The Illusion of Truth

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

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

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

Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching Babylon five four. The first time searching for Star Trek esque messages that are being done in a uniquely Babylon five way.

Jeff: This is not a podcast about Star Trek, but those references are sure to find their ways into our conversation. So to keep us honest, we play the rule of three. That means we get up to, and no more than three references, a piece to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Those no substitutions, exchanges the refund.

Hey

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: we have a five star review. Oh yes. This is from Apple Podcast and Joy P says B five for the first time. Yes, please. Babylon five is my all-time favorite show. If you've never seen it but have been curious about it, now is your chance to watch along with a pair of newbies and experience with them.

If you're a fan of this, if you're a fan of this show, this podcast gives you a chance to relive what it was like the first time around with all of the ups and downs along the way. These guys don't shy away from calling a deuce AED Deuce and like the show they're covering. There are some rough spots along the way,

Brent: Good job, joy. I love it. Good job. Joy. Call a Deuce. Deuce. I, you are my kind of people. You really are.

Jeff: but just like B five, it is well worth the time and investment to listen to the whole thing, especially on YouTube. These guys are, Insightful and very thoughtful in their discussions of each episode. And just like watching Babylon five back in the day, I just can't wait for the next episode every week

Brent: Jeff, do you remember back when we were doing season two and things were not going so well for us in the middle part of season two? Now for the record, when we got to the end of season two, we said that season was a 50 50 split. Like half the episodes were really good and the other half were not. Not it was that.

It was, it wasn't all bad. It was, but it wasn't amazing the whole way through. And there was a section that was really bad and then there was a section that was really good and some others were sprinkled in and we. Start. And, and by we, I mean mostly me because I do the reaction videos. So I think I would catch the brunt of this, um, although you also got it sometimes as well.

Um, but people were like, you don't understand this show. This show has an arc and you're just at this particular part of the arc and you've gotta wait and you've gotta whatever. And I remember having the thought then, and here we are now in season four where you and I have also gone on an Arc Babylon five.

The show has gone on an arc. Jeff and Brent at Babylon five for the first time have had their own arc. And I love what Joy said. Joy said, you've got to watch through the end what, whatever the exact phrase, but basically watch the whole journey because that segment, that rough spot of season two is a part of the journey.

Oh, by the way, remember in season three, When every episode except for one was like pretty good.

Jeff: Yeah. Near perfect. Like fantastic.

Brent: right. And even that one episode. Okay. No, it was horrible. It

Jeff: It had, it had a fun moment in it.

Brent: Yeah, it did. It did. But I, you know, you and I ha this show has had its own arc that I, I, I actually have, I've quite, we didn't plan on it.

There was no plan for how this goes, but I've loved it. Good job, joy. I thank you and I appreciate your comment. It's, it's amazing.

Jeff: Well, we have another five star review. Oh yes. This one's on Spotify. Spotify doesn't let you leave a review, but Sampson emailed us to to fill in that gap.

Brent: They do, I think they let you do ratings, but not reviews on Spotify.

Jeff: correct. So yeah, Sampson gave us the five stars or whatever you can on Spotify. Popped over to Babylon five first.com. It's the number five and the word first.com hit our contact form and sent the follow.

Just wanna say I love your format. I really enjoy the depth of your commentaries and analyses regardless of whether or not I agree with you. B five reactions are relatively rare out there, but they seem to be increasing in number. I'm an old guy and started my sci-fi life with the original series of Star Trek, moved on to U F O, the animated series space 1999, star Wars, battle Star, and some New Trek, and many, many others.

And of all those, Babylon, five is my favorite. Now, I missed season one. Completely started at season two. I didn't get a chance to see any season one until I tracked down some VHS Multid Dub tapes around the time of season four. Well, five stars for you for.

Brent: Thank you so much. That is awesome. Amazing, and very much appreciated. I love it.

Jeff: I love hearing people's Babylon five origin stories. Right. Like how they got into it and everything. It's always exciting.

Brent: let me ask you this. I want you to prognosticate, is that the right word? Prognosticate.

Jeff: I don't even know what you're gonna ask me to do, so maybe it is, maybe it

Brent: I So think of your entire sci-fi fandom.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Okay. You still have a ways to go here on Babylon five, although not much ways to go. Where do you think Babylon Five's gonna land in your ranking? And do not say number one, just because you're on the show right now, where do you really think it's gonna land?

Jeff: It's, I don't think it's gonna be number one. Um, I, I, I mean, I just, and, and I don't mean that in a negative way whatsoever. I think for a lot of our sci-fi loves nostalgia, plays a huge. I'm not gonna have that nostalgia and I will, you know, in 30, 40 years.

And that's, we got a ways to for that. Depending on when you're watching or listening to this, maybe there it is 30 or 40 years down the road.

I, it's hard to say. It's really hard to say. I, what I want to say is it's definitely gonna be top five, but then when I start thinking about it, I'm like, okay, well we've got Star Trek, we've got Star Wars, we've got Dune, I've got Battlestar. Galactica got Firefly. There's my five. Like, just, just off the top of my head, that doesn't even pull in.

Like V and some of the other things that like I, I love and oh my gosh, that's a tough question. I think off the top of my

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: I'm gonna say top. It'll be in my top eight is what I'm gonna say confidently.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: But I don't know for sure. Do what? What do you think for you, do

Brent: I, I think it's gonna be top five. Is it? Number one? I don't know. I'd have to go back and actually like, do the rankings and see where I really land, because there, there's a, it, it also depends on what you're ranking them on. Am I ranking it on? Intelligence, am I just ranking it on pure, go pop some popcorn, sit down and enjoy the ride.

Am I, is it, uh, depth of writing and production values? Like what exactly am I, am I judging it on? And it could be different for each one in the ranking system, so I, I'd really have to go back and do the work. But I do think it'll be a, a top five, um, franchise for me. Like I think if you take collectively all of Star Trek, collectively, all of the Star Wars stuff, uh, Firefly was its own stuff.

The ba, the Battlestar Galactica stuff is out there. Um, I think, I mean, Babylon five is like, I've really come to love this show a lot. Uh, and I, I liked your, your words on it could be nostalgia and it's hard to have nostalgia your first time through. Like, let me see it a second, a third, a fourth time before I go.

Actually, I really love that show. You know, so I'm just curious. I was just curious.

Jeff: yeah. Well it's funny cuz like my nostalgia for this show comes from properties that came after it. Right?

Brent: Oh, with

Jeff: mass effect. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's where I feel nostalgia four, Babylon five, even though I haven't seen it before, so.

