The Paragon of Animals

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

Brent: Brent Allen and I am the one who will be.

Jeff: and we're watching Babylon five for the first time. For you, the one who is.

Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters Searching. For the important messages that Babylon five is delivering in its own unique way,

Jeff: That's right. We're looking for those Babylon five messages, not the Star Trek messages.

Brent: the not a Star Trek part of this podcast.

Jeff: Exactly, because it's not one. We play a special game that keeps our references to Star Trek, to a minimum. We call it the rule of three. And that limits both of us total to no more than three references to Star Trek.

That's it. Three one of those place no substitutions, exchanges a refund. And if we do make one of those references, you're gonna hear this sound that everyone, everyone loves.

Brent: Right. Because this is most definitely not a Star Trek podcast. Those references are gonna slip in from time to time. It's just gonna happen. Jeff. Now along with our rule of three, there's another game where we like to play at the end of the show, where we like to guess next week's episode based on title alone.

Well, this spot right here is where we play.

Jeff: Time to pay the piper.

Brent: And this is where we revisit our prediction from last week and see if we got it right. It is time to pay the Piper, Jeff. So what did you think this week's episode, Paragon of Animals was gonna be about?

Jeff: I thought this was gonna be a bester episode. I thought he was gonna be preparing his move to higher office, either for himself or through a normal or a mundane, um, and that he was gonna find the paragon of animals, which would be what he thought was the, uh, the best, the best of the normals out there.

Brent: Um, I get to grade you on your prediction. And the only great I can give you is

I'm so sorry

Jeff: That's pretty fair. I mean, I said telepaths and that's about

Brent: they were in the episode.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: That's about it.

Jeff: Yeah. What did, uh, what did you guess.

Brent: Well, I said that this episode was gonna have nothing to do with paragons or animals, and I thought, uh, that this was gonna be a cabinet meeting. Little Hamilton reference for the folks out there. Uh, president Sheridan was gonna call together the Alliance Worlds to choose his cabinet and various members were gonna try to vie for prime spots.

I even said the green and purple draws, you are gonna come back and maybe even the great egg folk are gonna come back. Uh, ultimately I said that this was gonna be a, a political episode about the early days of the Alliance. Um, that's what I had last week.

Jeff: I'm gonna give you a higher grade than you gave me. I'm gonna give you a 0.3 on this one. It was kind of political. It was kind of cabinet E, sort of, and the draws you were in it

Brent: As early days of the Alliance, I think is all I really got right out of that.

Jeff: just about, yeah.

Brent: Well, Jeff, For those out there who may not have watched this episode in a while, and those who are like, well, wait, what was this episode actually about? I, I, I don't really remember this episode. Why don't you help the folks out there actually remember what Paragon of Animals was really about?

Jeff: Well, it seems like everybody's disgruntled these days. Lead feeling used and forgotten. The former League Now Alliance Worlds don't want to be told how to act in the Interstellar Alliance. Kar, he's taking that pretty personally since he wrote the Declaration of Principles himself and Garib all these sick of all this touchy-feely stuff and he just wants more of the iron fist.

There's also some small race called the Infe that are pretty fed up with all the Raider attacks on their world. Well, Garib Aldi's big idea is to get a little more action. No, it's not. Well, Garib, Aldi's big idea to get a little more action is to have those telepaths that showed up two weeks ago start earning their keep.

He says all the other races except the nans, use Telepaths in their militaries and it's time that humans do the same. He wants to pull them into his covert intelligence unit and have them go gather some intelligence covertly. Sheridan says he can ask them about it. But uh, but even asking them was a mistake because Byron, and that's just Byron totally eats Garibaldis lunch.

He reads them like a book and rips him up one side and down the other, telling him no and sending him on his way. Now Garibaldi a lot of things, but a quitter. Quitter ain't one of them. He decides to use the tools he has at hand and by tool. I mean Lida, but she's not doing that well. You see those in Feely.

I mentioned earlier. Well, ranger was on their home world and learned about the Raider attacks. He came back to ask for help, but somebody blasted his white star. Franklin did all he could to save him, but he was lost before he passed, though Lida ran a deep scan to learn about the infe. She was in his mind when he died, and that's a super hard thing for a telepath to go through.

In fact, they say that a little bit of their soul leaves with the person as they die. Now, Alita shares this with Garibaldi, along with an antidote.

Alina shares this with Garabaldi, along with an anecdote about Mr. Baster and Garabaldi kind of sort of acknowledges it and then flexes his trauma informed muscles as he tells her to get over it and just help him out. She agrees and pitches the covert intelligence idea to Byron. Byron is all over her too.

