Messages From Earth

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon five for the first time. My name is Jeff Akin and I am watching Babylon five for the first time.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I am also watching Babylon five for. The first time Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching this show for the first time. And in it we're searching out for those little messages of hope. We're looking for those, uh, we're looking for that mirror to society. We're trying to see if things can be better in the future and how do we get there?

And we're also trying to decide, is this really a good series?

Jeff: And while this is not a podcast about Star Trek, we are sure to start pulling in those references, maybe especially in this episode because of a specific guest star maybe. But honestly, how could we not pull those references in? But to help us with that, we play the rule of three, meaning that each of us get no more than three references to Star Trek per episode.

That's it. Three. No substitutions. Exchanges a refund. Hey Brent.

Brent: Yeah. Jeff, what's up?

Jeff: We've got a five star review. . Yes. This one's from Apple Podcast. It's carve one and Carve one says, as others said, great podcast about a great show. I've been following a DS nine Rebi podcast for the past few months, and as I caught up to current episodes, I needed to find something new.

I went looking for something B five, and I couldn't have done better. As an old Star Trek fan and a B five fan, this is a real kick, well produced and entertaining. I know B five like the back of my hand, but following these two through their own journey of discovery is almost as good as watching it for the first time again, myself.

Brent: Jeff, I would say based on that, uh, review, we are accomplishing our.

Jeff: Agreed.

Brent: know, like that's what we set out to do is to help people kind of relive their first time, watch through, uh, through us, vicariously through us. Right. And, uh, there's a, there's a $20 word for you, know, um, and to, and to enjoy it and, you know, especially for our, our, uh, like-minded Trek fans out there, uh, to come over and enjoy this show as well.

Jeff: Literally

Brent: I'm sorry. And I'm glad that you enjoy our production value on this show, cuz Jeff and I try really

Jeff: we do, we do. We take it very seriously. One of my favorite things ever when we get feedback from people in the community is when people share that like, Hey, I've watched this forever, but I feel like I'm watching it for the first time again. Or I think maybe my bigger favorite. I've never thought of that episode that way before.

It's like Sweet. I love that. Well, Brent, I've got one more and it is another five star review. Oh, yes. Also on Apple podcast, JT says, the podcast, I never knew I needed, I watched Babbel on Five around when it first came out and kind of just left it where it was. I love Jeff and Brent Star Trek podcasts.

Thank you, jt. So I finally decided to check this out and I love it. They are awesome together. It's so fun to hear people that know how to break down a TV show and not just shoot the breeze about it.

Brent: Jeff, I like to shoot in the breeze though.

Jeff: I know it's one of the most fun things we do if, if you're, if you're watching on YouTube, you know, sometimes we spend a good chunk of time before and after just shooting the

Brent: That's right. That's right. Um, you know what's really funny that is, is uh, sometimes we get people that email in and they're like, you guys get too serious about this show. Like, just enjoy the show, which is like the opposite of what this guy say. Like, no, we're breaking down the show. Like, that's literally what we signed up to do with this show.

Like, like, just relax man. I'm like, yeah, great. Except I have to podcast about it in this method. Cuz that's this show. Not every show is set up like this show that's all this show is set up.

Jeff: yeah. There are some great Babylon five podcasts out there of a bunch of people sitting around shooting the breeze about the show, and they're great. That's

Brent: And some of 'em are getting drunk while they're doing it, which is, if that's your thing, go for it, man. That's a, that's a cool, cool way to do it. Others aren't, you know, some have 15 people there, some have one.

Jeff: Take your

Brent: There's, yeah, there's just, and, and that's, and, and I, I realize saying that now that kind of sounds like that might be a shot at some of the other shows out there.

Um, Jeff and I are friends with all of them that we know, and if we don't know them, we would be friends with them if we knew them. Um, like they're great, they're good shows. It's different flavors for different folks, and this is ours. So

Jeff: Yeah. I,

Brent: our show.

Jeff: I had the distinct honor and pleasure of being a guest on one of those before the Gray 17 podcast.

Brent: and he screwed it up and never is getting invited to any other Babylon five show ever again.

Jeff: I never will because I did what I do and I stood up for T K O. But still, it's a great show. It's different. It's very different than ours. And that's the thing. There's different flavors.

This is a great time to enjoy Babylon five period, but also to wanna listen to podcasts about it. You've got a lot of great options and I don't think there's a single one of us out there that are telling you to not listen to anybody else, but I think to Brent's point, We bring a very unique lens to this show and we do it very intentionally, and hopefully that's what you enjoy about us.

Brent: Yeah. So Jeff speaking about enjoying things, you know what? I think one of the things our listeners enjoy about this show is all the games

Jeff: our games,

Brent: Yeah. We have a, one of those games is one when we get to the end of the show and we try to predict what next week's episode is gonna be based on title alone. And Jeff, I have to tell you, I am floored at how many times we hear from people out there in the community who say, one of my favorite things about this show is when you try to predict next week's episode.

Because when we first started doing it, people were like, yeah, don't do that cuz you're wrong . You know,

Jeff: very wrong.

Brent: out there seem to like it and you and I get a kick out of it too. Mostly because of this part right here, which is where we look back at what we said this episode was gonna be last week before we had actually watched it.

And now, um, it, it's come to Jesus time where we decide how close were you. So Jeff, do you remember what you said? This episode message, uh, messages from Earth was supposed to be about

Jeff: I do, and it's a fun note for people that are listening to us on the audio podcast or those of you watching us on YouTube who are not subscribed. You need to go subscribe to us on YouTube period. We have a little, there's a, there's a part of us where we chat in YouTube, I forget what it's called, but like we go and we put messages and sometimes we've got different things in there, but just about every.

The community page is what it's called. I don't know, I don't know this stuff, but we take, uh, a clip of the video where of the predictions and we put it there. So if you just want to check that or remember or you're like, what did they think this was gonna be? Go to YouTube, go to our community page, and you'll be able to see them.

And when you do that, you'll see that, uh, I thought this was gonna be an episode of Voyager and that, uh, this is me referencing what I did last week. So it doesn't count as a reference, but that's what I thought at first. But no, I, I, I, I got for, for, for Jeff Aiken. I swung pretty close on this one. I thought that the President Clark investigation was gonna come to a head, which, eh, moved forward.

A good chunk in this one. Um, I thought we were gonna see Cyco, ministry of Peace and Night Watch hard at work. And we, we got some cyco. Stuff in this one. Got some heavy, heavy night watch stuff, but where I missed the mark entirely is I thought they were gonna station a full Ministry of Peace contingent onto to Babylon

Brent: they though? I mean, isn't that kind of what's going on with the security team with Night Watch and how

Jeff: they're just night watch. I mean, like full wells, full Julian Masante, ministry of Peace earth gov employee here to here to go. I still still think that we might see some of that here in the future, but, uh,

Brent: I agree.

Jeff: yeah. I'm gonna call mine a, gonna call mine maybe a single.

It's got, I got a single out of this, this swing on this one. How about you? How, how close did

Brent: Well, um, I, I said, uh, that Chicky, what was her name? I keep calling Julie Masante from a couple episodes ago. Back in that episode, she made some threats that they were gonna replace the leaders on Babylon five. And I said that this is the episode where that comes up. And Sheridan was gonna get recalled from his command.

And this is gonna be the catalyst for a prediction that I've been holding onto since the end of season two, which is that Babylon five is gonna break away from earth gov. And this was gonna be the catalyst to, to send us there. I think it's entirely possible given what happens at the end of this episode, that this is the catalyst that sends us two Babylon five breaking away from earth gov. Um, also, while it may not have been that, that they have, they have replaced the New Night watch commander basically said, Hey, we're still doing this.