Brent: don't forget, stargates gonna be in there here real soon, and Stargate is definite. I mean, Stargate is top three for me, for sure. Uh, I would not be hard pressed to right now if you pressed me on it to go, star Trek is a franchise, Stargate is a franchise and Babbel on five. That would not shock me if I, if I landed there.

So I, I don't know that that number three is B five or not, but we'll find out anyway. Uh, good stuff. Well, Jeff, you know, along with that rule of three that we have, and along with ranking stuff, we love to rank. We do that at the end of the show, we put this in a ranking. Another thing we do at the end of the show is we play this game where we like to guess what next week's episode is gonna be about, based on title alone.

Never having seen the episode before. We don't watch ahead, uh, we don't read ti, we don't read, uh, descriptions, we don't look at thumbnails. We do everything we can to stay away from it. And this is the part of the show where we try to see what we said this week was going to be about. And how close were we?

So, Jeff, what did you say the illusion of truth was supposed to be? And how close were you?

Jeff: I thought we were gonna dive into Garabaldi programming a little bit, and the illusion of truth was gonna be some cognitive dissonance between like some pro Clark Pro Earth stuff and then, then kind of just who, who Garabaldi is. We got, um, Another, like another surface brush of like, oh, by the way, there's clearly something going on with Gar, with Mr.

Garabaldi here. We got a little bit of that. So I'm, I'm gonna give myself at best, a 10th of a point on this one because, well, they had Garabaldi doing his programming in it. What about you?

Brent: Well, I full on nailed this one, but I'm gonna leave the crown, uh, sitting in a case over there and I'm not even gonna pull it out and, and put it on my head, but I, I completely nailed it because what I said, this was, what this was going to be was the propaganda machine that President Clark is running against Babel on five, getting turned up.

And that's literally what this episode was all about.

Jeff: Well, for those of you that it's been a while since you've seen this one or you haven't watched it all and you're listening to us anyway. That's cool. Thank you. That's, that's, that's, that's a pretty cool thing for you to have done. Brent, why don't you tell us about the illusion of.

Brent: Well, hey, remember last week when President Clark banned all travel between Earth and Babylon five? Well, apparently he made an exception for that news crew from I S N, which has just shown up on board. Ivanova wants to shovel him out of an airlock, and Sheridan was actually cool with it as long as you know she got his coat first because resources are thin on Babylon five.

Anyway, the crew here, anyway, the crew is here totally to do a hit piece on Babylon five. The reporter actually tells Sheridan that too, his face, because no journalist is truly unbiased and after all he has a job to do. But he also says he's interested in the truth and he's going to do the story one way or another.

And if Sheridan participates, at least he'll get to have some input versus not when the report comes out.

And if he does choose to have some input, maybe they can find a way to sneak some good stuff in. Well, Sheridan likes that, and so he goes with that option. So he sends 'em off with Lanier to show 'em all around the station, and Lanier takes 'em all the way everywhere. And one of the funniest scenes in the elevator is one of the cameramen is flying her drone into Lanier's head, which prompts Lanier to turn around and headbutt the drone, uh, which was awesome.

Now on the tour, Lanier takes 'em to, down below they meet Dr. Franklin, who's in the middle of doing medical stuff, maybe ushering somebody to his personal quarters. I'm not really sure. Uh, they take 'em up to c n C where Lando is there complaining and they even get a cozy sit down interview with Dylan and John, very Harry and Megan style these days.

And perhaps the Cuda gra they even get a bit with civilian Gu Baldi who was talking all sorts of trash about his former boss. Well, sometime later it's time for the piece to air. Guess what It is exactly what the guy said it was gonna be. It is a hit piece. All the footage they got, they have edited in such a way as to present the story that they want to tell.

Not the story that actually is, they even go so far as to record new dialogue and new questions to insert over certain bits of dialogue to make it look like the crew was saying something that they weren't really saying at all. They also get coverage of the cryo pods where the telepaths are being kept.

So the basic premise of the entire piece, Sheridan is a veteran of the earth, Mbar war, and he is suffering from Mbar war syndrome. Basically, he is feeling inferior to the Mbar and he needs to bow down to all of the aliens, including the mbar, and basically trying to become one himself because he's just not good enough, which is why he's trying to marry Delin, who herself is a Mbar human hybrid.

They're also, also, they're all also planning to amass a fleet that is certain to come attack Earth. And even if they don't do that, then they're gonna intermarry everybody and they're gonna destroy the entire human genome. Anyway, he concludes by saying it, it really is our fault, Beck on earth, that Sheridan is out here doing this because we just should have caught his symptoms sooner.

He is to be pitied. And the implication is clear. This is all the justification that we need to be able to send our forces to Babylon five to preemptively attack them in an effort to save our guy. Well, this is at least the truth for the people back home who honestly couldn't possibly know any better and it certainly is an illusion at best and well, Jeff and I are gonna have to debate later whether or not he slipped any about whether or not he slipped in anything good about Sheridan.

Well, back on the station, everyone is in silent disbelief as they exit the scene one by one and we go to credits. Jeff, where are you on this episode? The illusion of truth.

Jeff: I don't think you can talk about this episode without talking about, and now for a word,

Brent: Sure

Jeff: you know, they, uh, that's here's the storytelling device. Let's use it this way. I love the way they did this, you know, so that one was the broadcast, and now for a word was, you know, here's, here's the show. This one you got a little bit of a, a preamble, a little setup for everything.

And then it was just the newscast. And I liked that. I liked that construction of the episode. I loved the build to the wordless ending that happened. I thought that was a super ballsy way to end an episode. It was, it was pretty powerful. But also, let's

Brent: let me, can I, can I, can I ask you about that real quick? Did it become cheesy when Sheridan came back in frame and held up his hand and like went boop on his hand and did the remote thing? 

Jeff: Absolutely. 

Brent: It was super powerful there. And when the camera lingered, but then when he came back in, did it, it just became like, it cheesed it a little bit, right?

Jeff: quite a bit. In fact, the whole having to get up in front of the screen and use your little bleaker instead of just like sitting at the chair and using your bleaker.

Brent: Doing it from the door that you just walked over to.

Jeff: Yeah. Or, or just ha if he had just walked away and fade to black like that, that would've been the thing.

Brent: If I, if I, I'm, I'm sorry to keep interrupting your opening thoughts, if I could compare that to anything. Do you remember the movie Paranormal, like the first one? They have like 18 of 'em out at

Jeff: yes. Yeah.

