Shadow Dancing | For the Second Time

[0:44] The year is 2026. The name of the podcast, Babylon 5, for the second time. Welcome to Babylon 5 for the second time. My name is Brent Allen. And my name is Jeff Akin. Brent and I used to be Star Trek podcasters. Then we watched Babylon 5 for the first time and everything changed. So now we're watching this incredible show for the second time because Babylon 5 is a show that you get to watch for the first time twice. And for the second time, we are looking for fresh messages, things that we are pulling out of the show, mirrors to society, hope that things can be better in the future. How do we be better human beings? Those are the things we're looking for.

[1:27] Now, that being said, Jeff and I have watched the show before. So if you are watching the show for your first time along with us, first of all, welcome. We love that you're watching this along with somebody else, not just doing it in a closer trust. It's a lot better doing this in a community of people. But I have to tell you, this is not the show for you. The show for you is Babylon 5 for the first time, which if you just go up to another playlist right here on the YouTube channel, or if you're in the podcasting feed, just scroll up. You'll get to it. The Babylon 5. We have an entirely completely spoiler free. That's the best way to do it. Trust me. spoiler free you can do all of that and then you catch up with us at a future date that being said this is your one and only spoiler warning for the rest of the day anything from any point in the franchise any point in the timeline in universe out of universe it's all fair game for jeff and i to talk about and we will be talking about all of it we will although today specifically we're going to be talking about an episode called shadow dancing coming into this one we didn't really know where it was going to go. We predicted what the next episode was going to be based on the title alone. And my prediction for it was Ivanova's going to be feeling rather inadequate with all this emphasis on telepaths now being key to the war effort. And so the effort's really going to be her dancing around her feelings and stuff around being a late telepath. Like the way she was dancing around that ambassador dude? I hope not.

[2:47] No, I hope that never happens for her or any woman ever again. You know, Jeff, this is where I would really love to be able to say, boy, you really messed up that prediction. But frankly, I don't necessarily remember exactly what happens in this episode to be able to know if you nailed it or not. I really don't. Right. You're like, maybe. I don't know. What did you predict? Well, I said that basically we're going to start with the galaxy doing well against their battle with the shadows. Like we'll be making a big push.

[3:19] Things are going to be going OK. We're holding our own. But by the end of it, things are really going to turn. And we're going to end this episode where the shadows have changed their tactics. They're dancing. And... Everything is going to be bad. And from a narrative standpoint, this is the spot where basically your hero has lost all hope. Han Solo has wound up in the Carbonite. Teacher Dude has fallen from the White Tower and he's gone. Gandalf has fallen to the Balrog. Like the hope is gone. What are we going to do now? That's narratively where we are. And so that's why it's going to end in a bad spot. It has to in order to go up from here. To go up. Yeah. Yeah, well, let's look back, if you don't mind, at some of our first-time stuff that, one, will let everyone know kind of what we thought about it, but for you and me, might remind us a little bit about what this episode is actually about. Previously, on Babylon 5 for the first time. Shadow dancing. Let's talk about the opening of the episode. It was a really interesting argument where they said, you got to tell us what's going on. Well, we can't. Well, then how are we going to do this if you don't trust us enough to know what's going on? Dylan's like, when have we steered you wrong, right? Like we've, we've followed through on every single promise that we've had and she even like, if you don't trust us enough to do this, leave, go like, cause we're not, we're not going to get there. They were both.

[4:35] I want to dive into the Franklin stuff. When he got knifed, that's not a knife. This is a knife. My first words were, is he leaving the show? Same. Same. The ghost Franklin, whatever we're going to call him. I felt like he was speaking for me. He was saying everything that the other guy needed to hear. This is who you are. This is where you've been. This is what you've been doing. This is why you've been doing it. This is why you're stupid. I wasn't a fan of him doing the whole, get up, you piece of garbage. Can you just grab one more wrong? It is that old, like, just hard-nosed old school. I kept waiting for him to be like, be a man. Get up. He was right there. Right, right. I'm glad he didn't. When he talked to Sheridan, what we can talk about, and then in that moment with the doctor or the nurse at the end, those were those glimpses of like, oh, so there's still, because you're you, right? You're still you, but he's learning. And it's not a switch that gets flipped. It's going to take time. This is the strongest, most confident, self-aware Franklin that we have ever seen on this show. This bothered me. This bothered me a lot. How does Babylon 5 have any Earth civilian tourists on board? If we can't get regular news out to the group, who's giving them a passport to go to Babylon 5?

[6:03] Marcus is completely hitting on Ivanova. Well, because I want to go back to like 17-year-old Jeff and be like, just say that my words are inadequate and doors open, dude. She'll be staring at your face all night while you sleep. It'll be amazing. I felt bad, though, for Marcus because I think that he knows one way or another that he and Ivanova is not going to happen. I'm okay with Ivanova and Marcus getting together because that's a that's a neat couple too it'd be cool and now the conclusion Jeff Jeff I was okay with the ship, Yeah, first of all, right? Right? I'm okay with the Bonham and Marcus being together. Yeah. They never really do, though, do they? Which makes me even more okay with them doing it, because I know it's not going to happen. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[6:49] I asked a question there. How does Earth have tourists on Babylon 5? If we can't get news out there, how come we have tourists? Right? The time right now in the world, there's a lot of talk about the power of a passport, right? Right. And it's like, yeah, you can't. You can't. That doesn't work. So JMS actually answered that question directly. Did he really? He did. All right. Of course, we weren't allowed to know those answers way back when, but now we are. Let's explore that just for a moment. He said, it asked the question, is Earth still letting people come to Babylon 5 as tourists? And he said, it's difficult and it's limited, but yes, there is still some travel. Just as one may travel to countries that the U.S. Doesn't officially recognize or have diplomatic relations with. How long Earth will continue to allow this? Well, we'll see. So there you go. Interesting. Tells me we're asking the right questions. Yeah, and it tells me that Babylon 5 is basically like, are you paying tourists?