So they didn't do it, but they said they're still going to do it. And by the way, if anyone ever finds out that Sheridan is the one who did what he did, oh, he's absolutely getting recalled. Although that didn't happen. So I'll, I'll give myself a, uh, I hit a double, but then I went for third and I got tagged out.

I think is pretty much what happened. So

Jeff: That sounds about right. Sounds about right. Well, for those of you where it might have been a while since you've watched this one, if you haven't watched it all and you're just listening along, or if you just listen to us say how close we got to the predictions, and you have no idea what we're even talking about, Brent, why don't you tell us about messages from Earth?

Brent: Well the news coming out of Earth isn't so pleasant. More and more people are taking President Clark to task over his involvement in the death of President Santiago. And there's a new race, a k A, the shadows that are becoming more and more public knowledge. Thanks to an old friend of Gu Baldes from Mars, who may also somehow be connected to Sheridan's wife.

We'll get into that in a little bit. We learned that despite their Es. their as assertations of ignorance earth gov actually found one of these ships many years ago buried on Mars. So they know exactly what these ships are. And rather than going out and trying to find out what they are, they're actually trying to track down who else knows what they are, so they can pretty much silence them.

We also learned that the shadow ships are pretty much just like that machine down on Epsilon three, uh, where it's one big machine and then somebody plugs into the heart of it and they become the brain and the battery, and, and they basically meld together and become one. And, oh, apparently these ships aren't made.

They're born. Well, it turns out that Dr. Kish, that's Aldi's friend, also reveals that earth Gov has found another one of these ships on Gae, which for those of you non astrologists out there, that is the largest moon of Jupiter. So still pretty close to earth. And, uh, this time Earth has no intentions of letting this one go like they did the last one.

And if Earth or Cyco actually got their hands on one of these ships, that would be bad news. Bad, bad, bad news. So Sheridan Devis a plan to take the white star into Earth space and destroyed this ship before Earth gov or Cyco can get their hands on it. When they arrive, they're just a little too late. As Earth has just fed a living, be a, as Earth has just fed a living being into the ship.

To merge with it, the shadow ship activates. But since merging was handled incorrectly, the ship just starts going all crazy and erratic. Sheridan winds up drawing the ship down into the atmosphere of Jupiter where it gets crushed. But just before he can emerge and jump gate home, he's stopped by the aga Mimon. Sheridan refuses to fire back on her because she's an earth ship and Oh yeah. She's actually the ship that Sheridan was commanding when we first met him. So he finds a way to complete the first atmospheric jump gate warp thing. And as we find out later on, after their safely back home on babble on Babel on five, after this whole situation went down, the aga mimon destroyed the shadow ship's base, and I suspect whatever may have been left in the atmosphere of the shadow ship as well.

Now, while Sheridan was away doing all of that back at the station, things were starting to get really out of hand with the Ministry of Peace and the night watch. A new guy has emerged as the new leader on the station. It seems like we get a new one of these every single week, but this guy just, Jeff, he seems really familiar.

I, I just, I'm trying to place him. It's like we've seen him once. Twice or maybe literally a dozen times before. Basically they're ratcheting up their service of every, basically they're ratcheting up their surveillance of everyone, including the high ranking officials and personalities throughout the Earth Alliance, while most of the security officers involved with this, okay?

Because after a while, because after all, if you're on night watch, you're automatically presumed innocent. Zach clearly is not okay with it, and he's left staring disgustingly down at the black armband he's been wearing for the last half of a season. On a lighter note, Marcus Cole and Susan Ava's ship seems to be setting sale.

He's sending her breakfast, he's trying to make her laugh with fake org charts. She's sharing her innermost thoughts like the one that says she's not really sure of where she stands now that they're actively going up against Earth. And just as we fade to Black, Sheridan calls over Bacom to tell Ivanova to turn on the news where we learned that President Clark has just declared martial law. The end. Jeff, what did you think of messages from Earth?

Jeff: we are off, right? Like this episode I think took a lot of the threads that have been dangling or developing for a long time and start starting to really pull 'em together. We've got. The shadows on the Centara border came up again. We've got Kar right, taking a step towards becoming a prophet. We got night watch getting closer to Sheridan and Crew.

We even have, um, earth trying to partner with and outsmart the shadows. Y that does not seem like a smart thing to do, and we got two relationships that are really starting to, to heat up in this one. But honestly, I think, this is where I think we might start, I, I might catch a little heat, but, or maybe people agree with me on this one, but can we just call this episode what it really is and it's part one of like a two-parter or so,

Brent: I mean, well, I two parter. Maybe three, maybe four. I, I don't know, but it, this definitely feels like, uh, this episode feels, it felt complete. There was a beginning of middle and an

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: but it didn't feel complete.

Jeff: I remember our, our, our discussion in Chrysalis where we said this took a lot of this stuff that happened in season one, kind of pulled the threads together and then set us up for where we were going next. And I feel that's what this episode did. This is like the season one finale in the end of the first third of the third season.

Right. You know, wrap up the threads and now, now we're ready to get going. And I think like to me, some pre, a couple little predictions that like, this is where, this is where season three starts running from. And I think that when we ask, when people ask, Hey, when, when does Babylon five really pick up and get going?

The answer is either the long twilight struggle or this episode. Like I, I and I and I think it's this one. You know, cuz we kind of had to do a little bit of this. Season's been great, but it's definitely been a relaxation after long twilight struggle in the fall of night. . And so, uh, I, but yeah, I think, I think, I mean, I enjoyed this episode.

I've got thoughts on, on pieces of it, but I think, I think we have a long time until we're gonna get like a slow exogenesis c kind of episode again

Brent: E Exogenesis, uh, which was our episode last week.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: That one, that one almost kind of felt like a calm before the storm. Like, I mean, honestly these last couple of episodes, but maybe, maybe this first seven episodes of season three altogether kind of have felt like calm before the storm and now like the clouds have gathered and they're starting to bust loose.

That's what it feels like. We are where we are in the life of this show, right? Like,

Jeff: The, the stakes in this one are at an entirely new level in, I mean, dude, Sheridan was one word. Fire away from like unloading on earth and literally attacking Earth on the Aon. There's martial law on earth now. I mean, like we thought the stakes were high before they ratcheted up big time in this episode, but I think we're, this episode was to raise the stakes.

We're not gonna feel the impacts from them, at least, at least until next week. Like we have at least a week until we start feeling stuff from it. What did you, what were your, uh, reactions to this one?

Brent: Um, I mean, kind of, kind of like what I just said, I enjoyed this episode. I, this is gonna feel like I, I didn't enjoy this episode. There just really wasn't much to this episode. You know, like, like sometimes we get an episode that you go, oh my gosh, how did they fit all of that in just sight of 45 minutes?

So much happened in this episode. It really didn't like, like even just in the recap, like, okay, so they've got a shadow ship. We got a little, we got, we got a lot of information on the shadows and, and kind of how they work, or at least with their ships, right? Um, and then it's just, Hey, turns out there's another one out there.

Okay, let's go destroy it. And. In the, in Star Trek world specifically, and I'm gonna pull on my, my podcasting, uh, chops from Star Trek. When you do a recap of Star Trek, when you look at how a Star Trek episode is broken down, almost always, act five is the Pew pew Pew Act. Not a lot like, it's a lot of action. Action, action, action. All of the talking came before it, you know what I mean?

