Oct. 17, 2022

The Quality of Mercy

It's Londo and Lennier, out on the town!!

Two veteran Star Trek podcasters watch Babylon 5 for the first time. Brent Allen and Jeff Akin search for Star Trek like messages in this series, deciding if they should have watched it sooner.

Dr. Franklin gets upset when another doctor runs an illegal operation in Downbelow that competes with his. Jeff and Brent wonder if the way they sentence murders is more humane, or not, in the future.

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Transcript

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 Jomprey de chuckle nugget, and I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time. We are two veterans star Trek podcasters watching Babbel on five for the very first time.

Just kind of like the title of the show says, and here in this show, we're taking that lens as star Trek, podcasters and applying it. To Babylon five, to search out for the messages to see if this one, uh, gives us any hope for the future or what it is saying to us and trying to ultimately decide. And we could take this part out because we have already decided as a whole, we should have watched this one way sooner

Jeff: than now.

Yeah, totally. The whole series. And we're only almost a fifth of the way through this whole thing. That's crazy, which is wild. Right. But we totally should have watched this sooner. It feels like

Brent: we just started this like a month or two ago, right?

Jeff: Yeah. I, yeah, it's good stuff. But like Brent said, we're not a star Trek podcast, but we are star Trek podcasters.

So to keep us honest, we have limited ourselves to know more than three references, a piece. And every time we make a reference, assuming my fingers on the button, you're gonna get one of these after three, no Moss for you. No more star Trek, a Brent. One of the coolest things about doing this with you and all these great people is the interactions that we have with the incredible Babylon five community.

I've got some emails and some comments to read, but I wanna make a little editorial comment first. Mm. I like to read our five star reviews. I like to read all of our reviews in this section, but we've been having quite a few come in because we've gotta giveaway coming up at our season. One recap that Brent will talk about here in a second.

So I'm gonna hold off on those so that we don't take like 30 minutes to, uh, to just read reviews. I mean, it'd be great, uh, to do be fun for us. I don't know if all of you would be into that. So we'll catch you if you put a review in, we'll catch you for sure. But just not gonna happen right now from our website.

We have a website. Did you know that we have, I did. Yeah.

Brent: Yes. Babylon Babylon first Babylon

Jeff: five. here. Let me, let's try that one more time. Go ahead.

Brent: Babylon five. first.com.

Jeff: That's right. The number five and the word first.com. Nice job. Well in there, there's a little contact form. You can click that. It sends us a note and David K did that and he says the Babylon five is his favorite sci-fi show.

I love the realism and the long story arcs. I know that you guys are comparing this to star Trek broadly, but I do think it'd be more interesting to hear you compare this specifically to deep space nine because of the similarities and the fact that many believe deep space, nine ripped off so much from Babylon five.

Brent: Well, first of all, David, thanks for sending in an email and hello to you. Um, honestly, what you're talking about, there is a little bit of impetus for the, uh, The gimmick, I guess, of the show that Jeff and I talked about way back when, when we first started, like all those years ago right now. Um, no, like couple months ago, right.

Several months ago. Uh, but we've definitely, we are, we have heard it that, uh, deep space, nine supposedly ripped off Babylon five. They had the script and they said, no. And then they come out with deep space nine and, and frankly, I feel like that would be a really short conversation and especially getting towards the end of season one, cuz the other thing I've said is the other thing I've heard is it's like the season one storylines are really close, but after you get past season one, they kind of diverge and each become their own thing.

Like that's that's I don't know if that's true. That's just the other side of it. I've heard. So Jeff, let's take a moment and let's compare. See how close. Deep space nine. And I don't care if you stick with season one or not. Right. Let's see how close deep space nine is to Babylon five. They both happen on a station.

There's a, there's

Jeff: a space station. Yep. Yes. Um, there there's a commander that commands the station.

Brent: Yes, yes. Uh, the first officer is a yep. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if that really counts

Jeff: though. We're gonna count it though. We're just, we're we're gonna be very generous with this. I think,

Brent: um, you know, I keep hearing that religion plays a huge part in the show.

And while we certainly have seen religious aspects or even episodes that revolve around religion in Babylon five, I don't think they take nearly the amount of precedence or impact that the Bejo faith carried over in deep space. Nine, like it's not even close. Like I agree. One is, this is a world where real people live and real people have religion.

This other one is a world where fake people live and only those people, or there have religion right. Or not only, but yeah, you guys understand what I mean? Like they're like, we're on the outskirts way out there. Um, at, oh, oh, they're

Jeff: both in space. They're in space. Uh, they both have like a promenade Zocalo place where all the shops are because it's

Brent: a space

Jeff: because it's a space station.

Yes. Trying to think what else is out there? Oh, um, they've got a jump gate in Babylon five and a worm hole and deep space nine, but they are completely different beasts and story animals and

Brent: everything. A, a jump gate is actually more like a Stargate, which I know you don't know where that is, but basically it opens up a warm hole through space and you know, let's the short, just roll around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, the, the other one is actually a wormhole, but it becomes something else altogether that, I mean like, honestly, and this is Jeff. I don't know your, your opinion on this, actually. I think I do, but like, yeah, there are similarities, but. I don't think that one shows that one's ripped off or not, because over in star Trek, especially you started with the original series, you took a break for 25 years.

You brought it back. Cause everything was all exciting. And then the studio comes, says, let's do another star Trek series, but let's make it different. And they say, well, let's put it on a space station. Yeah. Be wild. Now, is it possible that they had the thought of what if we did a space station because of their script that they read from, uh, JMS?

Sure. Mm-hmm did they take all of his ideas and, and start inserting that in there? No.

Jeff: Um, did they take some sure, sure. Maybe which they also probably also took from a thousand other spec strips, scripts and other shows and every, just like the creative process happens. But I

Brent: mean like, does them both having a female first officer really count as plagiarism?

Yeah, I don't

Jeff: think so.

Brent: You know, does them both being on a space station count as plagiar do them, both being in space count as plagiarism. Like, I just, I just don't buy it. I really don't. And I know that people are like, yeah, but paramount wound up paying out a big sum of money to JMS and, and all this sort of stuff.

And look, people pay out money just to make it go away and shut up.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. How much money they would've paid to go to court? Like whether they won or not just how much you paid to be there.

Brent: Yeah. Just in the controversy and let it be. So I, I don't really see that they're really that similar overall, just one season in,

Jeff: well, you know, and I think we have the benefit of watching this 28 years later.

I think at the time it was a little more fresh cuz they were both on the air and it was just, I mean at the same time. Yeah. And so things popped out a little bit more. Right. I know myself when this first aired, that was my initial thought, oh look, it's cheap star Trek. Yeah. Now 28 years later, I'm like, wow, what an incredible and unique TV show

Brent: that's its own thing.

I, I, I mean their, their storylines, their plot lines, what they're doing. Are entirely different to me, mm-hmm, , they're not anywhere near the same, uh, story threads.

Jeff: Well, and I think, and characters that they have, I think to kind of grab that and, and share one other cool thing that was said on YouTube. That perfectly highlights that.