[7:49] Because if you are, you're welcome aboard. Well, you know, Babylon 5 never had a problem with the Earth folks. The Earth folks had a problem with Babylon 5. You know what I mean? It's the government that's being all like, you know, Babylon 5 would be like, look, we want, we are you. We consider ourselves part of you. You're just crazy right now. Going through a little bit of an identity crisis. I would be glad for you guys to chill out because then we don't have to, you know, we can rejoin you. They're probably never going to rejoin, you know, that wouldn't be the goal. Like once you're, once you've broken apart, you're not going to, you know, like- We're not going to rejoin and put ourselves under the British crown ever again here as America. No, but to be fair, the rhetoric from the senior staff is, hey, when they figure their stuff out, I'm going to put that uniform back on when it means something again. That's still the talk, but it's not going to happen. Right, right. So what do you say, Brent? To prove that point, we watch this episode. Let's do it. That was good. Hey, if you're joining us for the first time, I want to say welcome. Every episode is someone's first. We're glad that you chose this one for yours. What's about to happen right now is we're going to watch the episode right here with you. It's going to come up. We're all going to watch it. We're going to talk about it while it's going on. If you're watching it on YouTube, you're going to get the edited reaction video to that.

[9:13] If you want to see the unedited version that we have, that's on our Patreon page. It's at patreon.com slash badnerds. If you're listening to us on an audio platform of whatever you're choosing, don't worry. You're going to have that reaction as well. We'll have lots of conversations in the middle of that. We don't want you to miss that. And we'll be on the other side with all of the fun post conversations as well. So, Jeff, why don't we get into this episode?

[9:39] Shadow dancing. Let's do it. Accessing file. Dude, when was the last time we had a council meeting? Last time was when Ivanova first presented the Babylon Treaty, I think. It's been a while. We have... To strike at our mutual enemy, the Shadows. If you wish cooperation, then why do you not tell us what the mission is?

[10:00] If we discuss this openly... He's got a point. There is every chance that the enemy will learn of our plans. You must trust us. It's also an ongoing theme with both D'Len and Sheridan. Because so far we have kept every promise we've made. We told you that telepets could be used to slow the advance of the Shadows. She's got the ranger pin. if you didn't have your own we have saved the lives of many of your people if you haven't earned your trust by now then please go nothing more will be required of you she's not wrong no no no no no no no no no what is she asking them to do right now to trust that they need to put their ships on the line okay their people on the line you're you're a foreign government you're asking me to send my military and put them on the line for whatever you're you've got going on. It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of, no, I need to know what we're doing. It has nothing to do with trust. It's just, I need to know what we're doing. I need to know what's going on. If you're going to do this, fine. Why have a council? Listen, this is a representative council, right?

[11:01] These people are here to represent their individual governments. The whole point of that is so that you can communicate information that doesn't necessarily need to be out in the general public, but you can have people there who actually can make decisions and see what all of the information is. That's the whole point. I'm on the side of the, the, the, the folks here to say, Hey, just, Hey, just trust me, bro. Just you and I would, would run somebody through if they put people on the line with a trust me, bro attitude. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. But Dillon is also like, yeah, she's right. We've not lied to you. Everything we've said to you has come true. Everything we've said to you has been a thing. So trust us. Okay, yeah, but if you want us to put our people's lives on the line, we need more information.

[11:44] It's just that simple. I think to put it in an analog here, if we're doing things the way that they should be done, we're talking about these things in detail with the UN Security Council, with other governments, and coming up with plans. And is there a risk that someone there is going to be like to the – yeah, 100 percent there is. But you're kind of all there with some level of agreement, professional and respectful agreement that like we're here to represent our government's best interests. Yeah. And here's the other thing. You talk about the Security Council. OK. The group there could elect three individuals that then go into a room and they hear the thing and then they can come back to the rest of the people and be like, yeah, this is good. Yeah. You know what I mean? If that's the case. But still, if I'm the Pac-Maraz government and my ambassador is calling me and saying, hey, we need to go put our ships on line. Okay, why? What are we doing? I'm not really sure. They just said we should trust them. And they've been right before, so maybe we should just trust them. Yeah. Do you think that that president or whomever is going to authorize that? No. No way. They're not. And they shouldn't. Right. They shouldn't. But Dillon's not wrong. They haven't lied to them. Yeah, exactly. There's a level of trust, but not, take my people, please!

[13:02] Right. Right. Ambassador DeVayne, if we give you all the tips you had to weaken our defenses around homeworld. And what will you bring to this engagement? As many Minbari cruisers as can be spared, and some additional forces you have not yet seen. Let us know when you've finished your deliberations. To your point, the Drazi, I was saying both of them at the same time, the Drazi said, we can't spare people, we need people to protect Homeworld. Lanier just said, we'll give you as many as we can spare. The Shadows have been driving refugees and support ships into Sector 83 for two months now. You are to enter Sector 83 and maintain radio silence until the enemy comes out of hyperspace. If they see you before you can escape, you'll take the White Star. It's the fastest ship we've got. you'll need it because even if everything goes right our best guess is you've only got a 50 50 chance of getting back alive aye aye sir that's hope for a better future or things are going to be better well i mean statistically we all have a 50 50 shot every second of every day we do or we don't the others have gone to speak with their government, They have authorized me to speak in their place. You will have all the ships we can spare, Dylan. Hey, great. I only hope that you are right, as it will cost us greatly if you are wrong.

[14:24] Yeah, Dylan. Sheesh. We've got Commander Ivanova on Channel 4. Any last minute instructions? Aside from an old Egyptian blessing, I can't think of a thing. Then we'll see you when we see you. There was a Channel 4 mention, right? Mm-hmm. He just had a Channel 4 mention. I actually missed it, but Dylan in our council chambers pointed it out. So I got a note. Oh, all right. Okay. I got a note.

[14:47] Basically, JMS just says that it was a legit shout out to UK.

