The Long Dark

Jeff: welcome to Babylon five for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I'm watching Babylon five for the first time.

And I'm Brent Allen.

Yeah, I'm the line. And I'm Brent Allen.

Brent: Come man. We got it doing it.

Jeff: Not doing it today, Jeff. Mm. This isn't the first time this has happened, right? So we have a podcast to do. We've got a lot of people that are really excited to hear our thoughts on this one. I need you to get on Mike and do this. Is there something going on?

Like, do we need to talk about this? Are you good? Oh, we're gonna talk about it, Jeff .

Brent: We're gonna talk about it. I am Brent Allen. I'm also watching Babylon five for the very first time. And you guys never warned me about season two. You told me it was gonna get really good and season two, we are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching Babylon five for the first time.

And you know what we know as Veteran Star Trek podcasters. Jeff, what's that? The first couple of seasons suck, right? Yep. And so far like, yep, sees it like . The first couple seasons suck and there's like enough good episodes that like keep you in. But then there's those episodes that just make you wanna stop and you get enough of those in a row and you're like, Okay, I'm getting really hard to push through right now.

And that's where I find myself right now, Jeff.

Jeff: It's hard, man. I watched this. Well, we'll get into it, right? Yes. I watched this episode and I had a similar thought. A similar thought, but you know, We're still here. We're still here to talk through and maybe, maybe as we talk through it, we'll find ourselves in a different place.

Brent: Yeah. Fat chance. But you know what we are doing while we watch these things. ? Yeah. What's that? Is we are searching for Star Trek like messages to see if we can pull any, any goodness out of these episodes, whether they're even intended or not. Um, you know, and we're trying to decide how much we like this series and if we wanna keep watching it

Jeff: going forward.

Yeah, not at, It's not if we should have watched it sooner, it's do we keep, do we keep doing this? Yeah. Right. Well, like Brenton, how many episodes do we have left now? Geez. You know, like I said, I think we were talking before we went on, Mike. I feel like this is the 56th episode of the second season. It's right's just keeps

Brent: right.

And you know what? There are probably people out there who've watched Babylon five. Ahead and they're like, No, but this episode was great because of this, this, and that. And it introduces this concept. And well, you know what, Jeff and I don't know

Jeff: that, Yeah, we're not there. And I hope don't, I hope that happens,

Brent: right?

God, I hope so. Right, because I, you know, I've taken my new, my new guys, my first time watchers through Star Trek. This episode's great. This is like an amazing episode. And they watch it and they're like, Yeah, not so much. Right? You know, and you go, Well that's, that's a thing in the fandom. Like it just gets better.

And I, on a first time watch,

Jeff: not so much don't see it as much, but we are Star Trek podcasters, Star Trek fans. But this is not, For either of those things. We're not here to talk about Star Trek. Keep us on point. We play a game. It's the rule of three. And shockingly, it was not inspired by the Minbar in any way whatsoever.

Yet here we are. What that is, is we each get up to, and no more than three Star Trek references when we hit one of those, you're gonna hear everybody's favorite sound and once you hit your three, you are cut off. There are no more for. Brent, we love our games. We also love our sound drops on this show. And we have, oh yes, a five star review from Apple Podcasts.

Audio Weasel says, I'm catching up and loving it. On the one hand, I feel like I should apologize for my feelings on it since it's not fair that I know what's coming, but I. I'm gonna hang on to my childish glee of Tea . Just wait guys.

Brent: You know what? What's his name? Alpha Dog or something like that. Audio Weasel

Yeah. Audio Weasel. Listen. Audio Weasel. I hope you were looking forward to these episodes, cuz Holy Shang. Uh, I apologize. I just, I feel like for the last month, Jeff, this is four, four weeks in row. This has been a month. We have been crapping on this. You're right. Like we have probably lost subscribers.

Those

Jeff: guys don't know anything. . They suck. They hate this. That's show. I love this show. It's the best thing ever.

Brent: Right. So, you know, and I don't want to crap on this show, like I really do like this show, but, but Brent, the thing

Jeff: is, and this is, we talk about this, you and I, both, both crap on Star Trek. Right.

Like it's a huge Star Trek fans. It very, it deserves it, right? Uhhuh . If something's not good, what's what? We're gonna, we're gonna call it out. We're a long string of those. You know what it is,

Brent: is honestly even those things that we know are not good, like it's still kind of endearing to us in Star Trek world.

Maybe that's what it is for Babylon five. Like these things are still endearing and people who are in it just don't realize how bad it is For a first time

Jeff: watcher, there's someone watching this right now or listening to this and they're thinking to themselves, This is my favorite episode of Babylon five that'ss.

True. There is, And I wanna think about that person as we're talking about this, right? Because we have a lot of not great things to say about this one. But for you listener here, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get real close here to. Our view, our listener, who this is your favorite episode, I could not think more highly of you.

You are a diamond in the rough. You're a saint. You're a special, special person, and I'm so thankful that you're here with us at Babylon five for the first time. So as we dive in to the long, dark, just no, we care about you.