So one of the cool things about both YouTube and the audio podcast is that people go back and they listen, you know, to our back catalog of things. Mm-hmm and then they make comments on them. And that happened on our, by any means necessary video. And this, this was pretty mind blowing to me. So they invoked the rush act.

That was supposed to, they were gonna come in and shut down the, the strikers and the

Brent: riot. Yeah. Which we still, really never were told what the rush

Jeff: act is, but, well, here's what the rush act is that we found out, uh, it's named after rush Limba. No, it's not so scribbling on the walls on YouTube shared this and a couple other people in the comments did as well.

Yeah. So to me, like star, Trek's not gonna be that well star Trek in the nineties. Isn't gonna be that on the nose with anything, but Babylon five. They're like, uh, yeah. here you go. Rush. Limbos the rush. Here's your act. Here you go.

Brent: Interesting. Just to piss 'em off, I guess, Uhhuh . Yeah. That's that's interesting.

So now, listen, I know there's a lot of you, of folks out there that are really still very much on the conspiracy train of deep space. Nine ripped off Babylon five. If you've got more arguments to make that are spoiler free. I don't, I don't wanna hear anything about seasons 2, 3, 4, and. Contain it to season one.

Uh, if you've got anything having to do with that, I am glad to hear it and listen to it because you probably know more about it than I do, but from my viewpoint, after watching a single season and being as entrenched in star Trek as I am, and I think Jeff, you two, I just don't, I don't see it as one being a rip offer or the other, I think it's two ideas that occurred simultaneously.

You know, it aired the aired

Jeff: simultaneously. Yeah. Yeah. That's even a big thing. Cause we know that the storylines for B five were start, you know, he started JMS, started shopping this around in the late eighties, eighties. Yeah. You know, so yeah. I think timing was really unfortunate and that's, that's what's impacted.

Do you remember

Brent: back in the, I think it was like the late nineties, two movies came out at the same time and they were basically the exact same thing. One was called Armageddon, Uhhuh star, Bruce deep, deep impact. The other one was deep impact. They were asteroid comes to hit earth they're but that's the same idea.

Very different movies if you watch them. Yeah. You know, but it's the same

Jeff: thing, right. Also both not worth going back and watching again, but oh yeah. Really not a fan. I wasn't a fan.

Brent: Yeah. I might, I might. It's been admittedly, it's been a very long time since I've seen either. So they may exist a little better in my memory than

Jeff: I've got one last one from YouTube that I wanna share here. It's really quick. And I think it's gonna keep me on task here and it's our buddy retro robot radio on your, Hey, what's up Reto. He real question here is how does this all tie in to the overall plot of the great egg? And that is the great, I like retro

Brent: robot.

Yeah. I like retro robot. That's a great question. Those gets us. Yeah. Those fish people. Yeah. The air bladder people, or the air, the bird people, whatever they were like, I'm gonna be so mad if we get to the end of five seasons and we never hear from them again. Seriously, cuz every episode. Is a sequel to believers.

Jeff: right. It, it will be for sure. Brent, I talked about it a little bit a minute ago. Yeah. Will you talk about our exciting, super cool giveaway? There it is. There it is. Yeah.

Brent: So don't forget guys. If you send in reviews, now we want the apple reviews. Although we'll take, if you send us a review on any platform, I think it'll count Jeff.

Right? Totally, totally. Um, so whether it's on good pods, if it's on pod chaser, audible, apple podcast, if that's where you're listening, even if you're not go over to one of those, leave it pod, leave a review, but here's what we need you to do. Just for logistic purposes. We need you to take a screenshot of your review and then you can do one of two things with it.

You can either email it to us. We set up a special email for this Babel on five first gmail.com. That's the number five, the word first Babel on five first@gmail.com or. Just tweet it at us. That's fine as well. You can put it in open field or you can DM it. We don't care either way. Um, and that's at Babylon first over on Twitter and you will be entered to get this super dope, cool 3d printed model of the Babylon five station that our friend and listener of the show wash, designed and made, which makes it a little jealous.

Cause I kinda wish I could keep it, but this looks totally

Jeff: awesome. Well, Brent, you could leave a review and tweet it into us and then you'd be, you'd be up for it. So

Brent: yes. And here's the other caveat. We are going to give this away on our season one recap. So, so that means submissions are open for like two more weeks after you guys hear this.

If you're listening to this on the first run. Yeah. Yeah. If you're listen, if you're, if you're listening to a back catalog, you catch up with us much later. This thing's already done, but, uh, for, for those of you listening to us right now, you've got two weeks and, uh, we'll enter you in. And until then, this is gonna live back here on my bookshelf as decorates looks

Jeff: good.

Looks real good back there.

Well, Brent, do we wanna share what we guessed this was gonna be about, or we do we want to just dive into the recap?

Brent: I think we should just dive into the recap because I think I completely just bypassed actually guessing this last week. so just go ahead.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think we're I'm even, yeah, we were both wrong.

that's the end of that one, but yeah. So this is the quality of mercy murder murder murder on Babylon five and Carl Mueller is found guilty. He murdered two civilians and a security guard and GU Baldy. Furious. He wants to see this guy get spaced, but they don't put murderers to death. Nope. Not in the 23rd century.

Mueller is sentenced to have his mind wiped and replaced with a new personality so he can spend the rest of his days serving the community that he's hurt. Talia winters resident telepath has to take a before and after mind scan to be sure the new personality sticks. She says journey with me into the mind of a maniac doom to be a killer.

Since I come out, the it's a family friendly podcast, I will, uh, I'll cut it off right there. But to quote ice cube, Mueller is a natural born killer. There's a choir of people that he's killed in his mind in Talia is not cool with this at all. If you remember her experience with the vicar and that, I don't know some other guy that's on Babylon vibe.

Sometimes I where's some outfit. I forget his name is never around anyway, but she does not have. Good memories from this kind of work. Meanwhile, we learned that the free clinics are a no-no in the earth Alliance, but Dr. Franklin, you know, a real stickler for the rules is running one anyway, not wanting any competition on the street.

He chases down the resident, quack, Dr. Laura Rosen, who's using an alien machine to SAP, her life to cure others. And the thing is, the treatments are working. This alien device though is actually designed to SAP the life completely out of criminals, and then to be used to cure others, but she's found a much more appropriate use for it.

Franklin and investigating. This starts to get kind of sweet on the daughter, Janice, but then he has to keep a horrible secret away from her. Dr. Rosen, his dying, a slow and painful death from lake syndrome. Carl Mueller is getting led down for his mind. Wipe Gar Baldy and his team are demonstrating the latest and secure transport, letting him walk on his own, handcuffing him in the front.

You know, shockingly, absolutely. Shockingly Mueller's able to escape, steal a PPG and head down below Dr. Franklin does some quick math. He's pretty upset that he doesn't have any more patients in his illegal clinic, but then he realizes Mueller is headed for Rosen. He gets there just in time. He's got Janice at gunpoint and is forcing Laura to heal the damage he took from his escape.