[14:53] Channel 4, I guess, is a big thing over in the UK. It was a shout out to them. It was a very intentional just shout out to them. Jeff, there's another question here. Man, last time we saw Marcus, he was pretty jacked up, right? Yeah, Naroon beat the patoot out of him. How did he heal so quickly? Ranger training. That's not going to heal your wounds that fast. Did he have a light wavy thing? No. No? Well, maybe. I don't know. JMS has an answer for that, though. He says, for starters, we're talking about there's more than two weeks of story time between Gray and Rock, between Gray 17 and Rock Cried Out. There were several weeks in between those two episodes. Oh. And then between Rock Cried Out and this episode, there's like another two weeks. He says, so you're talking like five weeks or so of healing time. Plus, medicine 250 years from now. They have light wavy things. And yeah, he's healed. Like they actually gave him the, that's why he had off last week. Okay. Cause he was healing. I think it's been five days since in the rock, maybe six days since in the rock cried out. So, I mean, it's been three or four weeks. He literally says it's been two weeks from rock to shadow. But Z minus doesn't lie. It was Z minus 13 days. I think at the end. I'm just telling you what the man who wrote it said. You want to take it up with him? Take it up with him. A hundred percent. I will. You get one question to ask Joe at a con. Excuse me, Joe. Excuse me. You said... And season three, episode?

[16:22] Yeah, Z-12. Thank you, Nondredal.

[16:26] And this is Z-7, right? Where we started? Walkabout. Oh, yeah, right. He told all of the guys that he can keep walking until he meets himself. Kind of weird, but around here, what isn't? Yeah. You know, I've just been thinking, he shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't have to be doing this. I feel like I screwed up. Hey, come on, Chief. It's not your fault. I heard what happened. You offered to help. He walked away. I'm pretty sure we said this the first time around, but if we didn't, I'm going to say it the second time around. These two people having this conversation is unbelievable. Huge. The actors. The actors. They both had such extreme struggles with addiction, and 100% Mr. Straczynski put these words in their mouths for a reason. Well, we know that he put the words in here for Jared Dole because Jared Dole was still in the midst of his stuff. Yeah. Jeff Conaway was actually like, he's doing great. He was doing great at this time, right? Yeah. I know. The thing is, sometimes people walk away because they want to be alone. Happens again, season five. They want to see if you care enough to follow him into hell. Zach being like, what the heck, bro? I think I went the wrong way. James Cooper, I've told you before not to contradict me in front of Jesse. It's not good for her. But you can contradict him in front of Jesse. Right? It looks like Phoebe Cates. It's a little girl. Yeah.

[17:44] Jesse! Get away from that filthy man! I told you to stay away from strange people. You don't know where he's been. Come on. You don't know where he's been. Oh my gosh.

[17:58] With moms like that, it's a wonder our world is in this state it is now. It is tradition that I spend three nights together The male sleeps And the female watches Watches what? During the day We all put on the face we think will do us the most good But at a certain point in your sleep As you relax A true face is revealed You know what my true face is when I sleep? Just drool.

[18:30] She doesn't like what she sees. It's a lot of pressure. She can leave when he falls asleep, file a complaint with the elders, even cut off his access to her family. Oh.

[18:49] Dylan Bobbitt over here. so jms says there's a slight correction to a preview of the final five scenes at world con apparently they this was one of them and the delin and sheridan scene she never said female bambari can cut off their partner's sexual organs if they're pressed what she said was if he forces the issues you can complain to the elders once he's asleep she can cut off his she searches for the right word access to her family yeah the humor is in his horror at what she might have been searching for in that word small correction and otherwise great review but as someone once said god is in the details apparently there was a review or something that went out about it quoted it wrong also thanks for explaining the joke joe that's right that's what we all needed, woohoo oh it awaits men are such simple creatures right really dangle the hook a little bit in front just keep oh it's it's really not complicated man right it's i know it sounds bass i know it sounds dumb it's not that complicated it's really not you want me to do this weird thing and let you watch me yeah but there's more on the other okay cool you do what you gotta do, I tell my son all the time, son, you don't care. Put up a fuss about it, and you'll see how much you really didn't care. You just don't care that much.

[20:14] Dude, that was intense. Handicam going. Big old Foley hit when he gets him in the gut. That's a lot of TV blood. I can't. I was selling. Arrest me too. But I'm going to take your stuff. I'm sorry. I can't. I feel like he should have like taken his wallet and credit shit and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. I got to loot your body before you die. So Jeff, there was a lot of concern about the violence in this episode. Yeah. A lot of concern. JMS even had emails from people asking him to change it for the DVD release. Oh my God. People need. Come on. Really? People were talking about cutting these bits out because they were concerned about watching it with their children and stuff like that. The BBC.

[21:02] They're okay watching stuck upper butt mom being like, but dude getting beat up like happens every single day in every single street in this whole world. That's where we're going to. We're awesome. We are an awesome people. The BBC just went ahead and cut out time. They cut out about seven seconds. Really? they just like yeah we're taking that out good brits and and jms was like i was just curious what they were going to do i figured they'd do something i didn't know i was just curious what they would actually wind up cutting out i'm just gonna put it up and see what happens yeah that's pretty much what he was like i think it's important for it to be like that because of what's about to follow sure help me help somebody his response that was the implications are all there so you You don't have to have it, it just lessens the impact a bit. Yeah. You know, it would be kind of neat if after this, in addition to Franklin having his own revelation and stuff, he kind of became more of a champion for the cause and down below. Because he experienced what they experience all the time. Interesting. I mean, he already has been. He's got the clinic and stuff, but...

[22:14] What are we in the Great Council now or something? From here, we can keep track of the battle. I was literally just thinking, like, did I miss a line that they were going to go visit the Great Council? I don't remember Sheridan visiting the Great Council. Just the same set. But it's our tactical room. Okay, then why are you showing it to me now? Just to say, correct, I said the BBC edited it out. It turns out it wasn't the BBC. It was just Channel 4, which is a very different thing than the BBC. Okay. That's better. Just technical. Technical things. One thing i love about this is like when you get stabbed in the stomach you don't just die it takes like a long time yeah unless you're on star trek in which case right away that's that's the real way to die is by stabbing you get shot with a phaser all sorts of stuff you don't really die that way you get stabbed in star trek you're dead within seconds never stopping to think first now look where it's going, What a shock. You said you had to keep walking until you met. Aren't you a doctor? Can you help me? Walk about better.