Brent: Okay. And could you, if that is you, will you do me a favor? ? Email us

Jeff: at Babylon five first gmail.com, the number five, the word first,

Brent: and let us know why you like this episode.

No spoilers. But let us know why you like this episode. And you have to say, I like this episode because of no spoilers. We will accept that as well. But I want to know who you are so that you can give me hope. Yeah.

Jeff: Cause we could use some of. I've got one more for us here, Brent. This one is, uh, a from back a while ago and I've been holding onto it.

It's from one of our friends on Twitter at original healer and said, I, this just like made me so happy when they said this, but they said, You guys quote, made me purchase internet onboard, which is an expensive luxury while living on a ship. In order to be able to continue listening on Spotify to your podcast.

You

Brent: know what? I'm gonna assume that this person is in the military. So first let me say thank you for your service. Two, Jeff, I feel like we should send this guy like a Visa gift card. Say here cost, have some internet. Like I don't know how much it cost, but like have some internet on us. Just for your service and say thank you because you're awesome.

Now that I've said that on a microphone, I feel like we really

Jeff: have to do that. I think so too. I think you just committed us. Yeah. Hey, we are edit YouTube so it's on

Brent: It's done. Right? Healer. Healer. Like for real, like really real. Email us at.

Jeff: Babylon, five first gmail.com or hit us on Twitter. We talk on Twitter.

Brent: Yeah. And send us your, um, what the, what's, what's the military? Uh, APOs. Your apo. Yes. Send it your apo. And, uh, we're gonna drop something in the mail for you because that's awesome. And it's just our way of saying thanks for what you guys are doing it for

Jeff: us out there. Yeah. Or your email if, because we can, we can probably send a gift card by email as well, Whatever's easier for you.

Oh, fair enough. Probably better. Yeah, I know when I was deployed, like to make it into the . Yeah. We would get our hands on mail for months sometimes, so. Right, right.

Brent: Hopefully he hasn't run out of internet by the time he gets that email. .

Jeff: Right.

Brent: Uh, Jeff, now listen, speaking of people like Operation Healer and, uh, all these other people original

Jeff: at Original Healer.

Brent: Original Healer, I'm sorry, original healer. I wonder if that's a reference to Blue. Uh, Young Girl, Dad right here. Sorry. . Um, anyway, uh, for people like Operation Healer and all these lovely people who are joining us, uh, Jeff, that maybe some haven't seen this episode in a while, and they're like, Really? I remember this episode being better.

Why don't you tell the folks out there exactly what this episode was or maybe was not about.

Jeff: Well, a hundred or so years ago, just before first contact with the Sentara Earth sent long range sub light ships out with crews of scientists that were cryogenically frozen, and one just showed up here at Babylon.

Five two cryo pods on this old shipper there. It's called the Copernicus. There's one with a desiccated looking corpse and the other with a scientist, Mariah. Sheridan and Ivanova can't help themselves and start checking out the Copernicus. It's like a time capsule. Dr. Franklin keeps busy too. His autopsy reveals the dead dude doesn't have any organs left in him, and he's decided to slide in for some of that sweet, sweet rebound.

Love that. Doctors through time immemorial have had the privilege of enjoy. Mariah was married to the corpse well back, back when it was alive, uh, but hey, it's dead now. So Franklin apparently sees her as fair game. In the meantime, Murdoch from the A team or honestly very, very close representation of him is playing the role of the prophet Amos and is proclaiming God's final judgment is falling onto Babylon.

Or I don't know. Not really that, Nevermind, Nevermind. His name just happens to be Amos. He's not proclaiming God's final judgment. He's just saying that the armies of darkness are here. Seriously, if you've ever read the Book of Amos in the, in the Bible, it's kind of not that far off.

Garabaldi takes a liking to Amos. He's a vet of the earth, Minbar war, actually a pretty decorated vet from the war that's fallen on hard times and now lives life as a lurker. He, like Garabaldi, was a ground pounder, but literally no one else on the entire station seems to care at all. They just write him off as lurker trash.

Aldi takes the time to listen to Amos. Turns out that he and his team were attacked by some monster that killed his entire unit by, Yep. He guessed. It mysteriously ripping out all their organs. It kept Amos alive and snacked on him until the rescue party showed. He's convinced that that thing popped onto the Copernicus ate the husband snacked on Mariah, and is now here on Babylon five, waiting for the buffet to open navigation Records on the ship confirmed that it went by the Moon Amos's unit was on, and then it changed its course to Zha Doom.

Amos insists on being used as bait to draw this monster. It works and the combined force of a whole bunch of PPGs kills it. I think at least poor, poor Dr. Franklin adds yet another heartbreak to his growing list as Mariah heads back to earth to catch up on the last century. So to catch up on the last century or so, Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. To grieve her dead husband. They fix amus up and everyone's gonna live happily ever after or not. Sheridan and Ivan are piecing together the coincidences of occurrences that all center around Zha doom, all but confirming what Kar has been saying all along. Speaking of Shakara, the episode ends with him reading from his book of Jaquan.

