July 11, 2022

The War Prayer

Homeguard launches its assault on non-humans in an episode written by DC Fontana

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.

This is the episode Jeff and Brent have been waiting for! Londo learning the magic of "dancing" again, Ivanova illegally growing coffee, and outright terrorism on the station...is this the Babylon 5 people have been telling them about?

Catch Us On YouTube For the Full, Unedited Episode: https://www.youtube.com/c/Babylon5FortheFirstTime Follow us on Twitter: @BabylonFirst Website: https://www.babylon5first.com/

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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 am watching Babylon five for the first time.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen, and I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time. Jeff and I are two star Trek, podcasting veterans who are watching Babylon five for the first time, as we have now said three times in this show. And in this show, we're watching Babylon five, we're searching for star Trek, like messages, not star Trek messages to star Trek, like messages, and trying to decide if we should have watched this show a whole lot sooner than 35 years after it.

First premiered,

Jeff: 35, 40, 30 ish. A couple years. It's a couple years, right? Yeah. Time's hard to track these days. It's important to note though, Brent, this is not a star Trek podcast, but like you said, That's what

Brent: Do we star Trek?

Jeff: We do.

Brent: We do, but is not a star Trek podcast.

Jeff: So we've got our rule, right? Three, the rule of three. So we each get up to three star Trek references in each episode.

And if we drop one, we're gonna call it. That's all you get when we get to the end and we give our closing thoughts and talk about those star Trek, like messages. Well, it's a little more free range from there, but this way we have an opportunity to, uh, focus more on Babylon five.

Brent: And have some fun with it. Cuz if you can't, if you use 'em all and you can't say it, you gotta

Jeff: It's hard. It is so hard. I like, I have to say this thing and I don't know how to say it. Ah, but you know, speaking of saying things, Brent, we have the most incredible listeners and viewers. Thank you so much for checking out our podcast, watching us on YouTube and more than anything. Interacting with us.

If it, if it's cool, I've got a couple comments, uh, that we've gotten from, uh, viewers and listeners. I would love to share. Does that sound good?

Brent: It, it sounds great. I want, but I just want to note, we have received so many comments. This is not an exhaustive list.

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: a, this is a question I'm asking. I'm not, I'm clarifying, you're not reading all of them. Right.

Jeff: Well, just to be clear if I read just the

Brent: And you're not snubbing anybody. You're

Jeff: no. If I read the comments just from, well, let me look just from soul hunter on YouTube, just that it's almost a hundred comments that I'd be reading. So you're welcome to go to our YouTube channel and, and I, and do, I mean, my gosh, there are some great conversations happening right there.

And in fact, let's, here's one of them, Dale sharp, Dale sharp on YouTube says this, uh, says this to us. He says, I enjoyed your reaction. I wanna comment on some of your questions, but I don't want to spoil the show. Thank you, Dale. Thank you. Answers are coming. He says there are definitely episodes that I'm patiently waiting for.

You guys to react to. First seasons are usually not my favorite season due to the slow character in world building for long arcs, but it's part of the process I wish. And here's where I love that. I wish Firefly. Would've gotten the proper chance to shine. Thank you, Dale. People don't know this. I named my daughter after a character in Firefly.

Brent: The girl that was in Firefly, that I'm pretty sure you named your daughter after was in Stargate.

Jeff: What? No

Brent: mm-hmm

Jeff: it's gonna happen. I think our next podcast gonna be, cause I've watched

Brent: Dale dude, start. It's awesome. Uh, Dale, thank you. And thank you for not spoiling it. And when we get to those episodes, please come back and be like, this is what I was dogging

Jeff: was the one

Brent: it's today's episode, cuz I'm pretty stink and excited to talk about this episode.

Jeff: I am two. Now listen, we have a website, Babylon five first.com. It's the number five and the word first and this, and you can, uh, click a little thing and you can send us an email through the website. And David sent us an email through that. It's a lengthy one. A lot of times the emails get into a lot of details.

I love it. In fact, this one went into a whole great piece on the, uh, recommended viewing orders for, uh, for Babylon which is a thing that we we've talked to a number of people about that. Apparently the broadcast order is problematic, but, uh, Hey, we're watching it for the first

Brent: Which can say, I mean, Firefly had that, speaking of Fireflight had that same thing, like cuz there is a, like even we're just seven episodes in, I can see this episode and we'll talk about, it builds on things that have happened in previous episodes. Um, actually quite a bit, in this like from all the way back to the pilot to even, um, a couple of the other episodes, but if they air 'em out of order, they don't make sense.

And that was a big problem with, with Firefly. that show was serialized in very many ways and they

Jeff: it was just a mess the whole way they did everything. Well, David

Brent: didn't do that to Stargate Stargate aired in just so you know mm-hmm

Jeff: I, I feel like this whole on YouTube, if you go to YouTube, you'll hear our pre uh, pre-recording conversation. Brent spends been selling me on Stargate. Um, since we hit record.

Brent: yes. Yeah. I didn't do it beforehand. I did it.

Jeff: and into this. Yeah, this whole time, you've been like all night, you've been, you've been pushing. Well, David through the website sent us this piece. This is part, part of the email he sent Brent, Jeff, no spoilers here. Oh, this is such a great thing to read. Found your babble on five first time podcast this week, and I'm catching up on episodes.

I'm glad I'm catching it very early. You both are doing a great job in reviewing and analyzing Babylon five. Thanks, David. I think it's hard to analyze through a star Trek lens, but I do understand your goal. I look forward to hearing your epiphanies and you'll have many as you move through the series and discover how things interconnect.

Thanks, David.

Brent: Thanks. I feel like I, and I, I feel like I'm saying this less to David and more to you, and I like, I'm just clarifying this on our side. We're not necessarily analyzing this through a star Trek lens. As much as we're using the lens of analyzing a show that we've gained from watching and podcasting about star Trek

Jeff: Yeah, think that's a good, yeah.

Brent: that make sense?

Like, like it's, it's, we're not propping this up right up against star Trek and saying, is this, you know, does this meet the standards of Trek? Like that's not, it, it just, when you podcast about star Trek specifically, and it's the way the show's designed, like you start to look at storytelling and shows in a certain way and, and you just have, you have that lens and like, that's of what we're doing.

Jeff: I think for our other podcasts, you know, be me up, uh, star Trek podcast on your side, the star fleet leadership academy on my side, because of the way our shows are designed, we have to dissect the shows in a certain way. So in be me up, you are taking someone two, just really great things that set it up for success.

One taking someone through the series, who's never watched it before, but also distilling it down to like the a hundred and fifty, a hundred and seventy five essential episodes out of 800, some odd. So you have, yeah, you have to apply that lens to really say, Hey, this is a great episode, but is it an essential part of what star Trek is and represents?