Seeing Dr. Franklin Laura uses the machine in a unique way. She transfers her lake syndrome to Mueller who dies in excruciating death. The ombuds. Remember the judge that we used to work with. The ombuds finds that she acted in self defense and is free to live a long and productive life. She turns the machine over to Babylon five's care for study.

Okay. All that little, whatever stuff out of the way. Now we can get to the real meat of this episode. Lawn has been told by his boss that he needs to win more friends to influence people. And he hooks up with linear, linear shares his entire life story with him. He was born studied the religious cast, and now he's here just like Ja Zia Dax did with the trail candidate origin.

Lawn's gonna show linear how to really live his life. They hang out at a strip club and then after learning that linear has a deep passion for probabilities, they head into a high stakes poker game lawn gets, um, uh, risky with the cards and gets caught cheating, leading to a big old brawl where ER, wipes the floor with everybody.

They get arrested and Lanier takes the heat saying that that's the honorable thing to do. Thanks lawn explains the, his unique method for cheating. Brent, what did you think of the quality of mercy? I did not expect to get

Brent: full frontal nudity in an right out of battle on five.

Jeff: Wow. Whoa.

Brent: I couldn't believe they went there.

Do you know what? I honestly thought that thing was, you remember a bunch of episodes ago? We had the fake Kosh. Yeah. Yeah. From the GRA it was, it's like, oh, he's got one of those, like chilling in his shirt and, and that's what he's doing. Like, Nope, Nope. Now, and you know what? You guys can see this in my reaction video to, uh, to this, I was talking about like, they've had this statue of the goddess in very prominent shots.

Over the last several episodes. Mm-hmm but in this one, I mean, lawn's talking to his person and that, that statue is right behind him, you know? And I mean, they're obviously setting that up for, for the reveal at the end.

And I was like, why is that statue? What is the statue where it is? They came back and totally explained it. And he's like, I mean, I can't get a picture of naked lawn out of my head now. I'm sorry. And I've never actually seen it, but I, I, I have the picture in my head.

Jeff: Well, I have so many questions. what does it look like?

Where do they go? How does it work? I think

Brent: they just wrap around his body and they put the coat on,

Jeff: like, is it for us? It's the birds and the bees. Is it like the, uh, the minnows and the octopuses or something for the like,

Brent: oh no. What? I mean, maybe that explains a little head thingy, you know, but I just, I mean, and he's using he's.

I mean, talk about slapping your thing on the table. Like. He used his junk to cheat at

Jeff: cards. I know like what, the only thing I wish I would've done. So they put, he puts that picture of water and he's just like, oh, is anybody getting cold? Instead of drawing it back in? I wish it, I wish it just kind of slowly started to shrink.

there's a family friendly show. Jeff, it's a shrinkage Seinfeld.

Brent: Like, listen, it it's, it happens. It was cold. it was cold. Oh man. Uh, listen overall though. Okay. That is I'm. I'm glad to have got that out of the way, because that would be the thing hanging over this whole episode. Okay. Overall, uh, Jeff, this is one of those episodes that is wildly out of order.

Yes. Agreed. HBO. Max has like episode 14 or 15 and we're watching it here as the next to last episode of the season. Honestly, we could have watched this almost whenever. In the middle of the season mm-hmm and it would've been fine. Uh, in fact, now that we're kind of, at the end of this first season, a lot really seems to be made of the proper order of watching things.

And I kind of feel like with the exception of a handful of episodes that like one draws on the other, like, and that's just a handful of episodes. We really could have watched these in any order just about, and it, it wouldn't have mattered and it, you know, maybe it's the purest out there, like the big super fans that just know how it's supposed to be, and this is the way they want it to go.

Um, I, I don't, I don't know why this one needed to be saved for the end. I think like, I didn't, I

Jeff: didn't get that. I think it had to happen after eyes that I think was important be, and, and because like there, okay, this was just a, wait

Brent: I'm sorry. Remind me of eyes.

Jeff: What happened? Eyes was, uh, with, uh, Ben, Zane and, uh, har and.

Okay. Right. So, but, but linear, that's where linear and Garabaldi made the, made the bike, made the motorcycle. Okay. And I think that's important because if you remember, I was all like, dude, Le like, he just totally was like, oh, the motorcycle, that's a sign of sexual prowess. Mm-hmm then in this one, he's at the strip club with lawn and he is getting ready to pull him out.

Cause he wants to go play poker. And he is like, oh, but I think I should watch one more dance. I have more studying to do of these. And I'm like, oh, there's a little thing going on with linear here. That I really, this is pretty

Brent: great. So I have that in my notes as the corruption of linear , that's what I have in here.

Uh, because you know what we learned in that episode of eyes, when he gets into another's culture, he dives in yeah. Deep, deep becomes his. And I was like, this is, this is gonna be every bit as glorious as I think it's about to be . So, um, anyway, like. Yeah, I, this was just, it was just an episode to me. I don't think it was particularly special.

It was good. I enjoyed it. I would totally re-watch this episode. Mm-hmm yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I have no problems with this episode, but I can't sit back and say, you know, this is one, not at least with what I know right now. This is one that moves the ball down the field and really opens up the world and, and takes us to the next level.

Like, uh, the one that did with the, the, uh, the two parter we just watched. Yeah. Voice in the world, voice, the, like that, that one felt very advancing the ball down the field. I'm sure. Next week with Chrysalis being the season finale that one's gonna move the ball down the field. This one, my hope ,

Jeff: that'd be really weird if it didn't

Brent: right.

Uh, this one, like I said, could have been anywhere in the middle of it. Um, oh. Oh, last thing that I'll hand it over to you I've decided something. I am not a Dr. Franklin fan. Okay. I'm with you. I do not like Dr. Franklin. I don't know if you want me to tell you why right now, if you want to talk and we'll get into it later.

Jeff: Yeah. So I'll kind of there. Let me wrap my opening thoughts with my thought on Franklin and you can pivot off that cuz I, I, yeah, I, I landed there. I, I, I think I've been there to be honest, but this was just like, oh yeah, not good. But I think for me, I, I, yeah, I grew with everything you said. I, I enjoyed the

I mean, it sounds terrible, but I enjoyed the Carl Mueller stuff in this one because it did some really cool world building. And we'll talk about it a bit when we get to the closing thoughts, but it posed inadvertently a super powerful question and that is corporal punish capital punishment or no capital punishment.

You know, they're in a, they're in a world where they don't do that, but they have a very different. Form of punishment. And I've got some thoughts on that. Uh, one cool, fun thing about Carl Mueller. Uh, it's mark Olston, who has just miles long IMDB page doing is an like some alien stuff and all kinds of things.

And you, you know, what's

Brent: wild about that, that thing. Every single role is exactly the same

Jeff: one. Yep. And including one of his most powerful and an episode, I bring up very frequently for very specific reasons, but he was in the next generation seventh season, episode, I of the beholder, he was the person that killed the people back on utopia, Pia that caused a whole bunch of stuff to happen.

That was star Trek's. Um, I'll say Valiant attempt to bring suicide awareness, uh, to star Trek. I wanted to bring that up here just to, we've talked about mental health a couple times on the podcast, but suicide is a very real thing. And, um, if you're watching this or listening to this, I just want, if in, and if you're thinking about suicide, you have a plan for suicide.

