Racing Mars

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

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

Jeff: doing okay, Brent.

Brent: Hey, I'm good. How you doing, Jeff?

Jeff: Great.

Brent: Really?

Jeff: I am. I'm excited to talk about this one.

Brent: Are you?

Jeff: I am, because this, Brent and I are watching Babylon 5 for the first time for you, the viewer and the listener, the one who is, I'm trying, I'm trying, Brent, here you go. Like

Brent: GE. Hey, listen, Jeff and I, we are, uh, we are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching this show for the very first time and searching, though oftentimes we fail to find Star Trek like messages that are being done in a uniquely babble one five way.

Jeff: But one thing we do tend to do is bring in some Star Trek references into these conversations. So to keep us on point focused on Babylon five, we play the rule of three. This is one of our games that we love playing, which limits us to three. No more references. A piece per episode. That's it. Three, no substitutions.

Exchanges are refund.

Brent: Just for clarity, we're only limited in Star Trek reference.

Jeff: That is

Brent: We can reference everything else as much and as often as we like

Jeff: and we do,

Brent: and we do.

Jeff: very much do. One thing I love to reference are the five star reviews that we have. Oh yes. Going right here from Apple Podcasts, Corman 3000 says Perfect for rewatching with another perspective. With the remade high def B five episodes available. This podcast is great for rewatching episodes.

They have another perspective of the show that reveals subtle plot points that may have been missed the first five times I've watched the series and it's hilarious when they try to predict the next episode, but sometimes they nail the plot.

Brent: Awesome. Got really close to nailing this one.

Jeff: Sure did. Hey, we have another five star review. Oh yes. Also from Apple Podcast. John Bees Pod people says it's a good name, good pod, clean language Trek background. Sounds like a Yelp review.

Brent: I like

Jeff: Good. Good pod, clean dialogue. Trek background. I have a whole pile of B five DVDs and have been a fan since the nineties.

After hearing about this podcast from another B five pod, I decided to check it. I'm starting from the first episode of their show, so I'm a little behind. Jeff and Brent have interesting observations, even as they bravely slog through season one, they keep it pretty clean, which also makes it unique. So it's okay to listen with kids in the room.

Let the buzzer go though, guys. I don't mind the Star Trek references, but that thing is distracting. I did, uh, John Bees pod people I did. That buzzer at you?

Brent: Just for you,

Jeff: but I still appreciate you.

Brent: John, you're awesome. You're amazing. Jeff, you and I were talking just before we came on Mike here, about the idea of word economy

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and managing, managing all of that. So I appreciate that so many ways. Well, Jeff, uh, you know, along with those reviews and along with our Rule of three and along with giving out Delta Furies at the end of the episode, another thing we like to do is make predictions. I referenced mine just a moment ago. We make predictions about what we think the episodes are gonna be about based on title alone.

We have not previewed the episode we have not seen next week on Babylon five. We have not read descriptions. We've not even looked at thumbnails as long as we can avoid it, and we make a guess solely based on title alone, Jeff. Do you remember what you said racing Mars was gonna be about?

Jeff: I figured we'd be heading to Mars, right? With Franklin and Marcus on their way. We'd have the adventures with odd couple shenanigans with quite a bit played for laughs and some stuff kind of coming up along the way. We definitely had some stuff played for laughs on their way. I also thought though, we were gonna get a little more insight into what's going on with the Centara.

That did not happen at all. What about you, Brent? What did you think?

Brent: Well, I, I said that this was gonna be Marcus and Franklin on their way to Mars and when they got there, something bad was gonna happen when they met the resistance check mark. I also said that Gar Baldi was gonna figure into this one, uh, because as he's resigned command, he's given a bad interview for Sheridan, that Sheridan is clearly not happy with things we're gonna get really awkward between Garabaldi and Sheridan, and they were gonna have it out.

Check Mark. I also said that because Gu Baldi was from Mars, this would result in him leaving the station heading back to Mars, which did not happen. And that he would wind up swooping in and saving Franklin and Marcus at the very end. Uh, because that's where it seemed to me like this was going. So, two outta three,

Jeff: It's pretty darn good.

Brent: I'll take it.

I'll take it. Two outta three

Jeff: Well, for those of you that don't know what we're talking about, haven't seen this episode in a really long time,

Brent: or just forgot it.

Jeff: just forgot it and thought to yourself, wait, Franklin and Marcus went to Mars. Like, when did that

Brent: not the most memorable of episodes. Post spoiler alert.

Jeff: I, now, I can't wait to dive into this. Hey, Brent, why don't you walk us through racing Mars.

Brent: Oh, well, where to begin with this one? I guess let's just start at the beginning. Huh. Bonvan and Sheridan have a business meeting about the station and at the end, VVA tells Sheridan to go take a nap. Meanwhile, Franklin and Marcus are playing a rousing game of I Spy on their way to Mars. And what do they find while playing this game?

And actual spy? Okay, he's not really a spy. He's Captain Jack Sparrow. He plays coy. He plays STO away and he plays drug dealer with food, you know, cuz he is offering the first one for free. But he's gonna get him on the comeback and more than that. But more than that, it turns out that he is the contact for the resistance that those two have been looking for.

And he, captain Jack Sparrow gives them their fake IDs and it turns out that Marcus and Franklin are posing as a newlywed couple on their honeymoon. Because who wouldn't want to go to a place like Mars for their honeymoon? Super romantic guys. Well, while they're completing the rest of their journey to Mars, let's go back to the station and check in on what's going on over there.

Well, Sheridan, having been given a time to go nap is not napping, and he's got a lot of time on his hands, and he's really starting to stew over that interview that Garabaldi gave with I s n. And Sheridan, just like yours, truly predicted, goes to confront him, goes pretty much exactly the way you would think it would go.

That's a whole lot of, Hey man, that wasn't cool. Oh yeah, well, you're not being cool either. Well just stop being a jerk. I'm not the jerk. You're the jerk. Nuh-huh. Nuh-huh. These no punches were thrown though, and there were some definite creepy guys way over in the corner watching, and they would eventually approach Gu Baldy to make him an offer he can't refuse.