Now she's blocked him, but he can still read her reality little more than a lap dog mundanes. Just tell her what to do and she does it After hearing him out, but still saying her, ask Garabaldi

after hearing him out and still saying, oh my God, I am having a hard time reading what I wrote. Sorry about this. After hearing them out and still having her say, Byron agrees to send two Telepaths to help Garrett Baldy. He also shows good faith by sharing his reading of the Drowsy Ambassador. It turns out it's not just been Raiders that have been terrorizing the border worlds.

These Raiders have been backed up. By the drowsy. This has been happening four years. They profit from the take and the Raiders get free reign. It's good timing when Leeta shares this. Sheridan has agreed to send every single white star to the Infe world to rendezvous with the Dsy and take out the Raiders, but the drowsy aren't going to help.

They're gonna blow up all the white stars in the Infe home world as well. In a power move in front of the Alliance worlds, Sheridan calls the drowsy out on this, who at the last second calls their fleet off avoiding massive bloodshed. The Alliance Worlds are unified and kind of understand the need for the declaration of principles and rules around how to behave. Now. Kar has worked hard and nearly perfected the declaration, which they all eagerly agree to and sign. So everybody's good, right? All the disgruntledness is taken care of.

Well, not for Lida. She's been thinking about what Byron told her about Telepaths and Mundanes. She wants to hear more. Pretty sure nothing bad will come from this at all. So, Brent, were your initial thoughts, the renegade or the paragon of animals on this one? Brett, that's your cue.

You get to share your opening thoughts now.

Brent: What? I'm sorry, what? What?

Jeff: Yeah. It's your, it's your, what did you think of this one? What, what are your thoughts on this one? Sorry. Sorry to interrupt

Brent: I got a little

Jeff: I can see your, you got what?

Brent: a little distracted. I'm sorry.

Jeff: Yeah, it's a little game controller.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, uh, been, been, uh, yeah, I'm a little parole controller. Sure. Um, much like this episode is kind of, uh, Jeff, this episode moved, so Oh, whoa. I had a hard time focusing on this episode. I really did like my a d d was kicking into overdrive. I was like, oh my God, please do something. This is not a favorite episode of mine.

Like a lot of not favorite episodes out there though that we've had. Jeff, there is one moment that I think is super important that I'm, I'm eager to talk to you about. Outside of that, though. Mostly when I think back on this episode, I think what really is gonna stand out to me is this refrain that we've heard many times that if Star Trek is what it's like to be in the Federation and, and what it's like to be in that utopia of the future of how things should be Babylon.

Five is the show that shows us how to get there in this episode, I think really would've fit that model very well. Um, It's always tough to start something new and get everybody on board. Uh, you have to sacrifice some things. You have to not talk about certain things that need to be talked about, just to get people to the table to begin to have the discussions. I like how Sheridan navigated this at the very end. I thought it was very reminiscent of season one Sinclair and how he would've done it.

Uh, but overall I'm left with this episode feeling very. Okay, what's next? Not like, oh my God, what's next? But like, is there something better next week is kind of what I'm feeling. You know? You know what it is, Jeff? We, we've heard that, uh, so many times that Babylon five, it's a five season arc. It's constructed like a five act play.

Five is the, the denu mod. It's the resolution of everything. It's the, it's the, the it, it's the season one side of this bell curve. Boy, this episode feels like we're back to some season one stuff. That's my first take on it. Jeff, how about you?

Jeff: It's a great segue cuz I'll just redirect from what I wrote here. I'm so glad we have five more seasons after this one. I mean, the first season so far has been pretty okay, but, uh, oh, wait, no.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: Yeah, I, I, I, I didn't care. I didn't care for this one very much. It was boring, it was slow. It just kept moving and it's just like when when's the.

When's the point, and when the point came, it was like 30 minutes into the episode, and there was still like 15 more to go, and you're like, oh, oh, there's okay, there's still more. All

Brent: there was that right there. Like people can see in my Burnt Watches video, I, I. I can't remember if I made it in the YouTube edit or not, but the, the Pedro vote can see it. There's a spot right at the 30 minute mark where I'm like, how much time is left in this episode? Oh gosh. 15 more minutes. Ugh.

Jeff: it's like how it's over. Like this is, oh, I guess it's not, there's still more stuff here. Like you, I like seeing the growing pains of the Alliance, but, but like, I think what I don't like about this is it feels just like the old Advisory Council, you take the volans out of it, you've got your Big four, used to be the Big five.