I think that has a drawing that looks almost exactly like what we think the outline of the monster was that we saw. Also, we learn that the entire story of Babylon five, at least up to this point, has been a HO Deck recreation as part of Reg Barkley's therapy sessions with Dean Troy. Sprint. What did you think of the long dark,

Jeff? You just

Brent: made my night like, kind of like this episode just went and like you got three lines of dialogue at the end. That actually was like, Oh, this episode matters on some level. You just made that recap way better with your last line . Um, I gotta be, You just said everything that happened and I still don't really know what this episode ended like.

How, like what happened when it ended? I still, I still can't figure it out. Anyway, here's the thing. This is one of those episodes, Jeff, every sci-fi series does. You know what I'm talking about? It's the one where a generational ship is found and there's pods on it with bodies in it, and all the bodies are dead except for one pod, which is still found alive, or maybe it's empty or something like that.

And what you know is if it's a pretty girl inside, she's gonna be cool. Right? Mm-hmm. , if it's a dude with a British accent, he's gonna be evil. Like, and he's there to cause trouble. Like that's, that's just what you know. In this case, we got the pretty girl and this was predictably. She was cool. Season two.

So far though, Jeff continues to be a dumpster fire. Big time. I don't know if people in this podcast can pick up, you know, since we've started recording, um, this episode was all over the. It never knew what it wanted to be. Is this a murder mystery? Is it a a fish out of time type of story? If I could mix my metaphors there is, is it an alien invasion?

Is it a universe expanding episode where they're introducing a whole new player into everything? Is it a social commentary on mental health? Is it about the horrors of war or is it just itself a horror story? I could have done that. But this episode didn't know what it even wanted to be or what it wanted to do, or what it was trying to do.

And ultimately, Jeff, I found this episode just to be a waste of a very talented guest actor and a waste of 50 minutes of my life, which hopefully means it's gonna make for a really good podcast episode today.

Jeff: That's the plan, right? Well, there was some real incredible acting. Right? Dwight Schultz, I, it's such a throwaway part for him, you know?

But I mean, he did such a great

Brent: job. He did so good. There were times he did good. In times. I was like, and I think it's the writing, I think he was doing the best he could with the writing. He mm-hmm. , you know?

Jeff: I agree. I agree. Cause, and, and I think he tried to, like, when things didn't make a lot of cohesive sense with the writing, he was just, I'm gonna lean into the crazy here a little bit.

Right? And,

Brent: Cause it's Dwight Schultz, that's what he does. And he does it better than anyone else through the eighties and nineties.

Jeff: Yeah. And then Anne Marie Johnson, she's the one who played Mariah. She went on to be in Jag. She was in, that's. So Raven, she was in quite a few other things after this. I mean, , those

Brent: are two shows that go together, Jag, and that's so

Jeff: Raven.

Well, she actually was on a ton of soap operas, like daily soap operas. So, I mean, just a really interesting acting history for her. Mm-hmm. . But I mean, they were awesome. They were so good and.

Brent: That's what we

Jeff: got. For what? For? For really? I mean, could I, I, and I'm, I have my hand on a sensor button because there's no way I can say this without censoring myself.

But what in the actual was she ever doing in Dr. Franklin's quarters?

Brent: Yeah. That was entirely inappropriate. He even called himself out on it? Yeah, it was inti. Oh, this was closer than the med lab. Dude, she was knocked out. Take her to the med lab. Yeah. You're a professional.

Jeff: You're a

Brent: doctor. If nothing else, leave the door open and

Jeff: then don't you cares her

Brent: face.

Paul, call your nurse and have her come join you. Do not be in your quarters alone with her where she was knocked out unconscious.

Jeff: Yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. There's to me, , and this is a, a drum we have beaten repeatedly on this podcast, but at this point, and, and you, you have mentioned before, like you live and run and, and socialize within doctor circles.

If this ever happened, what would happen the next day? That doctor walked into the office or into the office? He's losing his license period. Yeah, no question, right? Yep. But you know what? Next week we're gonna watch an episode and he is gonna be right back in Med Lab just doing his.

Brent: Yeah. It's, it is entire.

I mean, that was my note. It is entirely inappropriate for him to have this girl, uh, in his quarters. And, and I mean, I'm sorry on the other side, and I know it's nineties writing. It is what it is, but she fully embraced that kiss. Yeah. Like she did. She just found out her husband was dead minutes. She just found out Yeah.

Jeff: Minutes ago. What is she doing when she's all, she's all like, Well, you know, I mean, we didn't have the best relationship. I think we broke up like six times or what. Who does that .

Brent: Right? You literally went to sleep planning to, to do something in the future with your husband. You woke up and he's not

Jeff: there anymore, and so you're gonna make out with the, literally the first guy that

Brent: you lay on like within 10 minutes.

Yeah. Like, are you kidding me? Are you ab freaking Completely kidding me. It was, it was abysmal. And I, I made this note. I said, I've got it. I know who Dr. Franklin is. I, it, it hit me right when I was in the middle. He is the Jordy Laforge of Babylon five. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if I'm gonna get buzzed twice or if I get to piggyback on that one later.