I want you to hear two things from me. One, I do not want you to hurt yourself. And two call 9 8, 8, 9, 8 8 is the new number for suicide prevention also for mental health, uh, help, but the, uh, uh, public health, just put that number in place a couple months ago. So there's my opportunity to share that. I think on top of that, the, um, I don't know, the Laura Rosen stuff was kind of fun, you know, the doctor stuff, whatever, but my big deal was so, so Franklin can start.

Thank you for that. Franklin can start in a legal clinic. Like he thinks he can, but then he gets all high and mighty when Laura Rosen does basically the same thing. And then he gets even more upset when she's getting better results than he is. Yeah. I found him to be petty, um, unprofessional and I, I frankly, a danger, a danger to the crew and the people of Babylon five.

Brent: Yeah. So here's the thing, I mean, in that, in, in that frame with, uh, with him, we have seen now in multiple episodes specifically, we'll talk about believers. You said last week you thought this was gonna be a sequel to believers. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. Cause it was all about Franklin. Okay. Um, . Yeah, but it was the, it was the sequel having to do with Franklin had nothing to do with the family anyway.

Um, but in both situations and I feel like we've probably seen this once or twice in other, other deals. Franklin immediately writes off what the other person is doing or says because he's a man of science. Yeah. Okay. And it doesn't jive with what he knows. And I have problems with that. He truly has this thing where whatever he believes and whatever he knows is the right thing.

And whatever somebody else does or says is the wrong thing. And he just, he starts with that assumption. And if he were a true scientist and let's take this situation, someone claimed that this device worked. He just goes, no, it doesn't because I don't understand it. Yep. That was his excuse like that was, that was what he said.

You don't understand it. You don't really know what it does. So therefore it can't be real. It can't work.

He doesn't argue for a lack of safety or a, Hey, you don't know what the side effects from this thing are or anything like that, which would be very valid arguments. Yeah. Mm-hmm he just argues, well, you don't know what it does, what it says or, or how it actually works. So it doesn't work rather than actually saying, okay, let's test it out.

Let's discover it. Let's do the science thing. Yeah. And lean into it. Same thing that we saw with the family and believers. Oh, well they're a hundred percent wrong. There is no soul. It's just science and whatever they say can't be. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Might have a little more grit with this one as opposed to that one, but the principle, I think still.

He eventually comes around at the end, but I just, well, I don't, I have a problem with him doing that. He

Jeff: came around at the end when Rosen revealed that she actually did know what I mean. She didn't know the nuts and bolts of it, but she knew what it was meant for. It's like, mm-hmm she was holding back cuz he didn't take that moment.

And this happened in believers as well. He didn't take the time or the moment to create a trusting relationship with her. Right. He just came in, swinging a baseball bat. Yeah. You know? And then how was she supposed to react right. In all of that. So of course she withheld, but then as soon as like stuff got a little bit more serious, she's like, oh it's actually meant for this and this is what it does.

And then he is like, oh I, I should take this from you so I can study it and I can learn from it. Uh, we're doing this stuff here, dude. Like come

Brent: here. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, how about I don't take it from you. How about I move you up here? Yeah. Come to part of med lab so that we can monitor you. Like I loved his, his, his, uh, compromise with her.

I'm gonna let you keep doing this, but I want you to come in once a week for, for a test. We're gonna monitor you. Make sure you're okay. If at any time I say you're done, you're done. Mm-hmm right. Like that's

Jeff: all super fair. Yeah. And she got that. She's like, great, awesome. Let's do that.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. That's you know, and, and she's like, I'll leave this to you when I'm gone, you figure it out.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was all great. But Franklin, as a personality trait, the way he starts, I just have a big problem with, and I think you're right. I think it can put people in danger. Mm-hmm if he just starts with the assumption of what he knows is right. And everything else, therefore is wrong, the kid's

Jeff: dead because of it.

But that attitude Sean's dead. Yeah. Whether he would've been or not, or otherwise, or whatever, he, there's a direct line between his decision making and Sean's death that says he's already

Brent: a danger. Well, the, the, the line there is in one way, Sean would've died of natural causes. Mm-hmm and the other way his parents had to murder him.

And it was

Jeff: all his choice and his actions made that

Brent: happen. He pushed that. He pushed that deal over to them. And, and I just, I have big, big problems with that

when he sat down to talk with the daughter. Mm-hmm my note here was he should have done this at the outset. Right? First thing thing, that's the first thing you should have done is go find out what is going on before passing judgment. Like I'll sit there and tell you, I don't think he's a scientist.

Jeff: He's an, he's an elitist.

Yeah. He's an academic who came out and yeah, like he did some stuff, you know, hitchhiked around, took some good notes. He planted a flag and didn't give his, his notes over during the Earthman bar war. You know, he had some principles, you know, or whatever. But yeah, like in, in my opinion, and I'm not a scientist.

Right. So let me just own that right up. Mm-hmm but in my mind, science means coming in with that open science is answering questions. Right. And so you don't walk into a question already assuming, you know, the answer and that no one else could possibly have it, you know, and that's, that's

Brent: Franklin. Now I, now I will say the scientific method actually says, you develop a hypothesis first, which means you do propose a solution, but you test it, but then you go research it and you allow the evidence to prove or disprove it.

And either answer is valid. Mm-hmm what you don't do is you don't start with, this is the way, and I'm going to seek evidence to prove my way, which I do think actually a lot of real life scientists probably do, which that's also not the scientific method. Right? Yeah. Um, so yeah, so that's, that's Franklin.

Uh, here's one other question I have about Franklin that I'm really, this actually concerns me how come he can get into people's bank accounts. That was really interesting. See their

Jeff: balances mm-hmm so I get it when, cuz this happened back when um, oh gosh, they had the security guard who got killed. Um, well, the nights this was with, um, wow.

Gosh, I can't remember the name of the one Joaquin. Yeah, yeah. Right when Joaquin was there. Yeah. Oh, did I just use one? Yes, you did no crap, but it was, it was Joaquin in there with the, the Knight, but there's the security guard that they were, you know, bribing to do stuff and Garabaldi was able to go he's station security.

He's earth Alliance. Yeah, I get it. You can look at that. Dr. Laura Rosen is just living and not only just living on the station, but living in down below. Yeah. Like she's, she's living in poverty and yeah. You just got free access to her bank information with no probable cause, right? No, nothing just, yeah. I looked this up and to her

Brent: daughter's bank account information too.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like that's just that's that's I don't think that should be having, um, oh, let's talk about Dr. Laura. Yeah, because she's an interesting case. So. she had a situation a while ago where she got her medical li she doctor mm-hmm had her medical license stripped. I don't exactly remember why. I don't know how important it really

Jeff: was.

I th I think, I think the why is super important not for now, but I think it's going to be, I don't know why, but it just, like, this popped out to me. Did, did, did, did

Brent: I miss it? Did they explain

Jeff: exactly why she had a stem addiction? So she just, oh, that's it was never, never, and that, that caused her to make a mistake that directly caused somebody to

Brent: die.

