Voices of Authority

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.

And

Brent: I'm Brent Allen. See? And uh, I'm also watching Babylon five for the very first time. See, Jeff and I are two veterans Star Trek podcasters, and we're watching Babylon five for the first time. What? Searching for Star Trek, like mess. Sorry. Uh, we're searching for Star Trek, like messages in this series and trying to decide just how much we like this series.

What is going on today?

Jeff: Well, neither myself nor Brent Musante are are going to make this about Star Trek today. And to prove that we play the rule of three in every episode of Babylon, five for the first time, we each get up to three references, a piece to Star Trek, and that's it. Three no substitutions, exchange refund.

Hey, Brent. Hey Jeff. We owe a longtime listener something here that we committed to do quite some time ago. Oh yeah. Original healer on Twitter and elsewhere. Yeah. Uh, we, we offered some time ago to, so they work on a cruise ship, which is super. and they, oh, this is a

Brent: cruise. It's a cruise ship. I know, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, uh, they listened to our podcast with their dad, and so I wanted to, we, we said we do this. I wanna make sure we follow through. Give a quick shout out to UL Cote, AKA a MacGyver. MacGyver sin. Shout out to you. What's up, MacGyver? It's pretty cool. I love that we're bringing families together.

I love

Brent: it. Jeff. Talking about bringing families together. Yeah. We got a call. I don't know, are you, are you, do you have this in your

Jeff: notes? I, I don't have it queued up for this one. We have it queued up for our next one.

Brent: We, Jeff, we have been sitting on this for like five months. I

Jeff: know. It takes a while to cue these things up.

Brent: It really does. We, we have a backlog, but it, Jeff, we have to, I mean, it's been, it's, it's been a minute. It has been. And I just, you know what we were, cuz we were, we were texting back and forth and, and for whatever reason we started talking about it this week and was like, we never brought that up into the show.

Like we're, we're, we're still working through the backlog and stuff. Um, but you just said we're bringing families together. Can we please talk about how the show's bringing families

Jeff: together? We can, but I'm gonna have to pull it up. Okay. YouTube, this is what you get. You get the real time stuff when you listen to this on the audio version, it's gonna be like, we planned this.

I'm sorry. Sorry.

Brent: We, this actually should have been like a Hey. Uh, but I just like, we were talking about it and then I, you just made me remember it and, oh, this guys, you're gonna love this. This is so good. This is, so the, just wait. Like all this extra time you're spending right now is about to be so worth it.

Um, as I, as I vamp

Jeff: while j Jeff, well, I'm trying to think like in the, in the movie season, I don't, I haven't really paid attention, but this isn't really romantic comedy or season at all. Um, no. , but this would fit right in. Yeah. Except the comedy part. This is just really good. Is this, well, I

Brent: mean, this one, this one came back to us like during Christmas, I think.

Was it? Okay. I think it was, I think it was Christmas. So this is like love actually .

Jeff: Oh my gosh. This is gonna take me, sorry, YouTube. Oh. Should not have just dropped this on you. I know. It takes, you don't have, it takes, we're in, we're in. This is, this is gonna happen at this point. Okay. I wonder if that would be easier

Brent: to do it that way.

I don't know. So anyway, uh, let's hear this time here. What is, what's going on right now? Uh, my kids have just finished up baseball and, uh, soccer and this, you know, all that stuff. People don't care about your kids ,

Jeff: right? You gonna do that part of it? Oh, I got it. Uh oh. There you go. There you go. Oh wow. Yeah.

This is back from a while. Okay.

Brent: Yeah. Can we play, can we, is it okay, Jeff? I, I, I'm legitimately asking you as a host, is it okay if we

Jeff: do this one? Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're so far into it now. I think we'll jump it. Okay. Yep. Okay. All right.

And speaking of bringing families together, we have a message. Someone emailed us through our website, our website, Babylon five first.com. That is what? The number five and the word first.com, right? You go there, we have a contact form. You can send us an email. This one. , get your tissues ready. This was so cool.

Yeah. This one goes back ways to around Christmas time. Yeah. And, uh, so this is from, oh, I'm, I'm not gonna give any names. They're very careful to not give names, so I won't either. But they say it's ironic that I write this After finishing Soulmates in September, I told a friend d about your podcast. You'd never seen the show and decided to watch along with us, and it could not have come at a better time for him.

His marriage has been on the rocks for a while, and it's no secret that his wife, Jay, has been planning to file for divorce in the new year. Your podcast has provided him with a needed escape in a very tough time. However, this is not the end of the tale as you listen to your podcast while exercising something curious.

Jay was nearby and could overhear our conversation around the episode survivors, and it piqued her interest. She asked what he was listening to and he explained, and according to him, it was the first civil conversation they'd had in over a month. That's good. The end result of that conversation. Well, they started the series over again.

Dee did. From the beginning with both of them watching the episode and listening, listening along to our commentary, they told me that they started on opposite sides of the room, but now they snuggle up on the couch for what has become appointment viewing. They've stopped talking to divorce lawyers and started talking to a marriage counselor.

I won't say that you saved their marriage. That's on them, but you provided that common ground. They needed to rediscover why they loved each other in the first place. They have hope again. And I lay that squarely at your feet. There are many people who love them most will never hear your podcast, but you've changed their lives for the better too.

This letter is written on behalf of both of them. As Jay said, you should know what kind of impact you've had, but if she tried to write this herself, she'd burst into tears. Two paragraphs in. Thank you for what you do. It matters more than you realize.

Brent: D and j Um, I hope you guys are still listening. Like I, like, I really, really hope you guys are still listening.

Like we got this a while ago. Jeff and I have just sort of been sitting on it and uh, that is amazing. Like Jeff, I, I remember getting this and uh, it because it was, it was right for Soulmates, I think it was. You said. Um, and I was, I I was absolutely floored cuz this, yeah, it was right around Christmas time, I think.

Um, and I just, I couldn't. Believe that, you know, you and I are just two knuckleheads, you know? Right, right, right. Like we're, we're, we're just, you know, we needed an excuse to watch a show and, and we try to put out some content. But I mean, we hear these stories about people talking about the shows themselves.

You know, I think of friends who, uh, were on the verge of suicide that a Star Trek episode saved, or, you know, I, I don't, I've never heard about Babbel on five, but maybe it has. But the idea that we can contribute and be a part of that is just phenomenal. And, and d and j I think about you guys a lot and I really, really hope you guys are doing well.

I know it is tough to bounce back from what you guys were going through, and I just wish you, and regardless of where you guys are, I wish you, uh, all the, the best. Um,

Jeff: Agreed. It's very humbling to have read that. And I think it's just, I think to me, and what I would hope that our community kind of hears is that you never know, right?

You never know in anything you do who's listening to what you're saying, who's watching what you're doing, and the impacts that that can have on people that you'll never interact with in any way. Right? So it's, yeah, to, to go back to what we say a lot, right? Just be good humans. Be good humans, cuz it can make a big difference.

There you go.

Brent: So Jeff, um, speaking of being good humans, um, I wanna give a quick shout out to some people as well. Oh, cool. We're, we're giving shout outs, right? We're bringing families together. Um, one of the cool things that we get, and, and I don't think it's any surprise to people out there who listen, is we get feedback.

We, we get documentation on, uh, who's listening to our show out there. And by that I just mean demographics, right? Like, we can go in and, and we know that. There's a certain percentage of our demographics that are male and a certain percentage that are female. And the males way outnumber the females, which is not, um, unconscionable.

We know the general age ranges of people who are listening to the show. We know general locations. We don't know you specifically, but something that those demographics don't know and don't see, and you only pick up on it, Jeff, if you are in the community that has kind of developed around this show, the people you know.

Yep. The people who comment on our YouTube page, the people who send in emails, the people who talk to us on Twitter. Um, the people comment on our Instagram page, our patrons, the people who who talk to us on patrons, um, uh, those folks, a huge, like huge portion of those folks are also a part of the trans community and.

I feel like those numbers might not be accurately reflected at all in the demographic numbers. So I just wanted to take a moment and say, uh, to those of you, just a, a big shout out to everyone. You guys are all awesome, but particularly to those of you in the trans community, um, we see you, Jeff, and I see you.

We know that you're out there. Uh, you are welcome and you're awesome and thanks for being a part of this show and being a part of this community. Uh, cuz yeah,

Jeff: we love everybody. We do. I'd like to think of us as being like for real active allies out there for, for all, for everyone in our great community.

But thank you for that, Brent. I think it's a really great thing because the horrible thing about our world, one of the horrible things about our world is that we, everything gets boiled down to some sort of a demographic. And there, and we go into YouTube and we look at those, and it is very binary in what the choices are.

And that doesn't reflect reality in any way. Right? So, and I think we've mentioned that in the past. We've talked about the demographics we see, and we're like, whoa, look at this. But that's not fair. And I think that we may have unintentionally excluded people when we've said that in the past. That was never our intention, but thank you.

Right. Thank you for that. I agree wholeheartedly.

Brent: Yeah. I just, you know, I, I mean, I have, I have several friends that I've only ever known after they transition. And so like, literally like, uh, whether they're male or female, I, I have a few on each side. Uh, that's literally the only way I've ever known them.

you know, and for so many of, even our community, that's literally the only way that we ever know 'em. And, and, uh, those, the things that represent the demographics are only what you identify as when you create an.