I said, No, he's not Jordy. He's season one, season two. Dr.

Jeff: Bashier. Yeah, we were brought that up last. Creepy. Yeah, last week. Brought that way creepy. And I think he's beyond season one. Season two, Bashier. I mean, Bashier was creepy, but he was verbally creepy. He, he never lured an unconscious patient into his quarter.

No.

Brent: And then he also never, like when he went in for the kiss, like did, did you notice it? Like, like Franklin had his head turned a certain way and she like went in for the kiss and her head was tilted like the exact same way and like somebody needed to just move like half an inch so their noses wouldn't bump, but then they bumped.

Anyway, I was like, You guys, And that's the take they used like really. He's

Jeff: like this kissing thing, I just don't understand.

Brent: I'm just not good at it. Uh, yeah. That whole sequence was just not okay.

Jeff: And, and part of that sequence too, there, I mean, the only thing that she did, she did two things that I thought were good.

I guess one was the interaction that we can talk about a little more, but like in the Zocalo with Kar, that I thought was pretty cool. But when Gar Baldi came to be like, You got stuff inside that dude too. Can, uh, can you, can you feel him and help us chase him down? That was one of like two or three, like to your point of this being a horror episode, they had a couple like jump scare setup scenes, and that was one where she's like laying down and med lab and they got the creepy music and the camera coming in.

Then you see Gary Bald, his hand come out and he's like, Hey, sorry to, sorry to interrupt you here. It's like, You can't even do jump scares. Right. Fake jump scares. Right?

Brent: Yeah. I didn't know what it wanted to be like. I brought, I was like, Oh, now it's a horror show. Oh, wait, no, I'm run. It's not a horror show.

It, it, it's, it's not. Can I go back and talk about Dwight Schultz for just a second though? Yeah. So this literally was my opening experience with this. It's, it's just him by himself going crazy, right? I'm watching him. I'm watching him. I'm seeing him go crazy and my thought was, huh, I don't know who this guy is, but you know who actually would've been really good in this episode?

Dwight Schultz, . And then like the camera pans in. I'm looking, I'm like, Oh, that is Dwight Schul. That's literally what I did in the middle of that.

Jeff: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I was watching that scene in Go, and I was just like, We've seen this guy before. There's, It's familiar. Where have I where, And then it kind of came in close.

It's like, Oh, there you

Brent: go. Yeah, I was, I was, because I mean, just white schult, just, he does crazy. So good. And, and there's the thing, like that's the other thing. This could have been even a little bit of a comedy. Like let the guy be a little bit of comic relief the way Dwight Schultz does Crazy, comic comically.

Right? Like, not, not, not disrespectfully, just you'd do it that way. They didn't do that at all. Mm-hmm. It took a very, like, tried to take itself serious and then it just, uh, it was just a mess of an episode. I think

Jeff: all the way through. I think the back and forth though, like if you take Dwight Schultz and Jerry Doyle and the scenes they had together, Uhhuh, those were good.

Those, I mean, there were moments, there were definitely moments in them, but taken as a whole and the subject matter that they were kind of talking about, I thought they did a really, a really good job with that whole thing. Sure,

Brent: sure. I, Well, that's what I mean, like it could have gone that, like a discussion about mental health.

Mm-hmm. and, and the effects of. You could have gone that direction with it. They, they set it up. You talked about, they set it up for jump scares to be a horror episode. They set it up to have that sort of a conversation. They set it up to be a murder mystery. Hey, who killed this chick's husband? They set it up to be

Jeff: a romance.

Right? Been romance.

Brent: But they didn't, but they didn't land any of it. Like they never engaged any of it. Like I, I, I just, This was a mess of an episode. You know what this was, this was season two's infection. Yeah, except this didn't have the 27 minute spot where it turned on a diamond became really good. It was just a mess all the way through.

Like, I, I still like, I don't know if it's just cuz I tuned out or just cause I wasn't, It it, like, I, I just, I didn't understand, I still don't get the end of this episode. Like they get out there and they start shooting 'em with all their, you know, some, some science fiction shows have laser guns. Other fiction have, have, uh, ray guns, Apparently Babylon five has spark guns.

Yeah. , Sparky guns. Like, but it, it, it got this thing and then like there's the clothes of the book at the end, which you said kind of, sort of maybe might look like the shape I, I got that it was supposed to be, but I had no clue. They actually were the same shape

Jeff: I was just tracking on, like in the book, it was big and it looked like it had like these big horns, like the bad guy and legend, you know, and, and the little shape thing that they were shooting the PPGs at looked like it had those

Brent: big, those big horns.

See, I couldn't tell and I wasn't ing that. But now here's my question. Is that a shadow? Is that what the shadows are? Is that thing right?

Jeff: Well, my question's more specific than that. Do they have a body? Now of this thing that they can like cut open and start learning about. Did they even kill it? Like literally they just shot until someone said, Stop shooting.