There you go. Um, okay. Medical malpractice. Yeah. Mm-hmm , that's that's legit. Uh, she feels guilt of that. So she, she here's, this is, I also have a problem with Dr. Laura. Okay. And I mean, the character, not the newspaper lady.

Jeff: right. Probably have some issues there too, but that's, that's a whole different podcast.

Sure. That's a

Brent: different show. Um, so what, what her daughter says was they took away her reason for living or her reason for, for being. Honestly, my heart broke for her in that moment. Folks, let me tell you something, your job is not your reason for living, right? Okay. This may be getting into the later messages.

I don't know that this, they meant for this. So I'm gonna pull this out. Your job is your job. It is not you. It is not, it should not be your reason for living. Yeah. Not at all because lemme tell you what your job can do. Listen, if they lose business and your services are no longer, absolutely required, guess what they will do.

They will fire you. They will lay you off. They will not show you loyalty because your boss's job is to the business. Not to you. Yeah. You need to be loyal to you. And I'm not saying don't be loyal to your company. You should do that as well, but no, yeah. Priority needs

Jeff: to be priority. Yeah. And I have, I have a lot of stories, a lot that are horrible about that, where I'm gonna direct you though.

I think I got to shamelessly self promote last week mm-hmm or the week before that I'm gonna shamelessly self promote again, but in the star fleet leadership academy episode, deep space, nine, the house of cork, I talk about a concept called be, do have be is who you are do is what you do and have is what you have.

And our society has things slipped around to where we are, do have be people. If I do this thing, then I can have a thing. So I can be this way as opposed to being like, no, I'm just, I am just this thing. And no matter what situ this is who I am, who I am,

Brent: this, this is what I can do. Yep. Which then this is what I can have.

Jeff: Exactly. Yeah. It's a, it's a pretty simple concept, but it gets really complex. And I talk about it. In some detail in that episode, it's worth going and checking out if this peaks your interest in any way, but I'll tell you,

Brent: and I, I'm sorry, I just want to add, if you want to have something different or do something different, that means you start with changing you.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It's changing. How do I have to be, how do I have to be, to

Brent: do this in order to do that? So you can have that, but that is that I've never heard that I've probably missed that episode. I should go back and listen to that. That's cool. I like

Jeff: that. Yeah. Cause there's a sad, I'll give, go ahead and I'll be fair and buzz me on this one.

Cause I'm gonna talk a little bit, cuz it's one where uh, they decide to let, uh, O'Brien, CACO shuts down the school on deep space nine and she's lost and doesn't have a purpose and O'Brien's trying to give her purpose and there's this horrible, horrible line with the best of intent where Bashier says, uh, Dr.

Bashier says, uh, CAO's a botanist. Let her be a botanist. And I was like, oh no, CACO is a, a mother and a calligrapher and a musician and a educator and all these great things who happens to know how to do botany. like, oh yeah. Yeah. So it's a, it's, it's a great conversation. And I think this is a thing where you're right, Dr.

Rosen, a attached her entire worth, self worth and identity to being a doctor. And when that was taken away from her, or, or maybe not so much. Cause it seems like here's the thing. I think Dr. Rosen, Laura, she went down in the dumps a bit, but also she was trying to solve, she went and bought this machine from some trader to try it it out.

I think Janice is doing a little bit of, you know, project. On, uh, on mom on this one, uh, you know,

that's,

Brent: that's an entire conversation worth having that. I don't know that we can really have without talking to Janice. Right. and that's kind of impossible, but I, I will say this just in that vein. Uh, and then I'm kind of done with talking about Laura, um, when she gets to the end and she hits that reverse button and kills the dude mm-hmm right.

The guilt that she feels over, that I'm a doctor, I'm a healer. And I harmed that person. Yeah. Do no harm that self-imposed guilt. She, that is feeling there is entirely unnecessary and is entirely made up. I know a lot of doctors mm-hmm I run in doctor circles all the time. It's literally a part of my life.

I know a lot of them and I promise you every single one of them. If they were in the same situation would feel zero guilt over preserving the life of themselves and others around them with what this guy was doing in that instance. Mm-hmm, agreed. Doctors are also people what are you serious? and honestly, the Hippocratic oath applies to their patience.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Uhhuh. So, uh, you know, I'm just, I'm not trying to speak for anybody out there. I'm just telling you my experience from what I know of this particular class of people, this whole thing about, oh, it's my oath and it's whatever. And I could do no harm. Listen, she didn't harm this guy.

you know? Yeah. She saved everybody else. And, and I really don't know too many doctors who would bat an. At that situation

Jeff: at all. And frankly, she saved him from a, what I think might be a and even worse, terrifying and punish horrifying experience. Yeah. And even

Brent: worse punishment. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, because then you're valuing life over life, living, growing life, over living.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Or living over life, whatever. Yeah. Whichever way it works, apply whatever words you wanna mean to it. You know what I'm talking about? Uh, but yeah. So

Jeff: that's Laura to kind of wrap on the whole doctor thing. I have a, so the alien, the alien machine. Yeah. I, I have a theory Uhhuh, cause they just mentioned that she bought it from a trader.

Yeah. And that that's all it was. And just kind, was it a fellow she

Brent: met down in the pub?

Jeff: no, I'll tell you who it was. Oh, it was a scavenger who picked it up from death Walker. And this was the piece of machinery that pulled the thing that death Walker needed for her immortality serum. Whoa. Ah, that's my guess.

Oh,

Brent: that's

Jeff: cool. And that's sitting on babble on five. Now that machine, we will see this again, pretty

Brent: common. How this related to the, how is this related to the machine that soul hunter has that literally sucks their soul out into like a little floating ball. Oh

my

Jeff: gosh. Now, between these things, you can take their life.

You can take their soul and then you can put it into some sort of a cyborg and then you've got the person

Brent: again. You mean into a Gollum and then

Jeff: that person gets, I was trying to avoid it.

Brent: have I used two now? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Jeff, you have tricked me into both of those, by the way you tricked me into both of them.

Okay. I, I see here's can I rewrite the ending for her? Yeah. So can I solve her problem if I, if I can solve Dr. Laura's problem? Because in the end, she's got to turn the, turn, the machine over to station personnel. Mm-hmm that's the, the punishment from the OBU, right? Cool. Turn it over to personnel, Dr.

Franklin. Hire her to join you on the station. Guess what? Now she is station personnel. Boom problem solved. And we're actually in a much better and healthier situation than we were before being down on brown level 37 or whatever that was. Yeah. Wherever he was. Okay. Can we talk about the clinic though?

Yeah. Cause I have lots of thoughts about the clinic. Okay. okay. One, I was completely surprised to learn that med lab cost money. Yes.

Jeff: Same. Although a hundred percent. Yeah. I have a memory. I don't remember what exactly. Back to our great egg people, that there was something about someone paying them for them to be in med lab.

So there was a conversation about money, but I was, I was with you. I'm just like, it's like 22, 58 and free clinics. Aren't cool. Wow. As somebody in 2022, I find that the most distressing fact about the future that I've seen so far, it.