And so you've honed that ability. Kind of discern those pieces where on my podcast, where I teach leadership development through star Trek, it's watching those things, the writers put in as like, Hey, this is what a captain would do or here's this. And then being able to adapt that for people in a leadership position or leadership role.

So we're having to take pieces of, uh, of a science fiction television show and adapt those in a way that really adapt the storytelling for it. And so that skill that we've developed doing that, that's what we're applying to B on five. So that's a really good, really good clarification. I think

you got a hand off so I can do the recap.

Brent: Oh, you're done. Oh, so I thought you were gonna read more emails.

Jeff: There's so many it could ready this stuff. Yeah. It's hard cuz I, I mean literally we could take 40 minutes reading the stuff coming in,

Brent: we No, no, that's good. That's good, David, thank you so much for your email and everybody else. I, you know, the thing about those emails is I don't get them. You do so like I'm hearing this for the first time live with everybody else out there. So, uh, that, that is, that is so great. Today's episode though. Let's start talking about this because I, I I'm, I I'm, I'm anxious to dive into today.

We are discussing the episode, the war prayer. Now here's my question. Is it the war prayer? Like the person who prays like the war prayer, or is it like war prayer,

Jeff: oh, that could be oh,

Brent: the text of you're praying, you know, and who are you praying it to? I have this question anyway, for those who have not really seen this episode in a while, Jeff, uh, and those Babylon five veterans out there, or people who just haven't watched the show at all, but they're listening to us anyway, because, well, I'm awesome.

And well, you are too Jeff. Uh,

Jeff: we're pretty great.

Brent: yeah. Uh, tell us about this episode. What happened in it?

Jeff: We'll buckle up. There is a lot, there is a lot that happened in this one. And let's start off with the first big notable thing. This was written by none other than DC Fontana.

Brent: No.

Jeff: Yes. So every episode, except one, up to this point, there's one that was written by someone else. Everyone.

Other one that's been written by JMS. This one, DC Fontana, it gets no more. It gets no more star Trek. Like literally the one person who's more star Trek than gene Roddenberry, DC Fontana.

Brent: Right. And for, just for those of you who don't know, which if you're listening to, you probably know this DC Fontana was around from the original series as one of the writers. And she went through the animated series. She even came into the first couple seasons of next generation, like this lady, and she crafted the majority of what star Trek became signature star Trek.

She was the keeper of what is star Trek and what isn't and what, like, that's, that's a, that's a royalty name. And she wrote this episode.

Jeff: I, so I saw it, I'm watching the credits and I saw it come on. I'm like what I had to go back and I'm like, no, no. And then I even like, I, I broke one of our rules and I went online and I looked I'm like, it's, it's really, oh my gosh, DC Fontana. And for me that like, yeah, that makes this whole episode makes so much sense.

Brent: That cha that recolors this whole episode for me

Jeff: And also in other big news, not only is it that it's written by one of the greatest television writers in history, but for the first time in forever, we see all of the council members at one point or

Brent: do. is true.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Huh? Turns out you can't have an episode with all of them in and have it be a good episode.

Jeff: who knew, well, let's start off with lawn. So lawn meets his, uh, his aid VE CODO, who has propped himself up as ambassador CODO to some people, but he meets his cousin and his girlfriend, uh, Winnie Cooper, cuz yeah.

Same actor as Winnie

Brent: That was her. I was gonna that up because I was

Jeff: How could it not be her? Yeah, how's Winnie Cooper.

Brent: All right.

Jeff: So apparently arranged marriages are a thing for the Centara. And the cousin and Winnie Cooper want out of theirs. They wanna marry each other, but lawn doesn't understand what love has to do with marriage. And so we join him on a journey of self discovery, where he finally decides that love is important and that children should be allowed to dance.

So he sets them up with a second cousin of his that's gonna help them find a way to find their happily ever after. And speaking of happily ever afters Ava runs into the one that got away or actually the one that she let go. So she could focus on her career. This a guy named Malcolm bigs comes on to the station.

They apparently broke up eight years ago and they start rekindling their romance. Now all the happy stuff out of the way, the hate groups, the hate groups that have been mentioned before have made it to babble on five. They have been attacks on earth. Mars. And now the station SHA Mayan a minbar poet is with Thelen and on her way, home is assaulted by, uh, by one of these hate groups and has a brand she's branded on her forehead.

The attacks on aliens are becoming more and more common place. And there's a group called home guard that is, has taken credit for them. Jaar, nearly incites, a riot crying for station security, notably the human station security from earth to do something about the attacks Sinclair checks in with KSH. Do you remember, do you remember Kash?

Remember who that was? Yeah, he's the, uh, VLAN ambassador. He's got the

Brent: He was from that movie independence day,

Jeff: I think so. Yeah. Some movie. Yeah. I don't know. It's been a long time since I've seen him. Beka couldn't care less about the attacks that are going on, but the meeting gets Sinclair to thinking and we get, oh, we get absolutely epic piece of serialization, a big touch point on the episode, it goes back to the pilot.

The gathering Sinclair tells us that the two people that physically saw KSH or mentally connected with him scanned his mind. Dr. Benjamin Kyle and the telepath lead Alexander were both reassigned to earth shortly after that encounter security footage, that there were reviewing, reveals that the mastermind behind all the attacks is none other than Malcolm bigs.

Yvanova's love interest. So Sinclair plays like he's a racist or a speciesist or I don't know what you'd call it here, but he has, Ivanova set up a meeting. using experimental black light camouflage from earth force. Malcolm's Thug's, uncloak like they were invisible and cloaked. And this leads to a threat that we hear many, many times from this point forward in the episode.

And that's that home guard has friends everywhere. They're planning a mass assassination of all the council ambassadors. So Sinclair drops the act and he attacks, they arrest Malcolm and the home guard thugs, but on his way to lock up Malcolm trash talks, Ivanova who ends the episode by responding in a way that only she could, by saying that she finds that the many people, the many aliens that she's met so far are much more human than he is.

Brent. This was a lot. What was, uh, what was your reaction to this one?

Brent: I loved this episode.

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: Start to finish. I loved it. Adored it. And now that you tell me that DC, Fontana's the one who wrote it. I understand why

Jeff: totally

Brent: this episode was awesome. And if like, like I talk about those first season episodes of sci-fi that that many of our commenters have mentioned, like first seasons can be rough.

You get those episodes that you kind of like that give you enough, hope to keep moving on. Like they're, they're okay. They're not as bad as some of the ones you've just seen, but they give you enough hope to keep moving on. But in that first season, you're gonna get one or two episodes that blow you away and show you the full potential of what a show could do.