They don't exactly tell us what they're up to, but it seems pretty obvious they're trying to get rid of Sheridan. And while all that is happening, Ivanova is proving herself more than capable of handling the business of the station, as she calls all the known smugglers together to make arrangements with them, for all of them to go straight.

And she provides a pretty cool win-win scenario to keep them on the straight and narrow and keep the station alive and running. All right, well, let's go check in on Mars. The Happy couple is being treated to stories about how aliens are starting to swoop into Mars and trying to take over the planet, and that the Mars colonies have been left to defend themselves, and the folks on Mars have no idea what's happening out there.

Well, there's no really time to fill everybody in on exactly what all's been happening because it's time to actually meet the resistance. That is as soon as their identities have been confirmed, which of course they're not. And that's when stuff gets really weird. You see Captain Jack, he's uh, uh, he's got a little itchy problem going on underneath his jacket there, and he tries to turn a P P G on the resistance leader number one.

But Marcus and the others are super fast and they shoot Captain Jack Sparrow and some parasite thing off of his shoulder. We later learned that that parasite thing actually has the ability to control mines. So Captain Jack wasn't really responsible for what he was doing. It sure is. Heck, to me, Jeff sounds like one of those little eyeball things that was on the neck of, uh, Londo and the other Sonari emperor guy.

Uh, we.

Jeff: McKey mc, joker

Brent: Yeah, yeah, joke, jokey mc, jerson, uh, although we didn't really see it flipped over, but that's, that's what it seemed like to me. Now with that though, Jack has some news though. You see those things are like starfish. You can blow most of it off, but if just a little bit is left behind, it can actually regrow and there's only one real way to deal with that by going boom.

And so Jack makes himself go boom. And with that, Marcus and Franklin are in, but it's gonna take a few more episodes apparently. Before we get to that story, well finally back on the station. Delin is being really creepy with John. She wants to have a bunch of folks stand right outside in the living room while he and her go discover each other's pleasure centers.

And later Sheridan and Garabaldi have it out one more time. This time Garabaldi really does punch Sheridan straight in the mouth. And the episode ends with Garabaldi fully signing on to the creepy dudes who haven't really told us what they're up to yet. Jeff, what did you think about this episode racing Mars?

Jeff: Brent, I loved this episode.

Brent: you did not. You did not. Shut

Jeff: much

Brent: You did not. False. False. You

Jeff: totally

Brent: did not.

Jeff: I, I just outta outta the gate. I gotta, I, I is this season fours, t k o, where like the fandom is just like, this is pure garbage, but Jeff Akins over here. Like, I love this

Brent: No. This, no. This is the season's. Delivery to Avalon is what?

Jeff: man. I had so much fun with this one. I loved Marcus and Franklin together. I loved Ivanova, like telling Sheridan what was what, and pulling people together and like you said, getting that win-win situation for everybody. I love. I don't like how, but I love that Sheridan and Gar Bald ramped up and the whole delen.

That was, that was awful and amazing. I laughed. I freaked out. I even cried a little bit, sort of figuratively. It was really sad when Jack went, that was a moving moment. I thought the way that they played it, um, I think it moved key parts of the story forward and it was a lot of fun. Like this was, this was the first episode in a long time.

That was just like, this is kind of fun. We've been so heavy and so serious for so long that I think this was a welcome

Brent: What are, let me ask you this, what have been the fun episode? Like soulmates. Soulmates was a fun episode.

Jeff: Soulmates, um, I'll say a late delivery from Avalon. Like everything except like the go home part with him, like his discovery of who he was, but the whole stuff with Garabaldi in the post office and the stuff when he was King Arthur, like that was, it was meant for fun. Some of the gray 17 was, mi is missing stuff.

Well, actually I don't think it was played

Brent: I don't think that was fun, but yeah.

Jeff: was fun.

Brent: A much better episode than the fandoms out there.

Jeff: agreed, but I have to say this piece about this episode and, and I love it, so have to believe that there was sort of a joke and some other stuff with the Marcus and Franklin being married piece. So it, it took me this, I think this is such a reflection on the time.

It took me a significant amount of time in the episode to realize that this was being played for laughs. Like I thought the joke. Was that they didn't love each other and would never actually get married. I didn't see this as the subtle late nineties comment on gay marriage that it was to me it was just like, of course they're gonna be a married couple.

And it's funny because they don't want to get married to each other like this hit so different in 97 than it did right now. I wanna say this was like, this is Presciently written with layers. J m s like saw the future and wrote layers to this joke that in 97 ha ha two dudes are gonna be married. That's so funny.

And then planting seeds, but then now almost in 2024, we're like, ha ha. Two people that kind of don't want to ever love each other and might not even like each other have to be married. Now what a comment that is on how far we've come in these 25 ish years since this episode aired. I thought that was pretty cool.

Brent: The, um, the ability to use comedy to insert ideas into society

Jeff: Brilliant.

Brent: is brilliant, and I, I, as a, as a former standup comedian, I, it bothers me and I understand why it happens, but it bothers me when people write. Comedy in a past era as being offensive because it seems like it's making fun of something when actually it's very clearly normalizing it for, for the, for the folks of the time.

You know? Uh, and, and that's what it was trying to do. But in looking back on it, 30 years later, people want to get all up in arms about it. And, uh, it, it was, it was, what was so brilliant about that was it was a, Hey, you guys are a newlywed couple on your honeymoon. And you're right. It turned in that they looked at each other just like, no, we're not married.

Jeff: barely stand like Plain Ice Spy with you anymore. I'm

Brent: right. Um, switch genders. And nothing about that scene had to change. put, put, put, uh, uh, Franklin and Ivanova there. Put Sheridan and Ivanova there and they're calling each other. One of them's teasing the other by calling 'em honey. And the other one's like, ah, what, you know, what are you doing? Like, it was, but the idea that it wasn't like, oh, we're gay.