Brent: Um, so that was a movie that, it was a found footage 

Jeff: Mm-hmm. 

Brent: film, and it was really creepy. Like you didn't really know what was going on.

And there's a part of me where like I was watching this going, wait, is this actually found footage or not? Cuz they tell you this is really found footage, blah, blah, blah. And it could be, or they could, it could be Bri or Witched and completely made up. And it was real creepy. Real creepy, real creepy. Right up to the very end.

And spoiler alert, I'm gonna tell you the very end of it, the, the demonn, the ghost, whatever it was, comes crawling out of the closet and like flashes up into the camera and gives you like one last jump. At which point it made everything cartoonish at that at that point. Cuz you're like, none of this was real.

It was all fake. It was all like, it lost every bit of credibility it had up till that last 10 seconds, you know? And I kind of felt this way about how like it was that nice good slow exit and then he comes back in and it didn't lose all credibility. I was just like, I think it. It was a fine ending. It would have been stronger.

I think it would've left a stronger oomph if they would've just walked off and you just linger on the empty room.

Jeff: And I wonder, I can't help but wonder, we'll talk about this a little bit in a minute, but I wonder where that decision happened. Was that in the writing? Was it in the edit? Was it in the directing? Like where, where did that happen? I I, I actually have a note to, to dive into that a little bit, but to get to my thoughts, like who would've ever thought that we would want a Cynthia Torman reporting on Babylon

five? She had more journalistic integrity than this guy, you know? I mean, cuz at the end she was like, well, maybe this is something Dan just burr into it.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: It was clear to me immediately this was gonna be a hack job.

Brent: Sure.

Jeff: This, this, this was, this guy wasn't, this whole story was a story. And frankly, I'm embarrassed that Sheridan fell for. I feel like he should have known better. I don't know, some cool stuff though. I love seeing Garabaldi doing his thing. Like this could be his jam. I I, I can see a future assuming that he doesn't die when they activate his program fully or whatever. I can see him never coming back, working security and doing this thing to the end.

Like, and the, you know, maybe it part-time him, maybe it's something I don't know. But like I, it was great seeing him do this stuff in his office, right. Is where he always was. When he resigned last time, what did he do? He went and got food, sat down at the solo and ate. What's he doing now? Sitting at the solo, eating and doing his

Brent: Having a business meeting. Yeah. Now he gets to write it off.

Jeff: Yeah, it's so good. We got a lot of earth, a lot of earth and insight into Earth in this one that I thought was kind of cool. But literally, I think where I get, um, I don't know, hung up on it a little bit, is like we really needed. A whole episode of pretty much just this one story. I mean there's, there was like storyline wise, there's no bloody A, no bloody B.

There was one story through this whole thing, and I feel like it didn't need to be just the one story in this episode. What did you think of this one

Brent: Uh, well, you started your conversation by saying you cannot reference, you cannot talk about this without referencing it now for a word. Um, I got rolled for saying it now for a word was a clip show. Without being a clip show, I maintained that it was a clip show without being a clip show. It served. A function at a very specific spot in the story and at a very specific spot in the season.

This one does not serve that same function. It does not do the exact same thing. And I will tell you, this was not a clip show without being a clip show. I will also tell you and Jeff, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bump up against a little bit of what you said here in now for a word. Everybody was like, oh, it did more than just be a clip show.

It showed us what people's attitudes were like back on earth. It really didn't, it showed us a, a news footage and questions that they were asking. This episode a hundred percent, showed us what people's attitudes were like back on earth, or at least how people's attitudes back on earth are getting framed like last week.

I'm gonna have to reserve judgment on this episode, and it's gonna sound like I'm judging this episode and I'm not, because I'm reserving judgment until I see how this story arc is playing out because like, I feel like I'm taking the, the, the bad way out. This feels very hyper serialized in so many ways.

The, it's hard to just judge this episode based on its own merit.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: This was a fine episode. I would not change the channel if this episode came on on tv. I thought it was interesting. I thought the first half of this episode right up till we got into the, into the news piece was hilarious. In fact, my, my words were, and now for a word, was a clip show without being a clip show.

This is a comedy without being a comedy. It was so funny all the way through, right up till you got to the, to the newscast. I thought the.

Artistic way that j m s wrote this episode to actually, I mean, that is ballsy to take 15, 20 minutes, half your episode and do a full 60 minute type news brief on what's going on.

Jeff: With like cliff hanger calls to commercial and

everything, you know, I mean, Yeah. 

Brent: breaks for the newscast into the way you wrote your show. And, you know, well, when we come back on the other side of this break, we're gonna talk about this thing over here. Um, I thought it was fascinating. I thought it was so interesting. Did they, you asked this question just a second ago, Jeff, did they really need a whole episode to show all of this? Did they need the episode? No. Am I glad that they put it in? Because they have, I'm gonna assume this is 15 episodes. To tell this story. Yeah, I think this is a really important chapter and how this is gonna shape what's happening back on earth. How they're gonna justify whatever it is that they're about to do.

And it's gonna shape people's, um, opinions of what's going on with Sheridan. Is Sheridan a character to be pitied or is he a renegade that should be destroyed? Is he a traitor? You know, is he really under some influence that we need, like some cult-like influence that we need to go rescue him from? Or does he deserve the death penalty because of what he's done?

What's the case? And this is the episode that shows where all of that comes from and how that can work. Um, so yeah, I, I enjoyed the episode. Um, I had a, I had another question though. I was really wondering, uh, while they were doing the filming of the piece and they were walking around, remember the, the camera started like stopping and it would take still photos of individual pieces.

I was thinking at that particular moment though, and I don't think this is what it was in the end, they were doing recon work. Like they were there under the guise of doing a news thing, but they were actually doing recon work. Like, these guys were not gonna be news people. These guys were gonna be like the military folk coming in, trying to see what's going on in Babylon five, who's there, what their strengths and defenses are, and all that sort of stuff.

That's really where I thought this was going. Uh, but it, but it didn't. So that's, that's where I am on this episode right now.

Jeff: I feel like last week you, I liked how you talked about last week's episode. Where it just kind of took all the pieces, kind of put some of 'em in different places. But just, you know, we, we, we filled the board essentially last week and I feel like this week was, we've got the, the bricks. The bricks are all laid out.

This is the grout, like this is mixing that grout that we're gonna need to put those bricks in place and have them actually start building whatever it is we're building. Cuz this gave us, I think, the important function this episode served was filling in the blanks, what's been going on on earth this whole time.

