Walkabout

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

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon 5 for the very first time, we are veteran Star Trek podcasters watching this show Babylon five for the first time. Searching for what we like to call those Star Trek like messages within the series. And trying to decide just how much we like this series as well.

Jeff: And I promise you this is not a podcast about Star Trek, but we are Star Trek fans.

Brent: are you sure

Jeff: I'm a hundred percent

Brent: This is not a Star Trek

Jeff: it's not, it's literally in the name not a Star Trek podcast. So if you think we are, um, listen to this part of the show and also read the. It's right there. Not a Star Trek podcast, but we are fans of the franchise and we're also podcasters, uh, that talk about the franchise.

So the references to Star Trek are sure to find their way into this. So to keep us honest, we play the rule of three. That means each one of us gets up to, and no more than three references per episode. That's it. Three. Those no substitutions, exchanges a refund. Hey, Brent,

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: we have a five star review. Oh yes.

This is from Apple Podcasts and Oh, I love this name. I was, Melvin says

Brent: I catch that reference. Awesome,

Jeff: Oh, I was, I was Melvin

Brent: dude, that's like a deep cut Star Trek reference too,

Jeff: Exactly. It's so good. Well, I was, Melvin says, this is the one I'm so glad I found this podcast. B one five is a complex TV series that requires real attention and appreciation of character development and the ability to detect and understand nuance. Brent and Jeff are absolutely those people. The sound quality is incredible.

Absolutely the best of the other great B five podcasts out there, and these two really work well together. It's refreshing and exciting to hear real professionals doing their thing. This podcast lets me relive some of the greatest times of my life. I was just out of university when Babylon five started airing.

Bright-eyed and naive. B five did more to prepare me for the real world than Uni did. So thank you Brent and Jeff for letting me see this series again. through the eyes of someone watching it for the first time. I highly recommend this podcast even if you haven't watched Babylon five before. Their insights into this masterpiece are stunning.

Brent: Wow. Thank you. I got Melvin.

Jeff: They called us perfect. Hell, it's a professional.

Brent: We're professionals. Um, You know, Jeff, I, I, I don't have, we talked about this on air. I know you and I have had conversations at least off Mike about it. Um, the sound quality is a thing that, for Jeff and I, is a value point.

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: it's, it's a core, it's a shared core value point.

And Jeff, I don't know if you've ever had a podcasting partner who didn't care that much about the sound I have, and that sucks.

Jeff: That's why, that's why when you and I first started talking about this, you know, we'd worked a little bit before on your podcast, uh, beat me up a Star Trek podcast, but we were still getting to know each other and I was just like, I will edit this because, because I didn't know, you know, and I'm just like, I'm, I've had those people.

Oh, yo. Oh, edit. No you won't.

Brent: Yeah. It's, uh, it, it is, it is a real value point. And, and thankfully Jeff and I both have a background in broadcasting and, and. It's, it's a sh we're, I think we're really very much on the same level as that. So thank you for noticing that. Um, and, uh, I'm gonna stop there before I offend some of our other podcasting friends, because we're friends with everybody out there.

Jeff: They're all great and I love too, they rec said that they are great. A lot of great podcasts out there. I do wanna own a thing on sound quality though, and honestly, I might cut this out for the audio piece because quite some time ago we found out that the audio sweetening that we do for the video that goes onto YouTube was cutting out the, uh,

Brent: The music portion of that. Yeah.

Jeff: The music part of that. Um, that's a QA problem on my part where I never thought to QA that part of what we were putting together. So I'm doing, uh, I think starting with this one, maybe I, I did it in the last episode, but I know in this one for sure, I'm taking a different process for how we do things. So you should be able to hear the whole thing now.

So,

Brent: that'd be good. Yeah, I mean, I, I remember that happened on a couple of episodes back in season two

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and then, uh, I don't know if it's happened to tons since then or

Jeff: I think it has, cause I think the tool that I use for the video stuff, um, did a quote an Yeah, did an upgrade. Upgrade, right. So,

Brent: yeah. You're right about that.

Jeff: yeah. So this is, this is totally getting edited out for the audio side, but we've talked on here a lot about podcasting and how to do a podcast. Uh, don't get lazy in your qa. So

Brent: assurance folks.

Jeff: thank you.

Yes.