Brent: I. The only time I actually remember anything really having to do with money, uh, on, on a legit basis is when iron Hart came on board and he was renting the room.

Mm-hmm . That was the only time I remember anything having to do with money. It just never occurred to me that that wouldn't be the case here on board. Um, I think this is just another disparity between the altruism of star Trek. I'm gonna use my third one right here. I don't care. Okay. Um, but this is, this is where I am.

So in line with star fleet and star Trek and future and space where all of that, like you're just given that we respect life enough, that we're gonna take care of you to not see it like that and say, no, no, this is a money making venture for us. Yeah. Um, that, that was a surprise. I 100% understand Yvanova's point that Babylon five is meant to be a self sustaining nuclear system.

Mm-hmm situation. It's got to be, oh, totally get it. And that the clinic, the med lab is a part of that. The med lab has to be able to pay for itself. Although I would, I would suggest it shouldn't be a profit center that helps fund other things on the station. It should just be covering like med lab itself should be its own self supporting thing.

Pay Dr. Franklin, whatever you gotta pay him. Yeah. Pay, pay. He's making life and death decisions. Every single day. I have no problems with paying doctors, gobs of money, you know, what, what those people go through and what they trained in and how they, how they do it is fine. The crap that they put up with is just phenomenal sometimes.

Anyway, here's the other thing though. Any town today that is a town of 250,000 people. And to your point is going to have. Homeless people it's going to have impoverished people. It's gonna have people receiving welfare, government assistance, food stamps, all that sort of stuff. They're gonna live in government housing.

Uh, they just, by numbers, you're going to have those people. They will exist within your community. Surely babble on five as a station with 250,000 residents is going to be the same way we saw the telepath girl from a couple episodes ago. Mm-hmm right. Um, we've seen the, I mean, that's what the whole idea of the lurkers

Jeff: are, right?

Yeah, yeah. And the jinx, so, and that crew.

Brent: Yeah. All the, we've seen the, the, the underbelly league, I guess the graph. Yeah. So these guys have to exist while I get Ava's point about med lab and, and the station having to be self sustaining a part of that, shouldn't there be a way to take care of these guys.

Be the free clinic. And even within med lab be, so I get it. She doesn't want to divert the resources for med lab to, to take care of this. This should be a different entity mm-hmm or a part of paying for this comes out of the med lab budget, keep it all aboard above board. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, and I'm not even saying that, that you're gonna get into super deep, uh, uh, medical issues.

I'm just talking about, Hey, you've got a cold, you've got some cataracts. You've got, you know, I mean, we have Medicaid today. Yeah. That helps pay for that. But there's also just the clinic you can go to

Jeff: exactly today

Brent: and why they don't have that in a town of 250 of a quarter million people, Jeff, quarter million people.

This feels like this is just, I mean, you've got waste recyclers don't you you've got waste extraction. Mm-hmm somewhere. Somebody's gotta be your garbage man. Right? Like you got barbers. Where's your, your people that are taking care of the impoverished and the homeless yeah. That are hanging out on station.

Jeff: Yeah. We haven't seen that at all. Oh, see. Finger on the button. That's the thing. There you go.

Brent: Uh, but I do wanna talk about Ivanova her coming in, dropping the hammer on him. You can't do this. She can't do this unless I get to be a part of it. Right. like Aon. You're one of my favorite

Jeff: characters. Totally.

But I think it speaks to that whole thing where everyone sees the need for it. And in her head, she's like, Hey, as long as this isn't diverting funds and we're doing it together and it's on our own time, then yeah. I'm gonna help you. I'm we're gonna make this be a thing. Right. And he's like,

Brent: roll up your sleeves.

And she goes, uh, that's not what I meant. I know

Jeff: that is say, that's what's gonna happen. Although for me, I'm like, um, does she have any medical training at all? like what? She's got a needle and she's yelling at me, um, a little nervous.

Brent: Let's see here. What else? Uh, let's talk about, um, let's talk about Talia.

Okay. And the, the murderer dude. Uh, okay. First of all, I I'm right. The man plays the same character in every single show. He in every single thing, however long that list is it's the same dude, right?

Jeff: Yep. Every time. Okay.

Brent: Uh he's he's that bad guy

Jeff: is what he is. Yeah. Except for this one. He is Carl Mueller, which is important.

Cuz Carl Mueller was the guitar player for the band soul asylum. Mm yeah. Died in 2005 from esophageal cancer is kind of a big deal when that happened for anybody who followed the Al alt rock scene. But I learned a thing when I was chasing down that rabbit trail. Did you know? Well, first off, do you even know who soul asylum is?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. Runaway train mm-hmm was their big thing, but uh, they started as a band in 1981. Wow.

Brent: Yeah. Was that old? I had no idea.

Jeff: Wow. So Carl Mueller have for having been starting to band in 81, dying in 2005. Looked really good in 22, 58.

Brent: I know George Mueller. Yeah. Who was the savior of orphans in Bristol.

Wow. Over in England, which if you've never read his story, uh, his, his has a lot to do with faith and different things like that. So even if you're not a person of faith, the story's amazing of what that man went through. Go, go read his story. George Mueller. Anyway, let's get back to this. Yeah. Talia, Talia Talia has to go in.

Okay. I'm glad you picked up earlier on the whole reason for the scanning because I'm sitting there like, why is she scanning him before the procedure? I don't like, I was, what is she doing? I don't understand why she had to go do this because she clearly didn't want to. I got it at the end it's so that she can compare the scans and make sure that everything's where it's supposed to be.

Yeah. Um, although I'm sitting here, like she clearly doesn't want to do this. He's like talking her into it and like making her feel bad if she doesn't mm-hmm , you know, um, but she's like, no, I've got issues with this and I don't wanna do it. Here's my, why this bothered me. And I don't know why it bothered me, but I don't know why she did it when she was getting dressed.

She pulled out of like her little kit, a black ribbon, a real thin black ribbon, and she attached it over her collar and it crossed over her Cyco badge. Mm-hmm, almost like a, like a slash through it. Like I hate Cyco or what was that? Why did she do that? What is

Jeff: that? So I read that in that she wasn't, um, and that moment she wasn't, um, what's the word she wasn't operating under the authority of Cyco, but was operating under the authority of the ombuds or something like that.

So she wears the Cyco badge to say, Hey, I'm Cyco, I'm cool. You know, I've got stuff, but I have this thing over, cause I'm not acting in a Cyco capacity right now. Although, now that I say that she talks about how there are Cy core people trained to deal with this criminal stuff. And there's a massive shortage of them, but, but maybe it's just a training thing.

It's not necessarily a Cyco thing. I don't know. I don't know. That's just was my

Brent: reader. I mean, I get why she wears the gloves, but, you know, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Uh, what, what did you make of Talia and her whole adventure into his mind, to the symphony?

Jeff: If she's tr if she's a trained person to deal with this, I would sure hate to see an untrained person, cuz that was, that was, that was, I mean, I, I get that, she's got some past trauma from being in the head with that serial killer before, and that was some pretty messed up stuff going on Mueller's head, but I mean, she, she's a professional who's been trained and mm-hmm while she should be taken aback a little bit maybe, or, or yeah, I, I, I felt that she was pretty incompetent in that whole, that whole exchange.