You know, we know that they attacked Mars and Proxima three and, you know, Babylon five declared its independence, we know these things. And then, and then nothing, we shifted full gear into the shadow and VLAN stuff. So this kind of filled in a lot of those blanks and, and did so. In a way, in a powerful way.

I think it was done powerfully. It was horrifying, the things that are going on there and the fact that like when, um, the actor guy was, who had clearly been tortured and was giving his forced confession, like they just put that on the newscast because people are used to seeing it. You know, like, oh yeah, of course he is.

Of course he is clearly giving an honest confession. Why wouldn't he be? We've been conditioned by the media to believe this. So I think it did a lot to really fill in those earth blanks and show us like, this is the new enemy. We're, this isn't the Earth before the Battle of Corian six. This is, this is a new Earth we're dealing with.

Brent: But in the middle of this, Jeff, I can't help but think about the ordinary, everyday average citizen back on earth. How do they know anything about Babylon? Five. They 

Jeff: It's all, it's all.

they know anything. It's from i s

n, 

Brent: the on. This is the only way that they can know anything about, which feels like it shouldn't be like someone's writing a blog on Babylon five that people can go access that it's been shut down by the government or something like that.

And it's, people are like, information has a tendency to get out, but for everything we can tell, this is the only way people know what's going on.

Jeff: Well, we talked about that in, and the rock cried because, you know, they brought those data crystals, all those religious people brought the data crystals and we're like, they brought like baseball scores and stuff. Like, what's the big deal? That's the big deal. They're shutting everything down. What's interesting though, is how, how much they're like, oh, the, the minbar are still terrible, right?

And they're awful and all this stuff. But we learned back in, I think it was the Shadow Zaha Doom where Dalen was talking about, uh, minbar and how they have the press, like how the, like the, the, the Great Council tells us what we need when we need to know it, and that's how we get our. Get our stuff.

There's no freedom of press. Well, here's Earth telling us how horrible the Men Barr are completely following their model of governance when it comes to spreading information.

Brent: sure. But the people back on earth aren't gonna know that I, I mean, unless they really can wake up and be like, Hey, this is, this is not okay.

Jeff: I dunno if you've been watching this show or not, Brent, it's Babylon. Five. Yeah. People don't wake up in this

show and see things. Yeah, it's kind of, yeah.

Brent: right. Although, have we ever, we've been back to Earth like in people's offices, like we've never really been back to earth

Jeff: No,

Brent: all.

Jeff: We've been in the Geneva, like we've been in Geneva for the I S N News Center. We've been to San Diego, we've been in senator's offices,

and I think that's it.

Brent: Yep. So, as far as being back, uh, real early in the episode, I was so thankful. Do you remember that, that it was the second episode of season two when we, it was the whole episode of Sheridan Pining for his dead wife.

Jeff: Revelations. Yeah.

Nope. Not Revelations.

Brent: Yeah, it was Revelations.

Jeff: It was

Brent: Yeah, it was Revelations. Um, and he, it was just, it just went on and on and on.

It was like, okay, I got it. He's, he's missing his dead wife. I got it real early in this episode. Look, I haven't heard from my parents in a while, and I'm really worried later. We got, the family is missing, the family farm has been burned. This is where we are, and we moved like, like that. That is how I wanted them to handle the Anna.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: know, like, Hey, this is it. I'm really worried. I, you know, I've, I'm so, so sad that she died and passed away. Hey, I got this thing cool. Like, that's all that we really needed from that. And instead we got, you know, 28 minutes of Sheridan Pine, you know, trying to assist her, like,

Jeff: I just had a thought, and I might be jumping way ahead. So, you know, in the news report, Dan Randall cuts babble on five to pieces, shreds, it, shreds Sheridan Shreds, Tolen just, I mean, just does this, this total Freddie Krueger job on everything. Then he says, and his, his parents who, you know, he, he gives that, that information his parents are missing, the farm's been burned, blah, blah, blah.

I just had this thought, I had my own epiphany, uh, from last week. Did he have to do the hack job, like when he was talking to Sheridan? And he's like, look, I, I'm gonna get in what I can get in and try and, you know, pass the, as much of the truth as I'm able to, but we are being told we have to do these things.

Was that the truth that he slipped in that was either a threat to Sheridan Right. Or it was his way of being like, I am giving you news that you can't get otherwise.

Brent: And that's why I said in my recap, I was like, Jeff, we're actually gonna have to debate whether or not he really did it. Cuz I think it's really easy to look at the report and be like, dude, he used Sheridan. He did not do what he was trying to, trying to say. He told Sheridan, this is going to be a hit piece. This has to be. That's why so many of our feet people resigned when they came back and took over. But some of us are more interested in the truth and we'll get it in wherever we.

Jeff: And I think that might have been the, I didn't, in my, even my recap, I'm like, dude, this was obviously a hack job. Sheridan, how could you have seen.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: Not, how could you have not seen this and that, but that one little nugget might have been the littlest bit of truth that he could have got.

Brent: the, the other one that I see too is developing sympathy for Sheridan and saying, Hey, listen, this really should have been us. We should have seen this a long time ago. He isn't the, like, the idea of he are seeding the idea he's not the enemy.

Jeff: Yeah. But I also think that's, that's more of if you play the end game out, which I'm curious now I want to, I want to, I want to talk about what the endgame is, but when part of it is getting Sheridan arrested and bringing him back. Now if Sheridan's a hero of some kind

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: and they bring him in and they want to send him to one of those camps that, you know, the director dude was.

That's gonna get public simp. No, you can't. He's a hero. But if you start seeding that, no, he, he has this disease, there's, it's wrong. We're helping him. We're, we pity him, we need to bring him back and make him whole again. Then they'll put him in those horrible camps and people will cheer and they'll be so thankful for the benevolence of the Earth government and yeah, I don't think he is trying to drum up sympathy for him.

I think he's paving the

Brent: But he, but there, that was the, that was, I mean, that was my note down here is he told, he told Sheridan, he got information back to Sheridan about what happened to his family. And, you know, the rest of it was he had to do his job and do what he needed to do. Like, certainly, I think the response at the end of the episode where everybody was just sort of hanging out and being real quiet.

What, that was a very somber moment. That was a very, like, it, it felt like betrayal. Like they were feeling betrayal, but maybe that's what it was when Sheridan came back in and did the little,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: was him recognizing what it was and saying, I got it. Look, I'm good. Instead of like, oh my gosh, we've just been betrayed.