No, it was just like,

Jeff: gross.

Brent: it was more like a, I gotta be to what you said, I gotta be married to you. To insert that with such normality in 1997 and do it under the guise of comedy in the, the world. That was 1997. It is, it is just brilliantly done. I, I very much appreciated that piece. Um, for that.

Jeff: Like it was just funny how, how it took me like, You know, they played the joke, here's your identical cards, here's the stuff. And I'm just watching. And then Marcus is kind of poking some fun, I'm watching. And then later on, I think it was when they were in the train, like in the train thing, joking that you're choking with each other.

I was like, oh, that's right. This used to be, this used to be funny. Like this very normal, very normal, healthy thing. Used to be a joke. Oh my gosh. Sorry. I didn't realize. Well, hey, how about for the, one of the shortest parts of this episode? Brett, what did you think of this episode?

Brent: That's my full thought. Now, you know what? Listen, last week was awesome. I truly enjoyed last week. This week was so drawn out and to me this week wound up committing the ultimate sin. It was kind of boring.

Jeff: What.

Brent: It was boring. This episode was weird. I really wish that I had actually fully nailed the prediction with Gu Baldy showing up just in the nick of time on Mars to save everybody, because that would've been a better episode.

Your prediction, Jeff, of let it be an odd couple on the way and let it dive, embrace the comedy and make it a comedy episode, that would've been a better episode. This was just drawn out. This was one of those episodes where very little to nothing was wrapped up. This was an episode that to me, I feel like probably serves a point.

It serves a purpose in the overall story and narrative. It's a, it's a, it's a chess pieces moving episode. We're just gonna move the pieces. Nothing's really gonna happen. We're just gonna move some pieces around. You know, we're gonna introduce you to a couple new characters here. We're gonna set some stuff up.

Uh, but nothing, I mean, the whole ending in resolved of, of Marcus and Franklin of like, Hey, so yeah, we got your ID confirmed. Uh, but it's gonna take a few days for the rest of the resistance folks to get here. So that's where we're gonna end for today. Like, like that's what it felt like. I'm reading my kid a story and like we get to the end of the chapter and go, okay, that's where we're gonna end for tonight.

And the kid's like, go. That's, uh, yeah, like, we haven't finished. That's the way I feel about this episode. We just, we haven't finished. There were some elements that were funny. I'll give you that. But as overall, I just, I personally didn't care for this episode at.

Jeff: Is there a part of this episode that you did care for that we want to dive into first? I love how long it's taking for you to even

Brent: No, not, I mean, Jeff, you listen, I'm gonna dump all over this episode. If you, let me lead this conversation. So you talk, I've got, listen, I have lizer 1, 2, 3, 4. I have eight notes.

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: I normally have like 30 something.

Jeff: Yeah. I have a whole lot more than that. So I think we can quick, quick through a couple of these, right. The yvanova thing. Awesome. That was cool. Um, what my favorite

Brent: I, oh, go ahead.

Jeff: My two favorite things with her. One with her, and then one follow up was just her telling Sheridan to take a break.

Brent: Take a break.

Jeff: It's

Brent: Let's go away

Jeff: She was peak, peak first officer, like she was great. And then my favorite piece there when Sheridan's like, oh, I got the day off. Let me watch some tv. And apparently the adult channel is unavailable on Bevel on five right now.

Brent: You can get the news, but you can't get your grownup stuff. Um, I loved, I loved Ivanova coming in and telling him, Hey, listen, it, it made all the sense in the world, you go do this. Um, I, I feel like there could have been a little more needling, like kind of that we've been talking a little bit lately about missing the old school season.

One of, of Enva. There could have been a little bit more of that in this, but what I loved about it was when she was there, left with the station, they're all like, Hey, look, we got two months left of supplies. If we don't, if something doesn't happen, stuff's gonna start getting off in a bad way. And while Sheridan is off taking his mandated time off, uh, Yvanova's handling business, and she set something up that I don't know exactly how it's gonna turn out for.

But it's something, and she made it a win-win situation. She did what she needed to do, and basically it sounded like she was building her own NASCAR fleet. We're gonna soup up your engines, we're gonna get you going. We're you're gonna, you're gonna outrun any transport guard that's out there. We're gonna make this happen.

We're gonna do it all for free. Just bring us our stuff and keep it legal.

Jeff: She basically did. If the mafia was running nascar, cuz she's like, we'll take care of you. We'll fix you up. Fix you up, soup you up. Also, if you don't, I will blow you up.

Brent: Right, right, right. Now please bring us vegetables.

Jeff: Yeah, not no dust, nothing like that. Just parts and some food.

Brent: Yes. That's, that's what we really need here. Maybe some letters that

Jeff: And I loved how they used that to explain Garibaldis hair, where apparently he got some something and that caused his hair to fall out. That was just a fun little,

Brent: okay. So, uh, uh, he has been going more and more bold as the show's been going on.

Jeff: well, he's following a tenant. One of my really good friends does, and he says if it won't grow, go low. And that has been the Michael Garabaldi approach to hair care.

Brent: So my, my personal thing, um, is I have always said that if I start doing the male pattern baldness, and thankfully that doesn't tend to happen in my family and I'm still praying that that holds true for me. But if it ever starts going that way, cuz my, my stepfather is, I mean, male pattern baldness since he was 22 like crazy.

But I've always said, if that happens to me, I am shaving my head for the rest of my life. I have no qualms. I've got a, I've got a nice, beautiful bald head.

Jeff: So I, I'm the, because I've got, I've got, I mean, my hairline is receded from when this, this podcast started. I've got a nice shiny part here in the back that I've had for a long time. And so I tried that. I'm like, I'm gonna shave. I have, I'm a very, I'm a very sensitive person. It just happens. All of my sensitivity is in my skin.

And so when I shave my head, I break out like a

Brent: Oh no.

Jeff: kid, and my, my head just becomes this, like this sea of acne. Yeah. It is horrible. So, uh, going low is not an option for Jeff. Like, I just gotta, like, make the best out of what I got.