Brent: I did too. I, I don't know that I would say incompetent. I would just say, well, I was thinking unqualified. Yeah. Like for as qualified as she is, she's clearly not, you know, and maybe something, you know, stress, PTSD whatever's happened to her. She is no longer, she should no longer be qualified to do this.

Totally.

Jeff: Yeah. And she should give it up. You know, they went down the, the steps. They could have sent him to earth for life imprisonment. They didn't want him, they could have put him in the Bri for life. There's no room, which I found interesting. There's no room in the Bri the only other option is this mind wipe.

And then Tali is like, no, I don't wanna do it. It's almost like, I don't care what you want. It's the only viable option you you're qualified. So you're gonna do it. See, I don't know

Brent: why they wouldn't put 'em in the Bri. I, I mean, that's what we do. It doesn't matter how full they are. We just keep throwing people in there.

Yeah. Totally.

Jeff: Just stack the stock, the racks higher. Yeah. Just keep, keep going.

Brent: I mean, cuz that's gotta. Perfectly. Okay. Right, Jeff?

Jeff: Yeah. It turned out really well. Orange is the new black, nothing, nothing bad happened when they started stacking higher. Not at all, not at all turned into a comedy at that point.

It was just a fun, fun role. It sure did.

Brent: Yeah, it sure did. Did you think that, uh, the bad guy got away a little too easy? That was like, that was way too easy.

Jeff: That was ridiculous. I think I've talked a lot about how I think Gar ball, these wildly competent in his job. I take every single one of those statements back.

Brent: Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Get, let him be competent in his job. Blame the writing on this one. Okay. Yeah. That's fair plot reasons he needed to get away.

Jeff: Yeah. So

Brent: this is gonna happen. They didn't, that's a writer thing. That's not a GU Baldy thing. Like they just didn't. That was, I was just so it's

Jeff: not executed very well at all.

I'm not in law enforcement. Granted I'm more adjacent to it than a lot of people are. But yeah, I know you put the cuffs behind their back. There's. There's

Brent: a reason for that. If, if it's a murderer type situation, he's got leg irons on as well. Yeah.

Jeff: You know what I mean? And if it's extreme, like they kind of have reason to believe it is with him.

They slap a mask on him, put him on a Dolly and wheel him there. Like not saying that's the right thing to do, but what they did, I mean,

Brent: well, having the guards stand 10 feet away from him, instead of right next to like, that was just, uh, you know,

Jeff: again, it's almost, it's almost like they took the securities.

Uh, what was his name? Z right? Zarus and Babylon square. Yeah. They're like, Hey, uh, your station's gone. So we need you to work security now. And when someone runs away, they just look at each other like, oh, what do we do? Well, we trade off for him. Should we chase after him? Uh, maybe, I don't know.

Brent: I was thinking about going on for a break, but you know, I guess we gotta go get him anyway.

So he goes, all right. The end of his story, where she transfers the thing back to him. Were you anticipating that to be what would happen?

Jeff: Yeah. The second meeting, the second he was hooked up. Yeah.

Brent: Like she's gonna flip that sucker into reverse and she's gonna yeah. Like, oh yeah, yeah. I was a hundred percent.

Although why does the one require just like a little button push and the other one requires like an entire Palm print.

Jeff: Yeah, exactly. You know, I don't well, and also it's like the way they described it was, it takes your life force. Like it sucks your life force away. Why did it just take her lake syndrome?

Like that seemed weird. It was very, it was very appropriate to the plot though. Sure. Yeah. Help move

Brent: that along, you know, I'm uh, yeah. Anyway. Yeah. I'm gonna leave that. Okay. Uh, let's talk about linear just for a moment. And, and I think we can go, we learned that Mumbar get homicidal, homicidal rages, psychotic outburst with just the tiniest bit of alcohol.

That seems like a problem. That scene where Orlando's like, he's like, there's no alcohol and there's oh no, no alcohol at all. Good. Because here's what happens if I have alcohol? Oh, wait,

Jeff: you here. Get water for him please. Right?

Brent: lawn's gonna get him drunk. Yeah,

Jeff: you could just watch lawn's heartbreak in that moment.

Like one, he was terrified, but also he was like, oh God, I gotta replant the whole day now.

Brent: Uhhuh, Uhhuh. Um, okay. The other thing that I think we learned about line lane is Yoda. Dude. He is,

Jeff: he is

Brent: hard. My gosh, like, and I'm talking like episode two, fighting count Duku Yoda.

Jeff: Hey, like leaps in the air kicks takes out three guys with one kick.

It just, I

Brent: mean, that's, that's like a Neo in the matrix style. Like he raised up frozen air cameras, spun around him and he just. Took 'em

Jeff: all down. My favorite part though, that whole thing was like, that was awesome. It was a great scene. He comes down and then he and LDO stop and the guys kind of get up and surround him.

And then bill Mooney comes back into a fighting stance Uhhuh that tells you he has never trained in martial arts or been in a real fight in his entire life. you? Yeah, it was great. I love, I loved it. It just, and it, to me, it fit the character, you know, I don't, it wasn't intentional. I don't think, but I'm just like, of course, of course linear's gonna look like that.

Throwing his hands up.

Brent: And then the last thing I think we got, I just have to close it out by saying we saw lawn's junk.

Jeff: I need a mind wipe from Talia winters, just on that. can

Brent: we get select, you know, I don't have any symphony going on in here. This one's safe. Come

Jeff: on over. Huh? Just it's safe except for this one little section of tentacles and, uh, right. Yeah. Can you help me out a little bit?

Brent: Well, Jeff, I think that means unless you have anything else, we have reached that part of the show where we try to boil it down and see if this has any of that star Treky quality. If you wanna compare it to deep space nine specifically, please feel free and have fun. Is there a deep moral message? Uh, are we holding up a mirror to society?

Are we giving hope for a future rate this on a scale of zero to five deltas, which G

Jeff: for Jeff, you know, last week we talked about how Babylon five doesn't do fun very often, you know? Cause we had that really cool prank scene with, uh, yeah. Gar all the Yana and Sinclair. Well, this was fun. Like, I mean, there was a lot of horrible, like really bad and really heavy stuff, but the lawn linear stuff was, I mean, it was just done really, really well.

And, and that alone, like that little nugget alone, there's a 100% chance I'm gonna watch this episode again, like sure. It was, it was a ton of fun, but as far as like star Trek, like messages go, um, Like lawn was to like, it would be cool to talk about how, you know, the budding friendship that started from something.

But lawn was totally taking advantage of linear the whole time. I mean, he stole his credit shit. He was doing this cuz his boss told him to make more friends. Mm-hmm so I mean, that wasn't super great, but this did pose a super powerful question. That's about the death penalty. Mm. You know, is, is it right or wrong?

Is taking the personality better, worse? Like, what does that look like? But they don't talk about it at all. They don't even actually ask the question. They just say, we don't kill people unless they're mutant ears or, uh, you know, treason. We do this other thing. It's up to me to like pull out that like, oh, there's a deep message in here about what they see about corporal punishment in the future.

