The Long Twilight Struggle

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.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the very first time. We are two veterans Star Trek podcasters watching Babylon five four the very first time, and we're looking for those Star Trek like messages and trying to decide just how much we like this series.

Jeff: Like I said, this is not a podcast about Star Trek, but we are, like Brent said, star Trek podcasters. So those references are gonna show up from time to time. So we play the rule of three. That means we get three references, a piece to Star Trek. That's it.

Brent: Three one of those plays. No substitutions.

Exchanges are

Jeff: refund. Hey Brett. Yes. We have an email address. Babylon. It's Babylon five first gmail.com. It's number five and the word first. And we're getting emails through there right now of people sending screenshots of their reviews for the big giveaway that we're doing at the season. Two wrap up.

If you're watching YouTube, you can see, uh, you can see the prize right

Brent: there. You mean this awesome vintage, and by vintage, I mean old Captain John Sheridan. Action figure still in box with little teeny tiny Babylon five station.

Jeff: It's like Babylon, 0.5 ,

Brent: maybe

Jeff: 0.005, right? It's so tiny. It's so cute. It's a great prize.

We're gonna talk about it a little bit more in this episode. All you gotta do is screenshot a review that you leave for us, email it to us, or hit us on Twitter at Babylon first. But I,

Brent: Jeff, what about those people who left an A review like a long time ago?

Jeff: Well, if they aren't, uh, let's see. We've got TSF 47, who, who won last time, and we have Bri Tallen, who is also, uh, disqualified

Brent: to not totally be Requalified reinstate him.

You gonna run? Where's Elon Musk? Let's reinstate him.

Jeff: We're gonna, okay, let me just, uh,

Can't hear any of that. Didn't hear any of it. But for all those people that have left reviews, those are in the hopper too. So, I mean, you can't go, that's one of the things with Apple, you can't like leave a lot of reviews, but if you left one and you didn't win a prize last time, you are in the drawing for the one this time.

But I wanna share an email that we did receive a little while ago from someone named Brett. Brett emailed us Babylon five first gmail.com, the number five, the word first, and I'm just gonna share a little snippet of what they put in there, cuz I think it's a really cool story and I think it's one that I, I know I can relate to in, in some ways.

And I think a lot of our, our listeners and viewers can as well.

Brett says, please realize it was a much different time back then while today everything Geek is chic with comic book movies, drawing, record breaking crowds, and a plethora of diverse sci-fi shows literally at one's finger trip

we're gonna do great today. This is, it's gonna go well. Please realize it was a much different time back then. Today everything geek is chic with comic books, drawing record breaking crowds in a plethora of diverse sci-fi shows literally at one's fingertips. Back then, the Star Wars or Star Trek Geek was ostracized, laughed at marginalized.

We were as stereotyped as the famous Shaer SNL sketch. In the spring of my sophomore year of college, a friend loaned me a VHS tape of the pilot of Babylon five, which had just aired a couple months earlier. It was cheap. It looked like a bad Trek ripoff, but I was a junkie coming out of an era when new sci-fi was few and far between.

So I was completely willing to watch Season One came along and looked better, but still came off as cheap, and the stories were very hit and miss as it went on. I saw that it was not the clone of Trek, I thought it was. The show was starting to click.

Then season two landed and liked the difference between one and the pilot. It got better both in production and storytelling. Somewhere before the middle of the second season, I realized I was looking forward to B five more than Ds nine. From week to week, I still love track, but B on five was the new king to me.

Then the third season landed, it got even better. He shares a lot more. But now that we're reaching the end of season two, I thought this was a really good time to share that story and get us a little hyped up for season three.

Brent: I don't know, I'm a little trepidacious about getting hyped up for season three cuz we got really hyped up for season two.

And while season two certainly has had its bright moments, very bright moments, and in fact, season two's, brighter moments have been brighter than season one's. Brightest moments for sure. Season two's, lower moments have. Definitely not been as good as a lot of season one's. Kind of normal moments. Mm-hmm.

you know, so season two's been a little bit of a rollercoaster for both of us, Jeff. Um, so I, I'm a little trepidacious about giving hype for season three, but I gotta admit I'm kind of doing it anyway.

Jeff: Well, I think given this episode that we're about to talk about, if it continues like this, if this is the ride we're on, then I mean yeah, it should

Brent: be great.

This is the ride we want, like that's the thing, right? Like this is where, I mean, we've been saying it the last couple of of episodes, like, this is the storyline we wanna focus on, like, stay here. And they keep like doing this one off episode about a Weirdy Cop thing and another weird episode about that thing over there and like, no, no, get back to this.

Stay, stay in this lane right here. We like this one.

Jeff: Yeah. I got one more to share. This is from YouTube and Career Night Shared some cool stuff behind the lens transformation from a while ago. Career night says, this was like wild news to me, and it just, I don't know. Makes a lot of sense. I think it's cool.

The original idea for Lens's transformation was she was also going to go from male to female as part of becoming a minbar human hybrid, which is why in the pilot, her makeup is so androgynous. JMS said the idea was dropped because they couldn't come up with a good way to change Mira Fur's voice to sound masculine.

I can only imagine how much people would've freaked out over having a trans character back in the nineties.

Brent: I don't. I don't know that they would've because what? Really? No, no, I don't think they would've won because it's an alien who is going literally into a cocoon. And coming out as like literally making a change.

Not somebody who is either superficially doing something or even surgically doing something. Uh, and it's an alien. We are, that that's the whole thing about like Star Trek and, and why sci-fi works, because you can do stuff with aliens, you can't do with humans. If it was a human that did it, there might be an issue.

But I

Jeff: mean, like, here we are in, it's 2023 and we in the, what, a season or two ago? I think it was in the third season, they were introduced, um, oh, I don't even remember their names. Uh, but in, in Star Trek Discovery, they have, what's their name? I can't even remember their name.

Brent: Um, blue and, uh, Ian Alexander.

Yes.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: there's, I forget her last Lu Del Barrio. Last name. Lu Del Barrio. Thank you. Forget her last name. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. We're great. I love both of them, but I mean, one's presented as non-binary and again, they're using aliens or using, um, the tri to kind of tell part of these stories, but still like, People were losing their minds.