Brent: wow, wow. Get you some Neutrogena for that thing, man.

Jeff: Right. Proactive. Sheridan and Dalen. Sheridan using his time off, and, uh, Len takes him down, uh, the, the next of potentially 47 rituals, I mean, 50, I mean 50, but 47 it's,

Brent: Said it takes 50 years for this to happen. I'm like, delin is not making this happen all the way. There is no way that that's gonna happen. Okay. First of all, this whole thing about having people stand outside and pray while you guys go discover your pleasure centers. This is not the first time I've heard of a culture that does this.

Jeff: Same.

Brent: Now, usually it happens actually at the wedding night, not beforehand.

Jeff: And it's more to make sure that things happen.

Brent: And we're saying because that's, that's, that's the win. You are married, like you have the ceremony. That's the union right there. Once that happens, now you're married. And that's when people celebrate is after that happens. Which man, if you could celebrate the first time, your best friend goes out there and becomes a man, you're a woman.

Depending on which side you're on, Hey, go for it.

Jeff: I felt bad for Lanier though. Like he had

Brent: Oh, yeah,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: yeah. Very Game of Thrones ish.

Jeff: Ooh.

Brent: You know what I mean? Like, like, uh. Dude down in front. Out in front of the king's quarters while he's whatever, you know, and his sister is supposed to, anyway.

Jeff: Yeah. I felt like Mira Furland, the act like as an actor was really having fun. In this episode,

Brent: Do you know who is, do you know who is not having a good day in this episode? Her makeup artist. The blending of her that head bone into her skin is the worst blending I have seen in an episode since she had the full head crust.

Jeff: I, I feel like this whole season it's been, her makeup's been not great. Her hair's been not great. Like,

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I don't know, and I haven't really wanted to comment it on it cuz I don't, whatever. But you're right, like there's been some pretty, when you have like Alando or a Jaar who are like emoting and feeling to their makeup, and then you have Alen who, it's like, I, I can see the powder there.

Brent: the line of the, of the prosthetic right here. Like, and it, it's not blending like I can see where you tried to put the plastic on your face and it's not blending into the rest of your skin. And, and I mean, God bless 'em. Apparently they tried really, really hard. Apparently it was like it was harder to do this version of makeup for Blend than it was to do the full Imari deal for her.

So, you know, I'm not a makeup artist. God bless those people, but I just don't know how you get Kar and the amazingness that is that, but then this other thing, which seems like it should be relatively easy.

Jeff: Comparatively.

Brent: I just, that was one of my notes. Dylan's makeup is all over the place.

Jeff: so I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump to Mars cause I want to, I want us to close on the Garabaldi conversation cuz that's, I feel like, is the

Brent: Well, let me jump back to Dilin because I do want talk about that just for, for a brief, a brief. How did you feel about the idea that Delin was really wanting Sheridan to keep these outrageous ceremonies of her culture? You, you are in an intercultural marriage, Jeff. Okay. Um, how did, how, like, did that strike you at all? Because he clearly was like, look, I'm not doing all of this. And she's like, please. It really means a lot to.

Jeff: You do this stuff, you double up is what you do. I mean, and so to me it's like a, for the way we did it, this is the Aiken approach to bringing intercultural relationships together is when you start, you do both, and then over time you develop your own traditions from those things. I like, I like to tell the story of our, of our wedding and how, um, so my, my wife is Lebanese and to understand that culture.

You have to understand, and many of you probably do. So this is really focused to people in the United States who can't have a very hard time fathoming a culture in which religion is a core piece of, of a society. In, in Lebanon you have Orthodox, you have Catholics, and you have Muslims. And they even have it set up where like their president, their prime minister and somebody else are like their, their law says like the prime Minister must be a Catholic, the president must be Orthodox.

I forget it. I remember it's the Prime Minister is a Catholic, a Maronite Catholic specifically. But so in our wedding, I'm Catholic, we've talked about that a lot. So we had a Catholic mass where we had a Muslim who did the readings. We had an orthodox person who was cantering for us and then the rest of the family who was Catholic doing things.

And we had a Maronite priest con celebrating with the Roman, uh, right priest. So we kind of did both at our reception. We had our dance and it was a lot of just regular, you know, it's a wedding dance thing, but there's this awesome fun dance they do in Lebanon over, over in the Middle East called the Deb Key.

And the Deb Key's like this whole, you hold hands, it's a long string and it's this rhythm. And you jump and you leap. And there was this moment cuz we had the DJ interweaving that stuff in and we had like 90 white people and 40 Arabs. Deb King around the hall of this Catholic church. And it was like this magical moment where everything, it was so much fun, it was awesome.

But Dalen is right to want to do this stuff. Sheridan's right is right to want to do his stuff and they, they both need to do them. I didn't think it was fair though that she held that up against him.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I did your engagement ring thing. So you know, it's not a tip for tat. It's not that you have to like, you have to do it cuz you want to do it.

Brent: Yeah, I, I was kind of in both places. Sheridan clearly did not want to do all of this stuff. It was clearly over the top. It also clearly meant a lot for Dylan. Well, I think what I said in my Brent watches video for this week was they got a meet in the middle somewhere. They've gotta figure out how to meet in the middle so that they can, uh, come together on this.

You know, and that is gonna be an important piece for them going forward, because as you said, uh, they're going to have differences and that's okay. That's to be celebrated. And you're right. I like, I like your rule. Do both. And over time, figure out the ones that you, I mean, honestly, I think that's the way my marriage pretty, pretty much tends to work.

I wouldn't necessarily call me and my wife, uh, uh, interculture, you know, we are, we're pretty homogenized to be honest with you. Um, but even that, like, just our holiday traditions in my family were different than her holiday traditions in her family. And when we first started dating, we did mine and hers first couple years of marriage, we did both.