We've got the big four up front, the rest are out in the gallery with, uh, the Big four kind of dictating everything. We did get the, and we'll talk about this I think a quite a bit, but the, uh, the amazing Declaration of Principles, it says in there four times. We are one. But, uh, this episode says that we are, we are not that, uh, we are not one yet.

We're not there. I, uh, I don't like Byron. I don't really care for these Telepaths, I don't think. And my fear, what I'm afraid of right now is that Byron is our new bester. He's our new te first guy. He's probably gonna be the one who kicks off the Telepath war, and Sheridan's the one who invited him on board, just like in deconstruction of falling stars.

Right? But my fear is that Walter Kig is out for whatever reason. And so they kind of like, they have this Byron guy to be like, oh, we can make him seem, I don't know, charismatic or cult leader ish

Brent: Charismatic. It's not the word I would use to describe Byron.

Jeff: I feel like that's how they're trying to put him out

Brent: Yeah, well, the actor failed then, if that's how they're trying to put that out.

Jeff: I did look the actor up cause I, I had to know, and I, I, he's one of the most prolific voice actors out there.

He's, he's in everything. He's in Dragon age. He's in mass effect. Like he's, he's in some great stuff, great voice actor. And given what I've seen of him in two episodes so far, great voice actor. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. Um, Jeff, I, I think you're a hundred percent right in how you're reading the telepath thing. It's gonna be no good. I mean, we, we heard in deconstruction, falling stars. Well, it's his fault for inviting them to live on the station. And then in the first episode, he invited them to live on the station.

So we knew that it wasn't gonna be good, something was gonna go wrong. And this episode specifically really just shouted out like, Hey, these guys, you're right. They're TEEP first. They're us first. We do not believe in the mundanes. We are better than them. We're not gonna follow the rules of Cyco, which I do think this episode addressed. In, in, how do I wanna say it in a compelling way. It, it did, it did the show not tell thing really well, but bringing Alita into it and having her go through that process, like it gave Alito, stood in as a proxy for us as the audience. Like, we know where Ali's coming from. We know what she's been through.

We've been tracking her story, and now there's this thing out there that seems very attractive and she's, she's kind of gravitating towards it. And that's, that's an interesting piece. Uh,

Jeff: I thought Garabaldi the way Gar Baldi brought up the. Stuff with the telecast was really important too, where when he brought the idea of enlisting them Sheridan's, like there's rules for a reason and guba is like, yeah, for cyco, we're not earth like stop thinking in those other

Brent: And by the way, you literally did the same thing with this group. You brought them in to be on your side. During the war, you're doing the same thing. You're just not saying it. And I think that's why Sheridan eventually capitulated to it because he knew, like, uh, Garabaldi said, take 'em outta your back pocket.

Put 'em in your front pocket. So, um, I, I did think this, the way Byron described what a t has to do just to stop themselves from their biological functions reminded me of my life as an A D H D person.

Jeff: I bet.

Brent: things that I have to do to force myself to focus or to force myself to be in a, in a, a situation and not like that, that the amount of control, uh, I, I think a lot of times when you see people, adhd, specifically, people losing focus, it's because our focus is on controlling ourself.

In this moment, like, like it's a, it's a a i, I zoned out because I'm trying to not get up and run away right now, like,

Jeff: Yeah. You know, it makes sense. My wife and I were talking a while ago, specifically about women with ADHD and specifically, uh, menopausal and post-menopausal women with h adhd. There's some alarming statistics around, um, Around suicide, around self harm, around mental health and things for, for that specific population of people.

And I think the, what we're talking about is how. A woman in the first place already has to, just by virtue of being a woman in, in our society, has to actively turn off parts of who they are or consciously control parts of who they are. Then you add in that piece of neurodiversity where their brain just works differently and they've had to mask their entire lives just to show up.

And be taken seriously. So you get through that hormonal change that comes with menopause. Here I am talking like I know anything about that, but, but, but I know that it's a hormonal

Brent: wife about it. It's coming from her. We got it

Jeff: Yes, this is through her who also doesn't understand menopause yet, but will one day. But we know it's a hormonal change and that impacts everything.

And so when you take all that masking that happens between being a woman in a patriarchal society, being a person with a D H D in a neurotypical world, all that stuff starts to fall apart and it turns into really bad things

Brent: You know, you say that and, and this is me interpretating my own experiences onto what you're just saying there. Uh, something I know from, from my side is there are studies right now being done. That are trying to correlate, um, onset depression in middle-aged, uh, middle-aged people who have lived with undiagnosed D H D,

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: that's my story.