And Act five is just a okay, go. And they just make it happen. And, and then we have the wrap up at, you know, in the last two minutes of the, of the episode, this, I, I, I like three fourths of this episode felt like an act five to me. Like the whole thing was Sheridan and the White Star and, and going to Earth and, and or to Jupiter.

Uh, destroying the, the ship and going down into the atmosphere and finding the jump kit and oh my gosh, there's the agnon, that's all Act five. Like, there's just action, action, action, action. It was incredibly entertaining foot in the road. There wasn't much that, that, that had happened there, if that makes sense,

Jeff: Yeah, it does make, like, even on my notes on that white star, it's like they, they jump into hyperspace and then they pull a shadow into the gravity well, and jump gate away. Like that's really, I mean, there's, there's filler and there, and I think too, and Al also, but this, this was an effects heavy episode.

Like the visuals we got in this were great. You know, Kish given her story and we, it wasn't at first, at first, oh man, when she started telling her story at first, I'm like, oh, are, are they just gonna sit and tell us? Are we gonna get five minutes of dialogue of them just feeding us everything? Oh, no. Oh, we're getting cutaways.

We're getting visuals. And they're good looking visuals

Brent: Do you, do you remember when it would've just been five minutes of exposition and, yeah. Oh,

Jeff: Yeah. That was, that was one of my biggest beefs in, in a big chunk of the second season, was like, Hey, here's these big plot dumps, and we're just gonna put words in a, in a character's mouth to do them. It's, oh, now we got great visuals. But those visuals took time. And I think even there, like the, the second time I watched this, I noticed that when Turkish was headed into the war council meeting to tell her story, they did the marching drums, snares thing again, like they did for Ivanova last week when she slapped the roses at, at Marcus.

But they did a over garabaldi kind of voiceover of like why she matters and why this matters. It was this big cinematic moment that was maybe 20 seconds of content. That they stretched out to almost like a full minute and like it was very stretched out for time and dramatic

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: Of course, there's a lot of

Brent: Jeff, I, I think that's probably a good way to describe what I'm trying to say is that a lot of this episode felt like maybe 25 minutes worth of story that they stretched over 45 minutes. And that's not to say I wasn't entertained. It's not to say that I didn't like it. They just, they, they pulled it out and it was good.

I en like, I, I, I wanna get that across. I please, I know I can see you guys down in the comments. Oh, but I, I'm with you. It was just, I mean, they jumped in, they pulled the ship into the gravity. Well, and then they couldn't go out to jump gate, so they jump gate right there. Like,

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: but that took two-thirds of the episode,

Jeff: Yeah, and it was exciting and it was fun and I think that Babylon five needs episodes like this that are action, you know, and stuff going on. It was

Brent: every sci-fi show needs. Every sci-fi show needs shows like

Jeff: that's what brings the in. But when just to kind of precursor as we go to talk about things, when we hit on plot points and we don't have a lot to talk about, it's cuz there was a lot of visual action stuff happening in this episode and that's fine.

It's a good thing.

Brent: yep. Okay. You mentioned Dr. Kish a couple of weeks ago. Matt, Jeff, whatever the hell your name is.

Jeff: dude, buddy

Brent: Other podcast host. Um, a couple of weeks ago, Jeff, I posited a new theory about the whole Babylon five versus Star Trek thing where I said it was the nineties. Like it, it was like the East coast, west Coast, Tupac, biggie, star Trek, Babylon, five.

And it's a lot of pot shots that the two are taking back and forth, doc, and I'm trying to figure it out. I really want Dr. Perkish. To be a shot at Star Trek. And I don't know how it is, but I really want Dr. Kurtish, she didn't seem so kish to me,

Jeff: She didn't. I thought the same thing. I I, even the second time through, I'm like, I'm looking for it. I'm like, where's, where's the whatever? And there,

Brent: I, I didn't get it until I wrote her name down and I was like, oh, this is Kirk ish. So she's Kurtish like, but I mean, Dr. Kurtish was kind of cool, you know, like she was, I mean, I, I didn't have any problems with her and I didn't think she was over the top about anything. Uh, you know, it might have been really funny if she was talking in just three words at a time.

and they called her Dr. Kurtish.

Jeff: Right. No, my, my exact note that I have on her is Kurtish is an fing hero.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I mean, she, she knows, like, she, when she finished talking, she's like, okay, I'm, I'm going to go die. Like they're going to find me and they're going to kill me now. But it's, but it's okay. Cuz I had to tell you this. And then Dylan's like, Nope, we got you sister.

We're gonna get you on a plane. We're gonna get you over here to Minbar. It's gonna be good. But w I mean, man, everything from Marcus springing her out to her, walking in triumphant and laying it down Kish is, is awesome.

Brent: She, I mean, she what she needed to. I gotta, I gotta tell you though, Jeff, once again, you're not gonna, you're not gonna understand this. It drove me up a wall trying to figure out who this actress was, because she looks just like Dr. Sam Carter played by Amanda Tapping only she was too old to be Amanda Tapping at this age.

Like, dad, do you know who Amanda Tapping is? You, you will meet her in our next podcast. Um, you she is, she's great. You're gonna love her. Um, But that's who I seriously thought this was. No, no, no. This was the actress. I, I had to look it up. Uh, the, the place where I think most people would differ from is she was on Mat Lock for a whole bunch of years.

Jeff: Oh

Brent: watched Mat Lock back in the late eighties, you know,

Jeff: yeah. I wasn't 60 in the eighties, so I didn't

Brent: oh dude. Oh, oh. You know, okay. So, fair enough. I, well, I lived with my grandparents at that age, and so I watched a lot of Matt Locke and Matt Locke was great, man. You, you can't,

Jeff: That's

Brent: he had a Fred Flinstone wardrobe man. It was the same suit every day.

And it was good stuff. Good stuff,

Jeff: I do, I I want to thank you in your recap of pointing out that for those of us who aren't astronomers, uh, cuz today when I watched this episode, I learned that GME is a moon of

Brent: It's the, and it's the largest moon. Like, it's not just any moon, it's the largest moon, so, yeah.

Jeff: My whole thought was like, oh, where is this? Are we gonna go to some new part of, so, oh, it's right, it's right next door.

Brent: right, right. Um, Hey, mark.

Jeff: She said a thing. I was gonna say, Kurtish said a thing though that I have a big question on. Cuz she was talking about how Earth isn't gonna give this shadow ship up. They want to take it back, they want to study it. They wanna learn how to use it against other species and against humanity if they need to.

But then she made the quote, they want us to become more like

Brent: Uhhuh,

Jeff: And I didn't quite under, I mean, I get it, but I don't know, like, I'm curious and I don't think

Brent: Talking about the shadows. The shadows want

Jeff: Yeah, that's what I

Brent: like them.

Jeff: No, I think she said the earth, like the whatever people on earth want earth, humanity to become more like the shadows.

Brent: mean big, badass, dominant and can take anybody out like that? Sure.

Jeff: Yeah. Maybe.

Brent: Merge what? Merge with technology in this organic tech thing that's out there.

Jeff: Would make sense. Yeah, that does make a lot more sense.

Brent: I, I, that's what I would interpret it as being. So, um,

Jeff: And I, and my last note, just really quick, sorry,

Brent: ahead. Go ahead.

Jeff: my last note on Kurtish is she assumed or estimated that that shadow ship had been mar buried on Mars for about a thousand years and a thousand years was the last big shadow

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: So why have a shadow parked right in Earth's solar system? Like did earth play some sort of a role in that?