Could you believe all of that? Like maybe, oh, Jeff, oh, this is a question I wanna have for J M F J. Mf J m s. Did he do that on per, is that what that meant? Because if it did, if that was Sheridan being like, no, no, no, actually he kept his word and did what we needed to do and, and like they're solid with each other.

Jeff: Right.

Brent: I, that's,

Jeff: Dan Randall again.

Brent: that's cool man. I dig that. I dig that.

Jeff: Well, that's where I, I kind of wanted to ask like, do we think that was written in, do we think that, was that because of just the, the feeling of it? But also, did you happen to see who directed this episode?

Brent: I did not.

Jeff: Okay. Get ready.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: Steven first.

Brent: I did see that. Yeah. I forgot that it was this episode. Yeah.

Jeff: Veer did it. So I, I did a little bit of research. I did, I felt, I felt safe going to, to, to his, I mdb on this. So he helped write and starred in some straight to video movies called The Magic Kid. And that's the first time that he directed was the Magic Kid part two. The next time he directed was this.

So I, this was j m s being like, yeah, go for it. We can, you know, we can build you up or whatever. And so my initial thought before having this conversation was, oh man, first made a call, did this thing as a director, had him come back and do it. And, and it, and I feel like it landed flat, but I love how you reframed it into

Brent: If Jeff, if, if we can just, uh, for the folks at home, People out there listening. Sometimes you and I approach an episode coming into a, into a recording feeling one way. And through the course of our conversation, we come out on a different side. That's what just happened,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: because now that's what I think is, is going on with this episode.

So can I talk about some other cool stuff from this episode? Okay. Uh, that star fur fury model that Sheridan was playing with at the very beginning, like eagle moss, large, gigantic model of a, of a star fury. That thing was dope. I want one of those. A hundred percent want one of those. It looks so good. So, so good.

Um, also, and this I thought was really, really smart. One of the things I noticed in that opening scene between Ivanova and Sheridan when they were in the War Room Chamber was particularly Ivanova, but both of them sounded very echoy. Very echoy. And typically I would look at something like that as a sound guy and be like, you screwed up your sound mixing there, you were recording, your microphone was too far away.

It was just not good because I've seen that in TV shows before. Like, your mixing was just awful here. And then I realized you are in a, you are trying to get across the idea of this big empty room. It should be echoing. You don't have anybody in there soaking up sound. And that went from a mistake to like, no, no, no.

That's a well thought through little detail that I loved, loved, especially as a sound guy. I, I just, I really loved that little bit. Uh oh. Oh, this too. You and I were having a conversation last week about how much revenue does earth really provide to the station.

Jeff: Apparently a bunch.

Brent: but maybe not Jeff. Maybe not. Let's say it's a small percent. Five, 10, maybe even 15%. Okay, you wanna go to 20? Okay, let's go to 20. But let's say it's less than, that's, say it's 10, 15%.

Okay. Would you think that that's a reasonable amount of revenue from Earth to the alum? Five station? 10, 20%?

Jeff: Yeah,

Sure. 

Brent: Okay. If you are an organization whose head is just getting above water and you lose 10% of your revenue,

Jeff: You're dead.

Brent: uh, and that's what Ivanova was feeling, but are you really dead because it's only 10%?

And what's Sheridan say? Hey, we'll get through it. We'll figure it out. Not, Hey, we just lost 80% of our stuff. There's no, there's no way I'm gonna financially recover from this. Like, no, listen, it's a shortfall. It's not that big of a gap, but it's a significant gap,

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: especially when we're just right here.

Jeff: and I dunno what their operating costs are, right? What kind of margins they're running off of or whatever. But what I know, what I know is Ivanova is playing that role correctly as the second, you know, as the first officer, whatever the deputy, however you wanna phrase it, the vice, the senior vice.

That's her.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: at this. We're running in the red. This is not good. This is a big situation. But Sheridan, again, stepping into that leadership role, he is like, yeah, that's a big deal. We're gonna be fine. We're

fine. We'll do something about it. It's not a big deal. No one's for the, the people actively will foreclose on us, are actively running a propaganda campaign against us.

Like, I,

Brent: right,

Jeff: we'll just ride this one

Brent: right. Well, I mean they still have to pay their employees and stuff cuz they have not gotten above money at this particular part in the future.

Jeff: Right? Yeah. And we saw back in, by any means necessary that that's still a very, very contentious

Brent: And we haven't seen anything about it since.

Jeff: Apparently Sheridan's running a tight ship,

Brent: Sin Sinclair fixed it. There you go. Um, Sheridan says this line, this place has been declared dead more times than Lazarus. For the record, Lazarus would've been declared dead twice.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: Twice total. Once before he got brought back to life. And then the second time when he actually died and stayed dead.

So twice is that.

Jeff: still a lot. That's still more than most, so

Brent: Listen, um, the opening scene with Zach and the news crew before we found out they were a news crew was Ball. I mean, Ivanova goes, listen, I'm really glad we put him in here. We haven't had a major incident since he became the chief. And you're like, okay, that's famous last words.

Right? And they go in and he, I mean, he pulls out the gun and aims it and obviously he shoots the, he shoots the crate. And now he's like, wow, good shooting chief. And here's Jeff Conway. Doing his best. Clint Eastwood, I mean, total Clint Eastwood impression. Like, don't congrat, don't say that until you know what I was shooting at.

Boy. Like

Jeff: So good. And then he mugs so big for the camera as soon as that little camera floats out. You know what I thought when that thing started floating out, this, this'll be a way back for people. Do you remember the movie? I think it came out in 1985, maybe 86, but called Batteries Not Included.

Brent: It was a little yes.

Jeff: yeah, I was like, oh, it's that little thing.

And then he is like, oh, it's a camera. And then he just gives that big muggy smile and I'm like, God, he's awesome.

Brent: yep. Good stuff. Um, and then later the it, this is a top three, a v of a moment of the entire series. The whole series, when she brings Sheridan in to meet Dan, and they're talking about tossing me out the airlock. And she, you know, Sheridan just goes in like, he's like, did you really tell him you're gonna throw him by his collar out of the airlock?

And she just immediately goes, sheepish. Like, she was in on it the whole time. She's like, yeah. He's like, how many we, what are you doing? We have a, you know, the resource shortage we have, kind of take those clothes before you throw him out. He's like, we would've stripped you naked and thrown you out there.

Jeff: They've done that bit, right? Like that's a bit they've done a couple of times and they just r rocked right.

into It It was cool to see though, because I think that, I think that we haven't, ivanova hasn't had the bite that she used to have, you know, and this was like a moment like of having that again and it makes sense, right?