That's this episode, and it's only episode seven and I don't know how many more are in season one, but this is the first one that just. It was good. The writing was tight. The pacing was amazing. When I looked up at the end of this show, I thought we'd been on a two hour movie.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: And not because it was slow paced because so much was packed in to this 44, 43, 47 minutes, whatever it is during that time, you referenced it a minute ago.

The fact that they gave us an in universe reason for casting changes

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: is amazing and was, and it made sense. And it's like, wait a minute. That's not just a throwaway line. That's a bigger plot reason for where they're going. This th this is the first time we've been told. We've been told in the comments that the, the, a plot B plot dynamic

Jeff: Mm-hmm

Brent: is different in Babylon five than it is in most other.

Sci-fi not just star Trek, but most other sci-fi shows. In that they use the blot to further character development that usually pays off later on. This is the first time we have seen that come back to pay off with, with lawn's whole and actually kind of reverse. It was like a whole episode before paid off in a blot here.

Cuz if we call the blot here, the whole thing about the arranged marriage, by the way, ALO blots completely connected exactly what ALO B should be. But still if the blot is the, the, the arranged marriage in lawn's whole piece, where that connects back to born to the purple, the one where he, he met the, and he's going through that.

I mean, the way these things connected in Orlando just seems completely oblivious until he gets reminded of it. And you know, if you've watched that episode, you know what he's thinking in his head and you're like, dude, this is where you've been. And he gets confronted with that. Jeff, this episode was. So good.

This is the first time I have willingly watched an episode multiple times, not just for the podcast because I needed to see it again, but because I wanted to watch this, I wanted to watch it again. This episode gave me major game of Thrones vibes,

Jeff: Right.

Brent: major game of Thrones vibes. And I, I loved that show right up till the end.

Um, so I've got a lot more other thoughts, but I'll save 'em for our discussion. How about you, Jeff? What are your overall first thoughts about this episode? The war. Or

Jeff: I gotta echo everything you said this episode was perfect. It was so good. I, I picked up on a couple things too, that were just was, were so brilliant in the whole piece. The first, uh, I don't know if this was intentional or not. So Rondo has three wives. We get to see pictures of them and he calls them pestilence, famine, and death.

So here's my question, Brent, this four horsemen, does that make lawn war? Mm

Brent: there another wife coming that is when he said his line. I'm sorry if I'm jumping into comments here, when he said his line, the, you know, knowing that they're waiting for me back home is what keeps me inspired to stay here. 75,000 lit years away. It was so funny. Now I just wanna say this. I am very pro marriage.

I am in a very happy marriage. I know that because she tells me every. Like, I, I, I love my wife. I know it's not for everybody. And that's cool, but for me it works. That was hilarious. She and I, well, I watched it with her. She and I both cackled when we heard that, because it was, it was just funny. Cuz a joke is just a joke sometimes and you don't have to take offense.

It was hilarious

Jeff: so good.

Brent: probably way funnier than anybody else thinks it was. I thought it was great.

Jeff: VE. So there were a lot of just like little moments and Vera Coto had one where Solando takes off and he is, got the picture of the three wives and like veer looks at it. And he just has like this, the moment was like, like, oh gosh, I was scared. Cause I, I was looking at them when the writing of an episode, is it the caliber that this episode was at?

Everything is El. Everything is elevated. Like you said, the pacing was great, but the acting was incredible. Through this episode. We've talked a lot about a couple of the scenes that were just humiliating, you know, where I, I, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt that this must have been like take 47 or whatever.

And they just had to give up and piece together the best what they had. But when Sinclair was talking to Kash and he's trying to get him to care about this, but KSH is busy watching that, uh, that library machine that Mr. Atos had in the original series, all of our yesterdays.

Brent: right,

Jeff: Yeah, cuz it was literally that

Brent: right.

Jeff: But when he is watching that, he asks, he says, look, it'd be good for you to talk to the other, uh, ambassadors, you know, maybe you could give a hand. And then when he says that, like it's just this tiny he's wearing like the face mask thing, but his face changes just enough that you can see that revelation that then leads to him saying, wait a minute, they put the head on patch, the headache patch on his hand.

How could they touch his hand? The acting there VE Coda with his reaction to the, uh, to the three wives Jaar and his righteous, righteous indignation about things. None of it was corny. None of it was cheesy. It was real. I, I, I felt every bit of it. I thought it was so well done.

Brent: can we talk about veer for a little

Jeff: Yeah. And his messed up hair.

Brent: no, but

Jeff: Like he clearly, like he didn't even try. He just like kinda woke up and it's yeah.

Brent: Well, he just, he ran outta moose in the jar this morning and just didn't have enough to keep it up. But no, I. I, I, I have to give a special shout out to Vera because we've, we've ran him through the in the last couple of episodes. And, and well, again, you go back to DC Fontana. I'm like, now it makes sense because she does what DC Fontana does.

She took, what is effectively a comic book character,

Jeff: at

Brent: maybe not, no, I'm sorry. Let me,

Jeff: a comedy.

Brent: change that. A comic strip character. And she turned him in the course of the episode. She just didn't rewrite him. She actually gave him a, a, a, a real life situation and turned him into somebody who was strong and respectable and growing and becoming who he actually wants to be and who he should be a better version of lawn. Like I was so impressed when veer stood up to lawn and said, and you could tell, like it was taking everything within him when he stood up and he said, ambassador, You're wrong. And he called him out to, to look at that. Jeff, I don't know what that does to you as a leadership podcast guy, to be able to look at your superior and say, boss, you are

Jeff: Well, I

Brent: And then to have a leader, I'm sorry to have a leader who is aware of himself enough to not dig his heels in, but go you right. And, and, you know, and he goes off on this whole thing about my shoes are too tight and all, and that's a beautiful metaphor. Oh my gosh, what a great metaphor. But VE he elevated absolutely the most to me in this.

Jeff: And I think it was his acting too. Like, I, I, I it's a drum I'm beating a lot here, but it was those small reactions. He had to the three wives. And like you just said, when he did stand up to lawn, it wasn't just a words. He said it was his body, his whole and you what? And so from a leadership standpoint, without doing a full, like deep dive analysis, but there's a lot that we don't see and what that is, is lawn working with veer to develop him and help him learn these pieces.

So clearly. There's a relationship between these two, that lawn has actively fostered and veer has worked in where he feels, uh, maybe not safe, but he feels empowered to, to tell his boss that he's he's wrong and he's messed up. And so much credit goes to lawn. Same thing you said for him to be able to say, I'm go, the natural reaction for a traditional leader would be to argue and you know, what do you mean I'm wrong?