And they're like, Hey, we got it. Yeah. Did you like, how do you know you got it?

Brent: Did it just disintegrate? Like did you hit it three times with a Zack gun? See, Jeff, you don't even know that reference just yet. It's okay. Don't hit the buzzer cuz it's not a Star Trek reference. Uh, you want Star Trek reference though?

I'd love one. I'll give you one. Uh, cuz this is literally my last note on the whole episode. I'm done after this. Wow. That's, that's,

Jeff: I'm out. I have a few more. So we, we have more podcasts. Keep listening.

Brent: Babylon five has jumbo g.

Jeff: It does a big wavy thing up on the table

Brent: there. How could you, how could it be anything other than Doc

Like,

Jeff: Well, okay, one thought on that. Doc's parents, one thought on that, and then I, so I'm, I'm stringing the thing together. One, I pretty sure that was a drowsy who was sitting there eating that big G thing. Where was the sash? I

Brent: have no idea what you're talking. Well, we had the, we had the whole draws thing.

Yeah, I remember that. But I, Green, Green. Oh, the purple green thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's over,

Jeff: but it, it lasts for 1.2 Earth years. Wow. Like, yeah. This is one of those things where we said this better turn into something. Better, it better be fighting for the whole

Brent: year, right, Uhhuh? Yeah. Is that, so in the intro it says it's the year the Great War came upon us.

Is it maybe talking about the draws thing? . .

Jeff: Right. Like we're thinking it's this whole thing. That was the spoiler, by the way, that I was alluding to way back at the top of season two. Oh. That I was hoping to protect you from, but yeah, apparently, The great war's gonna start, but I like the idea that it's the draws war,

Brent: um, on Babylon.

See, but here's the thing. I like, I'm left with that going, but I don't know what war it is. I I have no clue where they're going with that. Like it could be some great war with the shadows thing that we keep hearing

Jeff: all about. Well, I think it's the great war that Zhara was talking about back in Babylon Square.

Ous. Great war. Great war, Athers war.

Brent: Yeah. This is Atheros man. I forgot about him. Um, Yeah, all. So Jeff, I'm gonna shut up and just let you go cuz I am, I'm done.

Jeff: Well, the pieces I was stringing together is, Yeah, Amos tells this story, right, that I was on this moon. There was this group of us and then this monster came and just ripped through us.

It was like, you know, hell, hell on this thing and he left me alive. Did you catch how many? Probably based on your notes, didn't care, but did you catch how many people were in his unit? Please tell me. It was 47. It's 47. Yes. So

Brent: there you can use, you can use that reference on me. That's a Star Trek reference to the core.

And you can use

Jeff: my last one. It was in the show. It's not a reference, it was in Babylon five. Yeah,

Brent: but we're

Jeff: pointing it out because I'm about, I'm about to take, I'll give myself the buzz cuz it's my point on this and it's that. There's some people that we've been having back and forth with the last couple months really who are adamantly in the camp of Deep Space.

Nine is a complete rip off of Babylon five Beat for Beat. I mean this, they both are in a space station and they're, they both have holes in space. They're clearly the same show really, because I think that Jumbo G and 47 people in a unit. I posit my good sir, that Babylon five. Ripped off deep space nine.

There you go. And I say that very tongue in cheek. I actually don't believe it at all, but it's, uh,

Brent: Can I, can I just point, like, just since you brought that up, and we're clearly gonna have a lot of extra time in this episode, um, this is where I am on that, that, that hold you. JMS has this show Bible, he's shopping it around, he's giving it to every network out there.

Every network has it or, or whatever. Right. Um, and people were reading it and. Warner Brothers or, or cbs? Cbs, I guess it was CBS passes on it. Like, yeah, we're, we're not really gonna do it. But they get certain ideas in their head, right? Like, Hey, here's a, here's a show about a space station. Um, apparently the Changeling is supposed to be a thing that's a comparative deal.

Uh, you know, there, there, there's a couple of little things and, um, you know, hey, there's a, there's a female who's, who's, you know, a high ranking stuff and like, Hey, Star Trek, we'd like for you guys to come up with a new, uh, a new series at the same time. Right. And Star Trek. Star Trek, the creators of Star Trek who didn't have the show Bible.

Mm-hmm. , come back and go, Hey, we were kind of thinking about doing a space station. And here's a, and they kinda like, so hey, what if on your space station you had like, here's a couple of elements, Like it's just general, not like, Hey, let's take their entire theme and plot line and all this. It's just, here's a couple of elements.

Maybe if you work those ideas in. Okay. I say that just to say, I have recently had the opportunity to talk to some current Star Trek writers. Okay. And one of the things that they are saying now on social media, like they say, Don't send me scripts. Don't send me scripts because I don't wanna get your idea in my head and then have to question if my idea is something that's sort of like leaked over and then have you come sue me later.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So my, my suspicion, and again, I don't know, I don't know the full details and I don't know how deep the comparisons really go from what I understand, it's, they're like, it's really closely in the first season and then they both kind of diverge. Uh, so we're past the first season, but my guess is Star Trek was wanting to do something similar and.