In that conflict. Maybe not humanity, but earth in some

Brent: Well, we have,

Jeff: think that's one of my big

Brent: well, it, it's not just one, it's two. There's at least two shadow ships within the earth solar system. Um, other rocky planets. There's Mercury. Uh, Venus I think is a rocky planet. Jupiter's a gas, Jupiter and, and beyond, or gas giant, so you're not gonna park anything there unless it's on one of their moons.

And Jupiter has a crap ton of moons, so there could be more than. In our solar system. Didn't, it didn't, but isn't something that we learned, like when, when the first ones and the other people who fought, um, the shadows didn't, they beat them down and basically they just all went to go to sleep.

Jeff: I think so. And that's where they've been like for the last thousand years. So maybe that's just like a retreat point they went to that they

Brent: Well, because I mean, think about a thousand years ago with Earth, what were we doing? We had nights,

Jeff: Yeah. Like our biggest weapons were catapults. Like that was, that was big time.

Brent: Oh, a trebuchet. Like

Jeff: tre. We weren't even into catapults

Brent: had broad swords and that, like, that's what we were fighting with. You know what if you're a shadow and you're like, Hey, where are we gonna go park for a thousand years that nobody's gonna bug us? This seems like a good spot.

Jeff: Let's head over here. We're like these, this, no, these, these ants are living on this planet. Let's go

Brent: My question is, is there only one ship on. I mean, Mars is big enough to have several, you know? Uh,

Jeff: I appreciated too with the Mars piece because here, it's been a while since I've been able to reference mass effect, but they found Propan ruins on Mars and that's what brought Earth to the galactic stage. And so I just, I love that Mars is kind of that point, that entry point for other species into, uh, into different realms of sci-fi.

Brent: so I have a question. All right. I wanna talk about this, that, this is the only note I have on Kurtish. She works for the same company that Sheridan's wife worked for when they found a shadow ship and went out to go look for it. And then they got jacked up

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: right. So she could have known Sheridan's wife and been, I mean, like

Jeff: could have also known Morden. Cuz my understanding is Morden was also an interplanetary Expeditions employee.

Brent: right. So, uh, she first mentioned it, I thought, was she one of the people who sent them out there? But I, I, I, she's more of just an employee. I think she's one of the people that gets sent, so,

Jeff: yeah. She's one of the scientists doing her, doing her job. But that is interesting though, like I didn't think about that. How interplanetary expeditions, cuz they were the ones in. Infection that found the organic tech before. Then there's the, uh, the ship, um, Anna's ship, the Icarus that that went out and, and so for, to, to chase it on a shadow thing.

And then they're doing the, they're finding the ones on Mars, like interplanetary expeditions is really wrapped in to the earth shadow stuff.

Brent: They really

Jeff: Maybe they're just, yeah, that's, maybe they're just the tool, you know, they got the equipment or whatever and the know-how.

Brent: That it is interesting when you, when you start collating it that it's, it's I P X I think is their,

Jeff: I think so. Yeah.

Brent: Uh, if not, I'm gonna make it up and say that that's it. Um, that they are the ones who keep turning up every time a shadow ship is found

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: or something of that nature. And we still don't really know what the organic tech was from infection. Like

Jeff: we know one

Brent: Yeah. It was just this little thing that stuck on his chest and took him over.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Um, but we don't know what the rest of it was. So, uh, and we, I mean, are, are we agreed? Well, maybe it's not, I don't know, Jeff, the, the machine that's down there on Epsilon three, that, that is, I don't know if that's organic tech or not, but that's the same idea cuz what we learned about the shadow ships is that there is a person or some sort of a being and I guess it doesn't have to be a person who goes inside this machine and they merge with it.

and they become one. I mean, that's what Draw did, right? Like,

Jeff: Yeah, that's what we were talking about I think back in Voices of Authority was that Yeah. Voices of authority where like what is draw's job and is he one of many processors for that? And that's, that's my take on the, the shadow ship. And so maybe that's the key with this. Maybe so like that's the organic tech thing is there's the tech, but you need the Bean to be the processor.

Maybe that's how like Kashi's ship works, like Ksh has to be in it cuz he's the processor for it to go do the stuff.

Brent: That's he, he doesn't need a ship crew cuz it's him,

Jeff: mm-hmm. . It's all him and his mind and

Brent: And he can bring in whoever he wants. He can bring in Lea Alexander or Sheridan got to go inside this ship, right? Like,

Jeff: I know it was Dr. Socrates.

Brent: that's right. And like we saw the eye moving around and all that sort of, yeah, yeah, yeah. So

Jeff: And Dr. Socrates got a little shout out in this episode. Did you

Brent: no, I missed it. Where was.

Jeff: In the very beginning when they, the newscaster was talking about like, Hey, there's all this stuff going on with President Clark in the investigation. Were, you know, six weeks into the investigation on President Clark and new evidence has surfaced that the disease, the illness that took him off the ship at IO before IO might have been fake and manufactured.

And I'm like, that's the stuff. That's what Dr. Socrates was

Brent: Oh, is it really?

Jeff: Yeah. It was a cool callback to hunter prey. I thought I liked that.

Brent: Okay. I'm, yeah, I missed the callback, but I, because like, I'm, I'm, I'm so, like, it seems so obvious to me that Clark actually had nothing going on. Like, I'm so past what actually happened that it just did, you know, so.

Jeff: Yeah. But for Earth, they're still on board. Hey, he's the president. He's a great guy.

Brent: Right, right. Um, I wanna talk about Marcus for a moment if we could. Okay. One Marcus can.

Jeff: Yeah. Dude's

Brent: He can fight. Did you notice that one dude was fighting with nunchucks in the future

Jeff: Yes. .

Brent: space? Chucks like, what do we call this? Like dang

Jeff: they call him Bab.

Brent: Bab.

Jeff: here is the, it's Yeah. I, I joked at one point, like he's got, he's got Bab Chucks and then he's got the staff. We're gonna get like the Babylon five Teenage Mutant

Brent: It's a T-shirt. Jeff. That's a T-shirt. There's Marcus with the staff. There's dude with the nunchucks. Somebody's got a sword. Who's got a sword?

Jeff: Uh, uh, Narn. The Narn

Brent: narn dude has the sword. Okay, then what's the other one where size?

Jeff: We need the sigh. We

Brent: Cyco. Anybody with Cyco? They got it. We're done. That's the teenage Muttin Ninja Turtles of Babylon five.

There we go.

Jeff: there they

Brent: There we go.

Jeff: There they

Brent: That's a you. It's just, it's the silhouette of each one of those characters with their weapon. You know,

Jeff: Yep. An internal

Brent: right? What's, what? I, I don't what you call it. Teenage mutant ninja. Bab five i, i, whatever.

Jeff: Something. But I noticed too in that, in that just awesome fight scene, um, that Marcus was doing, the, the actor was doing a lot of his own stunts. Like a lot of those, it was like he did that move where he ran and jumped off the park court off the wall and that was him through and threw. That was really

Brent: yeah. Uh, I, I'm gonna say this, uh, how many I, I've, I'm only down one, right? Because here comes my second one. Um, I have to say the fight choreography in Babylon five, particularly in this episode, but the fight choreography in Babylon five is better than any fight choreography I've ever seen in Star Trek.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I, yeah.

Jeff: I would agree up until some of the modern stuff, like some of the stuff in Discovery when they were doing the Vulcan martial arts and with Michael Burnham, was there, was that fight with her. And, um, uh, no, it was Georgio and, uh, the control guy in the elevator, the turbo lift.