I can't be wrong. This is, you know, you're the one that's wrong, you whatever. But no, he is like, no, you're you're right. And, and, and, and he did, he just, he dove into that beautiful story that, I mean, I don't want to, I don't wanna take anything away from JMS in what he's created here, but the difference between this episode and everyone objectively is DC Fontana being involved and.

Everything was elevated to such a point. No, even even his cousins that were on the station for the sole purpose of getting attacked and giving lawn the, the plot foil to, to go, to continue his journey of discovery and evolution. Those were deep characters with real stories, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm gonna marry the ugliest woman in all of sari and , you know, and, and how they just wanted to be with each other.

It's I can't say enough about how great, how, how well this was put together. And even, even how it built other relationships, like we've talked about the budding friendship, the professional rivalry, friendship with Ivan and Gar Baldi in here. And I, so somebody of command rank had to go and meet, uh, Vere's cousins.

They were, they

yep. So well

Brent: loved this scene. Oh, it was so good. So well written, perfectly acted, perfectly directed everything. Go ahead.

Jeff: Yeah. So, and, and it was another great callback too, again, to, to Tokushima from the gathering, but they needed a command ranked person to accept custody of these Sentara prisoners or whatever Ivanna was like. Yeah, I got a lot going on.

Garabaldi can you go grab that? And he's like, no, I have a lot going on as well. There's, you know, I mean, terrorist attacks happening here and she's like, well, maybe I'll just get Sinclair. And he's like, yeah, fine. I'll do it. But before I do that, I'm gonna stop by hydroponics and pull out this coffee, plant that, and just as he was doing it and Ivan being like, um, it, uh, okay, fine.

I'll get it. I loved what it did between the two of them, where they were able to have this, uh, not it, you know, professional, not it kind of a thing, but also with a little, little venom in it too. We'll all tell your boss, we'll take your coffee away. But I also loved that there was this scene in the gathering we're Takeshima was also illegally growing.

Coffee beans and it's I know it's, it's not, I, I don't think it's an important connection, but I just thought it was a really cool little, little through line, but what that did for their relationship to me, I thought was absolutely huge. And it was a lot of fun too,

Brent: I'll go check it out. And you're an horrible, horrible man. Like it was so well that, but then the, to, to build on their relationships more later when she's coming off the date and she's clearly like, just put on her uniform and he, she walks in and, and he goes, wow, new look. And she's like, look given what's going on.

I think you don't need to be worried about my look, dude. You know, like

Jeff: I love that

Brent: I, I'm kind of hoping these two wind up together by the

Jeff: really, ah,

Brent: I I'm, I'm kind of hoping cuz like I love this dynamic that they have. Maybe I don't wanna mess with it. I'm if they just stay friends. That's cool too. If this is the, if this is the relationship, that's fine, but I kind. Wanna see it work out as well. Cuz I'm, I'm loving these two.

Jeff: I just thought it was a cool, a cool piece that tied. So when she was talking with bigs about, you know, Hey, do you regret, do you regret leaving me? And she's like, regret? No, my assignment was great for me. I really enjoyed it. My career's going well. Like she's a career oriented person, but also the fact that they had Garabaldi make that comment, I think was a really good commentary on what it takes to be a woman in a leadership position or a prominent role.

You're always being judged. And you're always being looked at through a different lens and you're being graded on a different scale than men and that's not okay. And she call them on it and it was just, Garabaldi being just traditional. you know, white hat, CIS guy in a leadership position, and Ivanova having, having the guts to just be like, knock it off, dude.

Like we have real stuff here to worry about.

Brent: Uh mm-hmm yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what Gar Garabaldi did. That was really good. As soon as she did that, he respected it.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: You know what I mean? he didn't, he didn't dig his heels and just become a jerk about it. Like

Jeff: which would've been character for him, I think, given what we've seen, but yeah. Yeah. And maybe it's through the respect for her that he has. Maybe it's the, it is the gravity of the stuff that they're dealing with

Brent: yeah. Yeah. Um, I wanna talk about Jaar. I struggled a bit with Jaar in this episode because we have seen in seven episodes, I feel five different Jaar. And the only reason we haven't seen seven different Jaar is cuz he wasn't in two episodes, but we've seen five different versions of Jaar. And I'm not really sure what the real version of Jaar is yet. And in this one, what we got was I'm gonna go start a riot.

Jeff: but the

Brent: I'm going to incite a riot. Jaar and the last one or two episodes ago or whatever it was we got, Hey, actually, I'm a good guy. And I'm looking out for you in my own way. I'm gonna send somebody out to protect you a couple episodes ago. We got Jaar and lawn are gonna throw down at any given moment, but Jaar is still there to be the kind of not smarmy.

That's not really, I guess the right word, but he's there to be a politician. Yeah. You know, he is representing his world, but in this one, he was like, no, F all the humans we're gonna, we're gonna mess this up. And I had a hard time with that.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: And then on the other side, I was like, actually, this might be perfectly on brand for Jaar and I'm not sure.

So I'm gonna actually ask you, what did you make of Jaar? Was this a new side of Tim? Or was this on brand with

Jeff: I think Ja car's the chaos agent of the show. Like he's the one who's always gonna find a thing where he can ruffle everything up and then try and position the Narn as either the champion. Or the victim. Right? So with, with, um, Catherine, it was being the champion coming in and saving her and doing this with lawn, even though they were the, you know, the Narn were the clear aggressors in Rish three, he made it out that he was the victim.

That lawn was coming after him in this. And again, I said it was righteous in there. He's not wrong. This was like one of the first times where he was everything he said was right. But his way of handling it was wildly irresponsible. But I think more than anything, he doesn't, he doesn't care right about GL inter galactic piece or whatever.

He cares about Nan superiority. And this was sending a message to the earth force who control Babylon five. They've got some, you know, authority over everyone. This was his opportunity to send the message. I got the numbers and I can get up here and I can bring those numbers together and I can point them right at you.

So, yeah, you might have your little terrorist group or whatever. I literally have an army. So I think this was very on brand for, for who and what Jaar was. I think it was just one of the first times he was actually justified in what he was doing. But I think the counter to that though was Tolen. So Jaar was, I think, I think a statement to Sinclair was if a Narn gets attacked, there will be bloodshed, like you will pay and you will pay in blood.

Whereas Len was very much about Sinclair gets your act together, do this right. Also we wanna understand, we want to help understand and figure out why this UN UN unbased hate exists. What's hap like let's get into why and help fix these things as opposed to Jaar. Who's like, Nope, here's my opportunity for chaos.

And maybe some war where the Narn can come out on top. I don't know if you saw it at all like that, or if that makes any sense

Brent: Dylan was, Dylan was different for me because for her, what I got from her was she was, she was legitimately miffed and that's, that's the nice way of putting it. Jaar was,

Jeff: opportunistic.