[23:18] You know, we said this throughout our first run. We've even talked about it quite a bit. In fact, I just said it a second ago. This episode does what Walkabout did, but it only did it better. I have to say on this run through, I very much appreciate the fact that I think the first time around, I was still stuck in the idea that him meeting the girl was kind of him running into himself and she was sort of supposed to be feeding back to him all of the stuff about himself. Yeah. Being on this side of it going, no, that's not actually what she's doing there. But the idea that she kind of opens up his mind, she exists to open up his mind to some other things maybe, you know, and maybe give him a look at himself. But that's not him meeting himself yet. He still has that to do later. Like i'm i'm very okay with these two being with i'm okay without saying this isn't walkabout done better this is what happened to walkabout set him up so that he could have this moment here yeah not we're gonna fix something that didn't work right the first time does that make sense it does i find myself in a different way right now with this i'm thinking very similarly where i think not only i agree with everything you said and they've peppered it into some of the in-between episodes of like Like, well, and Franklin's still out on Walkabout.

[24:32] So I guess very clearly this is a thing that we complain about a lot. What do you mean this is already – Civil War is only two episodes? Here they're actually giving a thing time to breathe, the thing that we've said we wanted to see. The only episode we haven't seen Franklin in was War Without End. Exactly. Or at least, yeah, he's been in and has been mentioned in all except War Without End.

[24:52] No damage. Keep on his tail. If he gets out of jamming range, we've had it. Standby weapon system.

[24:57] It's going to ram us. Hards of course. That particular crab ship looks like it's been, like, curled up. I'm picking up an energy surge. Distance, 5,000 kilometers. Show me. Not what you wanted to see. That's a lot of shadow ships. That's bad boo-boos, man. Yeah, even that dude's like, I'm out. That's a lot of ships. Bloody awful lot of ships. Language. No.

[25:28] Signal away. Oh. Yeah, he's not coming. He wants to live forever. Marcus.

[25:36] He couldn't. They can hear me.

[25:40] Yeah in fact pretty soon we'll have this thing you can stand in where you just go like this and you actually shoot them while you're doing it john sheridan to attack fleet have your telepaths start jamming their capital ships look at their eyes being closed his eyes are open fighters someone asked a question wait don't the mimbari telepaths need a line of sight to affect the shadow ships good question to which james says well actually he mansplained it well Actually, we never showed what the Minbari telepaths were looking at. For all you could tell, they could have been viewers or other ports above their beds. Now, you and I asked this question the other day, Jeff. We did. Does a line of sight actually have to be a direct line of sight? Or can it work like through a viewer or something of that nature? I'm going to go based off what he said here. Yeah, it could. Yeah. It's like you just have to be able to focus where you're going. And if I'm focused on that object, wherever that object is, I can tune into it. So if I close my eyes and really imagine where it is. I would imagine proximity is also still a thing. Like, I don't know that I could have a direct line of sight to you and affect you through this. Right. Right. But if I was, like, talking to somebody downstairs on a video phone here in my house, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Take point. They put escort ships in front as buffers between our telepaths and their big ships. Take them out any way you can. Break and attack.

[27:07] Might be our biggest space battle to date, actually.

[27:11] With capital ships and everything. You weren't that happy with your life in the first place, were you? What could you possibly want? That's a dangerous question to ask. I want to do it all again. Why? You just messed it up again. You... I want to... I want to do it again. I want to do it again. Is that right?

[27:34] Well, then get up off the damn floor. I don't care how much it hurts. Don't you go passing out on me, because that's just another kind of running away. I can take responsibility. I know you said you didn't like him doing this. I love it. Yeah? Yeah. But I'm of this ilk. I'm of this old school football coaching. Right. You know, pull you along. Man up, son. Let's get it. But they're right there next to you. They're coaching you the whole way. Do you ever see? I want to say it was the movie The Blind Side. Okay. Sandra Bullock.

[28:08] Yeah. Might have been a different movie. It was one of those high school football movies. Okay. Right? And there was a coach and the player, he was going to have him do these bear crawls basically across the field and the player, he's kind of a chunkier dude. He's like, oh, coach, I can't do that. Oh, coach, I can't do that. And he puts a blindfold on him. Get down. Go. Get up and go. And just, just, you know, and the, and the guy's like, you know, and he's just there. It's like, keep going. You can't don't, don't give up on me right now. Come on. We're just going just a little bit more. Keep going. He bought, and like, he gets them all the way and just pushes him. And next thing you know, he gets to the other end, takes off his blindfold. He's made it all the way across the field. But the guy didn't know that that's where he was. He was like, I can't make it all the way across. I can't make it all the way across. I don't, I'm going to tire out before then. And that coach got involved. I love that scene. What's interesting. I think I've experienced it in real life. It's interesting though is everything you said that coach said was an uplifting thing keep going you got this you can do it what franklin is saying to franklin is go ahead man just pass out come on don't do that no he's saying don't pass out he's like don't pass out that's just oh go ahead do go ahead that's that's just another excuse that you need you don't need that excuse let's go i'm for it i dig it it work it works for me okay it works for me that's fair buddy show me that you want it see show me what you want.

[29:27] Come on. Get up on your own two feet. You stand up. Do it all over again. See? You stand up. You stand up. Engines online.

[29:38] Man, for Amiga computers, this is great.

[29:43] Listen to that music. It's so good. You can see they're in front of a blue screen there. You can see the blue hue on them. But it makes sense with the backdrop they're in. Like, it's contextually okay. Why aren't they eye bleeding that just means they can push harder yeah you know what's nice about a mimbari that i've never realized before all right what do we what do we need to usually sleep on jeff nice pillow nice pillow why oh because we got a soft little to support your neck so you know your head's not tilted back it's built in they got that head bone man keeps their keeps it all straight man no sleep apnea and mimbar right because their body is formed for it It must not be great when you roll over on your side, though. That's why they're all back sleepers. Their ears are teeny tiny, so they've got a little more... Their ears are on their neck, like they're indented in. That's my problem when I go on my side. One of my ears might get a little mushed, but they don't have to worry about that.

[30:41] Minbari, they're good sleepers. Dude it just carved through that thing like nothing man the cameras on the exterior of these holes is great to give them that kind of right that kind of view of the battle, i wonder what the latency is on that, take me to the illegal down below clinic oh wait the guy's not working they just did the thing where people are yelling orders and talking, but we don't hear the voices. It's just the music. I remember they tried this in crusade and I just have to say what a difference a great soundtrack makes. Yeah, for sure. JMS actually taught people. People were like, Oh, is there a problem with the audio mixing? It's like, no, we just thought we'd let the music take it. Yeah, it's got it. Good. Good call. Totally. Good call.