That, that, that was me. Right. Like, like late onset depression, um, correlated with very undiagnosed adhd, which is, it's there. Right. And I, I, I feel like I've thrown, I hate throwing that phrase out all the time, but that's just what it's, but you talk about that. I wonder given, you know, menopausal age, being that late forties, early fifties time range.

I think that's about when it usually is. Um, I wonder what the difference between, uh, a girl who has grown up medicated, like having her ADHD treated versus someone who has not, and, and how that correlates to the suicide, uh, factor, which by the way,

Jeff: Sad thing is it'll be a very long time till we know that because we are just now starting to like accept the fact that, you know, hey. But I think that to the Telepaths, you and I have talked about this before where. There's a tremendous amount of neurodiversity just between the two of us and, and how we work.

But when we lean into those things with each other, we, we become superhuman like it's a superpower because our brains work differently. It makes our brains better. That's what I think is part of the thing with the telepaths here right now. It's a. Cyco conform rules do these things, normals, this, that it's, it's separating and it forces a form of masking and it's a very apparent form of masking.

They have to have the badge, they have to wear the gloves. What Byron's kind of putting out there in a way, in a way that is not right because he's saying they're superior, but, but the other piece of what he's saying is, We could be superheroes, we could be superhuman together. Like if you take out the whole, you know, superior racial superiority piece out of it, it's a compelling

Brent: I mean, I would, I would also add to that, like not just leaning into it, finding your superpower, but, um, look what's happened with you and I teaming up and what, what's been great about you, Jeff, working with you as a partner, is you have allowed me. To just be me and, and, and like you work, you've worked so well.

And, and I say thank you. I know I've said it behind the scenes, but I'll say it here publicly. Thank you for how you, you, uh, go through that. Because there, like, there are times where I know I can lean on you and there are times where you just deal with my weirdness and my zaniness, but it has made, I mean, I'm, I know I'm biased.

I think this is a pretty rad show. I think it's a pretty cool show. Like we say all the time, find the show you'd wanna listen to and make that show. This is the show I'd wanna listen to,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: you know what I mean? Like this is it. So, uh, but, but there's, there's a, a working together and we could get off on an entire message conversation about harnessing the power of your diversity and, and, and utilizing that to go.

Further, faster, uh, and, and more forward than you ever could on your own, because Jeff, you have your own solo podcast. I've had my own solo podcast. Those are great. I dare say there's, there's a different dynamic together.

Jeff: Dr. Dramatically,

Brent: Um, that is not what we're doing here because that is not the message of this episode.

Um, Jeff, there's not a ton in my notes to really talk about. However, there were some really good lines, singular lines. That I, I don't know if you have any, but I'd like to run down just some of my favorite moments from the episode if you could. Um, I loved when someone, I don't remember who it was, someone said at the beginning, writers, they are a sensitive bunch. Knowing that j m s wrote that line talking about writers, they're a sensitive bunch.

Jeff: Go back and watch that scene. Cause I know the one you're talking about because not only is it him writing that about that, but that's when his credit shows up on scene. On the

Brent: Is it really? Oh, no, I missed that. That's so fun.

Jeff: You know, the editors are just like, they're waiting. They're just timing it out. Boom, put it in.

Brent: Um, I, I love that line. I loved when, um, Londo, he, he's talking to a bunch of people and he goes, oh, off of the, my body and car goes, I second that.

Jeff: But on that, like, just really quick, I think we had that. Top tier s tier episode last week with, uh, you know, Londo going through his stuff, and then the moment with Kar and hey, they're the funnies again.

Brent: Yeah. They're, they're,

Jeff: Just

Brent: it, what, what you said last week, Jeff, I thought was so insightful. The episode last week should have been like episode 18 or 19 of last season. Like it would've, it would've made that make more sense because what they were in this episode were two guys at the end of the wedding with confetti on their heads, sharing a drink in

Jeff: joking about rice.

Brent: like, that's, that's where these two guys were.

Um, but, but I love that, uh, Glendo gave us our new t-shirt design though Jeff,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: he's sitting there Rondo's saying something. He goes, and I, I want this, I want, I want it to be Kar. Or whatever. And the, the, the caption is, go away, repress somebody else. I love that. I, I was like, that is a phenomenal t-shirt.

Just go away, repress somebody else.

Jeff: Somebody else's turn we're done.

Brent: Not, not repress. Oh, oppress, oppress somebody else. Yeah. Um, I, I loved that, uh, that moment. Okay. That was it. Oh no, I did, I did. Like Sheridan said, thank you to Alita at the end. And he took Lida back. Like, but he said it real mean. Oh, Alito, thank you. And she's like, oh. And

Jeff: Super transactional with her.

