Sic Transit Vir

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

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching this show for the very first time. Unlike most of y'all out there who have seen it 30 times over the last 30 years, Jeff and I. Never. This is the first time either one of us have ever done that.

However, being Star Trek podcasters, we're used to overanalyzing shows and looking for messages and morals and meanings and hope for the future, and we are taking that skill and applying it right here to Babylon. Five.

Jeff: But what we're not doing is comparing this show to Star Trek itself. We are looking at, we're looking at the big stuff, the big like meta sci-fi things. So to keep us on point, because we are Star Trek podcasters, we play the rule of three. That means for each episode, Brent and I each only get three references to Star Trek.

Three. No substitutions. Exchanges are refund. Hey Brent,

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: we have a five star review. Oh yes. This is on Apple Podcast from aj. That's like the easiest Apple podcast name we've ever

Brent: how did you get that name? Aj? You must have been like a day one or

Jeff: Probably used to work at Apple. AJ's like I got it.

Brent: I'm gonna kick off all the other AJ's and take it for myself.

Jeff: AJ says The best way to enjoy or rejo a classic show.

This podcast makes me look forward to Mondays. I may disagree. I may wince, I may cheer. I may have to bite my tongue as to what they haven't seen yet, but I always enjoy the well thought out, enthusiastic, deep dive into their latest discussion. Having two first timers is the perfect format. No hints of the future, no bias from what happens later.

It's given me fresh eyes to approach the highs and lows of one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. Could this be the best B five podcast ever? Maybe it's however, a sheer joy, and despite countless re watches of B five, I learned something I missed or didn't see that way. I am blown away with how insightful these guys are with their analyses and predictions and the small details they pick up.

And miss, if you listen to just one B five podcast, make it this one

Brent: Jeff, I'm pretty sure the, I'm blown away by the small details they pick up. That's you and Miss. That's me.

Jeff: Right?

Brent: I'm pretty sure.

Jeff: That's just a nice way of being like, I'm really impressed with Jeff and Brent

Brent: Prince's there like, We're awed by Jeff. We laugh at Brent

Jeff: brent, I'm aw by you

Brent: Aw, thanks

Jeff: every day.

Brent: Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff: Hey, you know what?

Brent: What's that?

Jeff: We have another five star review. Oh yes. Also on Apple Podcast. This one beats AJ for the name. This one's from Smelly Pie.

Brent: Okay,

Jeff: Just gonna let that sit for a second. Because I mean, seriously, anyone Because what? That's when you get really close. Smelly pie,

Brent: I have Jeff. I have an 11 year old. This stuff is hilarious.

Jeff: dude. We're basically 11 year olds like

Brent: I talk about, I, I say it all the time like you guys have no idea what 13 year old Brent is doing right now.

Jeff: literally crying, like crying

Brent: wife often looks at me. She's like, what is wrong with you? I'm like, I am doing everything I can just to keep 13 year old me in control right now. Please let me be

Jeff: I, I need to do my thing. Well, , well smelly pie says

Brent: Jeff, please remember, this is a family friendly show,

Jeff: it is. I judiciously use the sensor button right there. I know what I'm doing.

Brent: uh, I don't care how old you are, fart jokes are funny. Go ahead

Jeff: Whew. Smelly pie says.

Brent: You can't say it

Jeff: I can't. I can. Okay, I can do, I can do this.

Smelly pie says enthusiastic pair. Love this. Well, well, well, Babylon five for the first time is my new last best hope for an excellent thought out analysis of what is my all-time favorite sci-fi show. The process of analyzing against the backdrop of Star Trek is brilliantly constructed. I'm only six episodes in and ready for a binge Listen, these guys make season one interesting to listen to.

No easy feat given it's a hard season in rewatch terms, and I'm looking forward to them experiencing it all for the first. I hope they are blown away as much as the rest of us were by this show, and the enthusiasm they bring will be taken to a whole new level and I can't wait to listen. Well done you two and thank you for the hard work you put into this.

Enjoy the journey.

Brent: Thank you, Jeff. Are you enjoying the journey

Jeff: I am so

Brent: to this point with where we have seen, would you say that Babylon five has blown you away though

Jeff: I gotta be

Brent: you're in, you're in process.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: it blown you away yet?

Jeff: Yes,

Brent: Has it?

Jeff: Brent. I had very low expectations coming into this. I have to be honest. I did. I, I I, I've shared before that I saw Babylon five when it first came out. I looked at it, I thought it looked like garbage, and I said, I'm ne like, what, what low budget copycat want to be? Trash is this and I threw it on the refuse pile.

And when I dove into it as my background, kind of watch

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: what, God, almost two years ago now, or a year and a half ago now, it was literally, I'm gonna watch this in the background cuz it's, I mean, that I can check the box and say I watched it, it's not gonna be good. I think it has, uh, based on that, it's kind of blown me away.

What about you?

Brent: It has not, but I came in with pretty high expectations because of what I've heard about Babylon five from other people that I respect. You know what I mean? Like, I, I have expect, I've expected this show to be good. And I think, uh, particularly in those spaces where, We get to the end of an episode and they don't answer something or they, we, you get an episode that doesn't further the story and I get frustrated.

It's because it's not that, it's not that I expect everything to be wrapped up in a neat little bow. No, no, no. I've heard what this is and I want to get to that. And if you're wasting my time by not giving me that, it pisses me off. Cause I wanna get there. But I will, I will say I am in process of being blown away, but I'm not there.

Like, I, I don't, because I don't know where it's going yet. I have an idea. I'm excited to get there. You know, like I would say the, the fuse is, is getting really close, you know, but I'm not, I'm not yet blown away, um,

Jeff: I think it's interesting just because like our biases coming in, like our expectations really set that difference. But I think for me too, like I think part of what blows blows me away with this is just the fact that like they got away with it. You know what I mean? Like in 94, 56 is what we're watching.

They put something like this on TV and it kept.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: That's like, that's

Brent: Well, and for all the troubles we've heard about Babylon five with P 10 and how the markets wouldn't even play it and, and all of that sort of stuff. I mean, really it sounded very similar to the troubles that Star Trek Enterprise went through when it was on air, you know? Um, and we saw what happened with Enterprise got canceled too soon, right?

When it was good

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Uh, but the fact that this show has managed to stay around and do what it needs to do, I mean, good on that. But I will, let me ask you this one more question and we'll move on.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Think of all the season ones of sci-fi, particularly nineties sci-fi. You and I came into it saying, Hey, just remember these first couple seasons aren't very good.

But you know that it turns on towards the end of the second season somewhere in the middle of the third season, right? Like, that's, that's the, the, the, the mo. Right, right. But when you think of sci-fi first seasons, where, where does this one rank? Does it rank relatively high for you, or is it, where, where do what do you think?

Jeff: It's hard. The, the, the time placement of this is hard for me because right after Babylon five stuff started getting kind of good, and I don't wanna say good, I'll say kind of good in its first season. I'm thinking specifically about like Firefly, you know, that came out about the, the point we're watching now, maybe a little bit later, where like, it only got part of a first season and it was epic.

It was so good. Does that, but, but then what came before this right? Uh, star Trek. The next Generation Garbage. Garbage first season. That's

Brent: Deep space nine.

Jeff: Garbage. First season. Second season, blood of the third season. You know, and I think we said it in the wrap up and I think I stick with it now that this is, I will say one of the best first season sci-fi that I've had, at least like through like the mid ish nineties,

Brent: Yeah, I mean, Voyager certainly wasn't their best season. You know? I wouldn't say that it was garbage, but it wasn't their best season.

Jeff: it was the best first season of Star Trek.

Not counting the original series to date, like of the new, like the Berman area, era, star Trek, Voyager had the best first

Brent: yeah. And I mean, enterprise's first season wasn't stellar, but it wasn't great either.

Jeff: It wasn't bad.