[31:37] That's awful. All these people died. Let's kiss. I love that look on his face, though. That bittersweetness of a victory. I noticed none of those people were actually talking. Guess I really screwed up. None of those people were saying a word to him. Because usually you see that it's what's your name? What a BP is dropping over. What about like we don't care. Nothing was happening there. They don't get lines. We're not paying them for that treatment. Mostly burns, but there may be some radiation scarring.

[32:11] Garibaldi's got the, I'm not going to say I told you so, but I want you to know I've lost 30 credits already. I was stabbed in the back and left to die. How the hell should I feel? Hey, now that's, uh, it's pretty personal. That's spicy language. You know, with all this, I just hope you found what you were looking for out there. I don't know. I wonder who wrote the book of love. No, I really wonder if he wrote that JMS and he didn't even type it out and then delete it. You know, I really wondered if you found what you were looking at there. Franklin's next line would be, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Right. Just, I really want that to be something he did, just because. What I needed, not what I wanted. Which was? Short, sharp kick to the head. Oh, well, hell, I could have done that for you. All you had to do was ask. Yeah, well, you would have enjoyed it too much. So you didn't meet yourself? Yeah, I did. Found out I didn't like myself either. Well, as revelations go, I guess I've heard worse. I better let you get some rest if you need it. The interesting thing is it's not him who didn't like himself. It was himself that didn't like him. Long takes to get a new doctor out here when we're not allied with Earth anymore.

[33:24] He just saw his team being capable without him there. That's a big deal. Okay. What did we just see? We just saw Anna. We've done all we can to keep a low profile. It's only a matter of time before they come after us. So the only questions are how and when. Perhaps they're reluctant to try. Okay. So what we know though, is this Anna we're seeing is not the same thing as Morden. Correct. This is an Anna that is basically still a zombie with a computer chip in her brain being controlled by the shadows. Kind of almost very ghouly type of situation. Absolutely. Whereas Morden is still him. Last year when I was hurt, he got inside my head. He spoke to me, sent me these images. One of them was you saying, do you know who I am? A week later, you tell me you're a latent telepath. Said you sometimes don't know who you are. Hey, real quick. So, Kosh put this question in his head with Ivanova's thing. The Shadow's question is, what do you want, right? What's the Vorlon's question? Who are you?

[34:28] Wearing the uniform of a psychot. Well, we're working with Bester now, and that was unexpected. Well. So that's right. Oh, we're working with Bester. What? Send me an image of Garibaldi saying, the man in between is searching for you. The man in between, he could have meant Sinclair. maybe but i don't think so somehow it doesn't feel right jms answers who the man in between is it's justin right it's the person who sent anna oh okay okay which is justin okay okay yeah, The last thing was you, dressed all in black as if for a funeral. You said, you are the hand. You are the hand? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why would I say anything as dopey sounding as that? I don't know. What did Technomage Dude say to Londo? He's the hand. I see a hand stretching out over the universe. Doing what? I don't remember what he said. Killing people? Didn't he say doing all sorts of bad stuff? Yeah. This is the thing we were confused about the first time around. There's a lot of hands. Is it Londo? We saw the big tiki hand, like the big god hand. We thought maybe it might be that. But Council Chambers, help me out. What did he actually say? What did Technomage dude say about the hand? I see a great hand reaching out. Sarah says he said it was Londo's hand. Yeah, I think it's a different hand. This is just like, it's all hands. So this is not a connection to make? I don't think so. Okay, fair. If Kosh sent it, it must have meant something. Odd that he would use that image, though. Why?

[35:56] You have two hands, do you not? Each equal and opposite. Well, not quite equal. The man in between is your equal and opposite? So Justin and Sheridan are supposed to be two sides of the same coin? No, Sheridan and Sheridan. Maybe. Well, if that's what it is, the man in between knows who you are now that we've... When we watched that all alone in the night, we got the breakdown from JMS, and it was that there's the Sheridan that is now, and then there's the Sheridan that is later. Those are the equal and opposite thing. But then the man in between, he even said then, is Justin. But he didn't say Justin, but he meant Justin. Kicked him hard and where it hurts. Assuming it means anything. They told me you wouldn't be up and about for a while. Well, I'm not. It won't be for a few days. What if Franklin was in a wheelchair for the rest of the show? That would be actually pretty great. I can only stand for a few minutes, but I don't need to stand. It would complicate things just in the blocking. It would make a pain in the ass of myself. It'd be a pain in the butt for the rest of the show, but it would be meaningful. That's why I came down to see you, Steven. Your job's waiting for you, if you want it. Thanks, John. I don't know if you noticed though, but I was just doing my job.

[37:05] And i can define myself by what i am instead of what i'm not and what are you alive i'm so glad he didn't say a doctor so glad jms talks about this people had asked him if he'd ever gone on a walkabout and he was like no not really yeah i'm kind of walking around the city and he said it didn't hit him until after he was in the middle of doing this episode or maybe even after this episode had been made no this was his story he used to go out among the city and just kind of walk around right for no reason trying to find whatever is and one and we know this from his autobiography one night he gets mugged he gets jumped and he refused to die yeah because he had more stuff to do and he's like i like i he might have even been at like a like a conference or something in the middle of it when it hit him oh wow like this is this this was me this a lot of this thing like Franklin coming back going no no no you don't understand after this like nearly dying has made me more alive than I've ever been before you know so that's really cool it's cool that he didn't realize it you know until afterwards.

[38:13] Whoa whoa does she really now, look at his look whoa get some rest don't worry I intend to it's good to have you back you get some rest too there john a thing that came to mind when uh franklin was he's like uh you know i've run away i was running away what i thought was like i ran away and i crawled back but what's important is that i'm back or what's important is that i'm here oh yeah that would have been really cool where on earth did you learn to hold a cauterizer like.