Brent: yes, that's the word I was trying to say falsely or,

Jeff: But do you

Brent: up or something like

Jeff: to kinda shift

Brent: Dylan was legit. Like you, somebody just got attacked and nothing's happening.

Jeff: though, I don't think it's somebody, I think they were subtle about it, but I think that she and Mayan had a relationship of some kind. So there was a piece where Dylan was like, can I walk you home? And Mayan was like, Nope, I, I don't have time tonight. And you've got other stuff. So I feel like there's some sort of a relationship there.

So not only was this someone, not only was it another men, BARR, not only was it a cultural. But I think it might have been someone that she's in a relationship with of some kind. So this was very personal to her, but I think as the episode went on, she moved from that to, we have to understand this hate that's happening.

Brent: You know, I, I'm really curious to find out if you are right about that. she in a relationship with this person or is it something about Mumbar culture and how interconnected the various people feel to where it almost looks like they're in a relationship they're just that connected as a people group.

Um, and, and like the only thing that I point back to that is I remember in the episode, soul hunter, She is so like worried about these souls, that the soul hunter has captured and she's like, you have to release them to bring them back to us as a whole. And like, I'm good. Either way. I I'm don't don't get me wrong.

I'm not trying to rewrite it. I'm good either way, because I also picked up, they've got a thing going

Jeff: Mm-hmm yeah,

Brent: but then I was like, the thought just heard me, like, I wonder if there's a bit of, this is just minbar culture. Cause we got a big piece of Tari culture today

Jeff: that's

Brent: in this episode. Um, is this just another aspect that I really wasn't sure, but she, she, meaning to Lynn certainly felt much more personally attacked and much deeper than she wasn't actually that, that she should, because she wasn't actually the person attacked.

Jeff: yeah. Yep.

Brent: You know what I mean? Like she wasn't fighting on behalf of her friend. She felt like she was fighting

Jeff: She was Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Whereas Jaar, I like your word opportunistic.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: He was being whatever. Now, Kasha doing whatever Kasha doing. I don't understand

Jeff: I don't. Yeah, I don't know.

Brent: you know, he's plotting something.

Jeff: Well, and he was

Brent: feels like he's doing

Jeff: he was watching the, the library computer scenes of earth and, uh, and he told Sinclair that he was, what was it? He was studying, studying. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. Which honestly, if you are, gosh, and humans are coming in and jacking up non-humans okay. Well, what is the history of humankind for messing people up? Like, I just want to know, I need to know who I'm dealing with,

Jeff: Well, and he wasn't watching, he wasn't watching trees growing or kids playing in the park. Like he was watching a cut from a clockwork orange that they made they'd, you know, played some Ludwig V to and, and, and made him watch, like they were, they were, he was watching the beat, the ultra violence out of you movie clip.

Brent: And that's our society,

Jeff: is. Hey, did you notice on the minbar while we're talking about them, but did you notice that we've talked about the blue arrow on the head? They have it on their, uh, fingernails also?

Brent: no, do they

Jeff: Yeah. Go back and look when, uh, Mayan and when they hug.

Brent: Okay. Okay. I'm gonna have to I'm I'm gonna have to, to look at that. I, I wanna get into the meat of this episode, but I, I want to go back to the whole lawn thing real quick. I just wanna put a bow on that before we go. If you don't mind, um, lawn coming against these two people saying. It's tradition. I mean, this man sounded like heavy tradition. It's tradition. We have to obey that tradition

Jeff: Mm-hmm

Brent: to going to the hole. My shoes are too tight. I forgot how to dance and how joyous he is when he says, because you are young and you should know how to dance.

Like he was so Joyce, but for him to go back and encounter his own words, admittedly, just in his own head, you know, but to go back and have to deal with the idea of, I don't care about my name. I don't care about my position. I don't care about my power. The only thing that matters is love. Right. dealing with, what was her name? A,

Jeff: Aira in, uh, yeah, yeah. Born to the purple.

Brent: Um, Yeah. As he's talking about that with her, you know, he tells her that he is like, look, I'm an old man. I've had my hearts broken before. Like, but he's saying, this is the thing that it's all about. And he seemingly forgets that going into this. Now I think at first it was like a, why am I being bothered with

Jeff: mm-hmm

Brent: Just get

Jeff: well, he was, does his thing, send him, send him back to the home world. Who cares? Not my problem.

Brent: Right. Right. And then it became really a, I mean, because he got into it to forget who you are to forget our traditions is to forget who you are as a sari. And then for, for, you know, again, we've talked about Vera calling that, but I don't know, like it, it just struck me how you can have born to the purple and then turn around and have the war, prayer lawn from both episodes.

And they don't, they exist in concert with each other, not in conflict with each other.

Jeff: Well, I think, I think that he, I think the conflict is a, a lifetime of, of ha. A lifetime of having to live and look a certain way, you know, to conform to those Tari ideals. He, I don't know what his role is in, you know, the, like where he lands in the hierarchy of Tari politics or whatever, but it's clearly person of, of substantial influence. And we know we've learned they get there through blackmail having, you know, having dirt on others and, and really worrying about your honor and your family name. So a whole lifetime of living that, but through his life experiences, and maybe as a result of his exposure, you know, there was the conversation with him and Garabaldi either in, um, I think it was in the gathering.

It might have been midnight on the firing line, but where he talks about how everything is earth. Now it's earth time, earth, this, you know, now, now Centara or a museum open, you know, from nine to five earth central time or whatever standard time.

Brent: right.

Jeff: But I wonder if that kind of exposure to other cultures is also opening his eyes to where he is like, gosh, I, this, this cent entire culture has actually made me miserable my whole life.

And yeah, I've got these three wives that, that are three of the four horsemen of death. But gosh, I've loved some people and maybe, maybe I should have, maybe I should have done that instead. I think lawn's story is the story of a lot. A lot of people you hear that when people are on their deathbed, right?

They never talk about wishing. They worked more hours, wishing they sold more widgets. Right? It's all about, I wish I spent more time with my family. I wish I saw more of the world. I think lawn's not on his deathbed, but he's experiencing those thoughts, but he is still conflicted because he's still that big shot in sent culture and still feels that pressure to show up.

Brent: Well, I, I, I think that goes to the idea of when you have a person who is in the midst of change, I used to be staunch this way, you know, as I'm growing and maturing and getting older, and my eyes are opening to more stuff and I'm learning things, actually I'm shifting in my views. I don't know if anybody else has ever experienced that at 40 something years old.