And as time has gone on, we've kind of gone like, it's a little of hers, a little of mine with a little of new stuff of our own mixed in. And this is the holiday traditions we have now. These are the holiday traditions we have now. So, uh, the biggest problem I had with Dylan in the, in the ceremonies was Sheridan was clearly overwhelmed by it and there was too much, and she seemed insensitive to that.

Jeff: Yeah, I'd

Brent: And that's where I had problems, I think, with it more than anything. So,

Jeff: Yeah. Well, what I know is, uh, is a Gen Xer who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, like I, I like. There's a certain level of quiet, I guess you could say that I'm accustomed to or whatever. You walk into a Lebanese or an Arab household and that is not what's happening. There are smells and sounds and things going on.

Little things too, because it is so interfaith and inner culture that like, oh, hiya, it's nice to meet you, ma'am, who's a Muslim that I can't make physical contact with. But I don't know that. So like some people are very gra you know, gracious about that. Others not as much. But there has to be like a conversation of like, Hey John, uh, we're gonna head into my quarters and we're gonna do this thing.

And there are going to be six people there watching and

Brent: Well, on the other side of the door,

Jeff: theory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh, yeah, you gotta prep. You gotta prep the per, because the other thing too is, There's been a long for the ride culturally and then there's participating and at this point Sheridan is a long for the ride and, and is looking around for a place to get off of the ride.

Brent: I dunno. It sound looked to me like he enjoyed his ride pretty much.

Jeff: Looks around. He found it. He found it.

Brent: Lanier was kind of pissed about it,

Jeff: And I took that personally.

Brent: right? Woohoo.

Jeff: Oh gosh. So in your recap, I loved your Captain Jack Sparrow reference. You know the one I was waiting for you to make.

Brent: Which one?

Jeff: Harry Mud. Captain Jack is totally hairy mud.

Brent: Except Harry Mud had a solid accent all the way through. This guy had about five different accents that would intercut within the same sentence.

Jeff: because he was being influenced by the keeper controller thing, like he was trying to sneak stuff through. It was squeezing his brain or whatever. I found it fascinating that the passphrase for the spy was Lida had a little volin, her skin was pale as snow. And everywhere that Lida went, her VLAN was sure to go. To me, that sheds a different light on Lida and Zack's conversation where she was like, I'm kind of weird, aren't I? And Zack's like, yeah, a little bit. You're actually so weird that Rangers who are undercover and just wearing their ranger pin out and open, uh, tell nursery rhymes about you in your weirdo relationship with these people that tried to kill us.

I thought that was pretty weird. I dunno.

Brent: Did, did Zach really say that to her?

Jeff: She was a little weird.

Brent: Yeah, but he didn't say the thing about the, about the Ranger say, did

Jeff: No, I'm sa I'm

Brent: I'll just say, wait, did I miss something from that? I thought it was a brilliant like, Passcode phrase, because only if you are from Babylon five are you gonna understand leeta and, and the lon.

You're never gonna, and then you put it inside. The Mary had a little lamb rhyme. Like

Jeff: yeah. But which is what you use to stop cyco from reading your mind when you're a blip trying to run away.

Brent: that is true. It's, oh, I didn't make that connection till just this moment. Oh,

Jeff: So when you think about Captain Jack and you think about him being compromised, what we know, because he talked about how they didn't know anything about the shadow war or anything. So the words Lida and vlan probably mean next to nothing to him, and then it's a tune that we know can kind of get your brain slowed down.

So maybe, but keeper didn't quite. Pick up on all this stuff when it was trying to control him. Maybe I loved, I love in the worst way. I hated it actually. This was, this was Ben Zane quality stuff of uh, lemme see if I can do it. That's far enough.

Brent: Oh, I made the same joke on my Burnt Watches video. I was like, this guy is awful. Who? Who cast this guy? Is this actually his voice or is he putting this on? Please tell me he's putting this on. This cannot be his real voice.

Jeff: I also loved the, when he looked at, looks at him, cause they're like, Hey, we wanna talk to whoever's in charge. And he goes, Hey, I'm poop around here. You're what? I mean, I'm number two. I was just like a middle school kid. And he is like, I'm number two around here. I'm like, he's, he's number two. It's funny.

It's funny stuff

Brent: Was was, did we have Austin Powers? Did, did was Austin Powers a thing

Jeff: for

Brent: in 1997 when this episode came

Jeff: Oh yeah, yeah.

Brent: Cuz he had number two in Austin Powers. Like, I wonder if it was a little, a little, uh,

Jeff: we had Nest Powers then. Yeah.

Brent: yeah,

Jeff: Did you catch the Star Trek reference?

Brent: no,

Jeff: Deni N four is the marketplace that he went

Brent: I did catch that and I was like, that's a Star Trek planet. But I just, they've also talked about Rigel in, in Babylon, five before and a few other planets. So

Jeff: I felt like Den four was pretty on the nose. That was encounter at Far point and, uh, where Gary Mitchell went in the, where no man has gone before the second pilot for the original series.

So I thought that was kind of cool.

Brent: Jeff, you owe me a buzz

Jeff: Do I, because the, the show made the reference. I brought it up,

Brent: You're lucky I didn't make you do two for catching Encounter a Firepoint and Gary Mitchell, but whatever.

Jeff: that's fair. That's fair. So we learned some things about these controllers, these keepers or these whatever. And this one we learned they have microfibers that hook into the neural

Brent: Uhhuh,

Jeff: that their control over you grows over time as they grow. They knew who Jack was and found him in the middle of the night, who, you know, we gotta figure out who they are.

And then like you said, they're the starfish. You can't remove them from a

Brent: Well, well now I heard that just a smidge different, that someone snuck up on Jack in the middle of the night and planted this on him. So whoever snuck up on in in the middle of the night is not the same thing as this. Coming and coming on him. It's a, it's a different thing altogether.

Jeff: That's what I'm saying. Like there's this, they that put this on him and he said they knew who I was

Brent: Uhhuh.