Brent: yeah, but he said thank you, but he said thank you. Um, and what I had one other moment, uh, Gar Baldy knowing to not bring up stuff with Sheridan in this particular moment.

Jeff: That was great.

Brent: it was great.

Jeff: It's like that's for another time. Yeah. Alita, I felt, I, I made the note here that she's basically a telepath prostitute. It's

Brent: They all are, aren't they?

Jeff: Well, I think that's Cyco

Brent: what he said? We'll rent our services out. And then this beautiful blonde came up and caught on his arm and like, what services are you talking about? But I mean, that's what they do. We saw that with Talia all the time, right? Like,

Jeff: Well, I think there's, I think there's offering your services, professional services, and then I think there's how they're treating Lida, which is just transactional. There's no connection. There's no relationship. Tali at least got invited to meetings

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: you know, Talia or Alida gets a, a little thank you.

You saved a bunch of lives. Money's on the, on the nightstand, scooch go and, and Garabaldi where he

Brent: have your big quarters. It's fine.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. You, you gotta, I dunno, I think Garabaldi just like, oh yeah, that sucks that you feel all bad. So can we get back to my thing now? That's, that's really important. Uh, I did like with her though, the little hair band that they had, it struck me that, and I wanna believe this was intentional because, and, or maybe it's just a me thing, but the way that they did her hair, Just added this appearance of innocence to her where it's like when she showed up at Byron's at the very end, it was just like she was seeing this whole new world and hearing these fresh new ideas and her appearance, the, the more innocent appearance, just really punched that home a lot more for me.

I have some notes on the declaration if you wanna talk about that. I thought it was interesting that, uh, they only named a few races at the beginning. Hey, the Nans, the Sonari, the Menari, the humans. Oh, and the game. Just that it's like really we're, we're not getting

Brent: Why did a game suddenly a thing? Like I know they've been around since like episode one or whatever, but suddenly we know all about them and we know that they're queens and buggy people and.

Jeff: But I did love, um, and I, and I'm gonna talk about it a little bit now just because it's not in my wrap up thoughts on it, because it didn't go here, but in the declaration he said they had one singular rule, and that is we must be kind. To each

Brent: Yes.

Jeff: Oh my God. I tell my daughter, I tell anybody who will listen this.

And, uh, being a Catholic, many people will hear this and be like, but no, but that's, but you don't live this at all. Eh? There are people in the Catholic church that don't live this at all, but there are two, literally two rules to live in a good and fulfilling life Rule number one, what other people do and say is of no concern to you.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: Number two, be kind always. And I would almost say number three, if what people do and say becomes of concern to you. Remember rule number two, be kind always.

Brent: I always tell my kids, what do we value most people? We value people. That is our value point. And we run everything through the filter of what do we care about more people. So do you care about being right or do you care about people? And that that's something my 11 year old now is something that we, we are talking quite a bit about with him.

Uh, oh gosh, he's not 11. He's 12. Holy shoot. Oh my God. Oh my word.

Jeff: I still think my kid is seven, like I've been, she's, she's almost nine. I still.

Brent: Right. Oh my word. Um, yeah. Uh, uh, but yeah, people, we value people. That is the value point that we, that we, uh, uh, run everything through. And he doesn't get it right a lot, but he understands, you know, and one

Jeff: of us.

Brent: one day when he's an adult, my prayer, my hope is that he'll, it'll, it'll be so ingrained in him that that's just how he operates.

And he's practicing it now,

Jeff: A few of us get that right a lot of the time. If you can get that right 60% of the time, good on you and the world would, oh my gosh, what a great place this world would be. I had two other quick thoughts on this, and that's really about it. One, the big question to me is what's gonna be the deal with a drowsy.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: After this, are they gonna come back? Do they make good on this

Brent: Well, the thing with the drowsy is they're like, oh, we won't do this to the inferior anymore or the in, what is the name?

Jeff: in

Brent: Infe. We're not gonna do this to the Infe anymore. Yeah. Okay. What about everybody else out there like,

Jeff: Well, and what other races are doing things like this? Is this a thing? Is this like the racket that the, the, the league worlds, how they

Brent: about, yeah.

Jeff: Right. They all know it. It's how they take care of themselves. We just, hmm.

Brent: Yeah. Uh, I mean, you knew that it had to be something like that when it was the drowsy who was standing there at the beginning of the episode going, morality. We don't need people to tell us what to do. We're being a mor Well, why don't you need somebody, by the way, somebody who's pounding the fist most about something, we think thou dust protest too much, right?