Brent: the, the, the Booker Burnham fight was really good. And, and so, okay. Uh, up through Berman era, star Trek, then this is better than any of that. That Star Trek.

Jeff: Yeah, it was really good. I, I enjoyed the Marcus stuff and, and it was Marcus and Ivanova stuff in this one. I thought it was, I thought it was good.

Brent: She's softening, right?

Jeff: she is like,

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: because like when she's sitting there with the bacon and eggs and she's just like, I am gonna kill him. I'm g like, but it wasn't like li literally a week ago, it was like, I'm going to kill him.

And this time it was like, I'm gonna kill him. Like, total change

Brent: Right, right. And I mean, you know, he's bringing in the org chart and she's looking at him and she, she's like, what do you, what do you really want? Like, come on now.

Jeff: I just wanna make

Brent: Yeah. He's like, dude, it was so smooth. He wasn't like, what do you really want? He was like, oh, want you love. He didn't say any, he just said, I just wanna make you laugh.

And she just went, okay, cool. Uh,

Jeff: And I loved it too cuz he is like, I wanna make you laugh. And then he got up to go. He wasn't like, I'm gonna stay here and see what more I can milk. He's like, just wanted to make you laugh.

Brent: I'm out. See, have a, have a good one, dude. He, he is playing this just right, like, like take note. Those are young, young folk out there. Okay? You, you push in too much, too hard, too fast, and then you make 'em run away. You, you give a little bit and then you gotta pull back. You gotta let 'em know that it's okay to walk away, that you are okay to walk away.

It's just a little bit of the sun. This is, this is, uh, you know, they don't teach the game anymore, Jeff. They don't teach the game. You know,

Jeff: a world full of William Rikers. Be a Marcus Cole.

Brent: that's a T-shirt right there,

Jeff: That's the t-shirt . But so my but my criticism of Marcus is, I think it was an Exogenesis. We talked about how like he's just out in front of everybody yelling at Garibaldi about my job is to do espionage. Why are you getting in my way? It's like too chill out. We're trying to keep you quiet here. He does like this big scrapbook style org chart that's got his mom and dad on it and it's super fun.

I sure as how hope no one ever gets their hands on that because that could implicate a lot of people.

Brent: Right, right.

Jeff: here, let me hand you evidence that will kill all of us.

Brent: Uh, I've got a criticism of Marcus Cole. He goes out, he gets this girl that we don't know who she is. Turns out it's Dr. Kish brings her in fighting. I mean, guns blazing, right? She gets injured. He takes her to go see Dr. Franklin, and then he leaves her alone with Dr. Franklin. I was like, no, you can't do that.

Do you know what he's gonna do? Save

Jeff: needs a chaperone. She needs an adult with her at all times.

Brent: be a chaperone, present. Whatever you do, don't let him take her to his corners.

Jeff: Right? Like best case scenario, he's gonna kiss her while she's knocked out. Worst case, he's gonna kill her. Don't leave her alone.

Brent: Uh, at least she just didn't wake up finding her that her husband had died, so.

Jeff: There's, yeah, I, that would've given him the, the perfect

Brent: Right. Um, what, what do you, what do you think Ivonne and Marcus are? Is that gonna work out or are they gonna play this cat and mouse game for a while?

Jeff: I think they're gonna play it for a while there were, I, I, I, I love, I love that they're playing it slow and they're letting it kind of build. They're letting Marcus be smooth. They're letting ivanova slowly warm up to the idea. And the same thing is happening with Sheridan and Dalen. Like when you think about it, they had 72 hours or whatever in hyperspace on the ship with nothing to do.

Right? Like, I think if this was more modern tv, they would've had plenty to do. But instead, like they shared a really warm bonding moment that was pretty beautiful. And is just another moment, like there's slow playing these relationships in a way that when they do pay off, like when the Marcus and Ivanovo one happens.

You said it last week, I think, and it's perfect. It's gonna be Ross and Rachel. Right. Where it's just like, yes, yes, it happened. And then we'll be immediately disappointed with everything that comes out of it.

Brent: Right, right.

Jeff: But, but with Dalen and Sheridan, like, I wasn't warm. I, I, I was resistant to the idea when they first went to dinner and started seeing it.

But like, they're playing it slow. And now I'm like, yeah, this, this needs to

Brent: Dude, she literally made it rain for him. That was so sweet. And she's like holding his hand. And I'm sorry, I don't care who you are. I don't care what deep meditative state you wear in, you cannot sleep at an angle like that.

Jeff: No, that was

Brent: is ridiculous.

Jeff: I loved everything about Sharon, just like trying to get comfortable and she's like, I, I'm like, why would you do this

Brent: And he had the flattest pillow and he's trying to sleep on his side. I mean this, his neck's gonna be craned over. You know this man?

Jeff: ah,

Brent: Oh,

Jeff: But she made it work for him. She literally did the impossible for him, just for him to turn around and for the second time with the shadows do the impossible. Like he's gotta be one of the only men in history, only people in history. He's now responsible for what, two shadow

Brent: Hey, listen, they don't call him star killer for nothing,

Jeff: Done. Damn straight.

Brent: Um. Uh, Sheridan. Okay. We, we gotta talk about this since we're talking about this. Sheridan has a good dad, man.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: had a good dad. Like that was, that was, that was, um, touching to hear.

Jeff: it was, and I think Bruce Brock Bach and I think Bruce Boxer's description like just was so believable. You know, when he is like, he's like, you know, dad's out there holding the garden hose so it would sound like it rains. And he's like, And I believe he would've stood there for days if that's what it took.

And like in that moment, like I was just thinking about the mechanics of being an actor on a weekly TV show and how you're handed a script and you're given 14 minutes to get your stuff down, but like he was still able to take that moment and punch you in the gut with it,

Brent: And he sold, I mean, he sold every bit of that cuz I'm sitting there like, as a father going, yeah, I would do this if that was my kid, I would stand up there with a garden hose making it rain, just, and I wouldn't, and I wouldn't be asking, I wouldn't want credit, I wouldn't want him to know that it was me.

You know, I'm just, it's, Hey, listen, it's gonna help my kid go to sleep and I'll stay in here for as long as it takes to make that

happen.

Jeff: it was, it was great.

Brent: um, speaking of deep moments, Jeff, this episode posed a great question that I have to ask you.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: How many wild badgers do you have in your trousers?

Jeff: I don't know. Do you prefer ferrets to

Brent: I don't know if you wanna cut that out, if we leave that in, but Oh my God.

Jeff: good. I'll just cut, I'll cut the part where I show

Brent: He has,

Jeff: the, the

Brent: he has 15 wild badgers in his trousers. That image in my brain,

Jeff: Well, I saw that guy literally leap off of a wall. I believe it. I believe that he lives like that.

Brent: He wasn't trying to punch that other dude. He was just, you know.

Jeff: Get outta my

Brent: Right, right. That other dude just happened to be in the way.

Jeff: Yeah. Sorry man. Sorry. I got these badgers, stinking badgers, but sheridan's plan, right? So that shadow ship in three days is heading to earth to get studied and taken apart. And by no means can this happen. What did you think of Sheridan's plan? I mean, he, he's, I, I, I feel like he thought this was a one-way trip.

Brent: I thought Sheridan was resigning

Jeff: Oh, really?

Brent: took the, the badge off and he's standing out there in the Ja Car's prayer dome or whatever, that is a set that we haven't seen, and I don't know how long, uh, and Dalen comes to him and he is like, you know what we gotta do? And then, and then in the next shot, he's in his meeting with his coder, seven folks, and he's not in uniform.