Brent: Yeah. Um,

Jeff: Had some good

Brent: it, especially in retrospect, people, people didn't want to want to let it be what it was. But I mean, even I think of some of the new sci-fi that's out right now, uh, I dunno, we get some really good first season.

A lot of times they get like first good seasons and then it dies off.

Jeff: Well now the thing is like, you know, I, I'm a music guy and what I love about bands in the seventies especially is like, their first record is usually pretty darn good. You know, cuz it's stuff they've been working on for a really long time. Then they get their second record and it's like, oh, this kind of sucks.

And then you hear them grow and develop as a band and it's awesome. That journey is great to go on. But now, and this really happened in the nineties for music, but if your first record, your first release, your first single isn't a hit, you're dead. You're gone. You don't get a chance to grow. And TV has gotten to that point.

Now you have to have a banger of a first season or you're gone.

Brent: Yep,

Jeff: Even if you left on a cliffhanger and people were really engaged and really into it, it doesn't matter. You're gone and it's happened to far too many. Great. You know, I think about, uh, uh, shows like the oa, um, that some people might know and, um, a couple others that like ended, right, like right when it

Brent: S G U. Mm-hmm.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: You don't know

Jeff: like, no,

Brent: You don't even know what that is, but

Jeff: isn't that universe, Stargate

Brent: yeah, yeah. Ending on a cliffhanger at the end of second season and they just canceled it in the middle of the off season. You're like, well, well, what happened? Well, you never get to know.

Jeff: yeah,

Brent: So, um,

yeah. Thank you aj. What's this with aj?

Jeff: that one. This last one was from Smelly Pie

Brent: Oh, smelly pie. Thanks. Smelly pie. Thanks,

Jeff: It's so great. I love it. I love that they got that name. Like, that's like when you go to the DMV with something awesome and you're like, I wonder if they're gonna let me, let me do this or not. And Apple totally let them do it,

Brent: So, Jeff, I'm assuming you're gonna be cutting a big chunk of this out. Uh, cuz that was quite the rabbit trail. Um, so I got a, I got a ticket a while ago.

Jeff: Oh, oh, like a

Brent: because yeah, bec well, because I didn't come to, I turned on, I turned right on red and I didn't come to a complete stop when I did so, and it was, it was a cop sitting there on the corner just tagging people, you know, uh, which is, I, I, I completely did it.

I should, I should have come to a complete stop. I should not have turned in that spot, in that point, my fault. And, you know, you get the choice of like, you can go to the four hour driver school and it'll eliminate points on your record or you can just pay the fine and, and be done with it. I opted to pay the fine and just be done with it.

I got a letter today from the D M V for the state of Florida saying, Hey, you have to still take the course and if you don't, your license is suspended. I'm like, I paid you the fine so I wouldn't have to take the course.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Give me my money back then and I'll put it towards the course. Stupid.

Jeff: That is stupid.

Brent: Like I was perfectly fine just taking the points cuz I don't, I don't think I was actually gonna get points for what I did.

So, oh, so mad.

Jeff: that does suck. You know, in Oregon when I do that, you have to pay the fine, and I guess that's just what it is. You can pay the fine and take the conviction or the violation, you know, the conviction of the violation, or you can pay the fine and go to the class and then have it dismissed.

Brent: Yeah. The, this one is a, in the state of Florida, you,

well, I'm not sure what it was this time. Yeah, they've, they've changed the rules. It used to be you had to pay the court cost and then you had to pay the fine, or you'd pay the court costs and the fine is dismissed and you just gotta go to court, go to class,

Jeff: to the class.

Brent: and court costs is like 75 bucks, a hundred bucks, something like that.

And then the rest of it's the fine.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Um, I think they've changed that where it, it's just the penalty. They call it the penalty and it, anyway, nobody

Jeff: what though. I've been to, I've been to traffic, I've been to traffic level one.

Brent: Oh yeah.

Jeff: situation. I feel I'm a better and safer driver cuz I went, it was actually really good.

Brent: Yeah, I, I, I mean, I've done a couple of these over the years. You know, I've, I've never been the perfect driver, but I'm pretty good. Um, something, oh, I was gonna say this and I completely forgotten it was okay. And you're gonna cut this out. So now I'll tell you, talking about the band thing and, and all that.

Uh, as a working comedian, some people out there may know I have a back, a background in standup comedy, uh, as a working comedian, when you get these comics who come out and put out their, their big album, and it's, it's a awesome album. Yeah. You know why? Cuz they've been working on that material for 10 years.

That is not new material. That is 10 years. And then there's this expectation to come out with a new album just about every year and like, no, no, no. They worked on that album for 10 years. The next album's not gonna be that good because they're just trying to punch material at that point. Like, no, no, it's stop it.

Um, yeah, so. And then they go away. They get famous, they go do TV for a while. They go away, then they come back to stand up. And you know what they've done is, they've worked on that material now for a couple of years.

Jeff: They're sitting in their trailers going like, oh, this'll be

Brent: Well, but they're also hitting up open mics and bars and going to places where you don't, they, they're not really known, you know,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: anyway.

Jeff: over that overnight success took 10

Brent: Yeah, exactly.

Jeff: Like that's the, that's the object lesson here.

Brent: All right. I am doing, I'm transitioning to the thing.

Jeff: You were a transition. Yes. . I, I got . We were going, I love

Brent: What's up, YouTube? This is, Hey, this is the show, bro. This is it. This is how

Jeff: love these though. As an editor, when I go in and I'm like, oh my gosh, I got this huge chunk of audio. Then I can tell. I'm like, oh, I got it down to this. Look at that

Brent: Right, right.

Jeff: satisfying.

Brent: There you go.

Jeff: All right,

Brent: Oh my God. So Jeff, I love reviews. I never get tired of them. I never get tired probably because it's more of an ego stroke for me, than anything. But I love reviews. You know what else I love on this show? The games we play, one of those games is we get to the end of the episode and we look at next week's episode based on title alone.

Make a prediction about what that episode is going to be. This is now the part of the show where we look back on last week's episode where we predicted what this week's episode was gonna be like, and we try to figure out did we get last week's episode per last week's episode prediction? Correct. Jeff, how'd you do with sick transit veer?

Jeff: Well, I said Veer was gonna be in it, so I got that. But I, I thought, Brent, that, Brent, that Brent was gonna become the emperor. I thought Veer was gonna become the emperor in this one. He did not do that at all. He, he touched the emperor's chair,

Brent: And the drapes.

Jeff: Yeah. And the, just the drapes over here swatting something.

How about you? How'd you

Brent: Um, well at, at first I didn't, but then I did. Uh, here's what I said. I said, veer is gonna be moving from place to place, which,

Jeff: Kinda

Brent: I said, but it's probably more in his ambassadorial role. And by the time we got to the end, he lost his ambassadorial role and he's back with Londo on Babel on five. I nailed it, but I said also probably what he was doing was he was seeking new alliances for Babylon five, which has just declared its independence.

And you remember when we went in, Jeff, I'm gonna declare this right now. You remember when we went in to the beginning of this season, or maybe it was the end of last season, and I said, they're leading us towards Babylon five, breaking away from Earth. And like all of my predictions were, this is the episode that it happens.

This is the, I'm gonna, this'll be my prediction until it happens. And it took like three or four episodes and it finally,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Well, my prediction now that I'm going to continue with this prediction until it happens is the rest of the worlds out there have to recognize Babylon five as an independent state. when you break away and become an independent state, people have to recognize you as such. Like there's, that's a thing, that's a, the way they're building the political landscape of Babylon five in the universe that we have here, that has to happen, that's gotta be a . You know, people have to take sides anyway.

You know, Hey, we're gonna line ourselves with Babylon five, we're gonna line ourselves with Earth, whatever it is. So it's gotta happen somehow. Somebody's, they've gotta recognize. So that's, that's my prediction. That didn't happen in this one, but I did get veers ambassadorial world changing.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad.

