: Right. So what this should have been was Marcus just sitting there opening and closing his Mbar Pike.

All of a sudden he, oh, Steven. And then he should have heard, or he should have said, Woohoo. That's what it should have been. Just woohoo.

Jeff: That would've been great. Oh,

Brent: That would've been the like, oh, yes, that is, that's it. But I, I gotta tell you though, if the network decided to show those episodes out of order, that joke would not have hit 

Jeff: no, it would've been weird.

Brent: but in, in, in order, it would've, it would've been fantastic. Well, Jeff, I, I think with that, we have come all the way down to the spot here in lines of communication. Where it's time to look at the deep moral messages. There are some there, there really was some good stuff, especially right at the end, that little message that Dylann gave. Uh, so we're looking for those, what we call the Star Trek, like messages being done in a uniquely Babylon five, uh, way. What we're looking for are those Star Trek like messages being done in a uniquely Babylon five way. We're, by that, what we mean is we're looking for those things where that are holding up a mirror to society, maybe giving us hope that we are gonna be better in the future, and, and maybe just kind of telling us how to be like, like showing us who we are for what we are and, and calling us to be better as a, as humanity, as a people doing it in, in the form of sci-fi.

So Jeff, you are gonna get to discuss this this week, and you're going to rate this episode on a scale of zero to five Delta Furies as to how strong that Star Trek like message is. But how Babylon five was it delivered,

Jeff: You said it. There's a lot in this episode. So what I'm gonna kind of fly over real quick, and then I'm gonna dive into two of them. Pretty, pretty big. But there was a great line, uh, when they were on Mars and Franklin just says, this is what, talking about independence, you know, not taking down earth gov, but fighting for actual independence.

This is what you've been fighting and dying for. You're no closer now than you have been. You have to try a new approach. You've gotta try something different. I love this because how often do we see people in life, relationships work, business, anything? Just keep doing the same thing and wondering why.

Why isn't this working out? Why isn't this working out? That's just just a really cool Babylon five way of delivering the message of, hey, if you keep walking into a brick wall, especially if you're hurting yourself, when you walk into that brick wall, walk somewhere else. Like try. Try a different way. Then there's this theme.

The theme was that history repeats itself. So, um, when Pharrell's talking about, um, the Warrior cast starting to step up and take control, he says that people saw it happening, but they didn't believe that it could happen to us. They didn't believe that what happened before Val's time could ever happen again.

But here it is happening. And in that he also shares a statement that he said. Duco said that when there's good news, we always ask if it's true because it's so difficult to believe. But when there's bad news, we rarely inquire because it's so easy to believe. So imagine. You happen. This is just a hypothetical situation that, you know, doesn't really necessarily relate to anything nowadays is experiencing.

But imagine that you're living in a modern, dystopian nightmare where everything politically and societally and climate and environmentally and everything else is falling apart right before your very eyes in ways that we've seen happen in prior civilizations and in prior times, some of it within some people's lifetimes here, let's just say, you know, hypothetically that's happening.

But we keep telling ourselves, ah, it's we're, we're better now. We're smarter, now we're more enlightened. That that couldn't happen to us, even though it's blatantly happening to us. So when we see these things happening, the people who see them and they try to bring it to other people's attention because we don't believe good news, right?

So we have to create bad news to counter the other bad news. In the case in this episode, the bad news is the Warrior Cast is getting outta control and killing religious cast people. So Pharrell and the religious cast don't sit down and say, Hey guys, this is bad news. Look, look at the time before vain.

Look what happened. Look how he went through. There's no conversation. Nope. They go out and they enlist the first disenfranchised, powerful race they can find that will stand up and pose a threat to this bad news. Oh, this is bad. Guess what? We have bad news too. Now our bad news is gonna have to work together.

So the message in this one that hit me so hard was not only does history repeat itself, but we make it worse each time because to counter it repeating itself, we move the pendulum so far around that it's actually in the same. Right. It's not contrary to the other. We're actually complimenting the bad things and moving everything forward.