And I was like, Sheridan's out. Like this is like, I thought were. And he's like, no, I've gotta leave behind my uniform. My. My credentials, I've laid behind everything that will lead people back here to Babylon five. Uh, and I was like, okay, I understand that he's planning on coming back, but I, I thought that's where he was going.

But I, I mean, I, I'll get into this a little bit more with the, the Star Trek message, but that to me was the greatest part of the whole episode because with, as disenfranchised and disgusted by what's happening in earth gov to these guys right now, right, this shows the absolute greatest loyalty to earth gov because they're about to do something that is not okay. And this violates everything that we're about right. And so I'm gonna stop us from doing something we shouldn't do. And if that means taking off the uniform in order to do it and shooting my own people, then I'm going to do that. You know, like that is because you're violating who you are. You're violating your, your principles and, and it's dangerous for this to go to the other way.

And not just dangerous, but I mean like really it'd be really, really bad, you know?

Jeff: Like the worst. Yeah. He even said it the, like, when the news stuff was talking about things, he's like, we literally just saved their bacon and they're blaming us for everything.

Brent: And knowing that when you do that, you'll take the blame,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: you know? Uh, yeah.

Jeff: I felt there were two really strong callbacks in this moment or in this plan and the execution of it. The first one was when he took off his earth force pin, I feel like was a callback to there all the honor lies where he was with the monks scene. True beauty from caution. He took off his stat bar, you know, and I talked then about how there's gonna be a moment where he has to give up, give it all up in order to move forward.

And this was an example he did, he gave it all up. He had a whole plan to fake his own death to keep everybody safe and, and, and blameless in the whole piece. And the other one was to comes the inquisitor where both he and Dalen. Went away with alibis to take care of them knowing full well that more likely than not, they weren't coming back.

They'd never be celebrated. No one would ever know their sacrifice, but they knew it had to be done. And so I just, I loved that they took these two moments and in this one scene they're just like, yeah, these, these two truly are the one, and they've demonstrated it now in an unquestionable way.

Brent: yep. And you know, when you talk about Sheridan is the one, and why is he the one Sheridan's taken out two shadow ships. There is something about Sheridan that is allowing this to happen. So

Jeff: Well, and I wonder too now, cuz we've talked about like what makes him the one and what are these talents or whatever, what, what is it that Kosh was working with him to get him to know and understand? performed two miracles in regards to jump jump gates, right? The one where he opened the. Gate in the jump gate to blow up the shadows.

And then the first ever atmospheric jump thing, I wonder if, and this is a dune reference where, um, navigators are humans who get oversaturated in spice and Milan and they, they do this thing, but they, they're able to be all places at once as a result. And they do it by folding space and this, that and the other.

I wonder if Sheridan has like that navigator ability in him where he can kind of manipulate hyperspace. Maybe there, that's gonna be a thing. Like maybe Sheridan will, like at one point he'll be able to open jump gates to hyperspace himself. He's got some mastery over it or something. Cuz it does, it seems it's either that or something along those lines, or it's a day of sex.

Maia know where he is just like, oh, hey, I got lucky. Super lucky twice. We're good. I mean, three times really there's the whole not blowing up in the jump gate with the shadow before there's the escaping the gravity well of Jupiter and then there's the opening,

Brent: I gotta, I gotta tell you what I really hope it, it's not, I hope that while it seems like it's a de sex Moana now, and I would love this, while it seems like it is now, when we get more information later on, we realize it's not de de sex Moana. It's just how it is,

Jeff: Like people could have always done this. There was just some like old rule or myth or something, where're just like, oh my gosh, this has been fine. Just adjust things like this

Brent: right? Right. Like, this is, this is, you know, this ab Even if it's an ability that's unique to Sheridan, if there's something unique about Sheridan that, that they can do this. They're going to reveal that this is actually something he's always been able to do. Or, you know, not just that, Hey, we made it work this one time and woof.

That's a good thing cuz we, we about had our bacon cooked there. You know, like, no. The reason he can do this is because there's something special about him that I, I love when stuff like that happens. So,

Jeff: So there's two big things still, I think, for us to talk about. One of them is the night watch stuff that I, honestly, you covered a lot of it in your, in your recap, but, um, I had a really big thought on this and it happened. So, um, smarmy, security guy, , you know, who, who shows up out of nowhere who, you know, you, you might know as being a Klingon captain in the next generation.

He was a couple different Kardashians. He was Aian, he was a hin an ex Borg, and he was Admiral Maximilian Forest, just to name like 48 of the 6,000 people that he played in Star

Brent: No, he, no, Jeff, I, I said it in the recap. He was 12. He played 12 different people, instructor. And so I said a dozen, you know, we've seen him once, twice, or a literally a dozen times. He played 12 different people. He, I, I could be wrong, but I'm almost positive that Vaughn Armstrong, that's the name of the actor, uh, cuz I don't think we've said it yet.

Varn Vaughn Armstrong holds the record for playing the most number of characters in Star Trek.

Jeff: I totally see

Brent: I, I'm pretty sure Von Vaughn Armstrong is that guy. So, uh, and

Jeff: been, he was in all the Berman era. Berman era stuff. He was in all of it. Um, and every, but, but he comes in to, to Zach and then they, they have their night watch meeting and you know, like you said in the recap, Zach's not buying it. He's having a really hard time accepting a lot of this stuff, but other people are jumping on, where's the captain?

What's going on? And it just hit me that like Sheridan is not doing a good job managing his conspiracy

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: I'm just gonna go off the station for a couple days and leave stuff. It's gonna be fine, whatever, what, whatever. Because in the absence of information, people are gonna tell their own stories.

They're gonna fill in their own blanks. And that's what security guards Babylon five employees are doing. They don't know where the captain. Nobody from command is saying anything. So they're telling their own stories and unfortunately they're, I don't think they're far off, you know?

Brent: Um, yeah, I mean, you've gotta learn how to be a liar in that situation, right? Like, you've gotta, you, you can't sit there and say, Hey, we've gotta code R seven and have people, Hey, what's R seven? What is it? Hey, why is garabaldi in meetings, closed door meetings for hours, while all of these closed door meetings are happening?

All like, you've got to give reasons for that stuff happening

Jeff: Yeah. When Kar sees that these things are happening, imagine someone who has access to your schedule, sees these things happening. You've gotta have a

Brent: the, who's the dude in C n C who just got promoted?

Jeff: Cor Corwin.

Brent: He's literally, it's literally there in his face. Oh, hey, we need to go to the briefing room for two hours. Corbin, you're in charge. It's like, what in the world? Uh, okay. Am I getting a raise for all this stuff when I'm now in charge?