And that was a year, that was like a year ago.

Brent: But, but again, but in those, both of those situations, you had humans as actors who were in real life, uh, trans or non-binary, coming in and playing the same type of character. Like Yeah. . And, and, and largely there is most people, like the people that were losing their minds. There was a whole other group of people that was like, shut up.

Jeff: Yeah. . Yeah. Well, and I think that's, that's like the, the point now is there are group of people that would say that, I don't know that that group of people would've stood up and told them to shut up back in the nineties.

Brent: I don't, I still know that they would've showed up back in the nineties. They might, they might have.

They really might have. And because you know what we did have, back in the nineties, we had RuPaul. True. We had, uh, what, what is, what's, what's that street down in Key West that has all the drag shows, um, which are hilarious to go to. By the way, if you've never been, um, Uh, I don't know if they're still dorm or not.

I imagine they are. Uh, you know, but remember, we didn't really have trans people in the nineties, like, like in the nineties. They were called transvestites, not transgender.

Jeff: Right. Well, and they were, they were a punchline. Mrs. Doubtfire, you know, came out around this time. It was a joke. Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. But I point taken, looking, looking back on that with our eyes today.

Yeah. That's, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of,

it seems like it'd be kind of ballsy back then. I think so. I wonder if I'd be wrong. I don't think I'm wrong on this one. Honestly, I don't think people would've thought two things about it. I really don't, but I could be wrong. They really.

Jeff: We can imagine the past, however, , however we want, I think. I think it would've been fascinating if they had done it.

It's, and it makes sense to me too. It's what I think is fascinating though. , the tech is the thing that stopped it, right? They couldn't tech technologically make her voice sound appropriate as his voice uhhuh. So they scrapped it, but they still moved forward with all the CGI that they decided to use for tv.

That's just a Jeff thing. I'll let that go. Mm-hmm.

Brent: I have heard that before though. I have heard that, that Dilin was originally supposed to be a male and then they wound up changing it for one reason or another. I didn't know that. It had to do with the voice though. Interesting.

Jeff: Yeah, it is kinda just a neat, neat behind the scenes thing. Mm-hmm. , that's all I had to share on this one.

Brent: Well, with that, Jeff, we like our games. We got the rule of three. We've got another game at the end of the show where we predict what the next week is gonna be about, based on title alone, not having seen anything. And now is the time to pay the piper. Look back on what we said last week, that this week was gonna be about and fess up and, and just, just own your mistakes, Jeff.

I'm gonna own mine right away. I said this was Delin. I said this was Thelen struggling, uh, with something. I don't exactly remember what, uh, I think what I said was it's not lawn and the redemption of lawn, which I got, right. . That's the, but it was, there was definitely some lawn in this one, but, uh, yeah, that's, that's what I, I was nowhere close to this one.

Jeff, what'd you have?

Jeff: I thought Keer was gonna get killed by the shadows in this one. Right? The shadows were there. They killed a lot of people. Keffer was not one of them. He was on a smoke break. Probably, although there were no star theories in this one either. So I mean, maybe he was,

Brent: it's been a while since we've seen a good star fury, like a good launch sequence and

Jeff: everything.

Let's, which is pretty wild when you think they literally added a cast member to lead the Star Fury crew, and then we have less star theories than we've ever had before. Yeah, that's a little, little odd and disappointing. Well, for those of you, I have no idea what we're talking about whatsoever. You've never seen this episode.

For whatever reason you've decided to watch and listen to this podcast before checking out the episode. If you've watched it in the past, it's been a while. Whatever you need a reminder, Brent, can you tell everyone what the long Twilight Struggle was about? Boy

Brent: oh boy. What a season two finale This one was.

Jeff: Who? This was not the finale. No,

Brent: no, not a season finale. Got like

Jeff: two more I think. No. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm pretty, pretty sure.

Brent: Yeah. Okay. Well anyway, uh, lawn has been summoned home to Sonari Prime and a one on one with Lord rfa. RFA declares that the end of the Sonari Nan war is at hand. You see, they've intercepted a narn transmission about a plan that they have to marshal their forces and an attack on the Sonari supply hub, which means that the Sonari will not only be waiting an ambush to obliterate this fleet, but as soon as they've done that, they're gonna head straight for the Narn home world, which will now be left defenseless.

And Lando is the key to victory. All he has to do is call on his special friends. One last time Lawn looks super uncomfortable with this whole idea, which totally means that this is it, right? This is the redemption of lawn molar. That is until he says he'll do it. But he hasn't done it yet. So there's still hope, right?

Well back on Babylon five. A stranger has been appearing on a station except it's not a stranger. It's draw. Remember that guy, the battery down on the planet below, or at least it's a draw that's 30 years younger, which by the way is a really cool way of just explaining away of recasting. He invites Sheridan to come down for a visit and he gives them a plus one.

Well, while that ambush is happening way out there, Sheridan and Dalen, cuz of course you know she is the plus one head down to meet Draw. Draw says that Draw says that he has a pretty good idea of what this planet now has to offer and he's offering all of its resources to Sheridan and the upcoming long twilight struggle and it will give them hope.

But just as the shadow ship obliterates, the Narn fleet draw. Feels a great disturbance in the force. It's as if a thousand voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Captain, it's time you go back, you're going to be needed there. And oh, dilin introduce him to the others. The others what others, well back on the station lawn has arrived and is delivering the news that the narn have completely and objectively surrendered to the Sonari.

And he's reading their draconian terms of surrender that the Sonari are imposing, which basically means that they're going to execute the entire Kari, which Jaar is a part of. I don't know if we ever knew that before, but hey, Jaar is a part of the Karie, and if one Nan steps foot outta line and even accidentally kills a Sonari 500 Narn will be summarily executed as vengeance.

And they're also, of course, going to set up an entire puppet government on Narn. And, oh, one more thing. Lawn is no longer an ambassador and must return home. Sheridan says like hell, he will, he's asked for sanctuary and now he's under my protection lawn. Doesn't like it. Say

Jeff: what you said. You said that happened to lawn.

Oh dang. What did

Brent: I say? Yeah, you said that happened. Lawn's no longer an ambassador.

Jeff: Yeah. If you just say jaar, I can cut it in.