Jeff: Right. No. Yeah. So, um, what box did you

Brent: check? Right, right. So anyway, uh, just, just kind of kind of throwing that out there just to say, hey, cuz I know that, uh, especially in a world where people can be really divided, um, views may not always be the same.

And like, that's okay. That's to be celebrated. But to say we love everybody and you know, that's a part of what's, that's, that's what the idea of Babylon five is. Right. To bring people together. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Right. Different people of different backgrounds and different genres and different identities and different whatever.

Uh, you know, and Jeff, you and I have, we, you know, were two middle-aged white dudes, you know, sis, he, all that sort of stuff. Yep. Just talking about a 30 year old show and, you know, we've made a lot of crazy new friends out here. It was just awesome. It's super cool. This is awesome. So maybe, maybe Jeff, this podcast.

Is the last best hope for peace for the world.

Jeff: Wow. Wouldn't that be something? There you go. Well, you know, Brent, along with, that'd be really, really sad, Jeff. I know , but hey, given the state of the world today, why not? It might be right, like why not, right?

Well, you know, Brent, along with the game, the rule of three that we play, there's another game that we like to play at the end of the show where we try to guess what next week's episode will be all about based on the title alone. Right. And this is the spot we revisit that it's time to pay the Piper Brent.

Yes. What did you say Voices of Authority was gonna be about?

Brent: I said, and I'm, I made this note, uh, that Sheridan was gonna have multiple people in authority over him telling him what to do. But it would all be conflicting. That's not what happened. No,

Jeff: not really. I was even further off. Yeah. I thought this was gonna be a Centara thing in where like the, uh, centi back on Centa Prime were gonna Yeah.

Kind of put Londo in his place. Okay. You are just the ambassador at Babylon five. That's it, kind of put him in his place? Uh, not, not at all. What happened here in this one?

Brent: So, Jeff, I, um, I, I'm making a declaration right now. Okay. It has, it has been far too long for my taste since I have nailed a prediction.

Are you calling it already for the, I'm calling my shot right now that at the end of this episode I will 100%. Okay. Maybe 95% nail next week's prediction, like bylaw

Jeff: of averages. I have to . You are playing games with your p rating right now and I

That's huge. All right. We'll see. We'll find out. All

Brent: right. Well, Jeff, uh, we're not talking about next week's episode yet. We are still talking about this week's episode, voices of Authority. And for those out there who may have not seen this episode in a while, or maybe they're listening to us without actually having watched the episode first, or maybe they're just a little fuzzy on this episode, why don't you remind us what Voices of Authority

Jeff: is all about?

Well, Sheridan's War Council meetings are in full swing. They're even calling ad hoc ones from time to time when you need one. You just put out a call for a code seven R. You know, even if a person that is trained to know all the codes might be right next to one of the war council members, well, one gets called Zack overhears the code over his complaining about the billowy nature of the security uniforms, which thank you

This absolutely needed to be said. Those things look pretty terrible. Well, Thelen tells the council it's time to start drumming up some allies. And with the help of draw on Epsilon three, they're gonna reach out to the other first ones that didn't stick around like the Volans did. But like all great plans, this one gets shaken up.

When Julie Masante, a political officer sent by the KGB or or the Ministry of Peace shows up. She's here to help Sheridan make decisions, you know, more in line with the political tide on Earth. She's gonna go over her role with him at dinner tonight, while he's supposed to be meeting withdrawal. She shares that she's not only here from the Ministry of Peace, but also as part of Night Watch and all with the authority of the Senate Oversight Committee.

Looks like she's here for the long haul. At dinner, it just gets worse. Apparently, there are no longer any homeless people on Earth, just a few displaced people, and there's no real crime, just mentally unstable people, which they are now weeding out at earlier and earlier ages. She keeps busy while she's on the station, pressuring Zach to give her info and freaking out the security and night watch teams on the station.

Babylon five Security is now also attached to the political arm of the government. She shares that the rules of due process and evidence will be relaxed and that a number of highly positioned government people are about to meet their untimely demises. She also makes a very aggressive attempt to get Sheridan to fall in line with her thinking, but somehow he's able to resist.

Well, GU Baldy sees an interaction between Masante and Zach and he's got questions for Zach, questions that he's not really ready to answer. It sounds like Zach knows that stuff's going on and he's just really trying to look out for number one. You know, like can Nikki would do, they calmly agree at the end of their little conversation to agree to disagree and they go their separate ways.

But hey, let's not forget about Draw. Ivanova meets him and Sheridan. Instead she gets to Jack into the Matrix. Yeah, they almost exactly said that. To search for the first ones, draw explains that there is a force that can be felt throughout the universe. It guides, it guides us, and binds us. And as long as Ivanova sticks to the correct path, she won't be in danger of falling to the dark side.

She finds first ones on Sigma 9 57. She starts to fall. She sees what look kind of like the shadows, and they sense her. She says they even know her name. Yikes.

She uses her injected tardigrade, d n a, and Rejoins, the Meial network. Just in time to get, Nope, sorry. No, actually, what she does is she taps into some old transmission. It's a recording of Vice President Clark, vice President Clark, talking to someone about killing President Santiago. It's the evidence that they've been looking for.

It proves that Santiago's death was murder and that Clark was behind it, but not just Clark. Also Morden

because Sheridan is trying to block a rear naked Chokehold from Masante. Ivanova is gonna head to Sigma 9 57 on the White Star and make contact with the first ones there, along with Marcus, who will be translating for the Minbar crew. The first ones come out in a party ship disco ball, all kinds of lights and lasers, basically to tell them to take a hike.

Ivanova refuses to take no for an answer and shows that even the first ones have egos and toxic levels of pride. In the end, they agree to help In the upcoming war, she shares the video of. She shares the video of Clark implicating himself with Sheridan, who sends it to General Hague, who gets it out on the tv, and it is pandemonium.

Masante gets recalled back to earth and a full investigation is about to get launched. On her way out, Zach asks Masante if she's ever heard of a code seven R uh oh. But that honestly might not be the scariest question that gets asked in this one. Earlier Kar Corners Dalen and asks her what she knows about Rangers Ja car's getting wise to this.

He knows a lot is going on in that. He's getting left behind. To show that he's serious. He visits Garabaldi in the middle of the night. He rings the doorbell. Ding dong. Hello, my name is Elder Kar. And I would like to share with you the most amazing book. It's a book about Narn home world a long, long time ago.

He tells Garabaldi to learn to read Narn and dive into the book of Jaquan. So Brent, what were your initial reactions to voices of authority?

Oh

Brent: boy. This episode, Jeff, I'm not sure that this, this one almost needed to come with a a Be careful if your kids are around warning, uh, to be honest, just right, you know, depending on how old your kids are, you know, um, I, I just recently had to have a talk with my boy who is now he'll be 11 this. Oh, wow.

Wow. Yeah, yeah. You know, and, and he, he was watching with me, , and, and it got into that one scene. He was like, dad, dad . He was like, oh boy. Oh, whoa.

Jeff: Uh, yeah. Speaking of bringing families together, right? , like, yikes. Oh

Brent: my gosh. I couldn't believe it. Uh, Jeff, I 100% thought when, uh, code R seven came out that, uh, I thought it was a booty call.

I really . I was like, dude, she's laying at like, and then I was like, is he like the rebound for Talia? For Ivanova? Like, like, I did not think, oh, it's the War Council. Like, that was the furthest thing from my mind when this episode, uh, opened up. But, um, Jeff, I liked this episode. I thought you, I mean you talk about an episode that feels like it's moving everything forward big time.

Like this 100% felt like that sort of an episode. Um, I've made a decision, Jeff. Okay, here's my decision. I really like this version of Draw a lot. Yes, he's great. I know if you do or not, but I really like this

Jeff: version of Draw, like literally his tease into the, for the cold open. The end of the cold open.

I'm just like, how exciting. Oh, how Yes.

Brent: Waiting. You know it. And here's the thing, like you and I are used to seeing Shakespearean stage actors on tv, and it doesn't always translate very well. No. At. This guy, but, but it's because they're not doing the Shakespearean thing. Like they're just trying to be normal on some level.

This dude is in full, like Othello mode when he is on screen and it's glorious and it fits the character so well. Uh, he's completely different from the original draw that we met, uh, when Brother Theo was playing him, but, uh, yeah, I mean, Jeff, there's, there's so much, so much to dive into. Uh, overall I really, really, really like this episode.

I thought it was so good. Um, how about you Jeff?

Jeff: My first thought when I watched this one was at the, in the fall of night, there was that dude from Ministry of Peace Wells that you were like, I hope this guy sticks around, right? Yeah. Like, I like him as a foil. Yeah. Uh, I was like, oh, we're gonna get a blunder version of him sticking around.

Yeah. Like, and we still might, like, depending on how the investigation goes, she might be back. So like, careful what you wish for. We get, uh, Leona Keer 2.0 in, uh, in this one. Yes. But no, I love, I love this, I love this episode. You know, I, I, I've talked a lot about, uh, the earth stuff, really leaning into the 1984 narrative, and I mean Sure.