Brent: you know, I'll call it three-fourths of one.

Jeff: Not bad. Not bad. It's good. Well, hey, if you have no idea what we're talking about, if you've never seen this episode before, if you don't remember what this episode is about or any of those things, Hey, Brent, why don't you remind everybody what Sikh Transi Vir was about?

Brent: Hey, Jeff,

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: do you know what it means? Uh, you know what it means when you have that dream, you know, the dream that everybody's had where you go into work, but you're naked?

Jeff: yeah, yeah. I know that

Brent: Yeah. But do you know what it means? Like, have you ever done the psychology behind it about what it means? Yeah. It, it means nothing. It's just there to waste time,

Jeff: Oh, okay.

Brent: is, yeah.

So let's start with Veer. Veer is back on Sonari Prime delivering

Jeff: That's good. That's good.

Brent: Uh, veer is back on Sonari Prime, delivering his reports. You remember those reports that Londo was helping him to write a, a couple episodes ago? Well, the Emperor is impressed, but Veer receives a word of advice from not the emperor guy. Don't listen to Londo. See, he's of the old school. He's not really gonna change his mind about stuff, and you don't really have to agree with him.

But he's still family, and so when he comes over for Thanksgiving dinner, you just sort of gotta let him be and not really mind what he says and just ignore it. By the way, remember this show is from the nineties. Not right now. If only Veer would actually remember this advice at the end of the episode. Let's get there. On his way back to Minbar, veer has a layover at Babylon five. When he arrives. He is surprised to find that Londo has a surprise waiting for him, a wife. The only problem is Veer has never seen this woman before, and Veer isn't married. At least he wasn't married. Turns out Londo helped arrange the marriage between Veers family and the girl.

Her name is Linda Disty and their family. It's all done except for the official ceremony and the. Um, consummation, which begs the question, at what point is the consummation considered consummated? 1, 2, 3, 4. You gotta go all the way to six four to ha like, I don't know. Veer is super hesitant about all this because turns out he's watched one too many Disney movies when he was a kid, and when he marries, he just wants it to be for love.

But Linda, Steve, who by the way, is absolutely gorgeous and absolutely brainwashed and absolutely racist. We will come back to that later, but Veer is not so comfortable with this whole situation. Anyway, right now let's talk about this big scary narn who's trying to kill, kill right now though. Let's talk about this big scary naar who's trying to kill veer.

Hey, there's a big scary narn trying to kill veer. You see, it's a blood oath. A blood oath, which is with his pouch brother. Okay. Uh, but why are they trying to kill Veer? Well, because Veer has a felt, because Veer has helped to arrange the transfer of over 2000 nans from the Narn home world where things are super bad, by the way, to this Sonari home world, where even though those Nans are gonna be put into forced labor camps, they're still gonna have a better life. He even created a fake government bureaucrat named Bonko Bonko on the old heo, or Abraham o Lincoln E. Yeah. Apparently Veer was hanging out with Dr. Franklin a little too much because he's basically now operating his own underground railroad. So why is the guy coming after him with the blood oath? Well, it turns out that those 2000 Narn.

Who were on veer list, they all died. Rondo's impressed. The Earthers are appalled and veer under pressure. Lets the cat out of the bag. I don't really understand why in this moment he could have just shut up and let it be, but he let the whole cat out of the bag. Those folks aren't dead. No, he, Pharrell has an underground railroad going on.

They were women, they were children. They were the cultural leaders of Narn. And they are alive and well living under new identities somewhere. And now it's the Earthers who are impressed and Lando is appalled. Lando recalls veer from men Bar stripping him of his ambassadorial status because veer is confused.

It needs some more training, what it means to be sonari. Rondo has had to call in lots of favors to cover the whole thing up, and they're never gonna talk about it again. But, hey, this isn't the first time this has happened. No. The last ity ambassador to Menard, he also got all mixed up. So we're just gonna blame it on that Vera's marriage to Linda St is being postponed until Vera can be, um, corrected.

But the real question is, will Linda St. Ever be corrected? Because she reveals in this episode all of her racism and all of her big, and all of her bigotry, which is super deep rooted into the recesses of her mind, but still amazingly, in that moment before they say goodbye, veer still has hope for her. Unfortunately, veer doesn't stand up to Londo, and he does go along with all of this. Kind of like that uncle at Thanksgiving. But honestly, I'm not really sure that veer had much of a choice. The one good thing, though, to come out of this episode is no one really knows about that fake bureaucrat that Veer created.

You know, Lincoln E, he's still active in the system and Ivanova decides to double down and create a full Facebook profile for this guy, cuz after all, that's a resource that they could use to help the Narn later on. So Sheridan completely signing off on this and giving his permission to use his image as the profile pick. Grant Ivanova the official title, sneak in residence. Jeff, what do you think of this episode? Seek transit.

Jeff: God, I wanted to love this episode. I wanted so badly to love this thing. Veer is actively making, trying to make things right, like he's putting his money where his mouth is. We got more stuff on Sonari culture, you know, like the marriage stuff. And we got, we got to see Sonari Prime again. We got Sheridan and Dalen almost kissing.

Mm-hmm.

Brent: Yeah. Again, pillar filler, man. That's that. The whole thing was just pillar. I'm sorry, go ahead. What? Um, by the way, I get a buzz for that. That's a hundred percent of Star Trek reference.

Jeff: but this was, this episode was a mess. It was, A complete mess, right? So there's the scene with Veer walking into a room full of Nans right after a joke about a bunch of Nans locked in a room that just kind of went nowhere. Then there's the narn laying on the ground all tied up, and Linda St. Giving him the knife.

That just kind of, nothing happens with, and then the ending, right? Like, chick is a stone cold killer. She's a racist, a hardcore racist, but you know, she kisses veers. So yeah, it's all kinda sorta okay. I think, I think this episode is meant to like start setting, veer up as an independent thinker and a decision maker putting his stuff into action.

But at the end of this, like it was a two steps forward, three steps back. Like, oh, look at Veer. He's a, he's a real boy, he's a real man, helping people out. And then it's like,

Brent: boy.

Jeff: He is. He's a real middle school boy who like loses his marbles the moment. Some pretty girl pays attention to him. I think this episode really missed the mark, and I think it missed it.

I think it missed it by a lot.

Brent: Wow.

Jeff: Yeah, I, yeah, this was, yeah. What, what about you? What did you think

Brent: I am very much on the opposite side of the table from you on

Jeff: R? Really?

Brent: am, I am. I quite like this episode. I laughed a lot through this episode. There was so many little moments, and if you can make me laugh, I'm generally gonna like the episode. This was not a comedic episode, this was a heavy episode.

Now I, I really wanted to be able to watch this episode. Un I would've liked to have watched this episode one or two more times before tonight. I just ran outta time, didn't have the ability to do it, and that's okay. Um, do you remember my other podcast being Me Up a Star Trek podcast? There was a, um, there is an episode out of Deep Space nine.

It was the episode duet at the end of the, at the end of season one where I was like, this is awesome. This is a great episode. And my first time watcher, cause that was set up as a first time watch deal, and he comes in and he's like, yeah, it's okay. And it was through that process that I was. I think you just have to watch this.

You need to understand this in light of the whole show, and you've gotta watch it a few more times. And the more you watch it, the more you come to appreciate this just amazing show with great acting and, and all of this kind of stuff. I see that for this episode off of the first watch, like I see being able to go into this episode and this episode being hugely important and the performance that I think, uh, Steven first gives in this episode is phenomenal.

The performance that the girl who played Linda St gave is wooden and is, is almost emotionless and is robotic and is wonderful for what that character is supposed to be. As this brainwashed, uh, you know, this is what my mom and dad have told me my whole life, and so therefore this is what I believe in.