Also, I don't think I like this form of punishment very much. not even issue that's discussed. It's just there. It's just talked about, and it's just, just what it is, but it did touch, you know, on a couple of these things and, and pose the questions. So I feel I'm feeling generous and especially through the lens that you provided last week, I'm gonna give this one, half a Delta.

Jeff we're close. Yeah. I wish it would've gone into more detail on stuff. Like I, yeah. I almost wanted to come into our discussion and like have that death sentence debate sort of a thing. But this episode wasn't interested in that. So here we are.

Brent: Yeah. We're, we're really close. We're about a half a Delta off of each other.

Okay. Cause I give this one, no deltas whatsoever. To your point, they discussed this or I'm sorry, they didn't discuss it. That's why it gets no deltas. It was. It was there for the taking, had this been a star Trek episode that was being a star Trek episode. That's where they would've gone. Yep. They would've, they would've dived into the question of is, is wiping his mind worse than just killing him.

And what is the role of corporal punishment or capital punishment actually, I guess we should say. Yeah. Yeah. Um, in society, is this guy redeemable at all?

This is just not an episode star Trek. Would've done. Not in this way. No. The setup might've been really close to being there also, whatever was going on with Dr. Laura. Would've tied really close. This. Would've been one of those things where the a and B plots are like symmetrical images of each other.

Yeah. And somebody's probably commenting right now. Like you missed it. Here's how they were symmetrical. Please write that down because I don't see it. Yeah, frankly. Yeah. Let me, that's fine. Yeah. Put it in the comments down below in YouTube are, write us an email if you're out there listening to the podcast somewhere.

Um, but I give this one, no deltas. This was, it was a fun episode. I'm with you. This is good TV. I'll watch this one again. Yeah. It's a great Babylon five episode. This is not a star Trek episode. This isn't a deep space. Nine episode, you know? Yeah. Nope. So, uh, if this was a deep space, nine episode, what would've happened is it would've been a Kardashian, right?

Yeah. Right. Yep. And what would've happened? I mean, almost like the episode duet, duet. Yep. They would've gotten to a certain point and then somebody would've knifed him at the end. Like he would've died anyway, but it would've like. Not been right when they got to the conclusion, you

Jeff: know, whereas here it's like, yeah, this, uh, this feels pretty good.

Like this was the right outcome. And frankly, if I was Carl, I would prefer this outcome to having my brain lobotomized and then sent to clean toilets all the time. Right. But I think this is a great example where, you know, kind of a thing we've been talking about and people have been emailing and commenting about is like our deltas are not a question of how much we like the episode.

Right. That's just about the star Trek, like, like messages in there. This was a great episode. Sure. Just wasn't very star Trek, like. Sure.

Brent: And, and by that, it's not even, I mean, I keep, I hate to keep saying star Trek because we're just talking about, is there a message that, that provides hope for the future?

The way star Trek does? Cause if one's a rip off of the other, you'd figure that they'd be a, a similarity there. I will tell you though, um,

I completely forgot what I was getting ready to say. Oh yeah. I'm so sorry. It's cause it was, no, it was great. It was, it was a great comparison. I'm and I, I, I don't know where, where it was. It's it's it's I'm gonna wake up later tonight and be, oh,

Jeff: Jeff, get back on. I can record it. Let's do it. Right, right, right.

Cut

Brent: it in, edit it in, edit it in. Right. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. YouTube. You guys see you get to see that kind of stuff. Anyway. Uh, Jeff, why don't you take us into the, uh,

Jeff: guessing next week? Yeah, I think that's it for quality of mercy for us. So. Brent, we're watching this season one finale. What? So soon? Yeah.

It's like we just started, right. I don't remember the first episode, you

Brent: know, Jeff on. I'm sorry. Second. It feels like we're on like episode, like 12 or 13 right now.

Jeff: Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. I mean, I, cause I think I'm like, yeah, way back. We did midnight on the firing line and then we skipped soul hunter cuz then we skipped infection.

Cuz that was worth wait. Oh, I'm getting to the season one recap already, which we're gonna do after Chrysalis. But Brent, this is a little different than other ones. We know the name of the next episode, but we also know that they've uttered the word Chrysalis before. Yeah. And we've talked about it a little bit in past episodes.

So with all that context, what do you think Chrysalis is gonna be about? I,

Brent: I think it's Sinclair and there's gonna be some sort of, uh, transformation. is it a literal, like going into a cocoon and sprouting wings, like a butterfly I don't know, but I like, that's my get like, like this is, we've been theorizing that Sinclair's like, Parman bar mm-hmm for a long time now.

And I think this might be, uh, where some of that goes now we have seen fully human old Sinclair. We did last week, actually, literally. Yeah. Uh, saw that there. Um, so we have seen that, but, uh, I think this is him doing some, uh, like I don't, I don't know that it's literal. Like, I think it's just metaphorical.

He's going to change into something that we've not seen before. Okay. You know? Yeah. Like maybe he, maybe, you know what? I really hope it. I hope we finally get the full unfiltered answer of what happened at the battle of the line, because isn't this like supposed to be the end of chapter, one of the whole series.

Yeah. Right. Like, so I hope we get a full answer to what happened at the battle of the line, why the Mumbar chose Sinclair specifically to lead this station and, um, you know, whatever's going on with the Lynn and the prophecy and frankly, I don't care about everybody else. This is the, I think central story that we've been tracking and I want to follow that.

That's what I want it to be. Okay. What about you, Jeff?

Jeff: So I think the Chrysalis is gonna be bigger than Sinclair or delin. I think this is about the minbar. Okay. We saw the minbar in. Uh, recently , it's all, uh, when, when Dylan got, you know, voted Babylons squared Babylon.

Brent: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Last week, literally last week.

Jeff: Yeah. It's been a long week. It's been a long week been, but, um, they were at a crossroads, right? They, they were looking for a new leader and there were these things and Dylan didn't jive with what they were wanting. It's the first time that's ever happened. And so what I think is that part of this prophecy part of this Chrysalis is gonna be about the Menari as an entire race.

I don't know if it's like a societal upheaval or if it's some sort of a genetic sort of a thing, but I think this is gonna be bigger. This is gonna be a Menari thing and not just focused on Dalen or Sinclair. Okay. That's my guess. I'm for it. Yeah. What we're gonna find out next week. Yeah. Next week right here.

Thank you all for joining us so much. We are almost to the end of season one. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And like Brent talked about at the beginning, give us a rating, a review, screenshot it, tag us on Twitter with that screenshot at Babylon first, or email it to us. Babylon five first gmail.com.

It's the number five, the word first. And then you might win that awesome model of Babylon five. The station itself. That's behind Brent right now. So Brent until next time. Hey Jeff, Jeff,

Brent: Jeff, Jeff, Jeff real quick. Real quick. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna go play some poker?

Jeff: You know, I do love, I do love poker. In fact, I, I believe the odds of us having a good time playing poker are probably about 5,000 to one in favor.

Stop, stop,

Brent: stop. Nevermind just zabagabee or whatever you do.