Brent: I, I'll redo the sentence. Okay. I'll redo the sentence. Oh, and one more thing. Jaar is no longer an ambassador and must return home. Sheridan says like hell, he will, and he asks, he's asked for sanctuary and he's now under my protection lawn.

Doesn't like it, but there's not much he can do except for yell. No, come on there, captain. Whatever he calls him, I don't know. Jaar does the political walk of shame, but he does so with his head. Hell hot, held high after giving a great little speech. Well, later in secret Lawn is still looking very uncomfortable with his tooth, with this whole thing, but it's too late.

He is fully complicit. He's an active particip in this entire thing, and he has as much blood on his hands as the rest of them. Sorry, Lando. You're the bad guy. Now in a secret meeting, Sheridan promises all of his resources to helping free the nas, which is followed by another secret meeting, one in which Dilin Garabaldi and wait for it.

Ambassador Kosh are introducing those others that draw talked about to Sheridan. Well, who are. None other than the Rangers that Sinclair told us about over a video conference a whole bunch of episodes ago. They are now naming Sheridan their leader. They're forming an army of light to fight against the army of darkness.

And I'm not making that up. That is literally what they said. And the episode ends on one of the most rousing speeches ever committed to film. A line must be drawn here this far. No father,

oh, uh, sorry. Wrong button. Wrong button. Uh, one of the most rousing speeches ever committed to film, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a, we're. We're going to survive today. We celebrate our independence day.

No, no wrong button. One of the most rousing speeches ever committed to film. Tell them that from this place, we will deliver notice to the parliaments

Jeff: of conquerors that a line has been drawn against

Brent: the darkness and we will hold that line no matter the

Jeff, what did you think of the long twilight

Jeff: struggle? Do you remember? There was a season one episode. It wasn't, I don't know if you remember it or not, it was called Chrysalis. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a, kind of an episode that we watched, so it ended with Commander Sinclair saying that nothing is the same anymore.

Mm-hmm. and Holy, he's right. . Nothing is the same after this one. This episode is incredible, Brent. It was so good. This is the episode we've been waiting all season four. Yes. It was at the end of season one. We were getting bombarded with people. Well, season two, this is where it gets going. This is what happens.

Yeah. We're like three episodes to the end or whatever and yes, we're here. Yeah. Season two has taken

Brent: off. You've heard those big episodes from season one. Signs Importance, right, Chrysalis, that we were like, yeah, they're okay. A voice in the wilderness. Yeah. It was okay. Like it was pretty good. Season one.

It's about as good as you're gonna get it on a season one sci-fi show. Like they, they were good. They, they were good. I liked it. Enjoyed it. This one. Exactly what you just said, Jeff. This is what we were promised.

Jeff: This is what, this is Babylon five. You know when people talk about Babylon five? Yeah. It's the serialized stuff that happens.

It's the long story arc, just a character development. But it's moments like these where everything pays off in a way that you finish watching this episode and you feel, you feel both defeated. You feel empty, but you also feel like unchecked hope and optimism, you know, all at the same time. It's this episode, like it played me like a fiddle, you know, with all the, the emotional rollercoaster that we went through, the things that we learned.

I mean, the, the narn are sonari now, , you know, I mean, holy

Brent: cru, that

Jeff: that's something before the coming of shadows. I never, never would've guessed that those words would come outta my

Brent: mouth. I thought that we would get to the end of the Narn Sonari war. , and it would be a little bit like a reset button. We would go back to the five council members and maybe even there'd be some sort of, uh, uh, deepening of the relationship between Lando and Jaar, you know?

Mm-hmm. . Uh, certainly there's still some myth because I, I, I think I've said a long time ago, those two can never actually be friends. Right. But there could at least be some, some, uh, mutual respect. I think maybe that's starting to, to garner like something would happen. And, and I said I, I've been calling Ford all season long, the redemption of lawn molar, and I gotta tell you, after this, I'm done with lawn.

He's not like, I hate it. Lawn is irredeemable. What's amazing to me,

Jeff: amazing to me, the way they did this and the seed for what I'm about to say was planted back in. Um, and now for a word when Torman was saying of Jaar and Lando, they're saying the same thing, but they're not communicating with each other.

That parallel path continued here where Jaar is at the lowest point we've ever seen him. I mean, yeah, you said it. He had to do that walk of shame outta the council chambers, but he Oh my, oh my What, what did a holy cru, he owned that. He did his speech. I even, I even wrote his little, his little speech down.

Cause it was so powerful. But he walked out low as he is ever been. But here's the thing, lawns at the lowest point he's ever been because at the end of this episode in my, the way I read the end of this episode, he's garbage and he knows it. Yeah. The episode began with, Learning the emperor car, Cartia, is that how you say his name?

Carta, whatever. Something like that. Cartia, it doesn't matter because he's just a puppet for rfa. Yeah. And Lawn, I think, realized when they said that the Sentara were annexing other worlds Lawn realized, oh, Cru, I'm just a puppet too. Yeah, I mean he's, he's now had to go in front of these people. He's worked to build relationships with swing bravado to the skies.

I mean, his run, yelling about all the, the terms of the surrender. And then at the end of the day, he's gonna end up drinking alone

Brent: at the bar. Yeah. I mean, you remember when Lando was happy go lucky. Going to the strip club, going to the casino, dancing on the table and kissing the butt of his, of his little idol thing, like, you know, cheating at cards like that lawn is no more.

He's gone. He's gone. And it was hard for me to look at him and think of those times. And see this. And you know, the part that really did it for me, and I know this sounds like really stupid given, like, here's all the other things and then this is what sealed it for me was when he yelled at Sheridan, I went, no, come under.

Like when, and, and I think what that really symbolized was there is no going back for lawn. Like on some level there could be Lawn is a messenger of his home world. He's delivering on his duties as an ambassador. But that is the moment when Lando digs in. That's the moment when Lando, um,

Jeff: he plants his flag.

Brent: He does, he really does. And, and regardless if he doesn't feel comfortable with it, regardless if he feels guilty about it, he's done it and he is guilty, he should feel guilty because he is guilty. And you and I have both said it, he is irredeemable. Now, the people out there listening right now who know where this show goes, there's three more seasons.