Jeff: or who I am or whatever. They knew who I was. So there's, there's a, they that we're dealing with, which we, we know, I think at this point is Dark Allies or something like

Brent: right. It was, it was, uh, what, what was that phrase he used in war without an allies and

Jeff: minions, I

Brent: Yeah. The minions and the out dark allies or whatever it was. Yeah. And so there's the eyeball things, which seem to be a thing like a, like a its own thing. And then whoever these people are who are coming in to, uh, put them on their shoulder.

But why haven't we really seen or heard about these folks before? Now? Where were they during the fight and everything that was going on? So,

Jeff: Yeah. A lot of questions out of this that we've been seeing. I was really, I thought it, I thought the scene played out really well though, like, When, you know, he, he shot and it was obvious like he didn't want to and didn't know what he was doing, and then he just ran off, you know,

Brent: It happened so fast though.

Jeff: so

Brent: Like if you, if you weren't paying attention, if somebody was like talking to you or the dog barked and you looked over and by the time you looked back at the tv, if you, if you didn't catch it, you'd be lost.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. So what, what everything happen, what's this thing that Franklin's operating on outta nowhere. But he decided, he's like, this thing really had control over me and there's only one thing I can do. Uh, I I thought it was very brave. I thought it was sad. You know, when he is on the train and he is just like, this is what happened.

This is what's going on. And hey, I guess I'm gonna see how well my tax dollars have been working all this time. But he made one key mistake and everything he did that might have lasting consequences, he gave Dr. Franklin a picture of his 18 year old. Along with her name and her address, that woman is in serious danger right now.

Brent: She's been in danger. He's had that picture.

Jeff: No, she's in serious danger because Dr. Franklin has her contact

Brent: Oh. Oh. Good call. Oh, good call.

Jeff: Yeah. He was trying to protect her a little bit before. He literally is just like, oh, hi

Brent: should have given it to Marcus,

Jeff: Yeah, that would've been the smart

Brent: right?

Jeff: I don't know if Child Protective Services is a thing on Mars, but I'm a mandatory reporter and I feel like I need to call somebody

and then the whole thing ends with Marcus Dew and Franklin is solid letting him head to the hotel, uh, with number one by himself.

Nice.

Brent: Says, I'll meet you in the, for some reason they put you in the honeymoon suite. Marcus goes, it was funny.

Jeff: Marcus is having fun with that.

Brent: Come on darling. Come on darling. Um, yeah, I, I mean, the only note I guess I really had off that, that you didn't mention is, well, a couple things. One, um, the energy in that tube when Jack exploded.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Okay.

First of all, that energy did not seem to completely disintegrate all the debris. So there's debris now on the tube, and this tube does not look like it has a whole bunch of extra space in it. Something's gonna have to come through and clean that out before other things come zooming through. But also that energy had to go somewhere

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: now. Given that it was confined, it, it, it would've spread very far until it finally dissipated or it hit something and blew something else up. Glad that it was contained, but like,

Jeff: risky move,

Brent: well, right, but si I mean, do those things have, have cow catchers on 'em, like trains do? Like does it have a deflector dish as it pushes through to clear

Jeff: are there people that walk through with a broom, like in sweeping it up or

Brent: every morning? Right. You just come through, oh look, here's some sunglasses. Somebody dropped.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: You know? Um,

Jeff: it's a nice coat.

Brent: right. I know. Um, the other thing was, uh, Jeff, how do you play? I spy.

Jeff: Uh, we usually go with colors.

Brent: That's what we do. I spy with my little eyes. Something blue, something red, something not begins.

Jeff: I have played it that way before, but in, in our family, and this was an activating scene for me because that is the game. My daughter always wants to, always wants to play.

Brent: felt Franklin to a T on this one. I was like, I am going to punch you if you keep making me play

Jeff: Uhhuh,

Brent: I do not wanna play this anymore.

Jeff: I'm like, I spy someone who's thinking about rolling outta the car while it's moving right now. Oh, that would be me.

Brent: I, so, and that's when I shot him, your Honor.

Jeff: Yep. I was like, I definitely feel Franklin in this one. Very much

Brent: Yeah. I felt so bad for him. I will say though, I did try the first letter one with my daughter the other day, and it was a nice change up to the game. It was a really nice change up to the game. So,

Jeff: To keep that in mind,

Brent: yeah. Uh, also, did Marcus really like, really, did he draw a line down the middle of the room and tell, dude, stay on your side of the room and we'll stay on ours.

Jeff: you did with boxes.

Brent: Pretend there's a dragon that will eat you if you cross the side of the room.

Jeff: Oh man. So Garrett Baldy,

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: so,

Brent: I have a new theory about him.

Jeff: okay.

Brent: You want it? Well, it, I, I had the theory and then I destroyed the theory all in the same episode because when, you know, when he and Sheridan had it out for the first time, and then over his shoulder off in the corner, we see those men staring at

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and then they come find him later.

And I'm sitting there going, wait a minute, is this a ruse? Is garabaldi and like, are Sheridan Garabaldi in on this together? Are they doing something to flush these guys out? Are they, is this, is this Tom Harrison Voyager who's trying to catch the mole, who turns out to be Raphael sa Barge, giving information to se. Is that, is that who this is? And then by the time we got to the end, I was like, no, I don't think that's it either. I think Garabaldi is actually just being, uh, uh, I was gonna say something. I can't, this is a family friendly show. Uh, he is, he's being a poopy head. Yes. Yes. Yeah,

Jeff: Yeah, it was weird cause they, those guys were stand like, so they had their argument where Sheridan in public was telling Garabaldi to not air his private issues in public, which is pretty ridiculous. In fact, Sheridan through almost everything with Garabaldi was ridiculous. He's, he's watching the news thing and he is just getting angry.

And I'm like, this isn't the first time you've seen

Brent: Right.

Jeff: But then I'm like, okay, cool. He's gonna go intercept him on his day off. He's gonna use his day off to go repair his relationship with Garrett Baldy. I love this. Go have that talk. But like, in a heartbeat, he's like, oh, you don't wanna talk. Well you, you, you're dumb.