Holy, holy crud. That's what's going on here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Full tilt and ivanova like this, this is, this is peak, peak of Ava Yeah. In this episode. And not just like, Ivanova being awesome, but Ivanova like in command making Galaxy implicating decisions and, and rocking it. She was, she was so good in, in this episode.

This is a great episode for her.

Brent: So, two notes I had real quick. Ivanova is still great. And, uh, the, this girl, uh, my name for her is gonna be Chicky.

Jeff: Okay. . Okay.

Brent: Which, because I, I, I've seen this episode a couple of times. Once I watched it mentioned with my kid, second time I watched it with my wife and she kept referring to her as Chicky.

And that was, that's just the name that every time I, I could never remember her name. And so I just started writing Chicky. So anyway, um, but my other note is I really hope Chicky sticks around. I, it's exactly what you were saying. Mm-hmm. like this, this kind of a foil on the show dramatically speaking is exactly what this show needs.

Like, it brings the right level of, of, uh, drama and controversy and challenge, uh, to the show. And I was very sad, Jeff. Very, very sad at the end to see her leave. I hope she comes back. I'll be honest, I don't think she will. Yeah. I don't think we're ever gonna see her again. I think this is a one and done character, but,

Jeff: uh, I could see a version like she's version two of Wells who's doing stuff Uhhuh.

I could see a version three showing up. I think especially because of the way Zach left her, you know, with the whole like, have you heard about this thing? Yeah. They're really backing Zach into a corner that I don't think Zack wants to be in.

Brent: No, they're, they're, well, they're doing something with Zach.

Like, you remember Lou? Oh yeah, Lou, he was great. We liked Lou. Lou was cool, and then he just disappeared. You know, they're, they're doing something with him and he's in the, he's in the opening credits now. Kiki is right? Yeah, he is totally, uh, Zack Zack's there. So they're doing something with his character and, um, I don't want to get into this right now or not.

I, Jeff, I offhandedly said something a few weeks ago that's kind of been stirring in my mind and I feel like this episode is confirmation that that's gonna happen. Okay. Let's, I'm gonna say it right now. I'm gonna say it right now. So, a couple weeks ago, I think I just sort of offhandedly said that, uh, I don't know if you remember this or not, but I was, I was like, what if Babylon five were to like, like just kind of flip earth dome the middle finger and like kind of go do their own thing, you

Jeff: know?

Yeah. I think that was one of your predictions for the season overall. Oh, was it? Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Oh, okay. Cool. Then actually makes me feel a little better. Cause I thought it was just sort of like an offhanded, like, oh, what if this happens? Uh, this episode to me, I absolutely feels like that's where we're going.

This feel, it just has that feel to it. And, um, the idea that that K Nikki is gonna have to make that choice, you know, cuz like, Sheridan's gonna, I mean, Sheridan's gonna be the guy that, that instigates the whole deal, right? Like, he's gonna have, he's gonna, he's gonna already be on board. Yvanova's gonna already be on board.

Aldi's probably already gonna be on board. Like this is gonna be the guy who's the Hmm. Should we, maybe not. Like he's gonna have to make a decision on which way he goes, you know? And they've set him up to do that. So, uh, I, but I, I just, I don't see how given, uh, chick's comments about they're gonna take some of the political people out of the station and all that.

Like, you can't, you can't remove Sheridan and Ivanova from Command of Babbel on five. Cause it would break the show.

Jeff: Yeah. Like, there, there's some math that happens here.

Brent: Right, right. Um, so I mean, I, I guess they could, but I just don't see that happening. So they're, they're. it, it's got, I, I just feel like that's the way it's gotta

Jeff: go.

Well I think they, they, they're setting Zach up to, you know, I've talked to before about Londo being kind of backed into a corner where he's gonna feel justified doing all his evil stuff cuz they didn't let him play everybody else's games. You know, they kicked me outta your games. But they're doing that with Zack also.

And I think this episode did a really good job of showing where Zach lives, you know what I mean? Like, there's all this stuff going on with the centara and on earth and the shadows and whatever, and Zach's big concern. . Dude, I can't get chicks when I look like this. . You have me wearing a circus tent and I, I just want to hook up like that's where Zack is living and I think in the scene, Zack is your

Brent: normal, ordinary, everyday dude.

Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

Jeff: Just doing his job and even says when he is talking to Garabaldi, he's just like, dude, there's stuff going on. And I I I, I'm just trying to get by, like, I'm just trying to get by. Yeah. And Garabaldi bites his head off this, there, there were a couple high points, at least one high point for Garabaldi in this episode, but on, on average, dude, he did not.

He did Zack dirty through this whole thing.

Brent: So I wanna ask you about that. I specifically had that question, so you've brought it up. Let's, let's go to it at the very end of the episode. Okay. Nikki has a point. Mm-hmm. . Zack has a point. He's like, you don't trust me. He's like, do your body's like, dude, you've been working for me for so long and this and that.

And he's like, yeah, but why don't you trust me? And he said, you've got this R seven, nobody knows what the hell that is. If you trusted me, you would tell me, and you know what? He's right. He's a hundred percent right. And the fact that, that that Garibaldi won't tell him means that he doesn't actually trust Zach.

Right. And then, and then you're right. He, he kind of, uh, it really does turn it on him. Right. So I was, I was curious, RA, because you know, what I thought was gonna happen in that moment was I thought Garabaldi was gonna bring him in mm-hmm. and say, okay, Zack, let's do it. Let's do it. You want to get in? Cool.

I'm, I'll initiate you. But I get, I, like, I get Aldi's other side. You can't just bring people in. Like you've gotta, you know, cuz you expose the whole group when you do that, right? Mm-hmm. . But, you know, I, I don't know that I liked how Gar, what'd, what did you think o Leadership guru?

Jeff: Well, I think it started at the beginning of the episode when Zach was just trying to be bros with, with Garabaldi, dude, these uniforms, whatever.

And Garabaldi is totally blowing him off. Totally blowing him off. When I watched it the first time, I just thought that's, you know, it's gar bald. Be like, come on dude, whatever. We got bigger stuff going on. But on my second watch I was like, already he's building a wall between him and Zach that comes to a head.

Mm-hmm. where, I mean, this is because here's the thing, when you are in a position of authority, of when you have a voice of authority, he said the thing, he said the thing. Mm-hmm. . But when you have one, you're gonna know things you can't share with other people. That's part of the job, right. Is discerning that stuff.

And the other part of that job is knowing how to deal. Garabaldi. Dude, if you trust me, you tell me what a seven R is, you would tell me, you sit down and you say, Zack, I would love to tell you what it is, but there's stuff that happens on this station that's bigger than me. It's even bigger than earth gov or Earth Dome or whatever.

Cuz we are an interspecies station. I can't share with you. Just know that when you hear me mention a code seven R that's a big deal thing I gotta go take care of. And if it ever is gonna impact you or involve you Uhhuh , please believe that. I will let you know. Right? Like it's not a binary. Tell him or don't tell him.

You just straight up tell him, Hey, I, it's something I can't share. I just can't. And Zach is a company man. Like, he's gonna understand. He's, oh, okay, cool. Well hey boss, if you ever need anything, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm down to help out. That would've been the way to do it. Mm-hmm. , I think though Garabaldi tried to bring up why he didn't, you know, dude, I trusted this guy and he shot me in the back and I'm still dealing with that.

Cool. That's real. That's a real thing, right? But have that conversation. Don't shove Zach into that guy's box. Like Zack is the last guy who's gonna, all Zach wants is a tailor. That's it. That's all he's looking for. A tailor and a taste, just a taste of trust is all he's looking for. Garabaldi really blew it, I think was, and I think it's gonna come back between that and then Julie not having heard of the seven R mm-hmm.

like now Z's like, well now I've got a mystery to go solve and I'm going to, he and Kar both are going to find mysteries to solve now. So Kar,

Brent: let's talk about Kar for a moment. Man's still trying to figure out his spot on the station, isn't he? Big time? Like he's trying to carve out his role. Like he's, he's here in a, he's here in, uh, what, what is it?

Asylum? Sanctuary. Sanctuary, yeah. Yeah. He's here in sanctuary. He doesn't have a job. I mean, at some point, tell me if I'm wrong, Jeff. This man's gonna wind up so enclosed for a living, didn't

Jeff: he? He's gonna have to, you're gonna have to be a tailor or something like that. It's good. That's good.

Brent: just,

Jeff: just hadn't throw one out there.

He'll be a tailor that never worked for the Narn government doesn't know anything about them. It's got some opinions, but nothing about, yeah.

Brent: Um, I think my favorite moment though is, is he wakes garabaldi up in the middle of the night. Garibaldi apparently has never walked through his quarters before in the dark ever.

Right? The door opens, Jaar is just like, Hey, here's this ancient book that is, that is done meticulously by hand, no printer whatsoever. I'm gonna toss it to you. Hope you catch it, , and says, read it. He's like, but I don't read this language. Well learn. I'm like, now I don't know about you, Jeff. You know what I'm doing if I'm gu Baldy.

Jeff: Google

Brent: Translate. No, that's going on, Mike, that's gonna sit on that chair right there, and my dirty clothes are gonna be thrown on top of it. And I'll see it when I go do laundry and then I'm gonna move it somewhere else when I'm trying to clean up the house a little bit. I'm never cracking that book.