Jeff: Although they did a good job, like throughout, there's nothing that pointed directly to them like on the second watch. Clearly. Clearly. But on the first watch, you're like, yeah. I mean, okay, they've got concerns. Hey, whatever. Let's think about this. And then when it does come out that the draws, you're like, oh, those dirty bastards.

I had no idea.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: Last thought good on Dalen. I think it was a week or two ago I brought up how, uh, Sheridan was sleeping on the Menari slanted bed. I was like, oh, dude, better man than me, Glen sleeping in the horizontal bed. Which, uh, which really puts her, uh, teasing death,

Brent: Yeah, I didn't even notice that this week because it seemed normal, like the way he just slipped out of bed and she crawled over and like threw her arm over on the side of the thing. And you know, I, I was like, oh yeah, she's gonna wake up for sure. Oh, nope. I gotta tell you, Dylan's looking more and more human. Like, I feel like I've said that like in several episodes like lately. But she is continuing. I don't know what they're doing with her makeup if they're smoothing her out. I, I just dunno. But she's looking more and more human.

Jeff: Well, they've been doing, this is their fourth season doing her makeup like this. Maybe they'll start getting it right.

Brent: I had one more note probably before, cuz I think it's, we're getting to that spot. We're about to turn the corner. Um, I really hope I'm not. Stepping on your toes with this cuz I, it's not a message to me. It's, and it's not even a Babylon five message, it's just a Babylon five thing. That became a huge turning point to me.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: And it's within the, the declaration where they said at the end, we are one or we are the one or whatever.

Jeff: We are

Brent: We are one. Um. Are you going? I just want you, are you going there? Here in just a minute.

Jeff: No.

Brent: Okay, great. So I'm gonna go there. Now.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: You know Jeff, we have been for seasons. Now hearing this phrase, the one, Zs first said, not the one. We've heard these rangers say, we live for the one we die for. The one we found out at the end of season three that the one is actually not just one. The one is actually three. The one is Sinclair de Lynn, and Sheridan. They are the one the, they make up this virent of the one.

But Jeff, I ask you what if, what if the one is actually not any of them? What if the one. Is the alliance? What if it is all of them together? What if it is this idea of the union of peoples, of the working together, of the being nice, of the strength of their differences? The idea of we live for the one, we die for the one not for that person, for the unity, for everybody. We live for the one. We die for the one, we are the one suddenly that's less loyal to a person and more loyal. It's more like patriotic, almost like, you know what I mean? Like, like it's more this, this is what we're actually fighting for. It's just we're not fighting for the person. We're fighting for society. We live for the one, we die for the one. What is the one, Jeff? I submit.

What if the one is actually the alliance.

Jeff: Well, I think it makes sense. Let's break it down. You are the one who was. Sinclair slash Valin who reformed Menari culture and created the Gray Council, which became kind of the biggest ruling force in the known galaxy at that time. Dalen, you are the one who is right, who is basically leading in a lot of ways the advisory council, who was to become the head of the Gray Council, but broke the gray Council.

So in that moment, so you had. Val Sinclair, a thousand years ago we had Dalen up until about halfway through season three and Sheridan. You are the one who will be, what will be is the alliance. And so it's that, that kind of ruling body. And that's not even the ruling body, but it is the, the totality of the time becomes the one.

Brent: the last thousand years. Yeah. And it's, it's not the person, it's the thing. It's this idea of what the one is. We are one.

Jeff: Yeah. There's a person who, those things were kind of surrounded around. In fact, in deconstruction of falling stars, that's what they tried to do was they tried to take down the person. In Sheridan and by proxy Dalen and, and, and the others, but the ideals existed all the way up until that plus 500 years portion.

Half of the people were still tied to the ideals of the Alliance while the other half were slipping. So it, it persists. Despite what you do to the person, the one still exists. That's profound.

Brent: I like it again, I mean, you could turn that into a message real fast, but I don't think that was the message. But Jeff, you know, one of the things we do here at this show is we apply this over analytical lens. We've acquired as Star Trek podcasters to Babylon five to see what messages Babylon five has and what messages Babylon five is trying to say.

And we do that. By ranking an episode on zero to five White Stars, how Babylon five. How Babylon Five is delivering this message. Jeff, this is your week, my friend. What do you got?

Jeff: I wanted this to be all about the declaration like that. We were just kind of talking about the, the principles were all were beautiful. There was so much in there and it was said so much better than Kiss said in their 1996 jam. We are one from Psycho Circus. But while those principles were read and narrated throughout this episode, which was basically that climax of about a half hour in, when Sheridan is reading it and hands off to Kar reading it, and you're like, yes, it's gonna be about, oh no, no, it's not, it's not gonna be about that at all.