[38:49] I love, look at him. Now he's teaching. Yep. Now he's being, he's not yelling at this guy. He's like, Hey, Hey, let me show you. Come here and let me coach you. I got you. So the script here specifically says the extras should not make a big deal about seeing Anna. Yeah. The stuff that happens here is something that the director did on set and is not what he had in mind. It's not that big of a deal. I just figured she's a striking, very beautiful woman. And that's why everybody's looking at her like that. Okay, that's fair. It's very much right for a, sir, my eyes are up here scene. Right. Because nobody here should know who she is. Yeah. There's only one picture of her ever and it was of a different version of her, so. God, what a long night for her. Hey, Delenn, what if he has his ugly face now and you're looking at the snow globe? Hello. You must be Delenn. I'm Anna Sheridan. No, I'm Anna Sheridan. Noooooooo!

[40:03] Brent, I have one question for you. Oh, you... Go ahead, go ahead. No, go ahead. Go ahead, do it. Did JMS say anything about the brilliance of one Jeff Akin piecing together way back here that this was going to happen? Or... No. No. To this day, Jeff, I hate this. I hate that she came back. I hate, but I'm going to say a thing. I don't think Anna ever came back. Oh, okay. That's not Anna. I know where you're going, yeah. That's something else. That's not Anna. And frankly, John comes to that exact same conclusion.

[40:38] So the fact that it is her is just one of those things, like it almost seems beneath JMS. Like really, that's the thing you're going to pull out? like really here's the saving grace to it is that it's not actually anna like it actually makes a whole lot of sense right we we go out there we're on the icarus uh everybody gets absorbed we assume everybody that was on the icarus except for morden gets plugged in right or they gave people it gets plugged in anna saying oh no i'm not gonna serve you at all fine and now she's in there they're just using her body right using her brain she has she's gone the anna sheridan is dead she's she's out. Right. And so when they bring her back in, Hey, we got, we got, we're looking for John Sheridan. We got to get to him. He's the one. Well, actually turns out we got this thing over here. It actually makes a whole lot of sense. Narratively speaking in general though, it's like, really, that's the thing you're going to do. But the fact that it's not her and he laid the groundwork for it, I'm okay with it, but I do still generally hate it. I got to tell you though, I'm having a different response to seeing her this time than I did the first time around. You see, in between the last time we saw this and this time, my daughter for school started reading the little house books. And I spent all of last summer reading those books with her and going through it. And I got to tell you, there's eight of those things.

[42:03] They're not super long books, but altogether, that's a pretty long chunk of time. But then –.

[42:09] I also kind of realized, like, I remember watching the show Little House on the Prairie as a kid. I don't remember a blessed thing about it. Okay. And so when everybody's like, yeah, it's Melissa Gilbert. She played Laura on Little House on the Prairie. And I was like, okay, cool, whatever. So after I got done reading the books, in my, like, very limited off time, usually while, like, at night I'm going to sleep, I started watching Little House on the Prairie. Decent show. Holds up really well. Yeah. To be honest with you. Yeah. And even like a lot of the, the morals, the idea is like probably still solid. They're pretty solid there. There's a few things that you're like, eh, okay. We were, we're, we've come beyond that now, but for the most part, like a lot of the stuff they were tackling was like legit, like, man, we need this kind of stuff on TV. Right. But that being said, I've gotten very familiar with Melissa Gilbert's voice. And while i'm looking at a woman that i have never seen on tv before not on little house i hear the voice of the little girl in the woman who is standing before wow and it's why it's tripping me out dude i'm gonna lie it's messing me up a little bit like but she's the good one like i don't get it yeah yeah did you jms have anything else that he said on this one he did He does confirm that the Morgana Le Fay reference at the end of Avalon is a hint towards...

[43:37] Anna coming back. Anna? Anna? Anna. I've been in Frozen World too much. Is she Anna or is she Anna? She's Anna. She's Anna. Okay. Here's the thing. I don't understand how she's Morgana LaFay. I don't either. Morgana LaFay was Merlin's half-sister and was his exact opposite. She was a witch. She often fought Merlin, though. Outside of female antagonist, I don't see the connection between the two outside of you wanted to make a reference. Yeah. Maybe there's some Arthurian stuff I'm not familiar with, but it doesn't line up to anything. Yeah, Andrew in the chat says, bad woman, that's it. That's the extent of the analogy. Yeah, that's it.

[44:19] The other thing, and we really don't look at the opening credits or anything, but they did put Melissa Gobert's name in the opening credits. You could have seen it and been like, oh, Melissa Gobert's in this episode. People were asking about that because that's typically the sort of thing you want to hide. Yeah. Like, you remember when Leonard Nimoy was in – he came out at the very tail end of the first episode. They didn't have his name in the opening credits to keep the surprise. And it was a big deal that they didn't do that. It violated union rules. They had to pay a substantial fine. It violated union rules. Oh, did they have a fine because of that? Yeah. And they just accepted it to keep the secret? JMS says, under SAG rules, you have to put the guest stars of a certain caliber, which she is, in the opening credits. Also, for Melissa to take back billing would have been a break in her work to date elsewhere. So they had no choice. It's all regulated by the guilds. Also, we didn't want to pay the fine, apparently. Right, yeah. But Star Trek's got that money. They can pay the fine. Who cares? I wonder how much that fine was. $18. I don't know.

[45:35] Probably quite a bit. Man, what did you think about this one this time around? I want to be really honest. Yeah. I was a little bored during this one. Really? Yeah. I thought the fight, the battle was beautiful and neat to watch. It was too short. And the Franklin stuff, I appreciated, but it did not have the impact for me that it had the first time. Because like we've talked about a number of times, I've been seeing season five Dr. Franklin the whole time. yeah and so this while i acknowledge this as a transformative moment for him i think like in my head it was like so much of the it was like 38 minutes of the episode and it was like four like i felt like it just kept coming up last time this i was like oh it's a little thing and like board board's probably too strong of a word but i just kind of felt this was more of like a okay, all right so now the shadows know we're here and franklin's on the mend so.