There were just ideas bandi about that are like general ideas, but it's not a lifting and like a, we're gonna steal all of your work and do it ourselves. Like I don't, I don't, I don't see that right now. Yeah. Could I be wrong? Yeah, I could be, but I, that's, that's kind of the way I see it probably going down.

And I know that Jeff, I don't know about you as a comedian. Yeah, I did. I did standup comedy for seven years. And it is huge in the comedy world, you do not steal jokes from other people. Mm-hmm. . But you know what happens often is people come up with the same joke independently of each other. Yeah. It happens and they're like, Oh, you stole my joke.

No, dude. I also had that same idea. I was just watching a guy the other day who's on TV and he's doing my joke that I did for seven years. I'm like, son of.

Jeff: Like, that's mine. Definitely. But he got,

Brent: But he got it to TV

Jeff: first, so. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I

Brent: just, I was like, Huh, I promise you that dude never came and saw my show and took my joke.

It just, you know, and that's, that's, that's where I'm attributing most of it to, and, you know, if, if there was a stink. Among it out there, you know, at some point, studios and businesses just, they're gonna pay to shut you up and just move on. Yeah. We're not gonna make it a big thing just here, here, take some money and go

Jeff: away.

Exactly. It's fine. You know, in the immortal words of vanilla ice, right? There goes, there's, goes done, Dun, done, dah, dah. Done, done, done. Mine goes done. Dun, dun, done. Dun dun dun. See. Totally different. There's an extra eighth note in there. Right. Totally different. It's not a rip off at. Yeah. Didn't he win that?

I think he was fine on that. I don't

Brent: know. I don't know. I, I know what you're talking about. I've

Jeff: heard him say that. Like, , it's the funniest thing in the world to listen to. You're just like, you, you added an eighth note. Okay, So, but hey, that's, uh, that's, that's artistic license and that's fine's.

Brent: Look, hey, uh, yeah.

Yeah. So anyway, like I say, that's my personal take on probably what's going on out. Am I biased towards the Star Trek guys and don't want to paint 'em with that? Yeah. But , Yeah. You know, whatever.

Jeff: So I think, you know, last week we, we asked ourselves a lot, What was the point of this episode? Why does this episode even exist?

You know, part of it was validating, uh, the existence of shadows. Like other people are seeing them, they're seeing them in the same place. They're seeing them in different, uh, you. Uh, context or whatever they use hyperspace. Like we got some addition to the, the, the shadow story. So what was the point of this episode?

I think what it was was about validating jaar. And, and a lot of the stuff he's coming up with, there was the league of Non, um, Nonaligned Worlds called the Council meeting. And you know, lawn is just like, Eh, your stories, whatever, Really I'm outta here. But Kar was like visibly moved by, uh, by the guy who was testifying, who also believes, you know, we talked about this too, where everyone's like, Oh.

The coming darkness, the army of shadows. Yeah. We're on board and here's Sheridan, an earth. Just like what? There's a, there's a what?

Brent: I'm not gonna believe that until it happens. I don't think that's a

Jeff: big deal. Yeah. But, but, but Kar is totally being validated in what he's doing. And then I thought that scene between him and Mariah was really cool where they met and she's like, uh, you know, Oh, you're the, the, the woman from the past like, go back.

The future isn't what it used to be, , right? Yeah. Cuz I think, I mean, literally seven episodes ago, the sky was the limit. You know, for the Narn. They were gonna go kill all the Anari, like, things are awesome. And then quadrant 37 happened and he's like, Oh, the game has changed. And so I think this whole episode was like to be, oh, and by the way, Ja Car's.

About everything that stuff's happening out there. Mm-hmm. . Okay, cool. Yeah, there. There we go. . I'm trying to see if I have anything else really. You know, one other thing, like, and I think this is, yeah, this is my last one. All right. Sheridan pulled this in, Claire in this one, and I wasn't too happy about it.

I mean, I got it, but I wasn't so. They've got Amos throwing himself out as bait. Gu Baldy has thrown everybody outside of this little zone that they're in so they can, you know, they can corner the, the monster and take it out. Sheridan and crew come in and Garal. He's like, Dude, I don't know. His PPGs don't have any impact on him.

Sheridan whoop hits his hand and he is like, Okay, Yvon, head over here, do this, assign this pos, like he totally took command of the tactical team, which. GU Balley's job. I refuse to believe that Garabaldi iss incompetent. He's shown us his competence time and time again. So I feel like he just kind of overstepped his authority

Brent: in that way.

Let me, let me ask you this though. Okay. From a, from a leadership standpoint, from, from whatever, when you're in an emergency situation, which they clearly were in that moment, okay? If somebody comes up and says, Hey, you know, here's X, Y, Z. , like as a leader, as a commander, as a, as a person. Like on some level in my head, like, What?

I don't have time to play leader right now. We just gotta get this done. Yeah, I'm gonna overstep, but that's because of the situation we're in. Like, I don't have time to check to make sure that you're good or give you direction and let you figure it out. Like we just gotta make this happen.