You know, just like you said, they get in that like high school shoving match and I'm just like, what? What is happening here? Who are these people? But then they clear away and you see those guys in the back and I'm like, Why is Rammstein in this episode? Like no one's gonna notice Divo in the back, like wearing their leather outfits. It's like, what is this? I, uh, I'm a hundred percent sure that these guys are right from the president's office. He just said this, this is bad for the president. Who, who says that? uh, the second time around was the big one.

You know, where they, they got into the fight One, my theory is that lady who came up and was like, oh my God, you're the Sheridan. I think Rammstein sent her

Brent: Oh yeah.

Jeff: trying to, you know, push the thing up. But did you catch what Garabaldi said about the Pope?

Brent: Yeah. He called her a her.

Jeff: Yeah, it's pretty wild. Years ago when my daughter was very, very young, three, four years.

After a mass, my daughter would go up, she's very comfortable in church, and we'd go up into the sanctuary and she would sit on the priest's chair. It's a big thing she wanted to do to this day. She, uh, you know, she goes to a Catholic school and she's very, uh, upset that women cannot be priests. Like that's a thing that, you know, at eight years old, she's feeling like she wants to do, but she'd go sit in that chair and one day the priest comes up and I was like, Hey, I keep telling her she's gonna need a lot of college before she can think about sitting in that chair.

And he's like, yeah. And probably a few more popes too. Apparently he's right. But yeah, I mean, really that's, that's almost all there is. They, Ramstein talks to him, he buys into their stuff and

Brent: Okay, so, so I have two question.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: All right. Because, because both this garabaldi subplot with these guys, like, like, Hey, you want to join in? We're gonna, they never actually said what we're doing.

Jeff: No, at all. Well, They did a little bit. At the very end we'll get him the help he needs.

Brent: Okay. What does that mean? That seems very euphemistic to me.

Jeff: Yeah, it feels like, it feels like to me what we talked about in the illusion of truth of the help he needs. We'll send him to this prison where we sent that director guy and reprogram him

Brent: yes. Um, but maybe this is a bit of my consternation with this episode. I felt the same way about the whole way that the Marcus and Franklin thing ended. Ended too. We're gonna go meet the resistance, go meet the resistance, go through, okay. Hey, we verified you guys, uh, yeah, we've called the other people.

It's gonna take home three or four days to get here. So let's just go play some poker. While we wait. Like it, it never ended. Remember last week, what I said, this episode had a beginning, middle, and end. This episode did not feel like it had an end. It doesn't feel like it wrapped up at all

Jeff: Not only did it not have an end, a lot of prestige television that we watched. Now today, episodes don't end, but they give you a big cliffhanger to bring you. There's no real cliffhanger.

Brent: Nope. And and what it was, and the other thing is like everything else in the middle of the episode though, it felt very drawn out. It's like you didn't just run out of time and have to put this into another episode. It's just, it's like you didn't have enough episodes. So you started stretching, but then you never went anywhere with it.

It just sort of, that might be my consternation with this, with this episode, it's, it just feels incomplete and then drawn out. And that's maybe where I'm saying it's boring cuz it just, it wasn't tight, it wasn't snappy. I get it. You gotta move folks. You gotta move folks around. Uh, here's the other question that I have, Jeff, and I wanna pose this to you.

Jeff: Okay?

Brent: The folks at the resistance that are meeting with Franklin and Marcus, is it possible that those are the same folks who are recruiting Gar Baldy, they're from the same organization? I know, I don't think, but I'm putting it out on the table of as a possibility. Like, if you made me put money on it, I would say no.

They're two different groups, but I at least wanna throw it out as as a possibility.

Jeff: well you if you play it out, right? What, I mean, there's obvious illusions to Ramstein being part of President Clark's Re but we don't know that, you know, I'm, I'm inferring it. So they are there because Sheridan's creating a cult personality and pulling them away from the mission of Babylon five and what it's trying to, uh, to achieve.

Look at the resistance group and you can say the same thing. They're fighting Earth because they're more about, but I mean they're not about Babylon five, but they have that same mission, you know, being. Uh, you know, hope for peace may maybe, maybe. I think it's a stretch though. I think

Brent: I, I, I would put it more under the stretch category. I've just, let's just file that away. We'll keep it like in the third drawer of the filing cabinet, uh, just in case

Jeff: That'll have like green yarn instead of the red yarn over on the corkboard.

Brent: it's not even gonna get its own push pin. We're just gonna sort of tack it under one of the other push pins.

Jeff: Yeah. It's kind of there with it. Well, Brent, I think we've reached the point in this conversation for what might, I said this earlier, but this might be the shortest part of this episode. We boil this down to see if there's any Star Trek like messages in this, any deep morals, messages, holding up a mirror to society, anything like that.

You're gonna do that by rating this episode on a scale of zero to five delta theories as to how strong that message was and how Babylon five it was delivered. So lay it on.

Brent: Um, Jeff, I made it no secret. This episode didn't do much for me. Did it have a Star Trek quality to it? Was there a message? Did it hold up a mirror to society? Did it do it in a Babylon five way? Not really. I mean, thi like I said, this episode more than any other felt like a, Hey, let's move some chess pieces around and get them set for whatever's getting ready to come.

That's gonna be totally. It is necessary in a narrative story to put people where they deserve to be. Uh, they did introduce a few new characters. Uh, they introduced these two new groups that people are in like this. I'm not saying that this episode was unimportant and that it, it didn't do anything cuz it did. But did it do anything on the sci-fi message? Did it tell anything to us? And no, I don't think it really did. Giving this one, even one Delta Fury would seem to me to be too much. But saying zero just always feels weird to me as well cuz it's like, oh, this was an awful episode and I, I, I'm just having a hard time finding much that's redeeming about this episode.

So Jeff, I'm gonna do something I don't do very often. I am currently sitting at Zero Delta Furies. However, I am not immovable. So I will give you my dear co-host, my good dear co-host a chance. Were you able to find anything to grab onto? Okay, like stump stu. Now I'm gonna maintain full control over the choice, but do you want to stump for a Delta Fury or two out of this episode?