That's what's gonna break Minbar society down. Not the warrior cast going outta control, but the warrior cast going outta control and the religious cast also going outta control to show how outta control the warrior cast is. Don't know if that rings true for anybody nowadays in any way, but the big one, the nail on the head, right, humanity's greatest strength is its diversity and its community building.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: This is every sci-fi thing, right? I mean, almost line for line. This was in mass effect where they talk about how the, the, uh, the reapers and the collectors were going after humanity because of the diversity that they had. Every other race is fairly well homogenized in some way or another, but humanity is diversity.

What we saw though, throughout season two, season three, It was that community building. It was Sheridan as a human who was able to bring the league worlds together, unify them against a common threat, and we're gonna see that again. And th this was that moment of acknowledging that that happened and then setting and paving the road for what is to come against Earth.

Because like the shadows in the volans Babylon five, John Sheridan isn't gonna be able to take down earth, earth gov and President Clark on his own, he's gonna have to build a community to do it. In fact, I think to your earlier point, it's gonna be fun to watch him trying to do, to trying to build a community to fight Earth and, and bring them back around while we see going to try to single-handedly save minbar and see if they kind of, to use one of your favorite words, juxtapose those two approaches in any way.

But it's true, we are, as humans, we are better together in. Every way. You and I had a conversation I think earlier this week about neurodiversity, right? People with a D h d A D D and then the, what we call the neurotypicals out there and how

there are so 

Brent: for, for the record of the two of us, you would be the neurotypical, I would be the neurodiverse

Jeff: generally

Brent: generalist speak. Yeah, yeah,

Jeff: yeah, yeah. I, I, I have a strong belief that like anyone who's truly neurotypical is really skilled at masking. Um, I think we have tremendous diversity in, uh, in, in our, how we're made up. But yes, I'd say of the two of us, kind of how it works, but the, the general feeling out there and, and the general feeling out there is that neurotypical people have to like, put up with these, you know, this neuro the way that other people's brains work or whatever.

And this was all born because we were trying to schedule a time to record and I was saying everything in your time zone, and you were like, Hey, thanks for doing that. That helps work. I'm like, yeah, cause I get it. I understand how your

Brent: Cause you're three hours behind me. 

Jeff: Yes. Yeah. And so I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna put it in your time.

I understand to a point how your brain works. I can adapt, so I'm gonna do that. It makes things easier because together our brain is better together and I'm gonna adapt and mold and change and bend. You're gonna adapt and mold and change it. Bend a little bit so that we can make our brain together. Now, imagine this times 1,000 thousand billion if we can get on the same page.

Diversity, right? Diversity is a checkbox, diversity is a measurement. Is there, are there people that look and lived differently here? The real magic comes in community. And community is when you have equity, when people have the things they need and you have inclusion, people know that they belong and that they're welcome.

That's community. That's humanity's greatest strength. And as a plug, That's kind of what we do here at Babylon five for the first time as well. We bring people together. Brett and I we're pretty cool. You know, we're pretty cool guys. What makes us, the US capital? US cool. Is all of you watching, listening and participating in the community that we are?

Brent: And you know, the, if I could jump in on that, the, we have several different communities in several, several different levels. Uh, there is the community of those of you out here there who interact with us on social media. That that is one group. Uh, there is a community of, of you folks out there who listen to the audio podcast of this.

Um, unfortunately that's a little one-sided cuz you know us, but we don't really know you that well unless you choose to reach out through one of these other platforms. Um, but there is also our group of people that are on YouTube and the people who comment on the videos. And we, Jeff, we, we try to interact with those as best we can.

There's so much that it's hard to do that so often these days, but we really do try to interact with that as best we can. And what's happened is, is with YouTube, it's kind of the same people for the most part every week. And we've kind of gotten to know that group of people, but then there's our patron.