I imagine at some point something's gonna happen. I mean, my God, if Jamie freaking Lannister can become the highlight of Game of Thrones after what we saw him do for the first three or four seasons, I guess they could do something with lawn before the end of this whole thing is up. But right now, and I just, I don't know how lawn ever, ever could be forgiven for any of this, I think, or how he could ever pay any amount of recompense other than dying.

Yeah,

Jeff: that's what I was gonna say. A couple episodes, seven, eight episodes. I think that's what I said. Lando will have to sacrifice himself to I thought it was to end the war. He did. Yeah. And, but now I think that's how, like it will be one of those things that four seconds before he plunges to his death or whatever, people are gonna be like, that dude was right.

But he has to die for that to happen. He does.

Brent: Yeah. Like he, he absolutely does. Did you notice, you know, how week we've noted Lando, like his hair's gotten a little bigger and a lot blacker. Mm-hmm. , you know, and his suit has gone from this rich purplely to a dark black color. Now, are his fangs longer?

Jeff: I think they're sharper.

They definitely

Brent: showed, they showed more. Look, I mean, they emphasized them in this particular episode. Uh, for sure. I have a question though, about Wado. Okay. Uh, and, and by the way, here's the thing. I don't know about you, Jeff. I don't have much, uh, laughing at this episode. I don't have much goofs or cut ups and observations, so I, but, uh, I have

Jeff: quick ones.

I have two, but we'll just,

Brent: we'll throw em's of those in just a moment. But I, I've got a question. There was a moment where, I think it was right after lawn left, or, or no, I'm sorry, not Lawn Jaar left. It was somewhere in that scene. The camera stops on lawn on Peter Jik. Is that how you say his name? Ick.

You know what, Ava is an easier name to get right than that one. I know. Um, he coughs. Did you catch it? I did. He gives a little,

Jeff: they sat on him for a second Move

Brent: on. They did, but then they move on and I'm like, I immediately sat there and I was like, that seems on purpose. That seems like a seed that JMS is planting that's gonna come back later.

Jeff: It's already been planted. That seed's already been planted. And this is the first like little sprout when, um, it was in the coming of shadows where he had his full vision. We saw the whole vision where we saw him and like scarred Ja car, you know, and strangling each other. And he was dressed up like he was the emperor.

And there were a couple scenes in that where he was like, emperor lawn, kinda like sick and coughy. That was part of his vision. So I like the first time I watched that. I thought the same thing as you. Oh, that cough is gonna be something. Then when I watch it the second I'm like, oh my God. It already is like, to me this not only like this affirms he's irredeemable because now he's on that path, the path that's gonna lead to him alone on the emperor's throne waiting to be strangled to death by scarred jaar.

Except don't

Brent: forget what bald lady dude said and signs importance. It can change. You can, it

Jeff: can still change, but he's on the path. Like that's where he's moving. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my two quick goofs one, um,

was the new, the new draw. What, what did you think of um, our good cling on ambassador plane? Uh, plane draw.

Brent: Oh, that's who he was. I was trying to figure it out. I didn't spend too much time thinking about him, but that's who he was. Okay. Um, at first I hated it. Because when he came, I mean, I like, I was like, this is as bad of a recasting as nata.

Yeah. And then they hung a lantern on it. They, they gave you a reason for it. They told you, yeah. Look, the machines rolled me back and I'm youthful vigor and I'm 30 years younger. And I was like, cool. I can deal with that. I can, I can hang out with that. Um, there were times where I was like, has anybody told this guy that he's acting on television and not on a stage right now?

Seriously, because like , there are just times like he's just having a regular conversation and he's talking like,

Jeff: I was like rolling his arms.

Brent: But I mean, maybe that's just draw, maybe that's the battery part of him. I, I don't know. I found him endearing. I found him amusing. I found him potentially menacing.

Like if, if KO. Had a sense of humor. Now you have draw. Okay. Okay. If he had a sense of the dramatic and a sense of humor, now you have draw. You know? Uh, so it's one of those like, it was a little annoying at first and then I kind of warmed up to him like, I kind of like him. What, what did you think of him?

Jeff: I couldn't stand him at first even when, even when they had the, um, the explanation, I was like, well, thanks for explaining it. This is still ridiculous. On my second watch through though, I thought that, cuz he talked about, like, I thought it was fascinating how he said the, the planet has rejuvenated him.

Cuz we watched Mr. House in a voice in the wilderness, like get sucked dry from it. So like at some point that's gonna flip, I'm gonna rejuvenating you and now it's gonna flip and I'm gonna suck you dry. But there's also other people there taking care of the plant. A notable one by the way, which we can talk about in a little bit, but he talked about how he communicated with other people.

That are taking care of this thing. Yeah. There's gotta be a lot of personalities built into this machine that I think probably came in and so became, you know, almost a part of him as well. You know, he absorbed pieces of the, the other batteries over there that I think also, he's just an old man who hasn't talked to his grandkids in a really long time.

And so when Sheridan and Dylan showed up, like, there are people here, I'm so excited. So I, I warmed up to him on the second one, but, okay.

Brent: I'm glad you did because Yeah, I'm glad you did because I, I kind of, I kind of liked him. Okay. I've gotta two, two thoughts about him real quick. Were we looking, when we're down on the planet, are we looking at his body or is that like an ASL projection of him?

Jeff: We saw his body in the thing and then when he was, when we, yeah, so they showed him in the, in the, the gimmick, right. That he was, he was all really lashed up. Did you see that at all? So him walking around was the, the hologram version of him. So up in the, up in the station and the down on the planet was, which I thought was a, was a really great way to let him interact, right?

Him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Project myself. And then I can just be dude walking with you.

Brent: Um, so you referenced it just a second ago. He talks about there are others here as well. Who are the others? Like, that's fascinating to me.

Jeff: Well, we, he told us who one of them was. Ooh. Zas. Zas. Careful

Brent: Lon three. I don't, I don't, uh, I didn't catch that part of it.

And maybe you're right. I, I saw Zas, but I was just thinking, he was like, Zas is like a little servant who comes in and out and goes off and does his bidding and, and whatever. But I didn't think of it as Zas is one of the others. In the, in the machine. That's an interesting

Jeff: thought. I don't know that he's in the machine and I don't know that all the others were in.