Because right now I'm saying zero.

Jeff: My struggle, and it's how I look at a lot of the Star Trek message stuff is, you know, part of my other job in my other podcast is to take sci-fi and other story things and extract leadership lessons from them and teach them. And there are some incredible leadership lessons in this one. But I think that the one, the one piece I'll, I'll, I'll dig on on this just a little bit, is a vva.

And where I would wanted to go initially with Ivanova was that she forced Sheridan to take care of himself and take time off. But you know, that's just, I mean, that's cool. It's great. That's not a Star Trek message, that's just a good life message for people in general.

Brent: also set up Sheridan to be able to go punch FY cuffs with Garabaldi.

Jeff: Yeah. And punch other things as well.

Brent: Yes. Woohoo.

Jeff: Woohoo. But what she did with the smuggle. Was incredible because this was a group of people that are used to being painted as the bad guys, the criminal, as the dark, ugly underbelly of society. She didn't see that. What she saw were skills, resources, and abilities, and she's like, how can I bring you together to solve a problem we have and solve problems?

You have, right? For the i I, I like the part where she's like, look, most of you have open warrants, like we'll be there for you when all this stuff blows over if you do this. She went from nothing, hopelessness, two months, eight weeks to starvation turned it into a massive opportunity, not only for her, but for some people who were disenfranchised before.

I thought that was pretty great. I'm not even going to postulate as to whether that's worth a Delta fur or not, but it's a piece I've got.

Brent: I, I like it and I would go for it if the show explored it, if it disgusted it, if it looked at it from a couple of different angles, but it didn't, it just sort of

Jeff: was, if it was more than four minutes, and if it didn't end with a joke of dude hitting on Ivanova for being a strong and independent person,

Brent: I will tell you, I actually found that rather insulting.

Jeff: the hit on

Brent: Yeah. Like I was sitting there, like, there is no dude that I know who ends a meeting like that and has so much and go, so you're dating anybody, even if it's like a girl, let's, let's say it's a girl or a guy, whatever. Um, y you know, they, they stand up and, and like that doesn't happen to dudes.

Like the idea that girls have to deal with this, and I know that craft like that happens, you know, it's like, really? And I don't want to be a guy who picks on stuff like that too, that, that. Whatever. But still, I was just like, I don't, like, I was, honestly, I was thinking of my daughter

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and I was like, you know, she's gonna deal with people doing like, and you could see it on a v's.

Face. She was just like, really? That is not how you woo somebody. Woo-hoo. Uh, Jeff, I'm giving this one zero Delta Furious for this week.

Jeff: that's fair. That's fair.

Brent: Well, Jeff, with that, uh, while ranking this thing according to Delta Furries, we are also creating the absolute 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of the fourth season of Babylon five. Jeff, you get to rank this particular episode this week. So where would you place this episode racing Mars?

Our current top five as they stand now, from top to bottom, are into the fire. The Long night atonement. Whatever happened to Mr. Garabaldi and the summoning? Does this one even crack the top five here at episode number?

Jeff: This conversation's been helpful because there are some absolute flaws with this episode, but it was a blast. I enjoyed this episode. I'm gonna watch it when it comes back on. This is not gonna be a skippable episode for me on a rewatch like I really dug this episode. Is it top five? Oh, Brent. We have some serious heavyweights in the top five.

Like we have top five babble on five episodes in our top five, so it's not gonna hit there, but I'll tell you where it is gonna land not too far away, and it is gonna be in our top 10 as it becomes our new number nine right above epiphanies. I, I am gonna put it above epiphanies because again, I think it's really important to point out all 10 of these episodes that we have on here are great episodes. Season four has been fantastic. It's been great. Really enjoyed it. That said, epiphanies the way it ripped ev, all the development away from ster still just, just chaps me the wrong way.

And so this is our new number nine,

Brent: All right. I couldn't argue with you even if I wanted to, because that is really how this, uh, how this thing works.

Jeff: Brent. That's it. These are words you've been waiting to hear for the last hour. That's it for racing Mars. Next week we're watching lines of communication for the first time. We've never seen these episodes before. We don't look at thumbnails. Anything else? This is our fun prediction game where we guess what the next episode is gonna be based on title alone.

Just to quiet those people out there who did not hear us the first time we said it, there have been two of the movies that came right before this time. Uh, we're not watching them in the chronological order of the, of the timeline of Babylon five. We're watching those afterwards. So we're gonna just watch the next episode in line, which is Lines of Communication.

Brent, what do you think that's gonna be about?

Brent: Well, I, I think we get more Franklin and Marcus on Mars. We meet the other rest of the resistance folks. Lines of communication. Uh, communication has been cut off. Between Babylon five and Earth, it has also been cut off between Mars and Earth outside of I s N. So I'm gonna go with, this is where we open up lines of communication between Mars and Babylon.

Five, bypassing the jam that Earth is putting on everything. What about you?

Jeff: I think that for real, this time we're gonna get some of the garabaldi stuff. We're gonna learn about the lines of communication, connecting him to Cyco or whomever programmed

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: and how that's been working. I think that's gonna be a dig into these Ramstein guys and, and stuff like that. And I think that because we saw that controller thing, And we got a little bit of insight into it.

Now we're gonna start finally getting some of the Zari stuff coming up and out of it,

and we're gonna find out right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. We appreciate it so much. Please subscribe wherever you're viewing or watching. Leave us a rating or review. I'll read it here on the podcast. And please hit that share button. Share button on YouTube, the share button in whatever podcast app you're listening to, and share this with somebody who loves Babylon, five, who you're trying to help fall in love with.

Babylon five, or someone who just needs to listen to two guys talk about a 30 year old TV show would mean the world to us if you pass this along. So, until next

Brent: Hey Jeff.

Jeff: Yeah. What's up?

Brent: Um, you know, I heard you last night.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Hoo.

Jeff: In Valen’s name.