Because you got me in charge of this a lot. Like, I don't mind doing it, but I, I need, I need some more compensation. If you, this is what you're gonna be putting me, asking me to do, you know, all the time. Um, yeah, you're right. Sheridan's, not manag. His conspiracy. Roll. Roll. I gotta tell you though, I was, I was watching this episode and I was really left wanting and very disappointed with the whole night watch Ministry of Peace thing.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: like my first note was, wow, they're getting really out of hand and they're really ramping up. And then I was like, actually they're not, they're stuck in the same like, how many times have you heard Now we're gonna get the leaders, we're coming after 'em. And I'm like, I'm at this point now where I'm like, okay, ministry of Peace. You got your hand on your sensor button over there, Jeff,

Jeff: I

Brent: it's time to, or get off the pot You know what I

Jeff: Exactly. Well, I think in this one they even put it and they said in two months these things are gonna ha, they're drawing up the arrest list. What do you. You told us like the joint chiefs of staff, those are specific people and you're telling like,

Brent: Well, yeah, I mean, you had the thing with Wells back at the end of season too, and then you had the thing with Chicky, I mean, are, can you just not keep the same cast member? So every time you get a new cast member, you've gotta restart the whole thing again. Like, uh, I mean, just get to it, guys. Get to it.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. I mean this is, this, this is a lot of marking time, but I think it just, it amped up Zach's,

Brent: That's the important

Jeff: cognitive, yeah, his cognitive dissonance with this, he's gonna have to make a choice. And I feel like he's in this weird place where in his mind, like there's still a reality where like he and Garabaldi can be cool and he's just going to work every day again and getting 50 extra credits for wearing an armband.

Like that's the reality he's

Brent: you know, what I really want to have happen is I want Garabaldi to come to a point where he has to pull Zach in to the conspiracy. Zach's about ready to take the armband off and. You know, maybe, maybe he's like in a moment, because imagine me, Zach, you're in a moment of crisis. My boss doesn't trust me.

We had that conversation last week. If you really trusted me, you tell me what's going on, but you don't, so you don't trust me. My boss, my friend, doesn't trust me. This group and this organization over here is crap. And this is not a good group to be in. Kind of like Ivanova, where do I belong now?

Jeff: exactly.

Brent: And I, there needs to be some sort of, uh, uh, uh, a, a comeuppance between him and Gu Baldi where he brings Gar Baldi in. But what I want to have happen is I want Gu Baldi to tell Zach, keep the Armand on,

Jeff: Be a double

Brent: our guy in the night watch. And that's what I, that's where I want to see Zack go. That would be awesome.

Jeff: That would be great. I would love that. One thing, another cool thing Gar Aldi did that shows he has the capacity to do this, is he went and visited Jaar in prison.

Brent: Hey, there you go.

Jeff: That was very cool of him. I thought. He, he's reading the book of Jaquan learning some naar and,

Brent: Day right, right to left. We learned today. Yeah.

Jeff: Very Arabic. So my prediction here is that the big tome of the book of Jaquan, it's great, right?

Well, in a thousand years we're gonna get Babylon 15, you know, or whatever, and set in the year 3,260 and some Naar is gonna be running around talking about the book of Ja.

Brent: Yeah, he's absolutely writing the book of Jaar.

Jeff: Yeah, he's the next prophet of Jalon. Is that their main day?

Brent: Well, yeah. That's, uh, yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. I think they're setting him up totally,

Brent: Well, I mean, I, I mean, you're absolutely right because he's had a face-to-face encounter with Jalon now. Right. Um, that, I mean, that

Jeff: He has been to the mountain.

Brent: religious figure at that point.

Jeff: Yeah, he's been to the mountain. He's been there. He's seen it.

Brent: By the way, I, I'm gonna harp on this again. Eight weeks for going death walker on, on an ambassador to the station.

Jeff: Yeah. When we talked about that before, I was like, it's a minimum. It's this. But he's counting down the days as if that's the full sentence and I.

Brent: He's, he said, I will have paid my debt to society. I'm at peace. And I like, like, I mean, at least he's in solitary, but solitary doesn't seem to be really hurting him that much.

Jeff: No, it's working out pretty well. And I wonder too, I wonder if Kosh is walking by every now and again and just, uh, you know, keeping stoking those flames

Brent: If Jalon is visiting him every once in a while, yeah. Yeah, that'd be

Jeff: Hey, why don't you call chapter five this? Here you go.

Brent: Oh, oh, he is doing that. That divine inspiration writing thing.

Jeff: Uhhuh. .

Brent: you go.

Jeff: Would you have

Brent: Well, I, I, this is the last one, and this is, I think, gonna be an important, what, what is the importance and what does it now mean? The earth is under martial law because this is, this is the changing point. This is, this feels like this is the jumping off point of the next episode, whatever it's called.

Jeff: Well, it's interesting too because it happens just as the investigation against Clark is coming to a.

Brent: What's interesting about that? That's absolutely expected.

Jeff: oh, it's, it's, it's brilliant is what it

Brent: what we almost saw a couple of years ago.

Jeff: Very true. But no, it's, it's brilliant in how he did it, because now if they find that he, you know, they find the truth and they say, yeah, you, you're a murderer, and we're, we're, you know, we're going to do all these horrible things. He's literally commanding the military right now. And so there would have to be a military coup to oust, to execute the legal order to, to oust him.

Unless he just dissolves the courts altogether. Hey, you're doing an investigation, or he's, he's meeting in the closed door meeting with the Senate tomorrow, right? Hey, tomorrow he's gonna meet. Is he gonna pull a palpatine and just dissolve the Senate altogether? Hey, you can do whatever hearing you want, you're not officially recognized. I am supreme Chancellor and emperor of this galactic empire. I think that's where it goes. But my question is how far does it extend? Is it just on earth? Is it also on

Brent: Well, it'd be to it. It has to be to all earth, uh, earth Alliance things like anything that's under Earth Alliance control has to go under military martial law at this point. I would think. I could be wrong. It might just be Earth. It might be Earth as under Marshall Law. Um, yeah, I don't know. I guess we'll find out next week.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: But for that, in this week, in this week's discussion, Jeff, we've hit that spot where it is time to boil it all down and see just how Star Trek this episode is. So we say, uh, does it have that deep moral message? Are we holding up mirrors to society? Is it giving us hope for a better future? To do that, I'm gonna rank this one on a scale of zero to five Deltas.

Jeff, you're gonna do zero to five star furious as far as how Babylon five this episode is. How much did we enjoy it? How much did it do it its own way? Jeff? I'll go first. I kind of gave you my spiel a few minutes ago, right? Uh, about why I think this is a, uh, where the, where the, the Star Trek piece comes into this.

Um, I really, I, I feel like this easily could have been a Star Trek episode, Jeff. Um, this would've been Picard and wharf have to go off to stop a, a bad admirer, right? A bad admiral, right? If, I don't know if everybody out there knows that term a bad admiral, uh, from taking control of a Rolin Warbird feels like an episode.

We could have seen Cisco and Kira have to go blow up a Jim Hadar ship, uh, before somebody, uh, obtains it a another star fleet person obtains it, right? Um, uh, it just, it, it feels like we could have seen this, uh, uh, in, in the whole Star Trek thing. But

I think that there's another piece to this that we see that really pulls into those, those, uh, star fleet. Mentalities because one of the, one of the, the messages I think of Star Trek is, will you stand by your principles even when it's tough, even when it looks bad on you? Right? And I go all the way back to the original series.

I mean, this, this is not just new stuff. This is all the way back, uh, cordite Maneuver. And I hear Captain Kirk, not Kirk ish, but Kirk, uh, saying it's ti and the Corbin might maneuver, right? It's time to see if our high sounding morals actually mean anything. Right? Um, when they had to go, go see the, the little kid, here's Captain Sheridan.

And the Aga Mendon is about to fire on him. Now here's a question. Would Sheridan have fired on any other ship had it not been the Aon?

Jeff: That is the

Brent: I don't think he would have.

Jeff: I don't

Brent: the Agnon made it a real quick choice for him, but I don't think he would've fired on any Earth force ship.

Jeff: He wasn't

Brent: No Uhuh. Um, and he figured out a way to do what he needed to do, protect his group, and not kill his own people for it, even though they were about to kill him. Um, all of that taken together for me, Jeff, it's not a very Star Trek, uh, uh, show because I don't think that that was in any way, shape or form an intended message.