[46:30] Okay you know i had a theory in the first watch that the episode two episodes before the finale, was the big wham episode yeah and then this episode the penultimate episode was very much a lull and then the next episode was not quite as big as the one two episodes ago but still much bigger but it really sends us off into the next season yeah i'm looking at that right now and i'm thinking rock cried out shadow dancing and then i know what's coming up with zaha doom yeah, that does not work at all with these three episodes nope it does not it really does like that's just it might have worked for the other four seasons maybe uh maybe not even season five well season five's an anomaly it is it is right i mean even if you take off sleeping in light and you just go with objects at rest and then objects in motion like that's kind of a that would be a good season finale like duo, right? And then what comes right before that? Is it Fall of Centauri Prime?

[47:29] I forget. I think so. But season four is another one that like doesn't quite – because you got the deconstruction at the end that's kind of a weird – like it basically ends on episode 21 also. So I mean maybe it works that way for seasons one and two. That's all I have. That's where we're at. That's all I have. Yeah.

[47:49] Yeah. What were your thoughts on this one? Just that pretty much or – I'm not – I was not bored actually. Gee, I feel like this episode was a really good episode. I really enjoyed this episode. Enjoyed the space battles. Thought that was a lot of boom, boom, boom. I really enjoyed the Franklin stuff in this one. And I think it's because this is where we get the Franklin that we come to know and love. Exactly, yeah. You know? And as you mentioned, we've always been looking at Franklin through season five Franklin eyes. And we're like, and you see him at the very end like, hey, come here, son. Let me show you how to do this. Yeah, that's the guy. That's our guy, right? And to see this is how he got there, I'm good with it. And there's the Dylan Sheridan stuff. It's not so sappy to me anymore. Anna comes back, and you know what I'm glad with Anna is I know that after next week, she's done. See, that's the thing too. This isn't an ongoing thing. I think the first time around, one, I was over the moon that I had nailed that. But also, I'm like, this changes.

[48:51] Oh, no, never mind. No. She literally just gets blown up in a week. Yeah. Yeah, which is kind of glorious to see. So I do kind of love the fact that I guess she was married to Bruce Boxleitner at this time. Yeah. So easy get, I guess. We're going to see wedding photos of them that are actual wedding photos. Their actual wedding? Mm-hmm. It's kind of neat. It's kind of fun. It's kind of neat. What I did love about this one, though, to kind of transition, this isn't quite messages, but segue into them, was the Franklin scene, for me, hit harder personally. Than it did in the past, because as I shared, I went through my version of a walkabout. And it really is that.

[49:29] In the therapy that I received for a long time, and we still come back to it, but use the modality of internal family systems, IFS. And so basically, you have the concept of your true self in that. And then there are parts that have basically spun off to protect true self and the stuff in there. And the cool thing about the modality is there are no bad parts. They're all there to protect you. Their take on protecting you might not seem so great, but they all have great intent. And this was really him having a talk with true self, coming out and just being like, what have you been doing, man? Like, what is this? I thought it was really well done given the time. It's a one-episode thing and it's a part of one episode. I think it was done really well. very compellingly, But it just really hit me in a different way than it did. The first time I was into it for Franklin, this time I was into it for me. Personal experience. And that's a really good point that I don't think we talk about or recognize nearly enough of how much personal life experience. Colors everything. Really colors everything that you say. And, you know, I know I make a lot of sort of blanket statements, but I do try to caveat of like, hey, listen, this is just where I'm coming from.

[50:53] I try to – I know I don't always do great with it, but I try to be like, hey, other people could have different experiences. I'm just telling you this is my viewpoint of it based on my thing. But it does. It really does color that. So you did mention kind of transitioning into messages. Did you pick up anything new this time around? You know, one that I don't think I got the first time around this time was what Franklin said at the very end. And just to flip it around, the message is focus on who you are, not who you are not. We all know people who define themselves by the things they don't like or the things they don't want or the things they don't want to do. And those are important things to know, right? Like, it's good, but that's not who you are. Right. And as a stupid example, but one that might resonate with some people, for 30 years of my life, so up until eight years ago, I would not eat sushi if you held a gun to my head and told me to eat it. Everything about it disgusted me. I'm a person who does not eat sushi. You know what I am now, Brent? You're a person who eats sushi. Anytime I can. I love the stuff. It's so good. And so if I had defined myself as a person who didn't like sushi, then who am I now? Who even am I? Right? So I just think that's a really big thing. We have talked about the idea of knowing who you are ad nauseum throughout this series. And I think this is just a different take on it that I really appreciated. What about you? This was something from Franklin again.

[52:21] He's there. He's all kind of beat up and he's talking to Garibaldi and Garibaldi says, hey, I'm Did you find what you were looking for? And he goes, I found what I needed. I didn't find what I wanted. Or he said, I didn't find what I wanted, but I did find what I needed. And I just thought, it's really important to recognize the difference between getting what you need versus what you want, especially when you don't get what you want. I got something, that's actually what I needed, it's not what I wanted. And that could be as simple as a food choice that you make.

[52:52] You know what? I actually really needed that apple. I wanted the candy bar, but I needed that, like that apple's actually helping me out, you know, as I'm going to go play ball or something, you know? And it could be much deeper than that. It could go much further than that with other things in life that there's a million and three examples I could give. So I'm not going to give any, but you guys don't talk about, but I think it helps you not just deal with it better, but like it's, it's a, it's a mark of maturity to be able to go. Yeah. You know what? That may not have been what I wanted, but it is what I needed. And that's good. I think about it just to make it a little bit religious, but even if you're not religious, you can probably relate to this in some way. But oftentimes people pray for what they want, right?

[53:33] Again, I quote St. Francis quite a bit, but he has a prayer, the prayer of St. Francis, and it basically says, make me an instrument of your peace. It's like, don't give me what I want, give me what I need to do what you need from me. And so often that's not going to be the thing that i want but it is the thing that i need the thing that i need right now brent more than anything, it's for you to rank this bad boy it's my turn i thought it was your turn it's your turn i get to put this one down yeah which might be which might set some people's minds at ease uh given what we just said about what we liked on it so this is our again mr straczynski i'd call him mr straczynski when it's uh when i'm going to really come down on him this is the objectively correct ranking, objectively correct. It is, um, of the season three episodes and until we change it and you're going to place this one, I am going to, again, take kind of a guess at where you're going to place this. So I will start at, uh, number eight. Let's seek transit beer. And number seven, we have passing through Gethsemane. Number six is dust to dust. Five is interludes and examinations. And in number four, we have ship of tears. Brent, where are you going to place shadow dancing. All right. Remind me ship of tears was Bester and Carolyn. Correct. Okay. Interludes and examinations was Kosh dying.