She's, she's been in existential crises for a long time. She has that maturity of command now and so maybe she's lost a little of that bite, but Nope, it's still there. She just needs the right stage to play it on. So it was cool to see that again.

Brent: You mentioned earlier at Gar Baldy. So good to see him doing his thing that was Garra Baldy at his best. He could make this a legit business, although he was shady as hell when he came down. Look, I'll find this for you, but I want 50% whatever you put in it. That's, that's not, he's not serving justice.

He's not whatever. He like, this dude's extorting people. By the way, I don't know who that actor was. He kind of looked like a teller right? To me.

Jeff: really?

Brent: Like put him in makeup and he looked like a teller. Right. I was like, what in the world? You can go ahead and buzz me cuz that's a, that's you. Let me get away with one earlier, by the way.

And I'm not gonna tell you what it was. Yeah, you did. So now don't buzz me now you, you missed it. Um, but you know who I actually thought would be really good in that role, Dom

Jeff: Yes, yes. I, I had that whole

Brent: That would've been so cool. Jeff. There is an episode of Stargate SG one. It's just one episode where Dom Delise shows up.

You are going to love that episode. It's, he's so good. And the thing is, is like his kid is one of the like writers and creative consultants on the show, so it's, it's really much like he went and got his dad to come on the show. It's so good. So good.

Jeff: This guy was great though. I had this, I'm like, this is

Brent: Yeah. Nothing against him, but would've just 

Jeff: Taking 

Brent: that to, he would've David Warner. This particular, that particular scene, you

Jeff: Yeah. I went so far to look this dude up cause I'm like, this guy's great. He hasn't done anything really like this was a, but yeah, it was perfect for this. It was great.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: I loved how he was like getting himself in the curve bald.

He's like, here,

Brent: Right,

Jeff: you can go ahead and keep sweating. That's fine.

Brent: Um, okay. Lanier in the drone. In the elevator. It was so funny. Did you, did you notice the girl right behind Lanier's? I guess it would've been his right shoulder. She was doing it on purpose.

Jeff: Yeah, she kept kinda looking.

Brent: No, but did you see the guy in the middle behind, like he kept looking at her like they were, go back. If you didn't do it, go back and rewatch that scene and watch the people behind Lanier and Dan, because they're having a whole conversation between themselves and you see her like on her pad, like a, and the drone like hits 'em in the head like you, and she just smile.

The other guy smiles and it's so

Jeff: And then, uh, uh, my favorite part of that scene though was when he like smacks it and then the elevator's door, elevator door's shut with it. Still in the elevator. He's like, yeah, you're funny now you don't have a camera. There you go.

Brent: That was 

Jeff: One of the big what, one of the big themes that they talked about Dr. Franklin brought up throughout the thing and then they used it against him in the thing. But it was the cryo, the cryo free stuff going on. So this is the second episode in a row that we've addressed this. My thought is we're gonna get to a point where they can't maintain the power for all, all of these cryo things and they're gonna start making some, some tough decisions, which is gonna give them a bargaining chip with Fester.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: I dunno what that'll look like, but they're gonna be like, Hey, we gotta let 30 of these people cut 'em, cut 'em loose. If you don't want Carolyn to be one of 'em,

Brent: Did you notice that her name was the one that was shown on the news feed on the, like it was her pod specifically that we saw.

Jeff: and I think that was on purpose as well, to let the P cops want bester to know that they.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: All the cards that are on the table, like I I, I can see a real crisis coming up for ster here pretty soon

Brent: It'd be interesting when we get through whatever this arc is that they're building to come back to this episode and analyze that, that 15 minutes of a newscast and see what all got worked in 

Jeff: from that. 

Brent: Yeah. Like stuff that we just gloss over right now in this moment.

Jeff: So what do you think the end game is for, for Earth in this? Like, they're gonna take Babylon five off the board. Okay.

Brent: I think they're coming to attack Babylon five

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: i. I, I very clearly. I think they're coming to attack Babylon five and they're trying to, I don't even know that they're gonna try to keep, like, I think they want to just shut battle on five down altogether destroy. They wanna blow the whole damn thing up and do bad

Jeff: that, do you think that's about cutting off ties with the alien rate and kind of going isolationist?

Brent: No, I think it's about revenge for walking away. That's all I think it is. I think it's, look, you left us and we're gonna go on revenge. I do think though, Jeff, I have a theory. Get you, get you, Hey, get the corkboard back out baby. It's been put away for a while. I think Babylon five is going to form some sort of an alliance with the Mars resistance. I'm hoping they fulfill the beter peace at some point because we, they really dropped the ball on that during the the warland shadow.

Jeff: Big

Brent: But I think, you know, Fester's gonna come in. I still want to see Beter. I want him to be the anti-hero. I don't want him to turn into a good guy, but I do want him to be sympathetic and be on the good side.

Just be a bad guy, if that makes sense. Like, he's not a villain as much as just well, anti-hero. That's, that's the, the correct term. Um, but, uh, uh, I, but I think Earth is going to join that with, uh, Mars. And I think Best's gonna be there. Maybe we'll see a couple of other pieces, but we haven't really, like, there's Proxima three, there's a co We don't know anything about any of those guys, but I,

Jeff: colonies, I think they said back in and now for a word or something like that. 14 or 16 or

Brent: maybe we're gonna bring them into this whole deal and I, we're gonna have this big earth. Babylon five conflict where they're gonna have to go. It's, you know what we're in right now, Jeff. This is the scouring of the Shire.

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: That's what, that's the spot where we're in right now. It's the scouring of the Shire.

It's gonna wind up with Clark gone and, um, I don't know who they're gonna set up as the new president after him, but, you know, everything will be just fine. I, I still say Battle on five does not return to earth control. I think they will, and I hope, I don't think they should. They should maintain their independence and truly follow their, their mission of being the last best hope for peace.

Jeff: Yeah. Or become something bigger. Maybe even Earth ends up joining this thing. I mean, this is part of my prediction for this whole fourth season, is that Babylon five would become the focal point of some alliance. Of doing these things, but maybe just, uh, for all of my Orville fans out there, maybe they bring Earth into this alliance.

Sheridan becomes the president of Earth. Somebody else becomes the head. Maybe Ivanova of Babylon five, but you know, B Bruce Box Leitner is president, is a role. He fell very comfortably into, uh, for the union on, uh, on the Orville. So that'd be kind of a cool little, little, uh, nostalgic moment for me.