I think that's analyzing it and seeing what they're saying. I think this was really a, what I, what I mentioned earlier is this is an Act five show, whereas a lot of action, it was a lot of action and it was a little content, a lot of pew, pew, pew, and it was a lot of fun. This would be one of those Star Trek episodes, Jeff, that we would say is not a very Star Trek.

Episode. Uh, so for that, I'm giving this one two deltas because there is still something there.

Jeff: Yeah. The only other piece I would add to that is I really enjoyed kind of ja car's philosophical ponderings. And he talked in there about, he says the problem, it says something along the lines of, like, the problem with the world today is that everything out there is meant only to distract us from what's truly important, and that's ourselves. And now, you know, and in here there are no distractions. And I think that the, the star Treky theme I would've pulled out, that I pulled outta that is really just what is truly important. And are you, are you paying attention to it? Are you feeding it? Are you willing to do what you need to do for it? You know, I mean, in Jakarta's case, he's willing to sit in solitary with a smile on his face the whole time.

For it. In Sheridan's case, he was willing to go and potentially sacrifice himself and Len and Lanier cuz he was there as well, right? For the whole thing. So I think it just add, I I, I'm not advocating for more Deltas, I'm just kind of adding to like, yeah, this was kind of the message. There's a couple cool little drops of it in this one.

But yeah, I think two Deltas is good.

Brent: How about you on the star fairies? Jeff

Jeff: Star theory should be easier, right? Like this sh this should be like, oh man, this was great, this was awesome. And it was, I liked it, but it was really more prelude I feel like, to more that's coming really well done. It was, it was good to watch. I mean, it had fun action in it. It tied a lot of stuff together. I think it showed us the Earth might even be more evil than the shadows , or at least a couple people on earth. But I almost ask myself like, one, how does this episode stand on its own, not just. Not with what's coming yet. You know, and that's the lens you and I have to watch these from. We don't know what's coming next. I love how it brought stuff forward, you know, and, and, and utilized it in this one. And the question we ask ourselves oftentimes, either when we're ranking or looking at the star theories is, you know, what would we watch? Would we watch this one again? Or, you know, you talked about, I think last week with, you know, being a laundry episode and I can't answer that question right

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: I can answer the question of if I would watch this one again after I watch the next couple of episodes to see where it goes from here. So God, I want to come out and be like, God, this is Babylon five all the way. And this is amazing and such a great episode. And it was good, but I don't think it stands on its own enough to get five.

And so I'm gonna give this one, four, I'm gonna give this four star theories, and I say that fully acknowledging. Probably about 400 people just fired up their keyboards to rip me a new one. But it's, it's almost an asterisk, like the next couple episodes might come out and I'm like, holy crud. This might be a Geometry of Shadows, one that I play, that I place up a little higher to start, but we look back and we're like, holy God.

It was brilliant.

Brent: I, I, I'm with you on that. It thi this is gonna be an episode. I can see the comments right now. I've been waiting for you to get to this episode. There's gonna be a lot of people, and so it begins, and I was like, no, it began back then, like , so

Jeff: This is the next logical step. I mean, you and I both came close to predicting what this one is gonna be about cuz this was the next logical step.

Brent: And they need to, it's where they're setting us up and they need to take us there. Like I'm, I'm in, I'm all in on this story and I want to go there. Let's get to

Jeff: Go to the next, go to the next

Brent: I'm, and, and I, I have to say at this point in season three, I'm ready to get there. I don't need any more meandering about, Let's go, let's, let's get to the story.

Let's make it happen. Do what you gotta do. Well, Jeff, with that, it's time to take this episode messages from Earth and place it in our 100%, absolutely, completely accurate. Definitive ranking of season three. Jeff, our current top five from one to five is passing through Guest Enemy matters of honor, voices of authority, dust to dust, and a day in the strife.

Where do you place this episode? Is it even in the top five? And if so, where matters? No, not matters of honor. Uh, messages from Earth.

Jeff: Season three's been really good.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: Our, our lowest ranked episode is Exogenesis, and we enjoyed that episode. You know, like it was a good episode, but I think that this one, frankly, is on a different level than what we have watched so far. It had a bigger feel. It moved stuff forward. It set a lot of things up.

Um, I'll just get right to it. This is our new number one episode, but I have a prediction, and that prediction is, I think this will be the only week that this episode sits at number one, this, or maybe maybe two. I don't think this is gonna be in the number one position very long, but for right now, this, this is our top episode.

Brent: I can't disagree. Mostly because that's the rule, but also I don't, I don't disagree at all. I'm with you. This, this is the best episode we've seen so far. It's, it's the most fun for sure. I told you guys, I like this episode. It's the most fun. So,

Jeff: Yeah. This is great one. But this, it, this is it for messages of earth. We've done it. Now we play a game at the end of each episode where we guess what the next one is gonna be about based on the title alone. But to be fair, like we always say that based on the title alone, based on the title alone and everything that we've watched building

Brent: to this point. That's fair.

Jeff: Yes,

Brent: Right.

Jeff: So the next episode is called Point of No Return, which is also what the third season itself is called. So this is our Coming of Shadows. This is our signs and importance for this one. It's all we know about this. We don't haven't seen thumbnails read anything about it. We know the title. So Brent, what do you think?

Point of no return is gonna be

Brent: You know, Jeff, uh, this one's, this one's easy for me. I said last week that this episode this week is gonna be the catalyst for breaking away from earth gov. I predicted this is where the story was going back during the season two wrap up, and I'm sticking with this until it doesn't happen , you know what I mean?

Like, but a point of no return. Okay. What else could that be? Wait, they just declared Marshall Law. We just saw him take off the uniform. Right. We have that pe You referenced it, I think in last week's episode and in this week's, Hey, this uniform used to mean something and it doesn't have that honor anymore.

Like it, it feels like this is where the story's going, and I think this is the episode where the breakaway happens. They, they reach that point of no return where they've gotta execute their plan or and die trying.

Jeff: totally agree. Marshall Law is gonna come to Babylon. Five. Sheridan's gonna have to make his stand and his stand. Taken off that, that low, that his little badge and being like, you're with me or you're against me. And I think this, this the end of, I think that the episode will end with like, this is the official Babylon five isn't leaving Earth yet.

This is Sheridan and crew

Brent: Uhhuh

Jeff: Earth, but still on Babylon five. And that's gonna be the story moving forward. It's gonna be really building up how they pull all of Babylon five with them.

Brent: agreed.

Jeff: We're gonna see it right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to us or watching us.

And if you haven't already, hop over to Apple Podcast. Leave us a rating and a review. I'll read it right here on the podcast. So, until next

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: Hey Brent, listen, before we do this, this is, I know you guys stuff, but before we do it, I've been thinking a little bit and um, not really sure. don't know how to say this.

I'm not really sure how you fit in around here anymore. Like I don't know how to relate to you.

Brent: You know, it's weird that you say that because I've just made this org chart that shows how everybody fits in. I'm right here in the middle, along with you, and then over here is uh, my mom, and then right here above me is my wife,

Jeff: So

Brent: there's your wife. And

Jeff: Look at that. Like, look, you got, you got Aira in there, you got Nia. This is, there's all, there's even some people from the community in there.

Brent: Yeah. There's retro over there and you know Alyssa's right there. Yeah.

Jeff: that's cool. They're all there.

Brent: They've always been here, Jeff.

Jeff: Whoa. Peace, victory. And long life.