I can tell you, I am not the same person today that I was in my twenties. I'm not the same person I was in my thirties. Uh, hopefully I am much more centered and much more aware and much more people oriented than I ever was back then. And still, there are times when, when the rubber meets the road that I still have those tendencies that were built into me as a young man that I actively have to fight against.

You know what I mean? Like, because it's so ingrained in me now, I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm expanding beyond that, but I still have these tendencies. I still have these knee jerk reactions that I have to learn to overcome. And hopefully those don't stay my knee jerk reaction. That's what I interpreted lawn as having here.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: He's in the midst of his change, you know, as he's getting older, But this was a, just a, this is just how we are in Zari and for him to sit back and go, actually I'm not anymore. And to be reminded that in a whole new, fresh way, that's not just focused on him, but now it's also focused on others was just, it was, it was an, this was an amazing step forward in lawn's journey.

And I hope they don't, you know, as other writers come in, that's not named DC Fontana. I hope they don't drop and I'm kind of scared they might, but we'll

Jeff: but I think, I think the groundwork has been laid that it can backslide. And I think it's justifiable for the reasons you said, you know, In in, in education, and this is a thing you, you know, a lot about, but there's the concept, uh, you know, the, the kind of the four stages of learning of unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence.

Whew. I hit 'em, but that you take those concepts and you lay 'em on top of the conscious versus subconscious thoughts that actually Dr. Bruce Lipton, um, goes into incredible detail about if anybody wants to deep dive into this concept. But when you're in a state of conscious competence, that means, you know what, you know, like you're consciously making the decisions to act and behave in a certain way, and then your unconscious competence.

So that's like your conscious mind. I'm gonna think about these things and do these things, your unconscious in your unconscious competence is you just know it. And you just do it and it's what happens driving a car. I like to say conscious competence is where you're like, okay, I hit my turn signal. I move, I look over my left shoulder before I turn into the lane.

I think about that and do it unconscious. And unconscious competence is where you get in your car after work, and then you get home and you're like, how the hell did I get here? Like what happened? cause he's going autopilot. But in this case, lawn's subconscious. So his unconscious competence level is being the model sentar in being loud and worrying about your name and, and, and, and having three horrible wives or whatever.

But his conscious competence, his, his conscious piece pieces working towards is what we saw in born to the purple and we saw here. And so there is that conflict between the two that as the story progresses. Yeah. Hopefully it continues and we see more, more progress and it doesn't just turn into, oh, remember that time lawn thought love was a cool thing.

Ah, yeah, that was Earth

Brent: mm-hmm Okay, let's talk about the main source of this. Humans are attacking non-humans. They are exhibiting the height of bigotry and racism and collectivism. And what what's, what's the phrase that they used within the show like earth first,

Jeff: first. Yep.

Brent: the earth first. Um, oh boy, does that hit really hard in today we record this and our own

Jeff: Yeah. In June, in June of 2022, let me put this in a time and place right now as we're recording this. Yeah.

Brent: right. Uh, earth first. Okay. Let me substitute your own word for that and go, no wonder that actually like I get the idea and it sounds good, but it also feels real icky to

Jeff: A hundred percent.

Brent: because I have a more global view at this age of my life than I, than I do, uh, than I did when I was younger.

Um, they're attacking these people. It's horrible. Yvanova's ex-boyfriend comes on station who, by the way, I don't know about you. I knew he was bad news from the moment he opened his mouth. I mean, he was a hundred when he's like, yeah, I'm gonna be on the station now. And I'm just looking for whatever I'm like, dude, you are the leader this whole thing.

And, and, and I mean, Sinclair becomes the captain that I want him to be. This is the Sinclair. I not the guy going out, grappling things in the, in the spaceships, the guy who's like, I'm gonna pretend to be one of these guys. So they try to recruit me and, and I'm gonna go,

Jeff: blow them up.

Brent: right. And he goes in and, and the Ulaan dissolve.

I mean, that's, I was like, whoa, look at those guys. Like, that's what they were. Right. They were And again, I mentioned the game of Thrones, I mean, where they're just coming outta nowhere, like stabbing people and trying to kill 'em. And I mean, and they get 'em in the end. Like they get 'em back.

Uh, you know, and you mentioned Yvanova's great closing line. Some of them are more human than you. And I'm like, Jeff, I mean, this show was, it was perfect. Start to finish.

Jeff: Yep, totally. Yeah. Do you think, is it time for us to start hitting our closing thoughts on this? You think start giving this a rating. Or do you got

Brent: I, I guess

Jeff: Cause you're diving in you're diving in.

Brent: do, I do, I will. Let me, let me point out some of the funny stuff that I thought I had out out of this episode one, uh, you remember a couple weeks ago, I talked about the really bad acting of Jaar spitting out the water when the lady comes in and you're like, yeah, that's the 47th take Sinclair's punch on bigs was the weakest.

I mean, you could see him like miss his chin by six inches. And like, I mean, it felt like a high school play

Jeff: Well, and

Brent: It was so

Jeff: even right after that, so like he, he did had that just awful punch and then he grab, then he like gently, gently grabs the, the gun, the PPG, I think they called it out of his hand. And then they cut to the stunt doubles diving over that, like the, the only stunt double cut that was worse than this was space balls.

Like it was just like, that was so apparent.

Brent: Uh, huh. And then, and then, okay. This wasn't really like a goof or anything, but I'm sorry. I did think it was hilarious. The cousins coming on on board thinking that veer was the ambassador, cuz that's what he

Jeff: That's pretty great.

Brent: was great. Great. Okay. That's all I had on the, on the, the, I wanna make fun of it side because there's not a lot to make fun

Jeff: There's not, I have one more to to make fun of, but also kind of put a point on during the mob scene. So Ja car's getting everybody mobbed up and Gar Baldy and Sinclair go into the mob to try and stop it. Aldi tells him to leave and then Sinclair's like, no, I'm doing this. Garabaldi straight up, says, commander, let me do my job.

So again, another case of Sinclair. Inserting himself where he didn't necessarily, or yeah. Sinclair inserting himself where he didn't need to be. And again, undermining, I think Garabaldi so maybe not as funny as I thought it was gonna be coming in. It's actually pretty.

Brent: not funny. I actually I've thought of you in that

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: when we, when we got to that, because it what's good about that though. Yes. Sinclair's natural instinct is to go in. Gar Baldy is okay to call. I mean, in a way that veer was okay to say ambassador, you're wrong, Gar. BDIs like commander, no, get back.

Let me, let me go in and do this. No captain Bacard. You are not allowed to go down to the planet. That's not your job captain. You need That's your place. Thank you. That's my job. As a first

Jeff: Yeah, exactly.