Over on our Patreon page, and this is not a shameless plug, although shameless plug, you should come join us on Patreon. Um, but there's that group there, which is, it's a little bit smaller, a little more intimate, and a little bit tighter. And there's a little bit of crossover to the YouTube, but it's not whole holy done that way.

And that is a particular group of people and in particular community that exists there. But there's one step further of the people who exist on our Discord platform that you and I are a lot more active on. Um, and that has turned into its own group of people as well. And so there, there's the, just the community, the different circles of communities.

Uh, I don't think that anyone is better or greater than the other. It's just those are the different places that within this own show, those communities have existed.

Jeff: Yeah. And that shows our power and, and it, and it, and it does. And it, and it makes us dangerous, right? You come at us, you come at, you come at all of us, you know? And like, it's like this. It's, and I don't mean that like, oh, girls, tough, macho, but like we have had instances where we have come together around members of our community to help them.

And it's amazing to see. It makes us powerful. It makes us dangerous. And that's not just Babylon five for the first time. That's humanity. If we can just capture that, Brett, this was a five Delta Fury episode

Brent: I, I, I don't disagree. I may have bumped it back down to four because most of the intentionality of that to me was just wrapped up in this nice little line at the end. Uh, and it wasn't really on full display through the rest of the episode. But I, I'm not gonna argue with five that's yours. And I don't, I don't get to argue if I could tack onto that.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Um, and I may, I'm gonna get a little political. But that's because it's right here. Like it's, it's, it's for the, the grabbing. And

Jeff: Hold on. I'm just gonna get ready to

catch the emails coming through.

Brent: and, but I, but I think this is true of most governments worldwide, from what I see, I could be wrong, it's just my observation, but the lens's line, it is your diversity.

That is your strength, and it's what makes you dangerous. I would, I'm going to speak to the American government right now and specifically to the Republicans and the Democrats, which are our two controlling bodies right now. We are more like minbar than we are like humans in Babylon, like then what Dylan described as humanity.

We are warring with each other. We are back biting each other. We are dividing along cast lines. With each other. We are not working together and our culture is fracturing. And we have people who are openly inciting war. They're telling you, we're at war. We're at war. This is weaponized. Everything's weapons.

We're at war. They're taking over. They're taking over. They're taking over. They are not unifying, they're divisive. And that's where we find ourselves here. I think we see that in other countries, at least from what we can tell on our TV here in America is other countries are like that when it's a a us, us first, them type situation. And Jeff, to what you were just sort of describing a second ago, the difference between that and what Dalin describes is you said it's equity and it said that they know that they're.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: You walk into the halls of Congress and it is not equity and welcome

Jeff: it's barely

diversity. Like, like you couldn't even check

Brent: A a bunch of months ago, and I'm gonna call you out, Tennessee. The Tennessee legislature kicked out two, uh, of its own members because they did something they didn't like. All right. Now they may have violated rules of decorum or something like that.

And then what I loved is like the next day, the voter, like the way the thing works is the voters get to pick on who they want to send back in to replace 'em. And they sent the dudes right back. They had to like bring them back in. Um, but, uh, uh, to, to be able to harness the diversity, the difference is, is each side is vying for power, not vying to come together. And you gotta harness the diversity, not shut the other side out. And that's what we see. And, and we've seen it when either side's in, in power.

Jeff: Yeah. Cause I, I want, I want to clarify and tell me if I'm wrong, but I just wanna be very clear about this. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. This is a Republican and Democrat thing. This is this

there, there's 

Brent: listen, listen, when, when the Democrats were in charge, um, they froze out the Republicans and just pushed things through and did not work together. Uh, when the Republicans have been in charge, they are clearly free and they're turning everything against the Democrats. By the way, they've been doing this since I started paying attention, and probably a long time before.

I just, I know when I started paying attention and I've been aware of it.

Jeff: Yeah. It's not

Brent: no, but it does seem to be getting worse. Worse and worse and worse. And I, I can only imagine what it was like leading up to 1861. I 

Jeff: there were fist fights that broke out in Congress like.