I've never had it questioned before in my life. What Londo, what Londo went through, um, from the bug situation

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: to how he was so impressed with Veer for just a moment and then he completely turned on Veer and how he drops the hammer on Veer in the middle of it was so, it was such good acting. Like I reiterated it in my, in my Brent watches video. If I were to be in a Babylon five reboot, I would want to be Londo. That's the character I want to play. I also could be veer, though. I would love to play Veer, but Londo would be the Charact just cause I love what he's. This episode for me, though cemented londo as a villain to me more so than anything else, like, more so than the grand macro stuff. Londo had a moment. He had a a and a, a choice where he could have looked the other way. He could have understood the wrong, he's done. He could have done something for his own redemption here, right? And he chose not to. He doubled down on his own racism and doubled down on his own bigotry and forced veer into this.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Now Jeff, I don't know about you. I grew up in the nineties in the South, which was a place where as a, as a teenager, racism was one of those things that was gross and disgusting. But we all had that grandfather, we had that uncle. You had an older brother. Who, that's just kind of how they were. And you know what?

It's gross and it's disgusting, but you're not gonna do anything about it. They're too steeped in it, and they're gonna die soon.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: then we're gonna, we're gonna be here. And unfortunately, 30 years later, we see that that actually wasn't the right attitude to have either. But that's what we had at the time.

Because kind of like veer, I'm not really sure what you could have actually done, you know? Uh, but there's, there's so much to this and, and because I knew I was doing Deltas, I was really watching for that Star Trek message. And I think I've just given away a lot of it. But I think there's so much of that in here.

Was this a quality episode as an episode of tv? I, I think I said this might be more of a laundry episode type thing to me. Like, I'll watch this when it comes on. I'm not skipping this episode. I don't hate this episode. Is this a banger? Is this a top five episode? I don't know, but I think I, I. I see what this episode is doing, and I see the respect that I have for that episode, and that makes me like this episode a lot right now.

Jeff: know, I, I, I, I agree with a lot of what you said. I think the acting in this was awesome. I think it was amazing to a person. Even the pretty ridiculous Sheridan and IVA stuff was great. Like their back and forth was, was awesome. Like

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: really good, really good stuff going on. I, I think the problem to me, I don't know if it was editing, I don't know if they deleted some scenes, but there were just these things.

They left hanging. The, the two big ones hit me were the nans on Centar in his room. Like I can infer what was going on there, but that's a really weird thing to throw in there and not follow up on. At all. And then when Linda St had the, you know, it captured the narn for him to, to kill. And, and like, I mean, and again, I can infer what happened, but how did he get out of that?

How did he talk his way out of doing that and then say goodbye to her? The same way that he said goodbye to her? And I think that's my biggest issue with this is there, lo Londo had two issues, two, two opportunities here. He had an opportunity to stand up to Linty and be like, you're sick, . You need to get fixed.

Go, go. But instead he was like, yeah, you'll, you'll, you'll learn, you'll get better. It'll be fine. And oh, kissy, kissy. I, I'm not gonna stand up and actually say the things that need to be said. And then when Londo is beating him up at the end, I'm gonna pull you from this. I'm gonna, you know, you're, you're gonna come back, you're gonna be my assistant.

You're gonna veer. Should have stood up and said, you know what, dude? Do your little tentacle wave F you, I'm out. But he just took it like the veer we've been seeing grow and develop this. These two and a half seasons wouldn't just take this stuff and he just took it and I feel like it was a huge letdown for him.

Brent: And I think I, I think that is a, I see that spot, and again, I, because I feel like I've been veer in that moment because you really, like, you really sit there like, what am I really supposed to do here? Leg? Like, you, you tell me I'm supposed to stand up and I'm supposed to do this, and that's all good and well, when you are a teenager now, I know Veer is not a teenager, but let's face it, he's really been played as sort of the young,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: you know, being whipped into shape kind of a guy, right? When you are a young teenager and this is how your family is, it's really hard to do any, like, you just sort of like you're outnumbered all the way around and it's not gonna be a good conversation and. This is just,

Jeff: but he, but he's been, he's been outnumbered with Londo and Refa in the room, and he still stood up and said, the things you know about, about Morden and about, you know, we shouldn't be doing this. Don't,

Brent: But those were always private to Londo though,

Jeff: and, and even when he was with Londo, he still didn't do it. He just took the beating.

He took, he took everything

Brent: I, I see now, okay. To all those people who say that Brent doesn't like it when a show is not wrapped up in a neat little bow. I see where Vere's gonna be in a season and a half, and how this is a step along that path. This is a, this is a line, this is a marking line for him,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and I'm okay letting him be here right now.

I feel you on what you're saying. And if we get out of the end of this show with him still being in that spot, I'll agree with you, but I think this is just a stop along the.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: and, but I, but I hear what you're saying, Jeff. I don't wanna negate that, cuz I'm with you on that. I just, I see it for him later on down the line.

Jeff: Oh, absolutely.

Brent: is, and, and this is a piece that's pushing him much closer to being that

Jeff: right. And as you grow and as you develop, you have setbacks. Failure teaches you things. But I just feel like of the failures veer could have had, this was, these were two epic failures for him.

Brent: Yeah. And Lando dumpling down on his own villain is just that much more disgusting. But, uh, so while we're talking about this, obviously we're talking about Veen and this piece of it, and I think the part that I really wanted to, to go back to watch this again, and I needed more, little more time to think about it.

So help me, help me flesh this out right now. Jeff live here on air at the beginning of the episode, Londa or, uh, veer meets with.

Jeff: Minister,

Brent: N no name mixed Inari face. Right. We've never seen this guy before. Right? Okay. Uh, he comes in and he, he tells him, veer, we loved your reports. There were some parts that were written by Londo.

Right? Yeah. We saw it. Hey, listen, he's of the old school, right? Like, I didn't he actually use those words. He's of the old school. Just don't, don't let him do that. Don't let him be whatever. And then veer, like Londo goes in and just drops all six of his tentacles all over the situation, you know, and it, but Veer was told, don't let him do that.

Right.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: What does that say about Hal Lando is viewed on Shinari. With

Jeff: Well, I think we,

Brent: that's there.

Jeff: I think we know, I mean, I think we saw that in Dusted Dust when Jaar was in his mind and they basically were like, you're a joke dude, so you're gonna go take this. And then Refa has been playing him like a fiddle the whole time. Londo Londo is a joke period to his peers, and I think, and I

Brent: he doesn't get that about himself yet, does

Jeff: No, no, I think that, I think he was told that right when he went to Babylon five, and then I think that he wanted to prove that he wasn't, and I think that's part of what forced him early on to go along with Morden and do stuff was like, I'll show them I'm not, this is, you know, I don't know how to joke.

I'll show 'em. And now he's so deep in it. But the bottom line and the, in the, at the end of all of that, he's still just a joke to everybody.

Brent: it's particularly troubling for me because of. The couple of episodes we saw on season one, I'm thinking of Londo with Aira, the, the stripper sonari slave girl, where he's like, I'd, you know, status and ambition and this, that is, that leaves you wanting it is not what is important in life. Right. And then when Vera's cousins come on board or whatever, and it's like, I forgot to help to dance.

I want my dancing shoes. You guys go be who you are. Like, like Londo, like there's this old londo and he's letting that fall away and now he's just doubling back down onto all of that. And that's, that's what is so disappointing about wado to me in this.

Jeff: when you get a new job or something and you know that you got it as a joke or whatever, you know, go over here. You can't mess stuff up too bad. Just, just go do this thing. You have choices. One of those choices is to be like, well, I'll show you. Yay, man. Another joke is to be like, you know what, fine, there's no pressure on me.

You know? So I'm gonna lean into that. I'm gonna have a good time. I'm on this station with a bar and gambling and stuff. I'm just, I'm just gonna live it up. And I think that's where Londo. In, in season one was just like, fine, I'll do my job. I'll take it when I need to. I'll show up and take it serious, but I'm a joke, so I'm just gonna enjoy life as much as I can.