Like there's no way that that works

Jeff: right at all. He's like, here's your book of Jaquan and a copy of Rosetta Stone. Good luck. Right? , right. You know what I thought was gonna happen? He's in Narn,

Brent: he's in bed. Ancient narn at that, right? Yeah. It's not even, can you imagine throwing somebody a text of, uh, CSER written in the original hand?

You remember when like S'S looked like F's, Uhhuh. and, and like that kind of weird stuff that you only see on like old government buildings now. , you know, like here, go learn. Well, I don't speak English. Learn

Jeff: figure it out from a thousand years ago. Should be fine. You've got the bab net or whatever. Just, just look it up.

You know what I thought was gonna happen? Cause he's getting in bed because it came right after the scene where Kaki was asking Masante about the seven R. Right. He was getting in bed. I thought he was gonna open the door and it was gonna be like dudes and black hoods.

Brent: Yeah, I did too. Yeah. I thought, I thought, I thought he was about to get jacked.

I really did. Yeah.

Jeff: So I was very pleased to see Kar when he came through. What's going on with Jaar? What do we think's gonna like seriously? Well I think he's, he's gonna worm his way under the war council. Like that'll be the place that he has. Oh yeah. Because the other thing I was thinking too is, so we've.

A number of times throughout the series we've talked about the, um, the economics of the station. Oh. That, you know, even Sheridan and Ivanova are having to throw money through budget appropriations for their rooms. When does your car run outta cash? When does he lose his apartment? Oh yeah. When can he not eat?

Which is why like you're, you're, your Garrick idea totally holds water. Cuz at some point he's gonna have to eat. And does he do that though

Brent: by, well, does, does he get it? Does he get it via like government assistance? Because he's there under sanctuary. Oh, maybe like they, but surely they would make him move out of the ambassadorial wing.

Jeff: Exactly. Yeah. That's what he'd be off in the alien sector, you know, or whatever. But brown, brown sector, maybe he finds his way, he starts learning about these rangers. He talks to Dalen and he is like, this is what I know, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, Sheridan, get in. And they're just like, why are you not on the, we, we should have had you on the War council all the time.

Why he

Brent: should be on the war council. Right. He's got nothing else

Jeff: to do of all

Brent: people you can trust. The Ja car is the guy. Well, and

Jeff: he's literally like, what he's doing in his time is working on the naton resistance, which is honestly part of the bigger campaign of Right. Cuz to fight the shadows, you gotta fight the centar.

Right. And they've done that math, you know, so Yeah. Brings your car in. I think that's a good spot for him. Right,

Brent: right. Um, so War Council, uh, Marcus was back. Yeah. How do we like Marcus? We, we've, uh, I mean, I think we've declared Marcus is better than Ke Kemmer. Keffer. Keer Keer. Yes. He's way better than Keer, but we're like five episodes in.

Um, how do we like Marcus?

Jeff: I dig him. I liked, I liked him on the ship. The only thing I didn't. Yeah. And I don't know what to attribute it to, but when, uh, when he showed up and he is like, Hey, I'm here to translate for you. I was like, of course you are. Like, that makes sense. Totally checks out. Yeah. And then there's the cool stuff, I think cool stuff with him and Ivanova.

But then when she's talking to the, the, the stone-faced first one guy. The party first one the Tiki God. Yeah. Uhhuh . Uhhuh . Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And, and she's like, well, the shows, they know our language, but they won't speak it. And he's like, oh, didn't know they were French on one hand. I was like, so that's still a thing, like in the 23rd century, the French are still like that.

But secondly, I was like, really? Like, we're, we're gonna get that dig in here. Now did I like Marcus?

Brent: I did ch Okay. Okay. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I know I mentioned a booty call between Ivan and Garabaldi earlier. . A hundred percent. A hundred percent. But there's something between Marcus and Ivanova, right?

Yep. A

Jeff: hundred percent. He is chipping away at that armor. He is hard at work. That ranger right has a mission

Brent: that's not related to his other mission.

Jeff: Exactly. I mean, he, that, that Minbar, war Pike might come into play at some point. Uhhuh , but, uh, but not, not in a, not in a fighting way. Like that's, uh, right.

Yeah. He's got his eyes on the prize.

Brent: Right. Um, so yeah. I, I like Marcus. I, he, I need somebody who speaks mumbar. I've lived there for the last year, but if you want somebody else, go for it. Yeah. Uh, okay. All right. Let's talk about Ivanova though. Let's talk and her whole deal with, uh, she can ju apparently just plug into the machine.

Like anybody can just plug into the machine. Not a big deal. Like I can come out for 10 minutes and let you jump in and see what you can see, and then we'll switch back like, , what is the deal

Jeff: here? I feel like there are a couple things. Like one, I think there's the like draws job and then the old dude Mr.

House's job before was like, I don't wanna say power in the computer, but you know, that could be in a processor, you know, or whatever. You're, you're part of Fair. Yeah, part

Brent: of the hub. I keep saying battery and battery's probably the wrong term. I get it. Yeah.

Jeff: But it's still, I think it's still along those lines, you know?

I mean it's doing something like that. But then there's also just, it taps you into this greater, greater thing. You know, the of the universe that you get to go and maybe there's other Epsilon three s out there, other great machines, and that's the network, you know, or whatever. Right. But seriously, like did you get the same impression I did on this whole thing?

Like this is just the force. Yes. Describing the force. That's

Brent: literally what I wrote. I was like, they have the force in Babylon five. Yeah. You know, there's a light side and a dark side, and it binds the entire universe together. Like the,

Jeff: this is lifted right from a new hope. This is Kenobi's description.

Exactly

Brent: right. I mean, draw says so. Um,

Jeff: yeah, that's, I love, I love the Vva. I, I, I, I wrote down her quote when she first popped in and draws like, I don't like surprises . And she was like, to me, everything's a surprise. You're a surprise. This place is a surprise. You see this paper cut hurts. Like hell, anybody else would be upset.

But to me, it's one more wonderful surprise. I even surprised myself sometimes. So I, I guess there's nothing wrong with me surprising you. Right? He's like, I like you .

Brent: Right? I like, I like draw. I really like draw, you know, here's the, I tru, I, I know I've already said this, so I'm, go back. I truly didn't know what I thought of him at first, but he's become funny.

Which has made him endearing and basically he's turned into the Dr. Flocks of this show. He really is

Jeff: totally, because everything he says is great and hilarious. But also, right,

Brent: exactly. Like, it's almost like what Neli should have been. And I don't know if that's a twofer or not, but,

Jeff: uh, I won't charge you for knee

Brent: No one should. I'd love anyway. Um, okay. So, but her whole mission, they're recruiting the first ones. That's a wild concept. It is. The first ones are still out there. They've either gone to sleep underground or they're just floating around in ships unaware of what's going on. I thought they all went like across the sea somewhere.

Jeff: Some, some did. Some did the whole elf thing. Yeah. And then others went to sleep. It's like this big combina and some ascend Did or what? Like they're, some left, some moved on and some just went to sleep. Uhhuh .

Brent: So she goes out, we see the giant floating tiki head of Oz that's out there, right? And he says, she's like, Hey, can you help us?

And he goes, Zog, .

Jeff: Zg What? Zg, no zag. Yes. What

Brent: is that? Zg What? And then she's like, all of a sudden they hear the word volans and they freak out. Now the episode might have told us what that was about, but I was like, I was sitting there in the moment going, why did they freak out at the name vlan? Aren't they all supposed to be buds

Jeff: or something?

Well, I think they said in that war council meeting, Len was like, they all got sick of the politics and the fighting in the whatever. And I, mm-hmm. . I think for me, like a big aha was that when we think of, when I thought of the first ones, at least I thought of them being much more evolved, you know, in a lot of ways and beyond our petty inter, but no, they totally have our same.

Petty Interspecies feuds or whatever. Like they're right, they're older, but really they're no different than us.

Brent: So she then turns around and she says, oh, the volans, yeah, I'm gonna use that. And she just goes in full of Enva mode, which is fantastic. So good. So, well, you know, we got, we thought we were gonna ask you, but we got the volans. We're good. Don't worry about it. They've got our backs. We're tight. We can do whatever.

Y'all have a good day. We'll let

Jeff: you know when it's cool to come out again. You know? Right. We got you the Volans.

Brent: No, we're what? What do they tell her? Like, you come get us. We'll be right

Jeff: here. Yeah, you come here, you call us out, we'll be here. And when they said that, I am a hundred percent sure I didn't look it up.

Maybe I should have, but the same dude who voices Kosh. Did the voice of of Tiki head Guy Hunter. Oh really? Oh yeah. Sounded ex, I mean, totally sounded like Kosh.

Brent: Okay. Alright. I missed that. I absolutely missed that. Um, and so, so they say, yeah, we'll, we'll be right here. Uh, so now they got her on. So, okay, so what do you think, Jeff?

Is it, what, how is this gonna play out? Are they really going to recruit whatever these leftover first ones? Is this gonna be a, a real thing in the war that happens? What

Jeff: do you think? I think this is the White Star's new mission. As, as Draw who's mining the Epsilon three stuff like the, the, the history and the knowledge base.

As he mines further and he learns more about first ones, white star's gonna go out and basically do a first contact and try and enlist. I think that's gonna be a story now throughout this season. That's gonna be the thread that recurs, I think. So that would make sense. That's gonna be a lot of the Marcus stuff is gonna be my guess.