[54:56] Okay. And then Dust to Dust was the Chikar on Trip. Yeah. Passing through Gethsemane was Brother Edward. And Sigtranath Dweer was Lindesty. Lindesty. And Voices of Authority was Chikki. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone knows what that means now. You're in the right zone. I'm going to talk through this real quick. Okay. All right. This is an objectively correct ranking of the episodes. Yeah. And we're ranking them based on which episodes are better than the other episodes. No, we're ranking them on where they rank.

[55:28] Which means better. That's a way to look at it. Now, what is better episode to episode could be different. One episode might be really Han messages, but some other says not, but it still makes it a better episode because of the message, right? We talk about this since day one. We talked about this with Star Trek. Like the worst episodes could have some of the best messages, right? And some of the best, most fun episodes could have absolutely nothing, and it's just a fun episode, right? The criteria for each episode is a little bit different. Okay. But I want to run through some of the criteria here for this episode. Were there messages in this episode? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Were they life changing? No. Not really. But they were there. Okay. Was this episode well written? Yes. Yes. Was this episode well acted? Yeah. Yes. The only thing, honestly, you know, the only one that I really kind of had a problem with at one point was Mira. Really? And it was just at the beginning in the, in the council chambers where she sounded so odd.

[56:29] And I was like, Dylan, are you really in that mode right now? Like she sounded like she was like, like fighting for something. And I was like, yeah, settle down, honey. It's okay. Like you're okay. But other than that, excellent, excellent acting all the way through.

[56:45] Um, all the other production stuff, the effects, the lighting, the camera, there was some interesting camera work in this one. They, they, they did stuff in this episode that, that we, I mean, they shanked dude, right? Yeah.

[56:57] The split screen between bigs and bigs on screen together. I mean, technically this episode was there. Would I watch this episode again? You know what? I would watch this episode before I did ship of tears and interludes and examinations and dust to dust and passing through gethsemi i probably would watch dust to dust over ship to tears and interludes and examinations but i there are reasons there again criteria kind of shifts for every episode right but in my mind right now jeff i know you said you were kind of bored i wasn't and i get to rank this one yeah this is our new number four four it's our new number four it's gonna shift everything else down wow i think it i think it is a better episode than all of those others wow okay jeff does not agree i do not we're out of curiosity and just bearing in mind it doesn't matter because you don't count but i am curious where would you have placed it i would have put this either at uh just under dusted dust or just under passing through gethsemane i don't dislike i was thinking of that i here's the thing when i every time we we move dusted us down a level it kind of kills me inside such a great episode it kind of kills me inside but you know they're they're talking about in the chat right now that we're cheating by ranking the trilogy together as one but the fact that you called it a trilogy to me says we did the right thing yeah and how can we cheat when we're the ones making the rules.

[58:22] Buster right oh brent that's gonna do it for shadow dancing next week we're wrapping up the third season we're watching Zaha Doom Zaha Doom do you remember you thought about this one the first time I do I have never heard of this episode before in my life they've never said the words ever never said the words ever.

[58:43] No, man. Oh, my God, dude. What don't I remember about this episode? I'm kind of excited to go watch it to find out what I'm going to pick up on this time that I didn't catch the first time. Dude goes to Zaha Doom. There's the whole thing between him and Anna of like, should I, shouldn't I, should I, shouldn't I? And it turns out, Sinclair, oh, my God, Sheridan is, he is steering this thing from the beginning. And he does, like, in spite of everybody telling him not to go, he's like, no, I got to go because it's the thing. And when we get there, we have the meeting between him and Justin and Morden, and they explain the backstory. I got to tell you, though, I still don't – I know that we are to take them as telling us the truth, and that is what the actual motivations of the Shadows are. I don't know that I believe it because I still think the Shadows are the bad guys. You do. I don't know that I believe – like I think you're just the – you're telling me what I – you're telling me something to try to make it seem okay, and it's really still not okay.

[59:38] But whatever. I mean, the nukes going off Garibaldi's secret missus starts here. Eventually we'll find out what it really was. But look, look, here's the thing. You're going to be ranking this bad boy next week. It would not shock me. And it might even be right. If this finds its way, this episode in my mind, sitting here in this chair right now is either going to be one, two or three. And it could be number one, the best episode of the whole dang season. It could be, it could be. And I don't know. I'm not trying to influence your vote for next week. I'm just saying it. That's my memory. That's what I remember is that's how good this episode is. Jeff, how about you? What do you, what do you remember thinking about this episode? Same. I mean, but what the thing that outside of what, in addition to what you thought, I remember coming out of this with so many questions.

[1:00:28] What was the secret mission? Where did Sheridan go? What happened to Morden and everybody? Like we had all these big questions coming out of it. We know the answers to those now. And so based on that, I am so very curious about what it's going to be this time without the mystery. And I'm also very curious how clear it is at the end is if Garibaldi's secret mission was actually setting the nukes up or if it's still pretty like questionable because i don't think it's as clear as everyone makes it out to be i don't think it's as clear as everyone makes it out to be either but we're going to find out we're going to find out when we watch it and we're going to watch it next week so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the episode while you're subscribed make sure you've liked and done all that stuff commented there's a lot of places you can comment especially if you're on youtube a lot of the podcasting apps allow you to do that spotify good pods things like that if you want to see all of our unedited stuff bevelon 5 stargate anything else we have going on, that's at our Patreon, patreon.com slash badnerds.

[1:01:28] But what I really want you to do between now and next week is share this show. Share it because you want to. Share it because we so appreciate it when you do. And share it because who doesn't want to sit and watch Zahadum with the incredible community that Brent and I have surrounding us as we watch these things. So until we watch Zahadum, I'm Jeff. That's Brent, and we will see. Hey, Jeff. Yes, what's up? Hey, so there was this thing in this episode that, I'm sorry, hold on. I got a text message. Oh, it's my wife.

[1:02:03] I'm waiting for your pleasure. Oh, dude, you need to go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're not some deep space franchise. This station is about something.