But then when Morden came and he dangled that power in front of him, that opportunity to prove everyone wrong, he bit hook, line and sinker and now he can't, he doesn't think he can let go of it

Brent: Yeah. Well, it, and he doesn't want the shadows to do it for him. He wants to do it himself. And he, and he also recognizes the sheer, and we've seen that Londo recognizes how wrong it is for this to go as far as it has. But yet he also subscribes to so much of that as well. Like, we'll abuse them, just not that much.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: to the point of oblation. Although they should be obliterated,

Jeff: Right. Exactly. Yeah. We'll treat him well. I mean, we'll just reeducate him. We'll put 'em to work also, we will, you know, make sure they all die. faster, the better. You had mentioned in the recap how Veer made the choice to like spill the beans about what he's been doing to smuggle the Nans out right there in front of Londo. But to rewind that a little bit, who did Ivanova think she was dumping all that, all that out in front of both Londo and Veer, like Ivanova set a lot of this up.

Like that should have been a one-on-one conversation with Veer and then a one-on-one conversation with Londo and then bringing people together. But she just pulled everybody in and was like, Hey, Londo, guess what your dude's been doing this whole time when actually he wasn't doing that? And

Brent: yeah,

Jeff: just bad.

Brent: yeah. It was, well, especially where she had already had that conversation in private with veer of like, Hey, what's going on? This is coming out of your office. Oh, you're smuggling these guys into forced labor camps? And he is like, yeah, but it's better in forced labor rather than over there.

And Veer is still trying to maintain his cover.

Jeff: Yep. He wants to keep the railroad running.

Brent: trying to keep it, trying to keep it going. And then when it comes into, Hey, there's a blood oath dude here, who's after you? And it's because these 2000 have died to bring Lando into, that was awful. I agree with you. Like I, I did not understand why she was doing that.

That was one of those, I just kind of had to shrug my shoulders and go on, because that should have been that conversation with Vera. Hey, Vera, you know, why? Do you know why? Because all those people you put in there have died. And then Vera could have gone, okay, I'll tell you something, but you gotta keep it a secret.

Like Veer would've brought her into that if Lando hadn't been there like much sooner. You know? And, and, but also on the same time, I could throw that back on Veer. Why didn't veer be like, Hey, uh, like, let it ride and then go find a vva later and be like, Hey, we need to, we need to talk. Oh, and not that Veer knows that this is going on on the station, but hey, we bring somebody else into this c.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: That we have forming that Kars now on, and now you have a new Centara representative on the coalition.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: Um, I, I just, I don't understand why it had to go down the way it did, but it was all, you're right. It's because this was happening in front of Londo,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: you know, and Vera's still learning Vi Vera's. Definitely.

Jeff: Yeah, it's a game and he's learning how to play the game. But I, I, I think, I think both he and Ivanova knew better. You know, I, I can almost, I can almost see Ivanova, but he knew better than to, in front of Londo do a full

Brent: yeah. Right, right. That was, that was certainly not his. Uh uh.

Jeff: finest

Brent: Right, right. Um, but let me ask you, at, at what point did you figure out that Veer was Oscar Schindler?

Jeff: I, I, well, I, I think that I've, as soon as they said Abraham or Lincon or whatever, I was like, oh, that's fear. That's fear. Like, yeah.

Brent: Yeah, yeah. I,

Jeff: and that's when I, and that's when I did the math on the Nans that were in his room on Centara Prime. I'm like, oh, they weren't waiting to whatever they, he was gonna, that's part of his smuggle operation.

Okay, I get it

Brent: Yeah. He's getting them off of, I guess out. Yeah. He's getting 'em. He's getting 'em out. You know, because I like think, oh yeah, how stupid Veer is playing is so much better in the labor camps than it is on Narn. And people on on Centara would just rather see the Narn suffer. So I'm actually doing a good thing by bringing them to the labor camps where they have housing and food and you know, and,

Jeff: Healthcare.

Brent: I mean this almost, I mean, it literally sounds like this is Oscar Schindler in the middle of Nazi Germany, and then you got Chicky coming in, Linda Disty, who is like a robot parroting what her government and her family and her upbringing and her culture have told her.

And it's all.

Jeff: Yeah. Have you, you've seen the Eddie Murphy Classic coming to America.

Brent: Um, maybe like 63 times.

Jeff: Okay. I was about to hit the outro and end of the show. If you had said no, I was like, we're done here forever. Yeah. It's a, it's amazing.

Brent: In fact, I still, I, I give the most random reference to, to coming to America almost weekly in my life. It's just this. I go, ah ha. Now if you know, if you know this, if you know the movie, you know what I'm doing.

Jeff: right? It's a dude in the barbershop, right? Yeah. So good. Well, the, when

Brent: the soup, sir? I don't wanna taste your soup. Just please taste the soup. Taste the soup. Okay, fine. I'll taste the soup. Where's your spoon? Ah,

Jeff: when he is in Zamunda and he meets his arranged wife and he's like, so what, uh, what music do you like? I like what you like. Uh, what food do you like to, I like what that was Linda St. Like she was raised to be the wife of some important person and then continue on the genocide of Nans with that high-powered person.

Brent: yep. I, I was, I literally was thinking of that exact same reference with the, the wives in Samund. Um, but I was also thinking, like, I was listening to what she was saying, Jeff, the most important podcast, singularly important podcast episode I have ever done. We should probably link this in our show notes.

And I, I, I'm sorry, I don't mean, I don't mean to pimp my other podcast.

Jeff: I will pimp your other podcast then on this one, it's beat me up a a Star Trek podcast Far Beyond the Stars, right from Deep Space Nine. Such a great episode and, and I'll let you talk about it, but you had a guest on. For that one, which isn't part of your format, but you brought someone, and one thing I loved

Brent: it is the only episode that we had a guest come on for the

Jeff: And I love a thing. I loved that for you and Matt when you did that podcast, was you had an agreement that if there was something on the show that talked about a thing you had not experienced an addiction, a mental health, a race thing or whatever, you hadn't experienced it, you wouldn't speak to it. So how do you talk about far beyond the stars?

You bring in someone who's experienced that and that's exactly what you

Brent: Yeah. And we brought in my friend Jessica, who is a black female. Um, and she, and she also works, um, in educating and teaching people about, uh, a lot of the issues that our black brothers and sisters. In America specifically and the history of what that is. And I was really thinking of her throughout this whole thing that Linda St.

Is. And, and I wanna encourage everybody to please go listen to that. Not to listen to me, but listen to Jessica and, yeah. And I, I mean, Matt, Matt was here at my house last night. Jeff, my co-host for that other show. He's a good friend of mine. He lives in states away just like you do. He just happens to be here.

He was stopping through overnight. Um, and he and I were talking about this very episode last night. Uh, part of why I didn't get to watch this episode multiple times. Anyway, um, why did I tell you about Matt? I have no idea why. Oh. Because even Matt was sitting there saying like, he had no idea. He was floored and flabbergasted just listening to Jessica, uh, and, and, and to discuss this.

Reference to what, what happened with far beyond the stars and, uh, the way that people are. And one of the things I, I just, it always jumps out to me as Jessica was talking, um, about something that she had personally experienced, the effects of where she said that, and I forget what the exact stat is, but she said that, that black women are x amount times more likely to die in childbirth than white women are.

And that is because there is this belief, this long held belief that has actually been in like books or something like that, medical books that black women or black people as a whole don't feel pain the same way that white people do. And they, they don't have to have anesthesia. Anesthesia and they don't have to have, uh, these, and when, when they complain about it, you don't really have to listen to it.

because it's not real. They just don't feel it as bad as everybody else does. Like that is a legit reason. And, and, uh, she was in a spot at when she was giving birth to her son, um, which, uh, I, I, and I was very close to this because I, I got a call from her husband who's an old friend of mine who said when she was pregnant, and she, he said, Jessica went into labor.