Because I mean, this can't be like, Hey, every episode Sheridan or Ivanova is going out to do a thing. I could see this becoming a real Marcus thing. Right. I did catch that. I, I, I did look this up because it was, it seemed very on point, but Sigma 9 57 was the same planet that Catherine Sai went to way back in the first season to get the Quantium 40.

And then she ran in to, I'm gonna guess these same first ones. Yeah. But that's when Kar did his whole speech about there are, there are species so much greater than we are. Right. And so it's just a cool callback to, to.

Brent: because wasn't that the, like Kar went to go rescue her? Yes. From that. And that wasn't that the thing that first tipped off Jaar, that the shadows were coming back.

Jeff: That there was something like going there,

Brent: the first one, but that's where the first ones are supposed to be. I thought that would've been, I mean, why would that be a thing? Because that should have been, been shadows. The shadows were there. Not the first ones.

Jeff: Well, I think, I think that he just knew there were parts of space that they generally didn't go to cuz Oh.

Because there were these beans that didn't, because like they, they didn't care about cat, about Sakai or whatever. They're just, you know, brushing away a nat zagging away. A nat.

Brent: So when you saw the ship of the first one, it, it didn't look like the shadow ships, but it looked like it was of that same design it like, with kind

Jeff: of like little arms off of it.

Brent: Yeah. Like it had a lot of shadow look to it. Although, I mean, they looked about as similar as, uh, You know, I don't know. A, a Federation vessel and a a, a Klingon vessel.

Jeff: You just hit your three, I think, or

Brent: is that two? That's fine about it. I don't, I don't know. Yeah. I I don't think I have any more after this.

At least not on in purpose. . Um, although I didn't have any written down for, for, well, I had the flocks written down. Um, but like, but, but still with the, the, the Klingon ships and the enterprise ships, there's still like, there's warp no Cells. Mm-hmm. , there's a bridge and there's, you know, like this had a, these two things could have been from the same universe kind of feel.

Am I wrong? Did you catch that as well? I

Jeff: did. It was, this kind of really hit me like a big, like transport ship with those little, little leg things that came out. And then I was just mostly drawn to like, literally the disco ball in the middle of it had lasers, like laser lights shooting off of it. Right, right.

Um, they seemed like a fun group. , party

Brent: animals. Uh, but then the other thing was a vva. She gets plugged in and all of a sudden she starts having this big vision that she can't extricate herself from. And I'm, I don't know why she started having this vision, like what happened.

Jeff: So I think if, if my guess total, guess the film, like the video showed she was on this path, like in this bubble, you know, or whatever.

Who, and then she saw the planet and she veered off the path Uhhuh to get a closer look at the planet. And that's when she was narrating Oh was Sigma 9 57. And then we saw the eyes, like, it was the eyes that looked like the shadow creature from um, from Zaha Doom, right? And then she's like, they see me, they're sensing me.

Uhhuh and what I thought the big line, they know my name. That really stood out to me because I said, you know, we're coming right off passing through Gethsemane. So religious conversation is something we're still very used to, but like in many religions that the name of, that's a whole reason Brother Theo and his people are here to learn the name of God.

Right, right. But the other side of God, knowing your name mm-hmm. , that's a big deal. You know, and that's like in Christianity, that's one of the points of baptism is like, hey, now your name is, is known and blah blah and recorded and all this stuff. The shadows now know Yvanova's name. Mm-hmm , it's a big deal.

Right.

Brent: Um, and she got her video evidence of Clark being involved in the death of President Sant Diego. And we heard that was absolutely Morden's voice that was talking to him. Right?

Jeff: Hundred percent. No question. Yeah. Yeah. Sheridan had to like, I, I was waiting for the verbal confirmation, but you know, I mean, Sheridan went off the deep end on Morden.

He's deeply entrenched with that. He sh i, i, I wish they would've said something. Right.

Brent: Um, so this evidence, uh, along with, uh, Chicky girl that like, this is the stuff that's going to move them away from Earth Dome as a station. Yes. Right. Like, agreed. They'll, they'll break ambassadorial status probably. Ooh.

What if that happens Earth and Sonari break ambassadorial status, uh, or, or, uh, diplomatic status with the station? Ooh. What happens when Earth Red withdraw withdraws? Its, uh, support from the station. I mean, if they're going to, if they're gonna separate, right? Yeah.

Jeff: Cause the only other money is Minbar, and I don't know if that was a one time thing or not, because it sounds like Earth is sustaining this ongoing.

Brent: Right, right. Um, yeah. And where, so that's the only place I got where this could go. Cuz they, they pumped this up, but now everybody's like, like there's big senate investigative hearings about what Clark did. He's going, oh no, it wasn't, I mean, he's turning it around and everybody else. Right. Which, huh. What does that sound like?

Um, starting out there, you know? Oh no. Oh, oh, I'm, I'm fine. This is odd. An attempt to bring me down.

Jeff: Right, right. Well, I think too, like, there's, there's no way, there's no way this investigation goes through and they're like, yep, Clark was totally complicit and he's under arrest and we're gonna, there's no way this is gonna get pointed back at someone.

Probably General Hague or Sheridan himself. I don't know if it'll get that far. Like, I, I could see, I could see, I could see this is their way of writing Hague away so they don't have to bring the actor back or whatever. Gotcha. Just be like, oh, sure. General Hague was doing a thing and so it's him. He's the bad guy.

He, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which could lead to more political officers and things being entrenched throughout military organizations everywhere. Because look, this general was left to his own and he made up this whole thing. So

Brent: I guess what that really then takes us to though, Jeff is the visitor from Earth Dome.

Jeff: Well, before we get there, okay. On, on the video, like it felt, yeah. The video felt very de sex machina to me in that, okay, so here she is out in the universe, you know, feeling stuff and seeing things or whatever, and then out of nowhere picks up this transmission that they're able to download onto a data crystal that has all of the signatures on it.

I don't know, it just felt very like, maybe I just don't understand the great machine on Epsilon three enough. But the whole thing to me just felt like really like. One they transmitted, like that's a video they made and transmitted is, is Clark an idiot? ? Right. And two, she's able to just pick that up through her latent telepathy and her connection with the machine.

Well he, yeah,

Brent: he did say like, Noah, no, normal human should have been able to do that. And we know now that Ivanova is a latent telepath. Mm-hmm. . So how does, so how does being a telepath change what you're able to do with the machine, but

Jeff: draw's? Gotta have some, I mean, I, I, my guess being a Imari, he may not be a telepathic full on, but he is more, more telepathic than your standard human.

Did he have access to this and has just been sitting on it? What else does he have access to? I mean, if President Clark is filming himself, commit confessing to the murder of Sonny HaCo. , what

Brent: else is he filming? Well, I, well I, here's the thing though, I don't know that that's a film. I feel like that was a, um, like a phone call.

Like a video chat that somebody

Jeff: Oh, so like Morgan wasn't in the

Brent: room with him? No, I, yeah, I don't think so. Like, I think this was, uh, they were having a phone conversation. Okay. And she picked up the, the residual photons and the universe that were out there and pieced 'em together and got this video like whatever tech, the tech techno babble you want to put to it, to make that happen.

That's, yeah. That's what it's felt like to me. I could be wrong.

Jeff: I think that makes more sense, but Yeah. Let's talk about Musante. Yeah.

Brent: Chicky, uh, Chicky. Chicky. Chicky girl. Girl. So she jumps on and she's the new political officer now. It really felt to me like they're adding her to the cast of this show.

It did until the very end, which made me very sad. But I mean, brother Theo. The, the Ministry of Peace reporter, Marcus. Now this girl, like this feels like they're adding a bunch of people to the cast, right?

Jeff: Like, this isn't a rec, like, to the recurring crew that comes in, right.

Brent: Right. Mm-hmm. . Um, but oh my gosh, this girl, okay, first of all, we just gotta talk about it.

The cadence thing that she does with her voice. Yeah. See, we'll get you out here and we'll, uh, we'll, we'll find Captain Sheridan and, uh, , I was just like, what? It didn't match her face to me at all. Like No, it didn't. What's the whole, it's

Jeff: the whole, it's the whole, anybody from Earth Force is just such an archetype, you know?

And just so over, they're, they're cartoon characters and she Right. She was a cartoon character that didn't match the drawing. Exactly. She should have been sultry. Right. You know. Oh, and just play. I mean, she did obviously play those wild, but it should have been a lot more obvious. Right with

Brent: everybody else.

like she's, she's got that, but she's also got this ruthlessness, like when she's standing in front of that crowd, like, Hey listen, we're gonna, we're gonna vet out everybody who says anything that is against Earth Dome. And she said this phrase, the, the ideologically pure. She said that two or three times, ah, you gotta make sure everything stays ideologically pure.

I was, uh, I mean like this girl is that perfect evil that I've, I've really been looking for this show for at least since the season wrap

Jeff: up. Right. I loved, I love too how she just, she, she knew what she was playing with. You know, she knows her tools. Uhhuh, , there's the scene when, uh, When she's in Sheridan's office with Zach waiting for Sheridan to come in.