I got on my first watch through, the impression I got was, there were others hooked up to machines through the planet. Second time through, I just, he said there are others caring for the planet. And so some might be hooked up to machines. Some might be sweeping the floors right. Some might be Zas.

Brent: We're gonna shoot.

What'd you do is when he said, Zas.

Jeff: Wait, my, my exact first thought was, Brett's gonna be so excited. I was so excited you were off by like one or

Brent: two episodes. I know, I know. But he didn't show up. It was just zas. That's, oh God, he's never around when you need him. And then he walks away and I was like, it was perfect.

It was short of actually having Zas pop out somewhere. It was about as perfect of a reference as you could get.

Jeff: Did you catch? Uh, my other, my other little funny piece before we get really deep in this stuff is did you catch who played Jain? The war leader?

Brent: I did, because the voice got me. So, you know who I thought it was at first?

I thought it was Marta. JJ Hertzler. Mm-hmm. . That's who I first thought it was, was JJ Hertzler. And I was like, no, that's not quite right. That's not quite right. And then I actually looked it up and it's the

Jeff: Soul Hunter murder. Soul hunter. Yeah. I actually brought him back. Right. He was a lot better this time.

A lot better this time. They're not gonna bring him back in this role though. No. No. Which is too bad. Which is too bad. I, it was, uh, you know, we talked to, I forget which episode it was, but it was where they showed us the inside of a narn ship that was blown up. Blown up by the sari. You know, Jaar showed everybody the footage and was like, Hey, feel sorry for me.

Come on. Help me out. Yeah. Yeah. And we were asking like, is this propaganda just to make us feel bad for the nan What we saw here was like, no, like, they're cool. Like, I would've loved to have served under just n even though he would refuse to listen to Jaar who had the magic, you know, to fix everything.

Mm-hmm. , I, I feel like I would really like to work for that guy.

Brent: Sure, sure. I had this thought though, with, with all of that going down, um, after they just got their butts obliterated and then we're like in the bar where the news channel is, is giving the report and you've got a couple of centara and you've got a couple na and then there's a mbar here and, and a few different things.

And you're like, this is about to go down. Yeah. Right. And then you turn around and like one of those, one of those guys is doing like a flying leap kick. One of the sari's, you know, Like really quickly, all of the sari dispatched these narn. Mm-hmm. and listen visually, these narn are badass looking dudes, man.

Like they are, are the warriors, the whatever. And I'm kind of sitting there like I know they're supposed to be kangaroos more related to them than they are, you know, wild boars. Are they just bad fighters? Like they're not the warrior race that they kind of look like they are at all? Not at all. Not at all.

Like,

Jeff: oh my gosh. Yeah. And the worst part in that scene was the, the poor news anchor kicks off with, hey, there's bad stuff happening over in the narn home world and Earth Dom thinks that they're responsible Earth them did misread the cue card, ACE like earth. There's an E at the end. My daughter calls that a bossy e because it makes the vowel say its name.

We say

Brent: that it gives the vow all of its power. Oh, okay.

Jeff: Yeah. I like that better cuz I'm not a big fan of boss, but. Right, right.

Brent: Um, okay. I had actually, I think I do have a little, a little fun one here. Um, there was a moment, the way they edited this show together, this episode together that I thought a whole bunch of stuff was going on that didn't actually happen.

So at the very beginning, draw comes on the station and, um, oh, the guy at the, the guy in CNC recognizes something's happening down on the planet, and he says, let's call commander a Avan. And then we flash to a quarters with a steady cam walking through the quarters and you hear the shower and the background and I'm like, wow.

Talia's not even been off the station for 24 hours and a lot's getting it on in the shower with somebody. Totally thought that's what, what's we were getting ready to walk into. And then we turn and they're Sheridan's back. And I was like, it's Sheridan. Where's a, oh no, we're in Sheridan's quarters. They called for AANA and then flashed us over to Sheridan's quarters.

And I was like, like, like I, it was, it was a real brief moment of like, ugh. And then I didn't Same crashing down. But the, the editing was not playing favors for you at all in that particular

Jeff: moment? No, but it was cool in that scene cuz another draw moment that on second watch added so much to him where he's giving his big speech and look how important, oh, I'm sorry you.

You can get dressed if you want. Like, I don't mean to interrupt. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm fine. He's like, oh, good, I'm, well then I'm back to giving. But then he is like, then I'm back to giving my big speech again. Like, it's fun.

Brent: Okay. So I thought this was kind of cool, and I haven't seen this before, or at least I've never noticed it before.

The, the shadow weird ships, spider ships. Mm-hmm. , whatever we call them, when they were done attacking, which by the way, the way they took out those narn, not to shoot the ship, we're gonna let you open a jump gate, get into the vortex of it, and then we're gonna shoot the jump gate, uh, and collapse the jump gate on you.

It's brutal. That's, oh my gosh. Like, you're not even floating in space at that point. Like you're just gone. Yeah. Um, but when they were done with that and they started flying away, did they all like. Collapse together, like collectible, Tupperware and like become a single ship again.

Jeff: What I, what I thought that was interesting.

What I thought I saw was one of the ships had one of its, uh, spider legs blown off. Like, like the narn actually damaged it and then the other, one of the full spiders came and like piggybacked it and grabbed it to take it away.

Brent: Okay. That might have been what it was cuz they, because it looked to me like they were all just sort of like Voltron coming together and like, now they're gonna fly

Jeff: off together and it's like a big shadow sandwich that can split off.

And then I thought it was really fascinating too, how they launched like a, well the narn flashed a mine, like minds that went out and then I thought that that's was the shadows were launching back. I'm like, oh, so mines are a big thing. Oh no, these aren't. These are like a hundred little tiny fighter ships that are gonna come and tutu all over the big war.

These shadows are no joke. Like these things are. Yeah, yeah. They are. They are big time. Mm-hmm. . And honestly, if they can rock all those narn like that and one of the ships loses a little leg and that's, it's right. There's no way the rest of the galaxy can even even try to stand up to them

Brent: at this point.