I've gotta take her to the hospital. Can I bring my daughter to you? And his daughter came and stayed with us for a week, , while they were dealing with this. Like, that's, uh, uh, but I, but I, I say that, just say, I, I remember v watching this whole episode unfold. Um, she almost died because they didn't believe her until somebody came in and believed her about what was going on with her body in this pregnancy and, and birthing their child.

And, and everybody's fine now. Thankfully they made it out on the other side. But how many people haven't.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I'm listening to Linda St. And she's talking about how they don't really know, those nans don't feel they mess their own nest. She said, um, like just these, these, these preconceived notions that she is just spewing that frankly, this is probably the overarching held belief on Sonari, about what the narn are.

And then I'm thinking of Star Trek, and I'm thinking of the episode with David Warner and Picard and the four lights and, and, uh, chain of command part two, right? Is that it? And there's this scene where the Kardashians little boy comes in or little girl and she's like, well, what's wrong with him? Oh, he doesn't love their, they they don't love their children like we do.

They, they can't feel pain. They can't whatever. And, and just this dehumanization. The idea that in Nazi Germany, the dehumanization that Oscar Schindler list here in America, just in our own country during slavery, and then that carried over for at least another a hundred years, and in many ways has continued to carry over for the last,

Jeff: Yeah. Today, till today.

Brent: beyond that of, of these, these, oh, this is how they're different from us and how absolutely gross and disgusting and for her, okay, how much is she to blame for that?

Jeff: It's such a fascinating question. There's that movie, uh, Megan, I think it was called about the doll that had the AI in it that was killing people.

Brent: the E was a three or something like that.

Jeff: like that. Yeah. Came out, I don't know,

Brent: beginning of the year or something,

Jeff: maybe? Something like that. Yeah. A, a while ago. But that really caused some, some really great conversations.

Is it the doll's fault? Is the programmer's fault if the a, if the thing does what it was programmed to do and does it really well, is it, it's, is it that person's fault that even blows up even bigger? I mean, you can ask that about most anything. If we raised a person to believe a thing and programmed them to do that thing, is it their fault?

You know, because I also think about it in terms of. Well, this is why this is, this is the case I'll make for it being her fault. You and I as viewers of Babylon five have gotten to know one Naar, two sort of right with Telon a little bit, but really we've gotten to know Kar

Brent: sort of

Jeff: a little bit. We got to know.

Brent: in like forever. And I'm, yeah. With new actress lady. Yeah, sure.

Jeff: Yeah. Cuz yeah. But we got to know too, we'll say, yeah, two, two and a little bit of telon. And we know based, based on just knowing them, nothing she said was true. Like not even a sliver of what it was. So if she lived, she was taught that from birth and it was her family and her society and everything saying that.

And she never had actually seen a.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Then I would say it's not her fault. She's programmed to believe that whatever, but she has, she's studied them, she's stayed with them. She's gone to their villages to observe them and talk to them and decide how aggressive they are. She's had the opportunities to see them as people and has made a choice as an adult to still believe what she was programmed to believe.

We talked about this in an episode a while ago. Um, Dalen said a thing about, or Sheridan said a thing to Dalen about being open to, you know, having your mind changed essentially. I think it was when the, they first started seeing the shadow ships and early in season three, but it's, it's the same thing.

You have to be as an adult, as a person with agency, when you have an opportunity to learn more or see otherwise, and you don't take that, that is your fault. and I think that because she was exposed to nans, I am gonna put responsibility on her. This, that's the case I'll make to

Brent: Yeah, I, I don't disagree with you. To be raised in a certain way to believe certain things is not necessarily your fault

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: to continue to propagate and to believe those when you become a person. Y'all use your word of agency. When you have a mind who can think and who can see, and you choose to continue to just, uh, dehumanize anyone or anything.

When you take value away from something. When you take value away from life, right? You take it away from life and you don't respect it, and you do that as an adult, whether it is a five fingered operating thing that kind of is a humanoid form, or whether it is a, a, an animal that is bred for, for eating.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: You know what I mean? Like, you do respect life. You still respect life. Now, I may not, I may not take a beef cattle out there and treat them the exact same that I do people, but you're not gonna go out and abuse them. You're not gonna, you're not gonna do that. You're going to respect them. You're going to, you know,

Jeff: yep. It's what the Jews and the Muslims have totally nailed, right. With kosher and halal food, like you're gonna treat this animal a certain way, and that way is with respect.

Brent: right. Or, and I, I don't know exactly how true this is, and I am not one to ever say that all Native American, uh, nations are the same nation, because they were not, I recognize that they were all different. They all had their own cultures. They all had their own languages. But the thing you generally see is they tended to be a bit more connected to, uh, earth and mother nature, and they had a lot more respect for the land and the animals, you know?

And that, that harkens back to my mind. There. You have to the, I was raised that way. Thing only goes so far,

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: you know what I mean? Um, and that is why I was, Jeff. I mean, we may as well the rest of the episode was the rest of the episode. Can we just agree, like,

Jeff: I have one little piece, and then let's dive right into it because you said a thing in the recap that I disagree with. The Shankar, the blood oath that was declared, I believe was declared against Linda St. And not vere.

Brent: Ooh,

Jeff: I think it was a fake out that they did to make it look like it was veer and then prop up that 2000 Nans had died.

But when she had dude on the floor, she was like, I recognize him. I saw him in his village and he was the pouch brother of the one who came to kill veer. So I think that Sean Carr, like veers veer is veer, is pure and golden through this whole thing. He's so pure, he's never gotten past one. Right? He's that and he and he, you know, which that scene was epic

Brent: It was so good. It was so good. Yeah.

Jeff: but even with this whole Underground Railroad thing, he's pure, no one, no one thinks he's killing people except Londo.

Linda St is the murderer and she's the one that families are heading after. I just wanted to point out

Brent: I like that as a theory. I don't know that you're right. I don't know that I believe that you're right. But I like that as a theory, and I hope Jeff, because you've said that, because I like it so much, I hope that they come back in several episodes down the way and turns out they're going a, that's actually who they're going after instead of veer.

And we

Jeff: you what, honestly, honestly, I bet if you watch this a second time, like when we get done, go watch this a second time and then just text me. You'll be like, oh, yep, I see it. I see where they actually went after this. So

Brent: I can, I can, I can get with you on that. Um, get to the Star Trek message. Because I think, I think this is where we are. Uh, so we're at that spot. Uh, we're gonna boil it down. We're gonna see if it has the Star Trek equality. Jeff, we've already been talking about it for the last 30 minutes or so.

Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna rate this episode on scale of zero to five Deltas as far as how Star Trek this episode is. Jeff, you get to do Star Furious as far as how much we enjoyed this episode. I do not claim that this was a feel good episode. I laughed a lot. I do not claim that this was a feel good episode.

This also, by the way, not a pallet cleanser.

Jeff: No, no.

Brent: was not a pallet cleanser. This week was not a pallet cleanser.

Jeff: I need a pallet cleanser after this one.

Brent: Well, we'll talk about that, uh, a bit later. I think. Um, everything we said about Lin Linda Disty and how she is responsible for herself, she has age at this age. She, even in Sonari culture, which arranges marriages and girls are bred to serve their husbands on some level, not every level, because we saw Longo's wives, I'm gonna tell you, every single one of those girls were about their own, um, survival and their own comfort, except for maybe, uh, vomit Lady

Jeff: right. Team off.

Brent: Yeah. Who actually, again, had showed her own agency over herself and made decisions that were, was right for her and, and didn't, you know, we need, we need veer to get a little bit of that Tama attitude. Like, I have no respect for you and I'm gonna stand here and tell you that, um, even after everything Linda, Steve did, She trapped the norm.