Jeff: Well, I think this one, there's one step, one step he takes where Garabaldi says, Yeah, these PPGs aren't doing anything.

Sheridan says, So then what's your plan? And then if Garal these's like, I don't know, then he steps in and does it. But if Gary Baldy comes in, he is like, Well, I wanna set this kill zone. Like maybe he had this brilliant idea for everything, but he just says, You know, Cool. Hey, they aren't working. So what is your plan?

Don't have one. Cool. Here's mine. I'm gonna step in and do, Would

Brent: it have been better if he didn't get on the horn if he just told Al, Okay, Aldi will then do X, Y, Z and let Aldi execute

Jeff: it? No, cuz I, I don't think shadow leadership like that is, is always effective, especially in a situation like that. And it just slows things down.

Do you have a plan? Oh yeah, I got Cool. Get it, Let's do it. Or he said, if he doesn't, cool, Then you have your plan, you jump. And you do. It's an emergency situation. Like you said, you don't have time to sit and be like, Well, let's talk about this and how do you feel about this thing? You can have that conversation afterwards.

Totally. And sure, what are all your options and Uhhuh, but in the moment, what is your plan? I don't have one. Great. I got it. Or my plan is this. Great. Make it so you know, or, Oh, I got a plan. Get on the horn. Tell 'em what to do. Yeah.

Brent: Jeff, are you, are you done on your notes? I am . I don't, I don't know if in the podcast feed you wanna cut out that whole thing about the, the, the deal.

I, it wouldn't hurt my feelings if you did. We're not gonna cut it outta the YouTube video. However, Jeff, you and I had said from the very beginning of this podcast that we are not going to stretch a show or try to condense a show to a certain time. That's right. It is going to take as long as it takes, however long or short of that it is.

So, with that, Jeff, unless you're gonna stop me. I will lead us into the next part of our show where we've hit that spot where it is time to boil this all down and see if the show has any of that star treky quality to it. Is there a deep moral message? Are we holding up a mirror to society? Are we trying to give us hope for a better future?

And so with that, I am going to take the lead on this one and rate this show on a scale of zero to five Deltas as to how Star Trek this episode is. And

Jeff: I got the Deltas. You're gonna do the Deltas, you're

Brent: gonna do the star theories. Hey, you know what, I'm literally reading your entire script right now.

You are? Yeah. It is in your color. mind, Jeff and I, Jeff and I literally color code our notes as to who's got each spot. And I'm sitting here reading Jeff's spot to be

Jeff: fair. Take, Take it buddy. Go ahead. I'll, I'll take, I'll pick it up from there and I'll, I'll redo the whole thing. But to be fair, it's almost 1:00 AM for Brent, so it is, it's true.

Spend a day. So, Brent, it is that time we've reached the part of the show where we boil this all down and see if the show has any of that Star Trek equality to it. Maybe it's got a deep moral message. It's holding up a mirror to society. You're giving us hope that we might do better in the future. I am gonna rate this episode on a scale of zero to five Deltas to how star treky we think this episode is.

And Brent, you're gonna rate the episode on a scale of zero to five star theories as to how much we enjoyed this episode.

I think there was a message in this one, right? So, spoiler alert to my rating before, uh, we got on, before we did our prep for this, Brent texted me cause I'd watched this episode a little before and he's like, I hope this one has, uh, some Star Trek in it. And I'm like, Oh, it does totally does good. I'm like, Oh, not, I didn't say message

I didn't say message. It's like,

Brent: cuz I've been missing a Star Trek message. We haven't had a good Star Trek message in an episode since season

Jeff: one. Yeah, it's been a long time. But this one had the beginnings of one and it was that it's not okay to write people off because of their social status or their mental health.

Garabaldi listened. To amo, he took him seriously. And because of that, they were able to take the monster down. Gu Baldy shared part of his story where, uh, his team was setting up a perimeter and there's one guy who's like, Your perimeter's no good. It's no good. It's no good. And they didn't listen to him.

They called him crazy. They ripped through the perimeter like it was paper. He was able to set some stuff up that saved their lives. Like without that guy, they would've been slaughter, slaughtered. It was a cool thing to bring up. I hope they go somewhere with it, right? Amos is still alive. They saved his life.

So maybe there'll be more on that. But this episode also had criminally irresponsible doctor patient relationship stuff and a direct message from Mariah saying that we still haven't outgrown violence, like outright telling us that Babylon five is not Star Trek. In fact, it makes me think that Mariah watched Star Trek before she got on the cryo ship, and she's like, Oh, the future isn't what I thought it was gonna be.

So I am gonna give this one because it introduced a concept that was great and important, but did nothing with it. I'm gonna give this one, one single delta. What about you? Star theories. All right,

Brent: doing star theories. This is how much we liked the episode. Um,

Am I good? You're good. You got me okay? Yep. Sorry, my whole thing just spun out on me. Um, am I

Jeff: good? Yeah. Yeah, you're fine. Okay. Sorry.