Brent: Yeah. It's, it's getting, it's getting bad. And we, I mean, you know, God bless Parliament over in England, but that is, that is some, some Jerry Springer tv right there, if I've ever seen it. You know, no offense to all, to our UK friends out there. Uh

Jeff: Well, they probably say the same thing about

us, what they see on, you know, so,

Brent: sure. Uh, you know, but it's, but it is, I, you know, again, what just, I can only go by what we see on TV and what they allow us to see.

So, uh, but I, I see it in all these other places. My point being, uh, now that I've pissed everybody off, the point being the difference between what's happening on Mbar and the ideal that Dalen was speaking. I'm sorry that j m s was speaking. Is the way you capitalized it when you're working together, when you know that everybody is brought in and you're gonna harness that diversity, that frankly, being able to to, to harness that diversity is what made America great with still a lot of room to get better because we were not perfect

Jeff: Ever, ever.

Brent: We 

Jeff: No place has been. It hasn't happened.

Brent: America back then, and still today has a lot of room to get better. We are not arrived. But what made America that world powerhouse out of the late 18 hundreds and through the 19 hundreds and then beyond was because we could harness our power. And the fact is that we are. Turning into a cold War on each other.

And it has and and it's been festering and escalating and escalating and escalating. And I think we've, we're pretty much there at this point where culture is, is fracturing the way that it was described on memoir, which is really sad to me. And this is why, this is why we need sci-fi on tv. This is why sci-fi is uniquely positioned among all other genres to be able to do what we call the Star Trek like thing.

But let's just face it, it's the sci-fi thing where you can hold up a mirror to society.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Jeff, you're absolutely right. This is a five Delta Fury episode through,

Jeff: when you add in the piece of, of, for I talking about, uh, you know, du Kat's piece and how history repeats itself. And we actually make things worse because we don't, we, we fight each other over, over the scraps instead of coming together over greatness. And, and that's, that's happening on Minbar and it's, it's happening right here

Brent: And unfortunately there's nobody, at least in leadership right now, that is trying to get people to come together.

Jeff: Well, the thing is, and I've talked, I think I've talked about this before, that person won't get a, i I I have, I have this much experience in running for an elected office, and, and even at the tiniest level, that person cannot conceivably run for office. The machine is so big and so well, well-tuned that you will get eaten up and destroyed.

Brent: you try to bring people together.

Jeff: Yeah. It's, it's not the goal. That's, like you said, media, media exists on firing people up and building up, up towards a thing. I've had legislators look me in the face and tell me, yeah, that's great policy. I won't get reelected by passing something like that though, like that's who's gonna vote for someone who does?

I'm like, well, who cares? who cares?

It's the right thing to

Brent: there was. There was a, a great line from. Not as bad as it could have been. Movie Legally Blonde too. You have Reese Witherspoon talking to Sally Field as a congresswoman who says, listen, 90% of the stuff you get in there and you pass so that you can be around to do the 10% that you really care about.

Jeff: Yep. Truer words almost. Almost truer words. Almost never spoken before. Hey Brent.

Brent: Jeff?

Jeff: We just had a fun time talking about some really, really heavy stuff. Now we get to have some actual

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: We're creating the absolutely definitive ranking of all the episodes of the fourth season of Babylon five, our current top five, number one, into the fire.

Then the long night atonement. Whatever happened to Mr. Garibaldi in the summoning? Brent, this is on you, my friend. Where do you put lines of communication?

Brent: a top.

Jeff: No.

Brent: for me. Uh, the bottom five right now because we only have 10. So the next five is, uh, hour of the wolf, illusion of truth falling towards apotheosis racing Mars and epiphanies. I'm a hundred percent, this is better than racing Mars. Remind me what a falling towards apotheosis was.