What we saw in this episode was the opposite of what those de, that Declaration of Principles proclaimed. The draws, he were victimizing smaller worlds. The Telepaths are actively driving wedges between their, their society. Garabaldi wants to use the telepaths as weapons. He wants to use 'em to get dirt.

The declaration's beautiful. It's not the message in this episode. What I saw as the message is that shared values are absolutely critical to the success. Of any organization or society and that organization, it can be tight. It can be you and your buddy. It can be your family. It can be your community, your workplace, your country, the world.

The Galaxy shared values create the rules of engagement between each other. They give us a north star that we can unite behind and with shared values. The conflicts that we saw happening in this episode, they either wouldn't have happened at all. Or they would've been discussed peacefully and they would've sought resolution. The episode also showed us that developing the values is a journey, and it's not a destination. It's not a mission accomplished when you can print out your poster with your values on them. Jaar spent a ton of time on them. He refined them so people were comfortable signing them. And then he went back and did 'em again, improved on him once again, and that's okay.

They played it off as a joke in this, but that's what it is. As we learn more, as we come together, we have to allow our values to, to, to grow and to evolve.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: The key though is we have to do that together. It can't be one person or one group deciding that it has to be done together. This episode showed that beautifully and it did it in the Babylon five way of almost genocide an entire people and destroying their planet.

Of course, we'd never heard of them and probably never will again. Um, but it was a great way of delivering that message. I'm gonna give this one, two and a half white stars based on that.

Brent: Uh, yes. That's, that's it. There, there was another side of a message that I, if you, if I may just briefly bring up. There's a conversation between Garabaldi and Sheridan in this episode where Sheridan's like, we gotta give 'em to this. And Garabaldi is like, look, you gotta put that away. You gotta get rid of this thing.

And we gotta show 'em power. We gotta show 'em force, we gotta show 'em strength. That's, these people only respond to strength and power, and Sheridan says, that's why we've got to get them to think differently, that it's not about that, that it's about something bigger and. That was what I had pulled, and I was like, yeah, that's exactly what we need to do.

It's not, don't be sitting here thinking about, uh, just showing how big and strong and, and phenomenal you are, that that's the only thing people respect. Uh, let's get them to think differently. In the end, what did Sheridan do? He showed them his power

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: and he got them to start thinking differently. All at the same time.

Like, that's what I said when I said earlier, like, it was a very Sinclair thing, like if it felt like he kind of did the whole thing in instead of just one or the other. But, um, yeah, two and a half stars. That's probably probably about where, where this one goes.

Jeff: Well, I don't carry all the load on this episode because Brent, you have the responsibility of ranking this one because we are creating the absolute 100%, completely accurate and definitive ranking of this fifth season, about fifth and final season of Babylon five right now. We have in number two, no compromises, and in the top spot Last week's episode, the very long night of Londo Maari, Brent, where do you put Paragon of Animals?

Brent: Jeff, I'm thinking in this moment, um, about the title of this episode. What is a paragon? A paragon is the, it's the apex. It's the the best, the the most shining example. What was the paragon of animals in this episode?

Jeff: Humans.

Brent: I don't think so. You know who, I think

Jeff: That's what Byron was saying,

Brent: I think the paragon of animals in this episode was the drowsy. And I think they're saying that all these other worlds are animals.

I don't know. I it's, it's an interesting look, Jeff, this is, this is of the three episodes. This is number three. Like it's not even close. Like I could say that This is number eight and leave a bunch of spots open. Am I ready to say it's number 22 for the season? No, this is an episode that. I talk about laundry episodes. This is less than a laundry episode to me. This is, I'm flipping through the channels I see. I go, oh, that's on. Let's see what else is on, and I'm gonna keep changing. And if nothing else is on, I would be perfectly fine to come back to this episode if I'm doing a rewatch of Babylon five.

I have no problem watching this episode. I also could skip it like it's, it's. It's slow, Jeff. It's slow. It's slow. If somebody out there is going, oh my gosh, put all the foreshadowing makes this. So, uh, look, I don't know about the foreshadowing. This episode moves slow. It's number three

Jeff: Yeah, this isn't long dark where we started at 22 and it stays at 22. This isn't, uh, the delivery from Avalon where it's actually, we only rank ranked 21 episodes and it was still ranked number 22. It's not that, but uh, but yeah, this is, this is definitely, definitely our number three. And Brent, that's it for the Paragon of

Brent: That's it. Oh my

Jeff: That's it. Look at us. You're gonna win this one by the

Brent: Shortest episode ever.