Yeah. And she's, she's bent over looking at all of his awards and, you know, stuff he has set up. Zach is straight staring at her butt. Right. Just, and then Oh, oh, hey. Yeah, what's, what's going . She knows exactly what she's doing, you know, and, and stringing him and everyone else along. But I thought it was really fascinating.

Not fascinating, but on brand and a great declaration of who Sheridan is. Mm-hmm. when she's like, Hey, there's stuff here, but like, I don't feel like I'm walking into the heart of earth of the Earth government. And he's like, yeah, cuz you're walking into my office, . Right.

Brent: And as it is my office. And she's like, well, we'll fix that.

Jeff: Right? Yeah. He took no, he didn't take her Bs. Like he was great. Right,

Brent: right. Um, she says, real quick, let's go talk this out. Over dinner. Uh, let's have some dinner. And my whole note is she's moving in onto len's. Dude, man. Yeah. Because we know as Sheridan and Dalen have got the thing. And then later, uh, when we got the, uh, full back nudity, uh, yeah.

She's moving in . Yeah, . I didn't understand that though, really? I didn't understand that. She's coming in with some obvious presuppositions about Sheridan that frankly, I don't think she's wrong about. I don't, I don't, I mean, Sheridan's not loyal to earth gov. Right. You know what I mean? Like he, he's loyal to Earth, but not to Clark or to earth gov or to this Ministry of Peace thing.

Like that's not how he rolls. And she's coming in and we hear from her. When, when she's talking to the, to the Ministry of Peace folks, she's like, we're going to remove people here. I, I can only imagine that that meant Sheridan. So I don't know why is she trying to sleep with him and seduce him at one point in the show as well.

Like at, what is the point of that? I don't

Jeff: get it. Well, I think it's easier to get someone to go away willingly than it is to force them away, especially when they know the crew is loyal to him. Yeah. If you come in swinging a hammer and taking him out, people are going to rise up and it's gonna be hard.

But if he is a willing, like he's part of the game, even subconscious, like, Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm hitting this on a regular basis. Like, this is great. Yeah. You need me to do that? Cool. But, uh, my, my confusion was it with, it was, has she done any research on who he is as a, as a person? Like, did, did she really think this would work with him?

Right. I get trying, you know, going for it. And she was, you know, laying it on a little bit at dinner and stuff mm-hmm. , and he was not picking up at all. Like, it's a huge leap to go from him basically arguing points to, with her, to, hi, I'm naked. Yeah. And like, really With what guide does that work? Hi, here I am naked.

Just do whatever. Uh, are you sure? Because I'm, I feel like this is a setup. , this doesn't come so easy. I

Brent: feel like there's a lot of guys that would be like, okay, ,

Jeff: add Faith , which maybe I shouldn't. Now that I think about it. You're right. I think most guys would be like, oh, you're, you're mostly dressed. Well, let's do this.

Brent: Yeah. Uh, so while, while she's doing that, um, and we're getting the whole thing. Okay. I'm sorry. The, the whole line of, well, apparently it's colder in here than I thought. , she's talking about her nipples. Jeff.

Jeff: Yep. Come on joke. Look at this.

Brent: I was like, I'll see if I can't fix that.

Jeff: And he pops into the, then ivanova pops up.

Right. Which is great.

Brent: Okay. That's okay. This is the part I have to get to. Iva jumps in, she's like, and he does the thing where like, he kisses her so that she doesn't see I Vva and Ivan's

Jeff: like, it's like, oh, okay. She warps over into his bedroom

Brent: or whatever, ,

Jeff: you know, I love how she never judged. She's just like, Hey, sorry for interrupting.

Like whoops.

Brent: Um, so she tells 'em all the stuff and then she says the line Jeff, uh, we've already said this before, right? I am I using an old reference now? Or It's not really a reference cuz it was in the show. It's in the show. She says, it looks like you are about to go where everyone has gone before.

Okay. I texted you a bunch of weeks ago. Yep. And I said, Jeff, I've got a new thought on this whole Babylon, five Ds, nine Star Trek thing, and it came up right here. Can I please talk about this? Let's do it.

Jeff: Let's do it. Okay.

Brent: Because get ready. Get ready for the comments, Jeff, cuz you know, every time we bring this up, the comments

Jeff: roll floodgates open.

Brent: Okay. All right. So here we go. And this actually makes all the sense of the world to me. Let's make sure we have this in context. We're talking mid nineties, okay? Yep. Mid nineties. Let's acknowledge some stuff. Babylon five has a character named Lida. DS nine has a character named Lida that is effectively a prostitute.

Mm-hmm. . She's a Davo girl. Right. Which the other side of that conversation is what she does later, right? Yeah. Like they never could say it, but that's really, she uses her feminine wiles. Okay. Uh, there's the Bureau 13, which we were told in comments. People love to spoil this for us. They're never gonna come back to that phrase again because they found out something about or whatever.

Yeah. You know, but several episode, several seasons later, actually, deep Space Nine comes out with section 31. Okay. Is that a thing? There's the Duco thing back and forth. There's, there's whatever. All right.

Babylon five in, in the beginning of our show, we have the line that's like, what do you think? This is some deep space franchise shot across the bell. Right? Then you get this one. Apparently you're about to go where everyone has gone before shot across the bow. You know what? This is now reminiscent to me.

I don't think this is one ripping off the other. Cuz here's, here's what we know, right? Um, the folks at Star Trek. Now, Jeff, you and I love Star Trek. We do, right? Like, let's just throw that out there. Let's own, own our bias, right? But the folks at Star Trek are really cocky. True. Right? The folks. And like, look, if anyone's gonna have a a, what do you mean?

There's another sci-fi show trying to be on TV right now as we are. Oh, you're doing a space station show. Well, we're gonna do a space station only. We're gonna do it better. You know, it's

Jeff: what they're thinking.

Brent: Yep. Right. Oh, you're gonna have a guy Duco. We're gonna take, you're your hero's named Duco.

We're gonna take a name ar villain Duco. Oh, you've got a character named Lito. We're gonna make Ali a character and she's gonna be a prostitute. O only she turned out to be an awesome character on Super Cool Nine. Yeah, like one of the best characters, like, and still super active. Uh, you know, they're firing shots by and forth.

You know what this reminds me of? Hmm, Jeff, you remember This is the mid nineties. This is Tupac and Biggie. Right. I don't think this is one ripping off the other one. This is them like making sh like this is, this is a, a, a, what, what do you call it? Like a, they're making shots at each other back and,

Jeff: and forth.

Yeah. That's what they're, this is ultimately building well, in Babylon five's case, hoping to build itself up. Yeah. Or Star Trek. Yeah, star Trek's. Like, yeah. We'll show you in Babylon. Five's like, cool. We'll ride this train. Let's do it. That's what it is.

Brent: This is a, this is a east coast, west coast. You know, your sci-fi, my sci-fi.

We're gonna just make fun of each other the whole way through. And like, there, there are definitely some similarities,

Jeff: Jeff. Yeah. No question. Right? Are, are there,

Brent: are there similarities enough to show that one has completely ripped off the other Not yet is one.

Jeff: I'd say not yet. Is one

Brent: di is one derivative of the other?

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Does that mean you fully, because I, I, I still say from what I can sell, deep space, nine's a different animal than what Babylon five is. , right? Mm-hmm. , I, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna live there, but I will fully recognize that there are things that appear in both sides, but what I suspect more than anything else is this isn't a ripping one off of the other as much as it is, uh, a battle between the two.

Like it's pot shots at each other. Mm-hmm. back in the forth. And that's what I, that's what I think it is from now on. That's my, at least my head cannon as far as where all this goes.

Jeff: I, I, it makes sense. I mean, we haven't seen anything yet that's blatant People say that we will, like, that's still a thing that people are saying.

Maybe we will, maybe we won't. Please don't tell us what those things are when they show up. You can be like, Hey, there it is. Shine the light on it. But yeah, at this point, like, because I think on Babylon Five's side, like you said, these are obvious shots across the bow. Just like, we see you. Yep, we see you.

We know what you, but this one, and this one was just like, like one, it was awesome because like, clearly masante. Has done this many times before. Yes, yes. Right. Very comfortable. Right. Here's, here's what I do next. Mm-hmm. . But I think also like to, like we've said before, Yvanova's JM S'S mouthpiece is kind of how we see that into him.

He is just like, yeah, everybody's done. Star Trek. Like everybody's done it. It's, it's, there's nothing new there. You've mined that all the way through. You're done. So you know what, go where everybody's gone before. Yeah. We're the ones doing something unique here. Right, right. And

Brent: hey, and listen, listen. Star Trek's, uh, uh, the sexing up of sci-fi did not begin with seven of nine in Voyager.

No, no. The sexing up of sci-fi with Star Trek began with Kirk and Spock and all those folks back there. It is re. Through the essence of what Star Trek is so,

Jeff: well, it, it goes back to Buck Rogers, right. Aaron Gray, who played Wilma, who is amazing. They had to sow her outfits onto her. Like she could not get dressed.

They would sow them onto her. They were so tight. Yeah. Like the, the sexualization of sci-fi goes far before, way beyond

Brent: any of Sure it is. And you know, I mean, do you get a, do you give it a pass for the sixties considering that it was the hippie era and the free love and all that kind of stuff, or? No, it just is what it is.