She said, kill him. Do it. She said this and she looks at him and she's like, I, you know, yeah, we're gonna postpone this. We're still good. And I just hope that you get all the help you need, veer, and that you get your mind right. And Veer is able to still look, sit there and look at her and go, actually, I really hope you get the help you need.

I hold out hope for you. After all of that, that veer can look her in the eye and legitimately still have hope for her. Lando or Veer looks at Lando after every sentence that comes out of that man's mouth and holds out hope for Lando.

Jeff: True.

Brent: Right. Beer doesn't hate his entire culture for what they're doing. He holds out hope for them.

Beer is the hope. Veer is the last best hope for sonari. You know what I mean? For the sonari people, for Sonari Prime veer is that hope that not all sonari are bad, that not all sonari are jerks. That there are those who are out there, who are, who see and understand and are willing to do the right thing.

Veer is that example. And rather than,

rather than do this thing where he puffs himself up and says, oh, if you can't understand it and look at it the way I am, then you're garbage and you're trash. And I'm go, no. He holds out hope that you can be better. You can be better. He holds out hope. He holds up a mirror to society, Jeff, and says, this is what you look like right now, Jeff.

I, I had a cousin. For those of you out there who aren't aware yet, I am white. I am so white. When I did a DNA test, 95% of my DNA N test came from Northwestern Europe

Jeff: And you're so white that we have viewers and listeners that have charted your sunburns just from the time you've spent in the sun

Brent: true. It's true. It's a hundred percent true. My family is white. My cousin, who is six months younger than I am, she and I grew up together. She came home with a black guy as a boyfriend. They eventually got married. I was sitting there the day that she introduced that young man who, um, she introduced him to her grandfather and he damn near shut her out of his life.

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: and went off in a way that Londo went off on veer. I have, I have seen that whole action. And, you know, and I mean, this is her grandfather. She loves her grandfather. Uh, this isn't the grandfather we share. This was her other grandfather. Right. Um, but we're all family. So like, you know, and, and he's a good man mostly, but this thing, he just, he was very against interracial dating and mixed marriages and mixed children.

And he is of that old guard, but he is also a man who works hard and loves his family and, you know, wants to give to the poor and help people out and all this, but not them, which is gross and disgusting. You know, she eventually married him and they had a family, you know, and unfortunately that marriage didn't work out.

But, you know, I watched. This thing happened, you know? And the the hope that, that you hold out for your relatives who just don't get it, and you live in that, I mean, you like, what am I, what am I supposed to say to grandpa? He's coming to Christmas dinner. He's go, I'm going to his house for Thanksgiving.

He's gonna say something. I know he is. And I just gotta kind of roll my eye, like, you know what I mean? Uh, again, today we'd be like, yeah, don't go put yourself in that position. Don't go. The fact that veer could still hold out, that hope was so impressive to me. This one little line, because the whole, the whole show just held, held up a 1990s racism mirror to me. Jeff, when we talk about the Star Trek quality, does it hold up a mirror to society? Does it give you. That things can be better.

Does it show you how things can be? Is there a moral message? This one was through and through. Everything within me wants to not give this five Deltas to knock it down something, and I don't know how I can do it. This is a five Delta episode through and through Jeff. Did we like this episode though?

Jeff: Yes. I mean, yes, it had huge flaws, huge problems. And I still think like I'm not, I mean, don't disagree with your rating to the point of like it mattering. I still think that things got boiled down to a stupid moment of like, She kissed me and I'm all Twitter painted now and no, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's okay.

Like multiple times. You know? Like she kissed him and he is like, okay, I mean you're, I guess you're just a little racist, so it's all right. And I think that weakened this one for me. But I think though, what this really taught me, what this really said to me is that there is no such thing as casual racism, right?

Like, oh, he is just a little, he's just a little racist. No, she's just a little racist who's born and raised that way. Who then operationalized it.

Brent: racist because she's tiny.

Jeff: Right. Ex.

Brent: That's all that, that means.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, uh, it's if you're racist, you're racist, period. And I think that if this episode was made today where we know more about things, I think Veer would've said more.

Than I hope you get, you know, taken care of. I, I, I think there would've been more of an anti-racist message of just like, no, you, you are wrong.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: And I hope that you can see how you're wrong and change your mind. But just being crystal clear with her that she's wrong. And I, when I think of how much I liked, we liked this episode, I have to kind of remove that, that filter a little bit of this wasn't made today, right.

This was made in 1996. And so I

Brent: I said in my recap, I was like, remember this was May in the nineties, not today,

Jeff: Yeah. Cuz I, I think we're, we, we, I mean, we're not bet we are not better, but we know better now. You know? And so I think TV has more of an obligation now than it, than it did, than, but this does what Babylon five does. Right? What made this Babylon five was that the person they got, that they cast for Linda Disty.

Was gorgeous, and she was wholesome looking, and she had a naivete and an innocence about her that when you first saw her and when she was presenting yourself, you're like, dude, veer man. Did you hit the jackpot? Like you got somebody who's gonna take care of you. She's gorgeous.

Brent: from a good family within your culture. Yeah.

Jeff: you are totally playing outside of your league and you're being welcomed into the

Brent: And she's gonna do everything for you. She, she's, they're in that scene where she's like, Hey, we're already married on paper. It's already done except for a ceremony.

Jeff: You've been, you've been to what? Right? Like what's one plus five? Right. Let's do, let's do a little edition

Brent: right.

Jeff: Like, I mean, just, it was, and even when she's like, just vomiting, vomiting, bigotry, and hate, she's got this just. Innocent. Helpful. Helpful. Look, she truly believes she's, that's the Babylon five.

Part of this is that you can take the ugliest thing in the world and wrap it in pretty wrapping paper and say, here you go, where you can get done. Where we can laugh at Londo with his knives, sword beating down, you know, insects and, and, and literally laugh out loud at things during this episode, but at the same time, be convicted in our soul to such a level that you feel like you need to drink bleach to like wash the horrible, horrific stuff out of you.

Dis uh, I am struggling with the star theories on here because like, I don't like the episode , but it's so Babylon, five, and so I'm gonna compromise with myself and I'm gonna give this four star theories.

Brent: That's a lot higher than I thought you were gonna go.

Jeff: I,

Brent: lot higher than you thought you were gonna go

Jeff: In fact, my note, I'll tell you my note here says that, uh, I need to re just says I need to rely on the conversation because I'm so biased. Initial is one and a half. I started this from a one and a half. But Brent, you're right. I, I think, I think your point and then just the, and then putting it in its time.

This delivered such an important message and in such a Babylon five way only Babylon five could have done this. That yeah. This is, this is a, this is a solid four, four star

Brent: Yeah. And it, it did, uh, I, here's, I could have easily seen a lot of this plot carried over into a next generation episode or any episode given it. And that does, that's not what gives it five deltas, because we often say there's a lot of Star Trek episodes that aren't very star treky. Um, this does what I, again, what, what I think sci-fi should do, which is have that message, hold up that mirror, tell us things about ourselves, but just put it in alien culture so we're not offended by it.

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: You know, but

Jeff: it palatable.

Brent: clear, uh, what is, what is going on. Uh, Jeff, I just want to very clearly and explicitly state something, and I'm a hundred percent sure that I'm speaking for you when I say this, just in case there's any doubt whatsoever. Racism and bigotry is wrong. It was always wrong and it will always be wrong.

It is gross and it is disgusting and it should never be tolerated and it should never be dismissed and it should never be swept under the rug.

Jeff: Amen. Amen.

Brent: Well, Jeff, with that, it is time to do something that I think this might actually be the toughest part of the entire episode given where we just landed on this episode. We're creating the absolute 100% completely accurate of definitive ranking of the third season of Babylon. Five. Our current top five is severed dreams.