Jeff: I dunno. I have a very long prediction coming up, so start clocking it next week. We're watching a view from the gallery for the first time. Now. We've never seen these episodes before. We don't look at thumbnails, we don't look at synopsis or descriptions or anything.

We guess what it's gonna be, predict what it's gonna be based on the title alone. So Brent, what do you think a view from the gallery is gonna be about?

Brent: So you say a view from the gallery? I think of a courtroom I think of. Congress, the gallery is that it's basically the balcony where people up there who are watching stuff happen, which makes me think, Jeff Dino Lower Deck,

Jeff: The show,

Brent: no

Jeff: the episode, the TNG episode.

Brent: episode that the show is kind of based on. Uh,

Jeff: a brilliant episode.

Brent: episode. It's a great episode. Um, I think this is Babylon Five's lower decks. I think, I think that's what this is. This is, except they're not lower, they're gonna be upper. And I expect a whole lot of camera shots of people looking down on what's happening.

So I think in this episode, uh, our main cast is gonna be secondary characters going through everyday life or dealing with some sort of crisis or something of that nature. And we're gonna watch this through the viewpoint of other people. We kind of did this with a now for a word. And then what was that other episode where the, the other guy came in, the other news reporter guy? Uh,

Jeff: Yeah, Dan

Brent: yeah, whatever, whatever that episode was. You guys know which one I'm talking about? We've kind of done that a few times here, but this one really is gonna be, I think it, it's gonna be that idea or like somebody comes on the station and they're just observing what's going on. Like they're really staying as an observer, but it's gonna be that sort of thing.

Um, the Oh, oh, no, no, no. You know who it is? I I figured it's the dock workers.

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: workers. This is the dock

Jeff: okay. We're going back to, uh, gotta go along to get along,

Brent: strike guys. Right. You know. Oh, if we saw that, that union leader dude, come back. Uh, you know, uh, that guy. I would love that. Um, this is one of those shows. Every sci-fi show does it.

It is a regular sci-fi trope. To have the episode that is Stargate SG one, does this episode? Um, okay. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head besides that in T n G, but I know, like I've, I think Fringe did this episode once. Maybe, I feel like I've seen this, this plot, but I've been waiting for it for Babylon five, like it's been in the back of my head, and so I'm, I'm calling it right now.

This is the lowered X episode of B one five.

Jeff: All

Brent: What do you got?

Jeff: Similar. I think we're gonna, we're gonna see day-to-day operations from a different point of view. I think though that point of view is gonna be from the Telepaths Byron and the Telepaths kinda watching station operations, they're gonna see the ins and outs of the council happening. It's gonna give them, like, the point of this episode is gonna be like, this is, this is gonna be 40 minutes of them talking about their agenda and you know, oh, well look how they do this.

And look, this is, this is our chance. This is. think that if we had all five seasons in totality and they didn't rush in the

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: this is gonna make up some of that telepath stuff that probably would've sat in the fourth season, that would've come into the fifth season. So, um, I guess the, the long and the short of it is, I don't have high hopes for this next

Brent: I wanna amend my prediction. Am I allowed to do that?

Jeff: Yeah. Why

Brent: omit my prediction because I think you, what you say sounds so much of you from the gallery. That's what I, that's what I, I, I talked about people kinda watching what happened. I, you know, the telepaths are supposed to be forming like their own colony, their own nation,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: So they're going to try to come be a part of the league, the league, the alliance. They wanna come in and be part of that, but they're gonna come in and observe and they're, they're what you said they're going to be what? I'm gonna mix what you said with what I said. They're gonna be watching. And observing what's happening with the alliance.

And, you know, maybe Sheridan really does pick his cabinet in this next episode. And, and he's got, it's, it's alliance business and they're gonna be watching it, but we're gonna see it through their eyes.

Jeff: Oh yeah.

Brent: You know what I mean? So I, I like, I like where you're going and I'm gonna steal on it.

Jeff: Cool.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Well, we're gonna find out here next week. Thank you everybody for joining us for our conversation on the Paragon of Animals. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Leave us a rating or review and please share this podcast, share this video with someone who either already loves Babylon five, or is about to fall in love with this incredible series.

So until next

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. What's up?

Brent: stand up. Stand up.

Jeff: What, dude? Why are you always telling me what to do?

Brent: Okay. Maybe I should have said please first.

Jeff: Yeah, maybe. Hey, uh, yeah, I, I'd just say we get the hell outta here.