This is the next time. Anyway, that's my, that was the, the big thought that occurred to me while I was going through this is, it is Tupac and Biggie. Man. That's what this is. I like that. This is East Coast, west Coast. It makes sense for the timeframe that we're in, you know, and, and it, it makes it honestly a lot more fun.

Mm-hmm. when you consider that they're just making fun, like every reference is a, is a dig at the other show. Not as much as a ripoff, as much as it is a. We're going to do it better or we're gonna whatever, and just try to put

Jeff: you out. Right. It does make it more fun. I did think though, when they were talking hollow ivanova and Sheridan, cause like in his bedroom, he just had like those sliding doors, those like glass or wooden doors.

Those must have had incredible soundproofing.

Brent: Yeah. Because at what point did she not come in and go, Hey, who are you talking to?

Jeff: Exactly. Is that a woman that I'm hearing or Right. Am I doing this , are we doing this version of what I do? Or is it just you and me? Like, what are, what am I getting myself into here?

Right, right.

Brent: Okay, let's get off that. Let's get back to, to the thing, uh, she is out to dinner with Sheridan and kind of describing Earth. Yeah, that sounds disgusting, right? Like, it sounds good, sounds, sounds disgusting. Like, oh, everything on earth is rosy. Everything's, oh, Jeff, what does that sound like?

Everything's great. We don't have any homelessness. Earth has promised jobs to everyone. So if you don't have a job, then you must not want one. You must not. You're the problem,

Jeff: you're the problem. You must be mentally un, you must be mentally unstable.

Brent: And crime is only from those people. Yeah, sure. We have a little bit of crime, but it's only from those people.

Let's put them all in a little district where they can live or something. Like let's, well, as

Jeff: she even said, yeah, we're weeding them out at younger ages. Like that means like they're, this is the thing. Yeah. That, that horrified. So my, my wife works in, in technology and has done a lot of work in information security.

Sure. And between social media and the apps that schools use to track, you know, kids' attendance and performance and whatever. By the time a kid is 12 years old, through the aggregate of data you can pull on them. You can predict with almost perfect certainty if they'll graduate from college or not, if they'll go to prison or not.

How much money they'll be making at 30 years old. That's today. Like right now, you could pull people aren't that I know of using data for that, but they could. That's what Julie said they're doing here, basically is they're pulling that data, and this is straight out in 1984 again. Right. But it's like, hey, this kid is probably gonna go to prison and it's not gonna make a lot of money when they're 30.

Let's just, I, I don't know. Kill them. Kill them. Do something with them right now. Someone The Mars? Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's go. Let 'em fight the Marsy. The

Brent: Marsy. Yeah. The Marsy. Oh yeah. Oh. What? We're gonna take somebody that disagrees with us and we're gonna make fun of them and give them a name. Hmm. Yeah.

Sounds funny. We're we're good. Yeah. Oh, ya, Marsy's. Oh, what's up Marsy? We're gonna give you a name that we're gonna use to ride you a little bit. God, what? Jeff? This sounds so familiar, man. I know. It's

Jeff: almost, why is this? I just, it's almost like, like they're saying something about us today almost. And even as far as like just the gas straight up gaslighting where Sheridan's coming with how dangerous the centar are, and we have to do something.

And she's like, well, earth would never ally itself with Warmongering peoples. And he's like, well, we signed a con, an agreement with the Centar. And she's like, exactly. So they aren't, they aren't warmongering. Yeah. Like, like, you're the one that's wrong. Right.

Brent: And then she goes into the, into the meeting and she says, we're gonna police your thoughts.

We're gonna police your, your words. We're gonna police your actions and you report to us. Anybody out there that's a civilian as well? And we're gonna, oh, by the way, we're gonna suspend your liberties for a little bit.

Jeff: Uh, just a

Brent: minute. Just a little while. Just a little bit. We're gonna suspend your liberties so that we can take care of this issue that we have.

Um, literally is the most un-American thing you could be, right? All right. Yes. And I, I, and I just bring that up because frankly, and, and it's, I don't know that j m s is of this bent in opinion, but you know, the historical thing is America is the savior of the world and, you know, the, these American ideals, and this is American tv.

Mm-hmm. True. Okay, let's, let's call it, it is American tv. So it has an American bias. Shout out to all of our international folks out there. Lots of guys are awesome. It's great to see you in here. You love you. Yep. You're awesome. But this is American TV that was written in America, especially back in the nineties.

You know, there was definitely that bias. and still, still exist today, but these things which are, uh, I'm not even gonna say America, let's just say contrary to freedom. Right. Which is an idea that, that everybody can, I think hopefully everybody out there can, can ascribe to, right? Like your freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom on ability to express your opinion.

Right. Um, wow. And you talk about 1984. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I need to go, like, I feel like I need to go read this book again. Maybe we should do like a special show. We'll do it like a Patreon show or

Jeff: something. That's a great idea. There's a movie. Yeah, there is. It's not a great movie, but there's a movie of it.

If we wanted to do that too,

Brent: that'd probably be better than committing myself to reading a book. Yeah. Faster. Yeah. Just for

Jeff: speed sake. Exactly. That's all just, it's just efficiency. Right? Right.

Brent: Uh, And ideologically pure, and they're about to oust, in my opinion, at least Sheridan

Jeff: and Garabaldi. And I think a lot of unnamed people on earth, you know, just gonna be like, oh, we gotta boom, boom, boom.

Just to like show the Yeah. The, the wa because this, this is funny. Well, you mentioned Hague. Yep. I think this is a very Soviet, you know, thing to do. A lot of what Masante is bringing is straight out of, uh, the early days of the Cold War and the Soviet kind of, um, rise to power.

Brent: Yeah. That stuff's happening, Jeff.

It is. That's really where we're left. Like that's really where we're left. Like at the end, she gets recalled to Earth to deal with some political unrest surrounding President Clark's. The revelation about President Clark, I'm very sad she's gone. I don't think she's coming back, but I hope she does. And you know who I hope she brings with her evil ta.

Yes, bring Evil Talia and this girl back together, and that is

Jeff: Oh, that's gonna be great. Tv. She's the Cyco rep for Ministry of Peace. Oh, .

Brent: Yeah. Oh gosh. Right, right. But we'll see. You're about to make, although wait a minute. Wait, wait a minute. Gonna be perfect. Wait a minute though. But Talia,

Jeff: well, we'll see what your predictions come up because apparently you're gonna nail it,

Brent: right? I'm gonna nail it. I'm gonna nail, did you, Jeff, did you notice the name of the ship that was taken her back to Earth? The Lowkey? Was that what it was? The Lowkey? Yeah. Yeah. Like, wow. That's, uh, uh, I, I, it does make me want to go back through places where we get passenger ship names and I want to compare what the name of the ship is to what, the name of the, or to what the character and what was going on with the character.

This one seems very intentional. I

Jeff: remember Grail, I think it was when Jinx O took off and people like had a name. I don't remember what it was, but it had a name. And in the comments people were like, oh, did you hear the name of the ship? Did you hear the name of the, so there are definitely some to go back to.

I think that'd be fun.

Brent: All right, Jeff. Um, well, unless you got anything else, I think we're at that spot where it's time to boil everything down and see if the show has any of that star treky quality to it. Is there a deep moral message? Is there a mirror to society that it's holding up to show us how we are 30 years later still?

Um, you know, or does it give us hope that we can be better in the future? Uh, Jeff, you are gonna rate this scale, uh, this, you're gonna rate this episode on a scale of zero to five deltas as far as how Star Trek it goes. But we're not just leaving it because we don't compare this sep the show to Star Trek.

We just use that filter. We are gonna say how many star furries this episode has based on how Balon five it is. Jeff, you go first. How many deltas you give this

Jeff: episode? So there were two big things that stood out in this one to me, and one of 'em was like just ivanova in general. Her, like, never take no for an answer when there's a bigger cause, you know?

I mean, yeah. Hey, if it kills us to ask for help, then I'm gonna do it because we're gonna die anyway. Sort of a, sort of a piece. I just thought that that entire scene of her not giving up was, was, was great. That's the message in so much sci-fi. You know that it takes a person to stand up and have the courage to stand up to impossible odds.

That's great. But the real thing, and this was the mirror to society, right? And I think one of the things we know about Babylon five compared to Star Trek in other forms of sci-fi, but Star Trek specifically is Babylon five will say, here's the issue, figure it out. Good luck. No commentary on it. No, nothing, anything like that whatsoever.

And that's for sure what it did in, in this case, it held up a mirror and basically said, all right, there you go. Deal with it. She talked about Masante, talked about rewriting the dictionary. Gosh. Like literally, yeah. Changing the meaning of words. And this, Brent is a thing that happens now, we've talked about on this podcast before.

How words like patriot, words, like, uh, national pride, And things now just feel gross when I drive down the street. I, okay. I, I'm born and raised in the United States. I served America in the military. I'm an American. That's what I am. And I have pride in work. You work in the government? I do. I work, I work for the government.

An arm. I not the arm, the political arm, but yeah, I work, I work for the, for America in an arm. When I look at that American flag, right, I should feel a sense of pride in what we stand for and what we go for. But it has been redefined. Right now when I drive down the road and I see a Ford F-150 or other brand of pickup truck with a big old flag sticking in the back, it's not a feeling of pride that that gives me anymore.