Forward nostalgia.

Brent: I don't see, I don't see Sheridan becoming a president.

Jeff: No,

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: I didn't see Archer becoming one either other than like, kind of, you know, but

Brent: That's, I, I don't, I don't see, I don't see Sheridan becoming a president. Um, not of Earth. If, okay, here's the deal, you know where I think he could be a president if Babylon five. In like Constitutionals becomes a nation, becomes a thing. He could become the president, not the commander, not the captain anymore.

He's the president. I could see that happening. I don't necessarily see him ever going back to

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I could, I could see, you know, you know, who I could see is I could see someone like Ivanova going back to Earth as a, as a president or something.

Jeff: that'd be cool? Especially if she had more than one chin, because then we'd have real questions about her character. Do you think though, that they have a play towards the menari on this back in and now for a word, the senator guy kept saying that we've got weaponry now where we feel like we could go toe to toe with the minbar if this came up again and then.

This news piece, like really painted them as public enemy number one, like aliens in general, but specifically the Menari. Do you think they've got an eye for like relaunching, reigniting the earth Menari war? Yeah.

Brent: And you wanna know why, uh, and this may get, start getting a little bit into the messages piece, Jeff, if we're there and we wanna make that transition. Um, but we have seen this play out on earth in our own time within the last several presidents. You know, the best way to, um, get people to come together and rally behind a particular cause or a particular person is to create an enemy.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: If you give them an enemy and you say it's those guys over there. That's the enemy. They're coming for you. They're coming to attack you. Whether you are the Russians saying that it's the Ukraines or the Ukraine saying it's the Russians, or whether you are a Republican saying it's the Democrats they're trying to take over.

Or you're Democrats say, oh, the Republicans are, when you, when you group people together and you, you spew, they're coming to get you. They're coming to war. You gotta stand up. You gotta fight, fight, fight, fight. You gotta like, anytime you do that, that's how you rally people. You got to give them an enemy that is bigger than themselves.

Right? Frankly, how Star Trek got Earth to unite was when we found out that there was more people out there. We put away our silliness here and we were able to unite and come together and do something here on Earth. Because we suddenly were worried about the bigger thing out there, and we realized real quick, it wasn't just the, the Vulcans, it was a bunch of other people out there.

And let's face it, the Vulcans weren't really very friendly for those first bunch of hundreds of years as we saw an enterprise. So, uh, yeah, I think there's absolutely a play to be made on the Mbar. And I think it's, it's a hundred percent in that's the enemy. This is what's gonna get people to rally behind me as President Clark.

Uh, and, and that's what he's doing.

Jeff: I also think that they have an ace up their sleeves. I think they have a shadow ship,

Brent: Ooh.

Jeff: think that they've still got like a cyco person plugged in into it, and

Brent: Or is that why they need the cryo pods?

Jeff: Oh yes. Right, because it, we got this thing. We need to make sure we got pilots plugged in. They've got the gear already installed, but we're gonna go up against the menari.

We've got upgraded weapons. We can do that. But we also have this just juggernaut hulk of a ship where we can go and take, take 'em out. So I feel like when he lost his support of the shadows after the battle of Coron six, there's a moment of panic. He put down the whole thing. He wants revenge on Babylon five.

He wants revenge on Mars. He wants all that. But also now, now I'm backed into a corner. I don't have my gang with me, but I got one big

Brent: Do they know that psychic, that that si people hurt the shadow ship and is its weak spot. I mean, cause seriously what we've seen is all you gotta do is throw lead on the bridge and we'll take care of that shadow ship real quick. We know how to deal. It's not that big of a threat, folks. It's really

Jeff: is, this is Buster's anti-hero moment when President Clark and his crew are behind a shadow vessel. It's gonna take him out and Buster's like, Nope.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: he takes it out.

Brent: Pain.

Jeff: Exactly. Well, Brent, you mentioned it, but I think we are totally there. We've reached the part of the show where we boil this down and we look to see what kind of morals, messages this episode has, if it's holding up a mirror to society or maybe giving us hope that life will be better in the future. I don't think that's the point of this one, but you're gonna do that, Brent, by rating this episode on a scale of zero to five delta theories to see how strong the message is and just how Babylon five it was delivered.

Brent: Yeah. Jeff, this is one of those episodes where I think you could pull stuff just by the nature of the episode. You could pull the mirror to society. Because this is media. Can you trust the media? You can go through that whole deal. What is a journalist? What, what Feld you could pull that Was that the intent of this episode was this j m s getting pissed off at Fox News back in the nineties and saying, I'm gonna put these people, like, like what or what was it?

Or was he pissed off at cnn? I don't know who, I don't know who he watches. Like was it that or is this really just, no, I'm writing a story and this is because he, didn't he come up with the story in like 88 or the eighties or something like that? Like he had it for a long time. Let's assume this was a part of the original plan to, to go with this particular, uh, type of episode.

So I, I, but I don't look at this episode and see any big moral thrust. There is this great. Uh, line between Sheridan and Dalin when they're on the couch doing the interview. Uh, where she says The heart doesn't recognize boundaries on a map, the heart does what the heart does. Cool message. Cool. One liner.

Was it the thrust of the episode? No. Can I give it some points for it? Maybe a little, not a ton. Last week I mentioned that the episode was instead of the big cannon shot to the heart, it was just little pebbles thrown at you. If this thing has any Star Trek messages done in a Babylon five way, it's, there's this little pebble and that little pebble and it's not much.

There's really just not a ton here. I, like I said, I do think you could dig it out if you really looked at it, but I really, I'm more interested, I think, in the ones that j m s is intentionally putting on to the screen. So I'm gonna give this one, one Delta Fury because I do think there's just a couple of little things that you could throw, but it's really not much.

I'm one with one Delta Fury.

Jeff: I can totally see that. The one theme in it that I thought was interesting that spoke to me, we've talked about it before, specifically around the Minbari and then some of the, the early Home guard stuff, but there's that racial purity theme that comes up. They started hitting on in this, you know, well she's, you know, some sort of half breed hybrid sort of a thing, and.

He's under, under their spell. Like when that the psychologist was talking about all that stuff being under their spell, it reminded me of what I have read. I didn't experience this myself, but when interracial marriage started becoming more of a upfront issue,

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: people would talk about how, you know, these black men are putting these white women under their spell.

You know, they're, they're feeling bad for them or whatever. And so, I mean, we should feel bad for these poor white women that don't have, you know, any, you know, say in what's happening to them. I, I, I heard a lot of that in this. Again, it was not the through line of this episode. It might be a through line of, part of this arc that we're heading into, but, uh, but I thought that was just an important thing to call out in, in this.