Brent: I don't care what Kirk and them did. This is my job. As a first officer is to keep you safe. This is the role

Jeff: well, yeah, Sinclair just imagining hi Senator from earth force. Yeah. Uh, Sinclair was killed in a mob that I was supposed to take care of. So, sorry.

Brent: So, yeah, let's, let's do the, let's do the dive in on this, uh, the, the meat of this episode.

Jeff: Yeah. So in this, what we do is we look to see if the episode has a star Trek kind of quality to it, any star Trek like messages, uh, and if it's. something that we want to watch. Again, we rate the episode on a scale of zero to five deltas. That's not necessarily how much we like it or not. That's how star Trek.

We feel quote unquote star Trek. We feel this episode is it's important to note as we go into score this that not every star Trek episode is a five Delta star Trek episode, but this is taking the baby on five episode and deciding how it rates and if we'd watch it again. So, Brent, what do you think

Brent: Well, Jeff, first of all, I think I have to admit something I said earlier. Okay, fine. I guess we do really compare the show to

Jeff: kind of, yeah, I think we're still fine. We're fine. Tuning it a little bit. It's more about the

Brent: it's not even star. It's the message. It's not the show. It, it is. It is definitely it's the idea of does this show do what I think sci-fi as a general is supposed to do what art and stories are supposed to do is to hold up a mirror, to give you hope for a future to tell you how you can be to, to show you the ugly parts of yourself. Boy. Oh boy. Does this episode hit on every single one of those? This is a five out of a five. Again, I'll say it again. Knowing that DC Fontana wrote this episode makes it all make sense. There is, there is not one way that this doesn't. all those marks in my book. And if you have one that you can think of that it doesn't, then I'll eat my words, but I just don't see it in there. People out there commenting email us or on YouTube, you can comment down there as well. Let me know if this one doesn't hit, but it, it, it holds up a mirror that is unfortunately, Jeff.

I, I gotta tell you confession time growing up as a teenager in the nineties, right? Um, I remember those episodes of full house and family matters and fresh princes of Bel air, where they dealt with golden girls, where they dealt with these issues of racism and, and shows like the real world and things like that.

That would kind of show where we could go. And like, I really remember sitting back going, who's actually racist today. We've gotten past this. Like I thought that's where we were back then. I'm sad to say I was absolutely wrong. It is something that is alive. And, and unfortunately it seems to have been fanned into flames over the last bunch of years.

Um, and, and has maybe it just never really went away. I'm just now aware of it in new ways, you know, cuz turns out, uh, our friends have been trying to tell us this ever since the nineties, that it hasn't gone away and now I'm listening. Uh, and my apologies to all of you for not. Um, but boy does this episode, hold that up as a mirror, to who we are.

It gives us hope for a future. You see, you see what you could become. This tells you how to be like, like when Sinclair goes, when Sinclair says. Okay. These guys love to recruit these people. So let's infiltrate 'em so we can take them down. I'm hearing captain Kirk on the bridge saying, there's no room for this.

He says, Winston Sinclair say, he says, not on babble on five. I'm not having it here. I'm hearing captain Kirk say, there's no room for bigotry on this bridge. You leave that in your quarters, Mister. Right? Like it's, it's the same sentiment. And, and yes, five deltas star Trek through and through not star Trek, but just that quality.

It holds that, uh, that message and you know what we can get through it. And we've got to be a part of it. You can, and you just can't sit back and let those who are the victims. Be the ones who handle it. If you are not the victim, you've got to step up and stand next to those who are, and my God, can we talk about the strength of Mumbar guest on this show?

I forget her. What was her,

Jeff: SHA Mayan. Yeah.

Brent: the strength that she exhibited, she said, don't you take that tattoo off of me. That is, that is a, a, a,

Jeff: That's a lesson.

Brent: learned is what she said. Right. And, and when she steps up and she says, ambassador, my people love, love, love, defines these things. Like, like she is moving forward, despite what just happened. Like, wow. That's how we should, like, you can, you can come back from that and, and just be better. How about

Jeff: Well, people say that star Trek paints a better, a picture of a better future for us, but I don't think that's true. And I don't think Babylon five does either. It's exactly what you just said. It shows us a better future is possible. And I think that watching this episode today, 30 years after it aired and it being maybe more relevant than it was when it first aired hurts, it, it was, it was, it was hard to watch.

And I think to your point, knowing we know this, you and I with with, with the privilege that we have are seeing this now in, in, in a light and in a way that we've never seen before. it's ho it's great that we're being able to see it. It's horrible that it's there for us to see, but this episode 30 years ago was showing it to us and showing it in such a great way.

I think I couldn't help, but notice two things with this episode, just like soul hunter at the 27 minute mark, it had a turn where things changes at the 27 minute mark, where Sinclair was like, I'm gonna infiltrate these, these, these people, and we're gonna blow up. And from that Mo point forward, this reminded me of the TNG episode, conspiracy where Riker perso that, and that one, they were like the bugs that took over people and they were gonna

Brent: another season. One

Jeff: Oh, exactly. Right. The Leonard gem a diamond in the rough, but Riker posed as a member of them. So they could infiltrate and, and take 'em down. That was what, what Sinclair did, um, in this, it was just so well then what.

Brent: only Riker only to be fair. Riker was far more convincing at it than

Jeff: he ate the G or not the, even the G, but he ate just the straight up wor yeah. Oh God. Right over the face. The whole thing, but yeah. Oh, but what was what I kept waiting to have happen? And this was something in the editing was they were talking about how they have friends everywhere. Brent, that's such an overarching hanging threat.

Where are those friends? Right. What levels of government are they? What levels of Babylon five are they in? I kept waiting cuz they were cutting from Malcolm bigs talking about all their friends to GU Baldy in the security crew, running to the rescue. I kept waiting for the security crew to turn on GU Baldi and be like, Nope, guns pointed and like get down we're home guard and we're, we're shutting this thing down.

I kept waiting for that to happen. It still might happen for.

Brent: Well, I'll give you a, it still might happen because the president of earth ran on a platform of

Jeff: exactly. Exactly.

Brent: all of this movement is happening. They mentioned in this episode, they're waiting for a signal. That is gonna go out, not just on deep or not on deep not on babble on but it's also ring back to earth and Mars and all these other places.

And this is a coordinated attack across all we did was prevent what was gonna happen on

Jeff: Mm-hmm

Brent: And you know, what do you know who Sinclair's boss is that president back on earth? And so even if it's not the security forces turning around saying, lay this stuff down, uh, who was it that he was talking to the other day of saying, look, stay out of this declare neutrality and Sinclair.

Yeah, the guy, right? Like those guys. That's where I'm concerned about who's home garden.