Well, but I mean, again, you've gotta go back to that whole, I think it's that organic tech thing that I keep waiting to come back into the whole thing. Organic tech down on the planet, organic tech with caution, his whole people organic tech with the shadows themselves.

Jeff: Like what's gonna happen? What?

Franklin Franklin, oh no, don't say it. No, he's gonna program a virus. Oh. That he'll upload to the shadows and it's gonna totally willsmith the whole thing. Franklin's gonna be the hero who figures out how to take down the

Brent: shadows. And Sheridan will step up and say, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night.

Jeff: Okay. You know, my favorite thing about that whole piece was they used an old, it was, uh, I think it was a Power street, uh, G three MacBook that they used for that scene where they uploaded, it wasn't a G three, it was well before. No, but, well, it was a Power Mac laptop that they used to upload the virus.

And back in the day, especially in the Power Mac and the G three G four days, the whole thing was, well Max never get viruses, but they uploaded a virus to the aliens and it killed them. And so it's like, yeah, they never do. But when they do get a virus, man, they will mess you up.

Brent: Uh, all right, Jeff. Um, oh, dilin cussing. Trying to cuss. That was fun. That was fun. That was fun. That was good. Again, I go back to what I said last week. John and Dilin are so cute together. They're just cute. Um,

okay, let's, let's,

let's talk a little bit about the war itself and the reasoning, um, RFAs reasoning for going to war and doing this thing right, and calling the shadows in, talking about we could continue fighting the way we are and we'll just continue to lose more and more sonari lives. We're gonna eventually gonna win anyway, but this way at least it's one swift stroke and cut the head off.

We're good to go. I save a whole bunch of lives in the process. That sounds like a good idea, right? Sort of. And I'm realizing in the moment, isn't that the same reasoning that the United States used back in 1945 when they decided to drop the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Like, that's like, cuz we could either go island by island and eventually we would take it over or let's just go drop this and be done with it.

And

Jeff: yeah, I, I always enjoy my opportunities to quote, rush on this show or really just in life, period. It's one of my favorite things to do. But Rush has not No, no. The real rush, the good rush. The one that's in a, in a, in a hall of fame that matters into some people. The one that's not a poster on your wall back there.

Exactly. Yeah. Actually two, there's two of them right there and I have one over there also. But, um, they have a song in their, their Power Windows records. It's not even the first time I've quoted one from Power Windows, but the Manhattan Project. And they have a line that says the pilot of an Ola gay flying out of the shockwave on that August day.

And what that always meant to me was, yeah, that was, that was a efficient way to end the war, right? Mm-hmm. just boom, we're, we're done. But that dude. That dude who flew the plane and opened the bay doors. Mm-hmm. had to live with that. Yeah. His whole life. I would be fascinated, I don't know if there's a movie or a book or something, but there's no way dude went home and just, you know, had a TV dinner with the family and was like, yeah, I won the war today.

That guy was carrying some stuff. And this version of that, I think, I think that's exactly what this was an analogy for, but they took that piece out. They took the pilot away. Mm-hmm. , and they made it the shadows and then kind of made lawn the pilot. He's the one who basically made the call for the shadows to do it, but he didn't have to fly over.

Actually, I take that back. He did, he stood on the bridge of that ship and watched, watched it happen. Yeah. And what I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna plan a flag here in what was possibly one of the most powerful scenes and moments in television.

Brent: I can, I can berate lawn all I want, but Peter Jures. Acting against a, a window against his own reflection was phenomenal.

Jeff: He told the whole story with

Brent: his, you felt every bit of it. And it didn't matter in the end because the character still chose what he chose. But you could tell everything from his like, it was so good.

Yeah.

Jeff: And he's gonna hold onto that. And, and I, I think I've used this analogy before, but I think this is it.

This is akin walking in on the youngling and just being like, well, here we go. Yep. Next thing you know, do fade. Yep. This was lawn's. This is lawn's youngling moment. And there

Brent: was a moment of redemption for Darth fedder. Dang it, Jeff. I don't want Landa to be redeemed right now. I'm still mad

Jeff: at him. Darth Fedder had to die to get redeemed.

Ooh, good point.

Brent: But still. Um, so there was another moment that actually very much reminded me of what we're seeing today. So Jeff, as this episode, uh, comes out as we're recording this episode, we have just passed, like the one year anniversary of this whole, ever since Russia first did stuff in Ukraine, and there's been a lot of really horrible stuff over the last year that has happened and come out war crimes, torture, targeting civilians, and yet the West and everyone else around the world protests.

But we don't do anything about it really. Like, yeah, we send some, we send some stuff, we throw a bunch of supplies, whatever, but at what point are we stepping in, you know? Yeah. Until Russia brings us in to the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. Right. But like, that's what happened here is. Lando shows up and he is like, this is all that happens.

And, and they're like, the earth and Menari governments have already filed a protest with the Sonari government over their treatment of whatever. Okay. But she didn't stop it. The didn't do anything about, Itsari

Jeff: didn't even acknowledge them. And it, and they were, they were filing protests against their use of illegal outlawed weapons.

Those mass drivers were illegal. But I think the key point in there that's even bigger that adds to your point, is it wasn't just the earth and menari governments that filed protests, the VO

Brent: protests. I was, I was trying to think if it was the VO as well,

Jeff: but Yeah. Yeah. And they, they, they could have just ended this whole thing, the

Brent: lon, oh, they could have stepped in and been like, okay, we got you

Jeff: Done. Done. We're finished. There we go. Now maybe, maybe they're not doing that because they know the shadows are involved and them showing up to fight the shadows would immediately escalate things maybe, but also, You took the time to file a protest. Ooh. That's what the first ones bring to the table. I don't know if I'm so excited you're around anymore,

Brent: but again, a part, I mean, a part of that whole first one, you let, don't, don't let the little squabbles bother you.

Let 'em, let 'em fight it out. And this would be one of those, let 'em fight it out situations. But they actually went to the process of filing a protest. Mm-hmm. through the ambassador, uh, deal.

Jeff: I hope, I hope that K felt like an idiot when he was doing, you know what I mean? It's like, well, yeah, I guess, I guess I'm, here you go.

Brent: The thing I, I, you almost want like Sheridan and Delin to like go to KO and be like, Hey, can you file this with us? Like, prevent a present, a united front. And KO is kind of like, okay, fine.