Point of no return messages from Earth. That 1, 2, 3. Back to back to back passing through Gase Enemy matters of honor. That's the top five as it sits right now. Where do you place sick transit Veer? Does it crack the top five? And if so, where? And if not, where do you put it?

Jeff: This is not a top five episode, not with the, the five that we have up there. Those are, those are amazing. Those are epic. And I think here in the ranking is where the flaws in this episode are gonna shine for me. Where stuff just, and again, they might have been mechanical errors, editing, you know, or whatever, but they, they, they took a lot away in this one.

So look at the next little. . There's a lot of Londo and Kar in this season. , you know what I mean? Dusted dust day in the strife. That's, you know, the, the, the, the kar stuff, convictions, voices of authority. That was the chicky one, right?

Brent: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. When she came in the Leona, if Leona was like super sexy.

Jeff: was blonde and a horrible, horrible person.

Brent: Which this had another very pretty lady who was a horrible, horrible

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe a little theme, maybe there's a maybe that's a message here in Babylon. Five. So, okay. Right off the bat, I, I, I'm looking at my line being dust to dust. Dust to dust was epic. Like the way it turned there at the end, and actually like, did amazing things with Ja Car and Londo, and now Kosh, like that's the, the launch point for Prophet Kar coming to be.

So then it's day in the strife, convictions and a day in the strife. That was the one. Where the Centara collaborator came to, or centar, the Centar, the collaborator Narn came to replace Citizen Kar. I'm gonna put this one right above a day in the strife and make this our new number eight. I think this kind of takes some of that stuff like the filthiness of Nans trying to help Nans in the centar world sort of a thing and ratches it up to actually cent's trying to help Nans in it.

And I mean, yeah. So I, I'm, I'm gonna call this one our new, our new number eight.

Brent: Well, by the rules of the game, I'm not allowed to, uh, change that. However, I would've probably placed this one a lot higher. I will go back to my original statement. I think this is one of those episodes, Jeff, particularly when you get to the end and you know the whole story of how things play out.

You come back and watch this one again and again and again, and your respect for this episode is going to ratchet higher and higher and higher. But I think we're going to need the rest of the show before that happens.

Jeff: Yeah, I see. Knowing that we're gonna see an emperor revere, right? According to Major Barrett, we're gonna see an emperor revere. This is gonna be one of those like, you know, the poles in the tent on that journey. I

Brent: I agree with you.

Jeff: Well, Brent, that's it for Sikh Transi. DeVere. We like to play our games here on Babylon five for the first time.

We

Brent: play games here at Babylon five.

Jeff: and

Brent: about that before?

Jeff: uh, no, I don't think ever, I think it's our first time bringing up games. But one of the games we like to play, uh, it's actually one of our favorites, is that, and it's, I think it's the favorites of some of our community out there as well, based on the reviews we've gotten.

But we only know the name of the next episode. And the name of the next episode is A Late Delivery from Avalon. And I said that now cause that's the first time Brent has heard the title. It's all we do. Look at the title. No pictures, no synopsis, no nothing. and we guess what the next episode is gonna be about.

So, Brent, what do you think a late delivery from Avalon is gonna be about?

Brent: Confession. That is not the first time I'm hearing the name of this episode.

I did, I did happen to see it and it caught my eye because the name Avalon sticks out to me. It was just, things are up on screen and it just catches my eye. Usually I don't even see it and, and my eyes gloss over it, right? This one just caught my eye because Avalon is the name of a 1990s all girl group that has what is one of, if not my absolute favorite Christmas album of all time.

Fantastic Christmas album, but they do own for sure 100% my favorite Christmas song, which is a medley of Carol of the Bells. And what Child is this? It is the best rendition of both of those songs I've heard, and they put them both together in the same song. It's phenomenal. It makes my Christmas playlist every single year.

And yes, I do make a new Christmas playlist every single year. But I don't think that's what this episode's about. I don't think it's about a 1990s, you know,

Jeff: it's their big guest spot, like on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where a band would come to the

Brent: or an enterprise where they were supposed to have like a new band on the, the bridge every year

Jeff: Yep. Uh,

Brent: And they were like, that is dumb. No . Uh, no. But the other thing where Avalon is really associated with is it's King Arthur Avalon is supposedly the island or the place where King Arthur is buried or not buried in just living out eternity or depending on however you, you read the legend, so I'm gonna go crazy.

Like it's just sent my, my imagination rolling. Right? And I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I'm gonna lean into that. It's time, Jeff. It is finally time. By the way, I think this would've been better. This episode today would've been better. Had next week's episode come first, because this next week's episode is the Pallet cleanser.

Jeff: Okay. Okay.

Brent: And Jeff, I mean it, this is season three's soulmates. I think this is gonna be a comedic episode. I think it's gonna be outlandish. I think it's gonna be stupid. I think all of that. So I predict in the next episode it is going to feature King Arthur Excalibur coming out of the past, or, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He has been living with the Volans all this year. Avalon is actually a Bolon world, and King Arthur, like Jack the Ripper is coming out of the VLAN world and here's where it is. I told you every prediction is gonna do this until they make it. this is an outstanding matter that has to happen. This is the situation.

King Arthur's gonna come, he's gonna Knight Sheridan, or he's gonna do something. He's living with the Volans. They pull insurance and this will be the one where everybody like says, yes, Babylon five is its own state, but it's gonna be King Arthur. And it's gonna be so ridiculous that we're just gonna laugh at it the whole way through and go, this was an awful episode, but it was funny.

So let's move on. That's my prediction.

Jeff: Okay. My favorite thing about your prediction as I head into mine is that we both had funny other things about Avalon for our, our lead-in. So mine, , I'm gonna say is this where my former production partner and current a e w wrestler, pretty Peter Avalon, starts working for bax and delivering packages to people throughout the station.

it won't be that. No. Uh, I, this is cause I guess the exact same thing. This is gonna be right. They call King Arthur the once and future king. This is the return of King Arthur. I love your spin that he was lon cuz why wouldn't he be,

Brent: No, no, no. And just, I don't think he is Vlan I think he was a person out of Earth's past that the VLAN brought where they went, like Jack the Ripper did in comes the Inquisitor.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Right? Like, I think he's another one of those kinds of things. That's my guess.

Jeff: because

Brent: wasn't, maybe he, maybe he was Kosh back

Jeff: that, that's, that's where I'm gonna differentiate cause I wanna dif cuz King Arthur. Okay. There's that. My differentiation is gonna be that King Arthur was a vlan and part of the whole like mystical, you know, whatever thing to come up. And I don't think this one is gonna be, I think it will be a throwaway kind of episode, but I don't think it's, I don't think they're gonna lean into the comedy on this one.

I think they're gonna try, I think they're gonna pull a. And make it serious

Brent: Are we gonna, are we getting, are we getting uh,

Jeff: jinx. So

Brent: coming back?

Jeff: that would be amazing. That'd be so cool.

Brent: I love it.

Jeff: Yeah, I would totally love that. But you know what we're gonna do, we're gonna find out right here next week, what that's all about. Thank you everyone so much for joining us.

Please subscribe or follow us wherever you're listening or watching us. And if you haven't already, head over to Apple Podcasts, to good pods, to pod chaser. Leave us a rating and a review. We'll read it right here on the podcast. So, Brent, until next time. Yeah. Yeah. Brent,

Brent: You know, Jeff, we've, uh, we've had a few late night sessions here lately. Have you been sleeping? Okay.

Jeff: you know, I, I'm glad you asked, cuz I, I've been having these, I've been having some pretty weird dreams

Brent: Uh, well, we have weird dreams. Like, what? What do you got going on

Jeff: Oh my gosh. Well I had this one where I showed up here to record and I, uh, well, I was unpro unprepared.

Brent: that's not so bad. At least you weren't showing up naked or anything.

Jeff: Yeah, right. Yeah. Hey, peace, victory, and long life!