Jeff: Well, especially when you look back, like at that thing, you know, stay, stay neutral. This is the Rahe three vote. They wanted earth to stay neutral and do nothing, which would only cause Centara and Nan conflict. It's like this very concerted effort, going back to the beginning of the entire series of them, plant the seeds to just blow all this up.

Brett one, I, I will watch this episode again. Um, I also watched it, I watched this one, three times. I'm gonna watch it again. It was so good. And if there were six deltas, I could give, I'd give this thing six. This, this episode was perfect.

Brent: Yeah. And it left things up. And, you know, you mentioned the idea that this plays just as true today. Unfortunately, as it did back then, I have found that so many times in the other podcast with beat me up, going through that with Matt of how many times we've watched a, again, another 30, some odd year old show and gone, man, does this speak to today perhaps more so now than it did back then? I've often said that I think the world is better when star Trek is on

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: I think the world is better when sci-fi is doing what Babylon five did in this Because I think part of where I had a false sense of security is probably not the right word, but a complacency, but not even complacency, like a, like racism is so ugly and so disgusting.

How could anybody be like this? Because I was constantly fed by my entertainment about how gross and disgusting it was. And I wonder, did entertainment stop doing that

Jeff: complacency. Okay. Wow.

Brent: somewhere along the nineties, maybe the early two thousands. And when we get into shows like lost in 24 and like, have we stopped talking about that in our shows that these shows from 30 years ago are speaking to us now more so than the stuff we're getting now.

Jeff: you know, I, yeah,

Brent: Because I haven't watched, I'm sorry. I haven't watched the expanse and had this same I haven't watched C I haven't I don't know what, what are these shows that are on TV right now that aren't labeled star Trek? Cause star Trek is obviously concertedly trying to do Um, you know, honestly, even the, well, okay.

The star wars stuff has started kind of going down the, like pushing the envelope with things as they

Jeff: Mm-hmm,

Brent: you know? Um, but where has, where has our entertainment, where is TV gone that they're not doing this babble on fives does this so well in this episode and honestly the last episode

Jeff: Yeah, they're both so great and all, but it was honestly jarring coming to this episode, even off mind war, just the pacing, the writing were such a higher caliber in this one that like, it was maybe 20 minutes into this thing. And I'm like, how, how is all this happening? It's like, it was, I mean, literally like mind, mind war was the roller coaster, starting to tip over the, you know, over the, the bend and this, this is where we're heading down downhill and what you said there.

And, and in heading down on, on the roller coaster, really. Really brings to me that scene, the loyalty test that bigs had for Sinclair, where he brought the, was it the BA um, woman, the kind of Phish woman that came out and he wanted her to murder her. And what an incredible acting job again, where she's like, please spare me.

No, and it wasn't, it wasn't pathetic. You know what I mean? Like there, there's a version of that scene where she comes across as like, oh my gosh, she's acting, this is kind of lame. No, that was real. And it was disgusting. And there was a part of me, there's a part of me that thought Sinclair was gonna do it, that he was gonna commit.

And I, I had decided if he did it, I, I would be done. Like, I, I couldn't do it anymore. It was that gross. It was that disgusting. And I, the timing, the pacing was so perfect that I didn't know if he would. or he wouldn't. And when he finally turned and, and it all, and it, oh, it was, it was a physical relief, like a physical relief that the right thing.

But that's what came to mind when you were talking about that. Cuz that feeling of disgustingness, that feeling of tension of like, oh my God, there's no way, no way this could humanly happen. That doesn't, that doesn't you're right. It hasn't happened in at least, at least 20 years of television. I can't think of that really again, tell us if we're wrong.

Right. If there are examples out there, but I, none of them come to mind. Wow. Brent that's I hate to wrap this up, but that's war prayer. We did it. we got through just incredible, an incredible episode of television. So good. Well next week, next week we're gonna be watching a new one now. We've asked so many times, we're gonna ask again, you're gonna hear it a lot, please.

No spoilers. That doesn't mean just from you, but we don't look anything up either. So what we look up, we see the next, the name of the next episode and that's it. And for fun, we like to kind of guess what that next episode is gonna be about. So, Brett, what do you think? And the sky full of stars is gonna be about

Brent: And the sky full of stars. Well, I'm really hoping that that episode can, I don't wanna say is a part two to this one. Uh, cuz I don't think it should be, but really I think continues the storyline down now. We've we've I can see how this episode was about war. I don't know how it's about prayer though, to be honest with you. So, you know, what does the title actually have to do?

So the sky and the sky full of stars, um, I wanna say it's almost like, uh, war comes to Babylon five, like you say, you see lots of ships out there in the galaxy, you know, or, or almost the other one of that is uh, do you remember, uh, in, in Indiana Jones in the last crusade. When Sean Connery is, uh, uh, he goes and uses his umbrella to excite all the birds and he starts quote, he starts quoting Shakespeare or somebody like that.

Or, or he's like in the may, the foul, may my armies be the, whatever, whatever in the foul of the air or something like that. Uh, Charla, Maine. He says, you remember his Charmaine, uh, maybe it's like that. Maybe it's a, something, something, something, and the sky full of stars. Like it's a, it's a that.

I don't, I, I have no idea. That's my best. Guess what about you? Would you, do you have a

Jeff: I think we're, I think we're gonna completely detach from, from this, from the, from the, the hate from the, the thing that's the, the really, the last two episodes of, of high ramped up tension. I think this next one's gonna be some, some new alien something and they're gonna be absolutely just, uh, it's either gonna be I'm so amazed all these, uh, the diversity and all the races and all this stuff on this station, or it's going to be, my planet has brings, so my, and my culture brings so much more.

It's gonna be some sort of awe of either I'm odd by Babbel on five or babyble on five, should be odd by what I'm bringing to it sort of a thing. But I feel like the next episode is gonna be, it's gonna be a lighter, a lighter episode overall.

Brent: I would be okay with that.

Jeff: Yeah. Last two been,

Brent: I would be okay

Jeff: been, it's been, it's been exciting.

It's been fun, but it's been a lot.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Well,

Brent: It's you need a comedy every

Jeff: Yeah, you just need that breather in there. Well, we're gonna find out what and the sky full of stars is about next week right here. Hey, thank you so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening to us and don't forget to stop by apple podcasts and wherever you're listening to us, leave us the rating, leave us a review.

It means the world to us, and you'll leave us a review on apple podcast. We're gonna give you some love from our Twitter at Babylon first, right away. It's gonna tweet out that, uh, that, that review that you left for us. So until next time, Brent, I'm gonna channel the poet sh all my on, and I'm gonna try and send everyone home feeling good.

There once was a man from Rochester who said you should live long and

Brent: Jeff Jeff, not a star Trek podcast.

Jeff: right.

Brent: Not.