Jeff: kind of on that though. So that was one of the few times that we talked about. Earth Government, Menari, government, von Government.

We talked a lot about, you know, the Cent and, and, and Na and the Kari Government. But everything that came out though with Sheridan Anden through this episode, aligning Withdrawal that wasn't an, an alliance with Earth Force or the Menari that was an alliance with Sheridan and Babylon. Five, right at the very end of the episode when it was, here's the Rangers, they're not here to help Minbar or Earth, they're here to help Babylon.

Five. Like, we're starting to really see Sheridan and Babylon five carve out as this separate entity. And I think, is that gonna go the full way? I, I, I think it is. I

Brent: think it has to, like, it's got to cut off. support, uh, uh, and become its own entity.

Jeff: Right. In Babylon squared, when they had the Flash forward scene where Garabaldi and Sinclair were fighting and going, my initial, uh, theory was that that was Earth Force attacking Babylon five.

Yeah. I, I what, what we've seen progressed through this season, I, I'm almost back to that, that they're gonna end up in a firefight with

Brent: Earth.

What did you, what did you, did you find the naming scheme here? As ridiculous as I did. The army of light. Yeah. Against the army of darkness. Like, I get it, like, I mean, talk about bonk bon over the head, ,

you

Jeff: know, it was like I had a, I had a problem with it cuz I doubt they're bringing Bruce Campbell in for one

But I also, I, I think I have a bigger problem with it though fundamentally, and this might be my misunderstanding of be of Babylon five, so I'll own that as I say this, but my impression was that Babylon five was about, there is no clear, good and clear evil. Everything is a shade of gray and nothing is what it appears to be.

But we're going to have a purely good light army and a pure well, but then as I say that, right, darkness isn't all bad. You can sleep well in it and whatever light can't always be good. It starts fires and burns things. So maybe I'm reading too much into just the binary, lightness and darkness thing, but it, it does just seem very just like, hey, so Star Trek apparently ripped us off as the rumor, so we're just gonna rip off Star Wars

Cause I mean, nobody's doing that yet. Right? Right.

Brent: Uh, so we have the Rangers that are in, I mean, Jeff, unless you have anything else, I think we're at that spot of the show, my friend.

We're there. So that spot of the show being, it is time to boil all of this down and see if this show has any of that star treky quality to it. Is there a deep moral message? Is it holding up a mirror to society? Is it giving us hope that things can and will be better in the future? So in order to do that, I am going to rate this episode on a scale of zero to five Deltas as to how Star Trek this episode is.

And Jeff, you are gonna rate this episode on a scale of zero to five star Furies as to how Babylon five this episode is. I'll go first.

There were. Places specifically that I thought this really, um, pulled in. It, it took its responsibility as sci-fi as television seriously. And said, we're here to actually make a statement. It's not just entertainment, but we're here to make a statement. Right. Um, now they couldn't have known this way back then.

I mentioned earlier how a lot of what they're doing reflects what we have been seeing here over the last year in our own time. Mm-hmm. . Right. Uh, but I loved the sort of speech that Draw gave to Sheridan, where they name checked the episode.

Jeff: He said the thing he said, he said it,

Brent: he did it there. It's, you know, uh, it's that, that Leonard DiCaprio treat like Got it.

Uh, but he said in the long twilight struggle ahead, there is the possibility of. Which is something we need right now because in many ways it feels like right now to us in this day and age, it feels as if we are in the middle of stuff wars. Now, whether it's on our own shores, in our own borders, or it's, or it's way, it feels like we're in the middle of it and it doesn't feel like there's an end in sight because you know what we also have coming up here in the next year in America, your favorite time in mind.

A presidential election. Yeah. You know, and it like, there's just so much, it's so easy to get bogged down and get depressed over the state of the world, of the country, of everything going on. And it really is nice to hear that, hey, in the midst of all of that, there is hope on the other. You know? Mm-hmm. , it was, it was really great.

Like, Hey, we're bringing all of these people together because even though all of this stuff is happening and you're not gonna be able to prevent it, there's hope. There's hope that we actually can overcome it. There's hope that we're gonna get through it. There's hope that we're gonna be better when we come out of it.

I loved that particular line. But then how do you not look at the line from Sheridan at the very end, from this place? We will deliver a notice to the parliaments of conquerors that a line has been drawn. Yeah. Yeah. And no further. And you can't buzz me cuz you already did once for that same reference, he says, against the darkness.

And we will hold that line no matter the cost. I mean, that has to be a line that JMS has, like he held onto and he had it for a really long time and was just waiting to be able to throw it in, you know? Uh, but I mean, gosh, talk about. Hope of the future in a different way, I think, than what Star Trek would give us.

But still putting that there. Definitely, I think a mirror of society of the way that things really are happening right now. Uh, so I'm gonna give this one four deltas and I think I'm just trying to not give it five, but I think I'm gonna give those one four deltas.

Jeff: I can totally agree with that. I'm gonna make a case for five.

You don't have to take it. I think four is is a great rating, but what you didn't bring up was Ja car's speech. Oh my gosh. How did I forget that? Yes. Right. And, and, and he, he, he talks quite a bit about there is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom against that power governments and tyrant and armies cannot stand.

The Santa learned this lesson once we will teach it to them again, though it take a thousand years, we will be free. Yeah. And then he walked off into the sunset. I mean, that is, that is again, not how Star Trek would do it, but that's the message. And I think, to me, Jakarta's speech and Sheridan's speech, both really double down on our piece, where we call this the Star Trekky message.

We rate it with Deltas, but it's not about Star Trek, it's about the message. It's a, and that's these two speeches and, and draws as well. But to me, these two especially just really shine a light on that piece that we can come together and we can fight the tyranny of evil men. We can fight the parliament of conquerors.

I mean, what, what a great line. Yeah. Yeah. A beautiful language and, and such a great message as well.

Brent: Yeah. I, I, I'm gonna leave it at four, but, and I can't believe I forgot to because I have it, it's right here. It's right here in my notes. I just glossed over it and I was sitting there in my head like, was it, I thought there was three, but I, whatever white.

On black just all runs together after a while. So, yeah. How about you, Jeff? What are, what are your star theories you got for us?