Brent: Yeah. Uh, . All right. So I'm doing star theories. This is how much we liked the episode.

I'll go back to my original state statement. There are so many opportunities for greatness in this episode. A bad episode can be redeemed by the, by the message that it is trying to tell us. An episode that has no message can be redeemed by being a good episode. This episode did neither and therefore is not a good, like Jeff, I, I, I, I seriously hated this.

Wow. Giving one no Star Furies despite Dwight Schultz. You remember, remember last season we had Grail and that episode was saved by a fantastic guest star. If Dwight Schultz could save this episode, I'm sorry, he just couldn't. Like, I like Dwight Schult. I'm a Dwight Schultz fan. Shout out a team, like he's awesome.

But this was just not a good, good episode and I'm giving this one zero strawberries. Maybe that's a little harsh. I, I want to acknowledge this because we have had a run of not great episodes and I'm getting sick of them at this part, if that makes sense. Like at this moment I'm really sick of bad episodes.

If we had just come off like a couple of good episodes and then this one was there, I might be like, Yeah, this one was okay. It wasn't that bad, but it was okay. But on the back of where we are right now, the experience I'm having as a fan, I hated this. And I have a very bad taste of my mouth about this episode, so no star fury

Jeff: for me.

Well, this next part's gonna be a lot of fun then, because starting now in season two, we are ranking the episodes like we did in the season one wrapup. This will be the 100% absolute definitive, objectively accurate ranking of the second season of Babylon five. So Brent, right now in first place, we've got points of depart.

Number two, we've got the geometry of shadows. Number three, revelations for a distant star. So where in that ranking do you put the long dark?

Brent: I, I, I mean, I, I can't sit here. The, so the litmus test I use for this. Okay, which episode would I wanna watch first? A distance star or this one Revelations or this one? I honestly can't even compare. I can't make the comparison cuz I, I honestly don't remember several of these episodes. We're just a few end.

So just based on my feeling right now, I wanna put it at the end. I wanna put it at number five. Like I didn't wanna put it in number five. Like I'm gonna go ahead and just slide it to number six and leave five open cuz I can't stand, have this in the top

Jeff: five. Can't give it negative star theory. So you'll give.

Brent: The open. I'm gonna, I'm gonna bump it out of the top five and never even give it a chance. All

Jeff: right? I'm not gonna argue. And now I get to say the words. I've been waiting over like 40 minutes to say, Brent, that's it for the long dark. Next week we are gonna watch a spider in the web for the first time.

We don't look ahead. We don't look at pictures, synopsis, anything about the next episode. Brent literally just heard the next episode's title for the first time, but we like to guess what the next episode is gonna be based on that. So, Brent, what do you think a spider in the web is going to be about?

Brent: Well, fighter in the web is a predator.

They have caught something and they're, they're going to go eat it. They're going to chew it. So this has to be something where somebody, I think that's gonna be a metaphor, that's gonna be an awesome metaphor. Somebody's gonna get caught in something and it's gonna spring a, a trap. Um, I am calling, I am manifesting this into the past to, to make it happen 30 years ago.

This is a lawn episode. Okay. Maybe even a lawn and kar going at it. Episode and lawn has kar like on a string with something. I don't know what it is, but it's lawn is, is like, I don't, I don't know that it's as like world shifting, the spider and the web, like this might be just really small. You know, he's got a flower for him or something.

Only not a flower this time, right? Like I think it might be one of those episodes and I kind of really hope it is. Cause I need some smiles, I need some chuckles, or I need a really good Star Trek message in this next

Jeff: episode. That'd be good. Now I think when I first read a spider in the web, my thought went to something being trapped in the web, but it's mm-hmm like it's the spider.

So I have two thoughts and the one I'll just say, I don't think it's the next one. The shadow ship things we've seen kind of look like spiders, so maybe there's something there. Oh. But what I think, my guess is that we're gonna get some baster. In this next one. Yeah. Oh. But think, I think what they're gonna do with Bester though is he's gonna come onto the station and they're gonna try and manipulate things in a way to make him look like he's the good guy.

Right? Kinda like, uh, Terry Silver and Cobra Kai in the third season. Like, everything you do is fine. What's wrong with you? You're the thing. And then that'll become an ongoing thing where he's the spider in the web and he's trapping Sheridan in there some or Ivan or somebody from the, the main.

Frankly, I just want some bester, but I would love another lawn in Jagar one. But hey, we're gonna find out right here next week. Thank you so much for joining us through this. If you haven't already, please subscribe wherever you're listening to us. And if you've joined us on YouTube, subscribe and like and hit the bell and do all the fun YouTube stuff.

And please stop by Apple Podcast, leave us a review and we'll read it right here on the podcast. So until next time. Hey,

Brent: Jeff. Hey Jeff. You know what I could really go for right now?

Jeff: What, what, Brent, what could you really, what could you really go for?

Brent: A big old steaming plate of jumbo guy.

Jeff: All right, man.

Yeah. Uh, peace. Peace and love life. Dude, whatever.