And that's exactly what this was about. Changing those, those terms and words, redefining the problem. And it was hard cuz I think too as a, as a manager, as someone in a government position who has to deal with real problems all the time, sometimes we do have to redefine the problem operationally to make it less emotional for us so we can just kind of do our job right?

Like when we were working through the throes of the Covid Pandemic back, you know, three and a half years ago or whatever, like we had to change the language that we were using because it was emotional and it was hard for people to do the work. They had to do. This to me shows us in 1990, what five or six when this came out, shows us a, a Mirror of the World today in 2023.

And it's sick and it's sad and it's a thing. Babylon five has done a lot and based on that I'm giving this four deltas.

Brent: Yeah, good rating. Good rating. I can't argue with you there at all because that's one of the things, honestly, that Star Trek does so well also. is it, it's a living show. Like you look at the stuff that was made in the sixties and the eighties and, and the nineties, and you're like, this still applies to today.

And that sucks.

Jeff: Yeah. It's totally, it's not

Brent: relevant. A good part of, it's not the good part that we're talking about. Um, so how much did we enjoy this episode? How, how Babylon five is this episode? Jeff? I've got a prediction. Okay. I think that we're gonna look back on this episode, and this is gonna be one of the lesser episodes of the season.

Okay. I think this is gonna be an episode that the fandom kind of generally looks at on season three as it was a good episode, but it's one of the lesser episodes of season three. That's my guess. All right. That's my guess. I don't know, I haven't seen beyond this episode. I, I don't know, and I haven't talked to people out there.

Please don't tell us down in the comments. Don't spoil it for us. Okay. Um, But that's my guess. And that being said, I really did enjoy this episode though, right? Like the whole stuff with Ivanova and, and the, the first ones, although that te head was goofy as hell, man. Yeah. That was not good. Like that was a bad effect.

Right. I'm sure it was great for the nineties, but maybe, uh, not just, not, not good. Uh, the guest star we had this week, um, was awful and good all at the same time.

Jeff: Well, to put her in context, right? Yeah. Uh, this was, uh, 96, I think when this episode came out. Yeah. 16 years prior to that, in April of 1980, she was a Playboy center.

That's crazy to me. 16 years.

Brent: 16. Yeah. That's

Jeff: a long time. That's a long time. And she

Brent: still look good though, man. Yeah. And I mean, not gonna lie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not, yeah, just call it what it is. I don't mean to sound misogynistic. Is that the word? I think that is, uh, I, I don't, I don't mean to sound like that, but that Yeah.

She, she's still, and she was obviously still playing off her

Jeff: assets. Yes. . I think she still is to this day. Like I think that's still kind of her brand. Yeah. Okay.

Brent: Well, um, go with what you got. There you go. Um, but I, I did enjoy this episode. I felt like this episode set some stuff up. Is this gonna be like a, a killer episode in the season?

I don't think it will be even though I did like it. So I'm gonna give this one three star.

Jeff: I like that. Three star fairies. Well, I think now you get an opportunity to kind of see where you think it's gonna land in relation to the other episodes in the series. Yeah, because just like last season, we are creating the absolute 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of the third season of Babylon five.

Currently in the top spot we have matters of honor. That's not right. Oh, I need to look it up. One. Yeah.

Brent: Sorry. You number? No, I got it for you. Okay. Number one is passing through guest enemy. That's right. Number two is matters of honor. Number three is day in the strife, and number four is

Jeff: convictions. So Brent, where do you put voices of authority?

Brent: Okay. Um, remind me what convictions

Jeff: was? Convictions was the one with the bomber. Oh yeah. And then, and then it also, but it also had. Londo and Ja car in an elevator.

Brent: Right. Which was great. The rest of the episode was like, yeah. Um, and then Day in the Strife, that was a couple episodes ago. Mm-hmm. . And that was the one where it should have been like a day in the life of Marcus, but it wasn't what happened in that

Jeff: one That was, uh, where, I forget his name, but the Centar No, the, the, the, the Narn, who is the collaborator with the Centara came after Citizen Kar.

Brent: Yep. Yep. He sure did. He sure did. Um, and then we had Matters of Honor, which was the season opener, and then passing through Gmy, which was our one from last week. I'm gonna put this one. Ooh. It's either above or below a day in the strife. Okay. It's gonna go in that three or that four spot. I think it's better than Convictions.

But is it above or below day in the strife? I get to make the call.

Jeff: You do. And I don't get to argue with it. No, it is a hundred percent your call to make

Brent: Jeff, I'm, I'm gonna let you make an argument one way or the other. I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep my own counsel. But do you have an

Jeff: argument? So I think that a Day in a strife did a lot to really position Kar as a real authority figure to the Nans that are fighting back against the Sonari.

Yeah. And it did a lot to really further move Londo into pure irredeemable evil. Right. This episode really did a lot to move Earth further towards Irredeemable Evil as Yeah. Earth. Yeah. But I think the big thing it did was it introduced us to the larger world of the first ones. Yeah. Like they're engaging, they're talking and we are forming an.

Brent: And I think I just enjoyed this episode better, so I'm gonna put this one above day in the strife, but I don't think it's as good as matter of honor, uh, matters of honor and passing through God enemy. So this is gonna be our new number three, Jeff New. Number three. We've rounded out our top five. We have, because we've done five episodes.

Jeff: That's kind of how, kind of how the cookie crumbles usually. Yes, yes. But that's it for voices of authority. Now that we've rounded out our top five, next week, we like to play a game week to week where I share the title of the episode, and then we guess what the episode is gonna be about based on the title alone.

And next week, we are watching, I've made a prediction. Yeah, you've made a

Brent: bold, bold. I have no, I, I've never, I don't actually know what the next episode title is. So this is the first time I'm hearing it. Folks. Lay it on me. Jeff, lay it on.

Jeff: We what we got here. Brent Babe Ruth Allen. About to make a swing. So next week, Brent, we are watching dust to dust for the first time.

We haven't seen these before, haven't read anything about 'em, seen pictures or anything, Brent, based on the title alone, what do you think? What do you know? Dust to dust is gonna be about. All right.

Brent: Dust to dust. Well, when you think of dust to dust, you think of the phrase ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

There's a funeral. Is there a death?

No. You know what dust is? I know I got, I got this one, Jeff. Okay. You know what dust is? Dust is the drug. It's the drug that we have on Babylon five. Right? So from like way back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know that this episode has a lot to do with the overall story of Babylon five and, and what we're trying to push.

But, uh, here's the thing. I think this is a story about drugs moving through the station, maybe even killing someone or a bunch of people, huh? So there's your death element, right? There's, there's the death, but it's, it's the drug and the drug is killing people moving through the station. I do think it's a one-off episode though.

Okay. Maybe there's like a b plot or something. There's, there are a c plot that kind of connects overall, but mostly it's a one-off episode. Uh, I think this will wind up in the bottom half of the season. Two. Okay. I don't think we're gonna love this. It might be a, it might be a, a fun episode. I, I can't be fun,

Jeff: but it's a, there's a lot of predictions here.

Very specific ones. This

Brent: is, this is, oh, I, Jeff, I, I'm, I, it, it's got to be, I, I need, I need a win on this one. .

Jeff: Well, really in sci-fi drugs are either dust or spice, right? Those are the two, and I think it was, Gathering when they talked about, that's like the last time they talked

Brent: about dust. No, no. They've, no, they've talked about dust.

Really? Whe Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. They've been talking

Jeff: about dust. I just don't pay as much attention to drug stuff as you do apparently. , apparently I've been,

Brent: my nose has been a little right night, Jeff. I just, uh, you know, nothing to do with spring allergies at all. It's just

Jeff: hitting that dust is that you have Right?

Or the spice or the whatever. I, I'm sticking to the ashes to ashes. Dust to dust One. I think that they've been pretty on the, on the No, like passing through Gethsemane was about as on the nose as you get. And I think that's gonna be, gonna carry through. But I think what this is gonna be is going back, not, someone's not gonna die new.

This is gonna be exploring a death that happened already. And that's a VA ofa. Oh,

Brent: not like she, wow. Talk about going

Jeff: specific Jeff Wood. Yeah, I I'm going very specific on this one. So we saw that what is in Born to the Purple, I think is when he died, we revisited it in Tko, Uhhuh, . And then I think it's gonna come back.

But this, the point's not gonna be about her dad dying. It's gonna be her childhood and the impact he had on her growing up as a latent telepath. Because when you think about her mom and then her both being telepaths, the impact that her dad had to have had on her. So this is gonna be going back and reliving some of, some of that for her.

Okay. And we're gonna find out here next week. Thank you. We're gonna

Brent: find out that I am right. We're gonna see,

Jeff: that's what we're finding. I don't know, dude. I still don't, I still, still feel like we've been like, I, I don't know. We'll see. Thanks for joining us so very much. If you haven't already, please subscribe or follow us wherever you're listening or watching.

And do Please Stop by Apple Podcast. Leave us a rating or review. I'll read it right here on the podcast. So, Brent, until next time. Hey, Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. You, you know what they say, don't you? I don't think that I do. Brent. What? Uh, what do they say?

Brent: Uh, well, Jeff, uh, we all do what we have to do.

Jeff: Um, uh, . Zog, Zog.

Brent: What does that mean?