Jeff: Well, I'm gonna go there. This is a five star theory episode. I mean, it's literally what we've been talking about. This is what we've been waiting for. It's destruction, it's war.

There are alliances, there's conspiracies, there's the, the, the, the destruction, the, uh, demo, the decimation, not just of races, but of people of jaar, of lawn. I mean, it's, it's horrible and it's great. It gives you the hope, like you just talked about. And they mentioned Zas, , I mean that mention alone, that bys two star theories just by mentioning him.

Right. ,

Brent: that makes it way babble on five. Just mentioning

Jeff: X Zachs. Exactly. No, this was, this was such a great episode of Babbel on five. Um, I, I'm, I'm excited to rank this episode. I'll, I'll say that much like this was fantastic.

Brent: Well, you are the one doing the ranking this week, not me, although I know I certainly would put it in a particular spot.

Let's see if you do that because Jeff, here in season two, we are ranking these episodes and we are compiling the absolute 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of Babylon five, season two. Jeff, it's your week. I can't argue with you, but again, I know where I'd put it. Uh, where do you put the long twilight struggle?

Well, we do have that our top five, sorry. Our top five hit. It is the coming of shadows erase through dark places in the shadow of zha doom alone in the night, and divided loyalties all by the way, in a, in a rollercoaster of a season. Very strong episodes.

Jeff: We do have that space just above the long, dark. At the bottom of this, I'm gonna punch you,

No, I think so. If we just think about what this episode did, right? Yeah. It's, this episode started really in earnest in the Coming of Shadows, which is our, our top episode right now. This closed, that arc is kicking us off in a new direction. It took all the things we loved about the coming of Shadows.

Ramped it up big time. Brent, this is, this is our number one. This is the top episode of season two.

Brent: Absolutely agree. And I can't change it even if I didn't, but I absolutely agree. This, this was a fantastic, not just a fantastic hour of television, Jeff, when, when the whole, uh, na thing and the shadows and the ships were just o glittering everybody.

And I'm like, they're doing this two episodes before the season finale. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Save your budget, folks. But like, I'm also, like, I, I had to look at this. I'm like, it's suddenly 25 minutes into the episode. Really like it felt like we were close to the end of the episode at that point. They just packed so much in so much goodness all the way around.

Absolutely number one.

Jeff: Well, we'll find, uh, well we have reached a point of the episode, Brent, that I've often this season been glad we reached. I'm a little disappointed that we're here right now because that's it for the long twilight struggle. Next week we're gonna be watching comes the Inquisitor for the first time.

We don't watch ahead. We don't read ahead. We don't look ahead. We don't know anything. So based on the title alone, Brent, what do you think comes, the inquisitor is gonna be about, you

Brent: know, how we often like want the episode to continue its story, but we know it doesn't and it goes off. Well, I'm going back to this episode's, continuing the story.

All right. And here's what we have. We now have Jaar living in exile in sanctuary on the station. Where lawn is.

I think this is really where we see Jaar. Um, I don't know if he's starting to mount a defense, but I think there's, there's,

I feel like this inquisitor what it immediately calls to mind. And I, I'm sorry to continue to continually reference, actually no, I'm not sorry at all. I'm gonna reference what I reference. It feels like Dolores Sunbridge to me, where she literally was called the high inquisitor, but it feels like there's gonna be somebody coming to the station, right?

And they're going to be like the dividing line. You're the almost maybe even trying to take over. And here's gonna be jaar. Who is deposed? Who's. He's gonna have to start making a few moves. Or maybe it's him trying to figure out what he's gonna do. But I, I do think this, I think this inquisitor is probably gonna be Sari and they're coming in with this new power base.

I mean, think how much the sari regime realm empire has just grown by taking over Narn and all these little, little things around it. They're continuing declaring part of the protector as well. Like they've, they've just picked up a huge swath that honestly focuses their power base a little bit more. So maybe they try to seize control of Babylon five.

What do

Jeff: you think, Jeff? This is gonna be the pen ultimate episode of this season. Yes. Everything that happens in this one really is gonna ramp us up for what's gonna be the start of the Great War, right? That's gonna be the, that's gonna be the season final. I think, I think so. This has to put all the dominoes set up for, for that to move.

I think this is about an inquisitor who's gonna come and specifically gonna come to Sheridan. I think this Inquisitor is gonna be his wife Anna. And it's gonna, it's gonna be a modernized version of Anna who shows up to ask him what he wants. What? Yeah. Are you what? I am still convinced that she's not dead and that she has chosen the path of Morton and she's working for the

Brent: shadows.

Jeff, that is a reach That is you trying to manifest some weird theory that you have. Dude, she's gone.

Jeff: I planted this seed. I think it was in Revelations . You did?

Brent: I remember. I remember you talking about this, that you said she's not dead. And I was like, and let me repeat that now.

Jeff: Okay, but you know what, if I'm right, like this is, this is if,

Brent: if you are right, I'm calling shenanigans on you not watching ahead.

A hundred percent. Fair

Jeff: enough. I'm just flexing my muscles as a, as a sci-fi, a physi nado.

Brent: You're trying, you're trying to take my crown. Are you, are you coming for my job there,

Jeff: Jeff? I'll let you take it week to week. I'm taking the big one. I'm going, I'm going for the big one. All right, well, we'll find out right here next week.

Thank you so much for joining us. If you haven't already, you need to get your review in for our giveaway. That's gonna happen here in just three weeks at our season two wrap up episode. That's right, because we, yep, two more episodes, and then the wrap up episode three more weeks. So go to Apple Podcast, go to Audible, go to Pod Chaser, go to good pods, go somewhere.

Leave us a review screenshot. Email it to us at Babylon five first gmail.com. It's number five, the word first, or on Twitter at Babylon first. And you'll be entered in the giveaway. If you've already left a review, you're awesome. And you're also in that drawing. So three weeks. Gonna give away a mini, mini Babylon, five and a little plastic.

John Sheridan. So Brent, until next time. Hey Jeff? Yeah, yeah. Brent,

Brent: are you sure this isn't the season finale?

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure. Are you

Brent: sure? Like how sure are you? I am

Jeff: so, so sure. Peace and long life, everybody.