But yeah, I, I won Delta Fury. It's, uh, yeah, that's about where I was.

Brent: and, and here's a, and you're, you're absolutely right. They may come back and touch on this later up, and this may be the nature of where Trekk has so often been more episodic. They can talk about an issue they actually like. Through the course of the episode, they discuss the issue. They look at it from both sides.

Sometimes they give you the answer and knock you over the head with it. Sometimes they don't, and they just sort of leave it out there and let you decide what you think and where you are and how to grapple with. If this episode brought anything up, it didn't examine it, it didn't go through it. It's just like a, Hey, there's that, hey, there's that.

You could possibly pull this out. And I think that's a real neat one that you entered, cause that you brought up there. I didn't make that connection at all. Um, and, and I'm glad you did because that certainly is, is something to be made. There really was this pushing of, I mean, he was using that spell, you know, to, to almost defend Sheridan and still cast the mbar in a, in an awful light. And again, if he was, if that, I mean, if he was somehow subverting that, what did, what did he prevent, what did they want to say and what did he prevent from happening?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: You know what I mean? Like, like it, let's, let's assume he's actually on the good side here, like that.

Jeff: Yeah. Imagine how far they would've gone.

Brent: Yeah, that's a question we may not ever actually get the answer to. Well, Jeff, uh, with that, uh, I've done Delta Fury or Delta Fury. Uh, you, my friend, however, get to rank this episode and place this within our absolute 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of season four of Babylon five. So, Jeff, where are you placing the illusion of truth? Our top five currently are into the fire.

The long night, whatever happened to Mr. Garabaldi? The summoning an hour of the wolf, this is cracking their top five.

Jeff: This isn't a top five for me. My question is where it goes in relation to falling toward apotheosis. I'm gonna put this above epiphanies. Um, I'll just say that and it's again, epiphanies. Epiphanies was not a bad episode. I think this one, just like I said it, this was the grout. It's gonna go in and it really filled in a lot of the holes in the earth storyline falling toward apo. I'm stuck in this place where I still in the cannon of Babylon five that we know so far. I'm more into these earth storylines than I am. All the shadow bolon. First one stuff, there's, there's holes in that storyline we talked about a little bit already and just stuff I still don't fully understand.

There's earth stuff. I understand this right, like this is important storytelling for here and now. And I think based on that, I am gonna make this the new number six. I'm gonna put it right above falling toward apotheosis.

Brent: I like it. I like it a lot. I was actually kind of like, there's a piece of me, I wanted you to put it under apotheosis because like, what if the rest of the season was just like, each episode keeps getting placed like right above the one before it, and it pushes everything else down like,

Jeff: And we just kinda like all the ranking are the different arcs of the season

Brent: Yeah.

Although, I gotta tell you, I think, I think if the Hour of the Wolf and maybe even the summoning stayed in the top five by the end of the series season, I'd be disappointed.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: were fine episodes. Are they top five of a season? I don't think so. 

Jeff: Given what we 

Brent: go back to whatever happened to Mr.

Garabaldi. I'm not, I'm not sure. I think into the Fire and Long Night both could be top five episodes, but I don't know about these other three. I'm

Jeff: I think those two could be top five Babylon five episodes,

Brent: Oh, into the Fire and Long Night. Yeah. Yeah,

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Well, Brent, that's it for the illusion of truth. Next week, we're watching Atonement for the first time. Now some of you are listening or you're watching, you're saying, but Brett, but Jeff, the movies, this is where the movies start. You gotta watch the movie next. Yes. This is where they start. This is where they fit in.

We understand that we are going to hold the movies till after the series run.

Brent: We made an executive decision and frankly, listen, we love all of you guys. We appreciate all of your inputs. Jeff, if I may jump in and just beg people, save your emails, save your comments. It's not we. We have made this decision. We're not gonna change. Like we love you. Thank you so much for your passion and how things should be viewed.

We've made the decision to watch the series first and to go with that, that.

Jeff: So that means next week we're gonna watch Atonement. We like to play this game. Brent talked about it earlier in the episode where we only know the title. That's it. And we'd like to guess what the next episode is gonna be about. Brent, it's time. Make your prediction. What's Atonement gonna be about?

Brent: Is there any way that this is Kar and Lando and somehow Lando atoning for his sins?

Jeff: Wow. I think it's way too soon for that.

Brent: I agree. I don't, and I don't think that that can happen in a single episode, you know? So I'm gonna go with Marcus, a guy we haven't seen a whole lot from this season, but he is still in the, the opening credits. Um, I think it's gonna be revealed Marcus, as some sort of demons from his past.

Uh, maybe before he became a ranger. After he became a ranger. Um, you know, and it's gonna be maybe even exploring Marcus's. Past, maybe, maybe what he did on Earth before he became a ranger or that whole situation. Um, and, uh, I think it's gonna be Marcus focused and something from his past. What do you think?

Jeff: I'm gonna keep guessing this until it happens, but we're gonna finally figure out what Garibaldis deal is. We're gonna get more of that, but, but I think we're, the atonement party is gonna come in. I think we're gonna advance this Earthman bar thing, and I think the Earth Force is gonna send, this is gonna be similar to, um, the episode last season that I, the, the, the title is, is eluding me at the time.

But where some Earth Force people come on board. It was night watch then. But Earth Force people are gonna come on to try to abduct Delenn. They're going to put her in a situation for her to atone for influencing Sheridan and Babylon. Five.

Brent: Ooh, interesting and. 

Jeff: not go write it for the dragon's head? 

Brent: Is that, are you thinking like that's, um, is that Earth Force sending military people in or are these civilians acting on their own cognition based on this news report? They just watched

Jeff: So I was thinking like military sort of people, but I like, I like that idea, taking it to the next level. Oof.

Brent: they're just ordinary people storming in

Jeff: Yep. Doing their part right. They're, they're good Earth, earth, earth people going to, to do their part, but we're gonna find out what happens on atonement right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us.

Please leave us a rating, a review. We'll read it here on the podcast, and take just a moment. Go hit that share button, share this podcast with someone who will enjoy it, someone watching Babylon five for the first time, or someone who wants to relive it once again. So Brent. Until next

time. Hey man, what's up?

Brent: Did you, did, did you get them

Jeff: What

Brent: the, you know, the, the clothes off that dude before you spaced them.

Jeff: In Valen's name,