Jeff: That was, um, that was when Lando got pulled into emperor car's, like Shadow Parla cabinet and like he was really starting to spin outta control and then, uh, had this scene with Sheridan and Lorian, like it was basically both Sheridan and Cartia moving towards their, their God hoods.

Brent: Okay. Uh, and then illusion of truth. We just did that one not too long ago. Which

Jeff: That was the newscast one with Dan Randall.

Brent: Oh, I liked that episode. That was, that was an interesting episode. I am gonna put this one below, falling towards apotheosis above racing Mars. Uh, this will be our new number nine and we'll round out our top 11. This is the top half of the season, se of the season. Jude, Jude, Jeff. This is the top half of the season. Jeff. Hey, guess what that means? We are halfway through season four already.

Jeff: We only have 33 more episodes of this show.

Brent: That's crazy.

Jeff: Yeah. Can you

Brent: It's, it seems so close.

Jeff: Yet? So far away in, in the best way possible. You know? I mean, yeah. Like so much. Well, Brett, that's it for lines of communication. Next week we're watching conflicts of interest for the first time. One of the games we love playing is we look at the title. It's all we have. We don't look at anything else. We like to guess and predict what that next episode is gonna be about.

So, Brent, what do you think conflicts of interest is going to be about?

Brent: Well, you know, I said last week that I don't think this is as hyper serialized as those first six episodes are.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: I do think there, there is still quite a bit of serialization going on, and so now we're talking about conflicts of interest. Um, I immediately think of the Mars resistance, more Mars resistance stuff and they're trying to bring these guys, oh no, you know what? Maybe it's the smugglers

Jeff: Oh

Brent: and they have, you know, between their own pockets and, and what they actually agreed to. Um, You know, you know, we haven't seen actually in a while is londo and fear. We haven't seen fear. So maybe there's, maybe there's something there.

But I'm gonna stick with this is Mars resistance, and this is smugglers, uh, trying to figure out if they're really gonna be a part of this whole, like what it, so they've, they've all agreed right to, to join Babbel on five in whatever this new alliances that they're putting together. They're gonna be trying to figure out if this is actually,

Jeff: Oh, okay.

Brent: they, what they really want to do.

Maybe we get back to Garibaldi and Hayes trying to figure out where his actual interests lie.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: What about you?

Jeff: I think we're gonna lean in to ivanova, settling into her voice of resistance role.

Brent: Oh, yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. I think we're gonna get some of this, but I, I got a deep cut on this one that's gonna happen. So stuff's gonna start going out, hitting the airwaves. People are gonna start getting attention. You know, she's gonna start, people are gonna start noticing her, which is gonna bring an old face out of the wood.

Brent: Say it.

Jeff: Malcolm

Brent: Oh, no, not that guy.

Jeff: who are you thinking?

Brent: Rabbi Kosoff.

Jeff: Oh, that'd be even cooler. I would love that. But no, I think Malcolm Biggs the home guard guy from War Prayer, I think, cuz he just left, like, so I think he's gonna show up and he's gonna come in and kind of set up a whole thing where he is like, look, we're not cool with this Clark thing either Home Guard wants to come on board with Babylon five and Ivan's gonna be tempted.

Brent: Because you can't trust Home Guard to actually be against all that.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I wonder if it's, could it be time for another investor episode though? Could it, could it be best for coming back?

Jeff: I don't know. I feel like, I feel like it's been, yeah, a little too soon. They, they spread him out a little bit too much. We'll find out here next week. Thank you everybody for joining us for our conversation here on lines of communication. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're watching or listening.

Leave us a rating review. We'll read it here on the podcast and hit that share button. Share this video. Share this podcast with somebody who loves Babylon five or is ready to fall in love with Babylon. Five. Until next time. Yeah, man. What's up?

Brent: Did you, did you, did you notice my shirt?

Jeff: Your, your shirt. No, I, I did, I'm sorry. I did not, I did not notice your shirt.

Brent: did notice. What am I chopped Flon.

Jeff: Geez man. Valen’s name