Brent: you spot at least spot check your show or that's why you, honestly, that's why you listen to your own show as well and whatever. Anyway. Uh, yeah. But thank you so much. I got Melvin. Or I was Melvin. I am

Jeff: I was, I was

Brent: I was Mel. That is hilarious.

Jeff: Well, I have one more that I'm gonna share here and it's a little different than we've shared in the past. And this is a, this is a coming clean for our YouTube audience on our Patreon discord. We have a channel on there called Earhart's, that's a place like where we hang out, quote unquote get a drink, whatever.

You know,

Brent: we, we play drinking games every week. I, I'll give you all the behind the scenes of this and, and honestly, I'm the one who usually leads

Jeff: Do it. Cuz this is the thing I was gonna share is the drinking

Brent: yeah. Based on your all's comments out there on Easy's episodes, I create a drinking game every single week. Well, not every single week, but most weeks. I try to create a drinking.

And based on your all's comments out there and how many repetitions we get, it's all in good fun, folks. It's all in good fun. Go ahead. Jeff.

Jeff: We love it. It is great. But we have, we do have some extra fun at your expense,

Brent: Are you, are you, am I gonna get in trouble here? Do I need to make apologies to everybody? Okay. Go ahead.

Jeff: lit. Literally. I was just gonna say exactly what you said. You know, we'll do things like, Hey, take a drink. Every time that Londo does this thing, you know, you tell, oh, when they say, Londo did this thing take a drink?

Oh, every time that somebody says that Brent doesn't understand nuance, that's three drinks. Like, let's But I specifically wanted to give a shout out to some of our patrons who are regular participants in there. So Alan Dalen, d Do, and DH Flow. Nia and some others are, uh, consistently on there. We, and to prove that we play it in fun, none of us have died from alcohol poisoning, which is exactly what would happen with the rules you put out there,

Brent: It's true. It's, it's, yeah. It's usually a one drink for this, two drinks for that, three drinks for that.

Jeff: and then sometimes a thousand drinks if, uh, when this thing happens. And that usually happens at some

Brent: I, I think if that's when something really annoys me.

Jeff: Yeah. But yeah, I just wanted to thank, thank everybody that, that it participates in that. And if you're not a current subscriber to our Patreon, just know that on our discord, like that's one of many really cool things that, uh, that happens on there.

Brent: I was never a Discord user until this, and, and I, I quite enjoy getting it and hanging out and, you know, one of the things we talk about, Jeff, that has developed around this show, and it's, it's really, I think what makes the show super special. We can talk about sound quality all we want. We can talk about the content that you and I provide.

You know, I, which I, I think is great, I think you think is great and lots of people out there do as well. But the, the really truly special part is you guys, it, it is you guys, the listeners, you guys, the viewers, um, and the community that we've developed here through the comments. And while yes, we may, uh, have some, some.

Some fun. Uh, we do have some fun back and forth. A lot of things are tongue in cheek. Guys. This is a podcast about 30 old show. We're not taking anything too seriously here, folks, you know. Um, but, uh, that group on Patreon though, that's a different group of like super core folks that everyone's invited to, everyone's invited to.

Uh, but it, it's, it's just fun to get to know these folks and to get to know these people that, you know, weirdly become friends,

Jeff: Yeah, they really do. It's cool.

Brent: Super cool. Well, Jeff, uh, you know, along with, uh, the games that we play, like our drinking games or like the rule of three, another game that we like to play is when we get to the end of the show, we're gonna do it later on in this one where we take a look at next week's episode.

We only look at the title and we try to guess what the episode's gonna be about based on the title alone. Never reading a description, never having seen the thumbnail, and never having watched ahead before either. And this is the spot where we're. And this is the spot where we revisit what we said last week.

This week was gonna be about. So Jeff, we talked about walk about last week. What did you think this episode was gonna be about and how close were you?

Jeff: I'm really excited for us to pay the piper this week because together, together, we nailed this one in such a great way. So I thought we were gonna get the new Lon Ambassador who would gonna, was gonna show up, and this is, and then I went south from here, but I thought that Leeta Alexander was gonna come with them.

Brent: That was phenomenal. I was so, I was so glad for you to hit that one.

Jeff: I know. I was like, she showed up. How cool is this? But I thought the Alita was gonna lead the new Volo ambassador around on a walkabout, the station, introducing them to people and all that. That part didn't happen. Um, but we totally got our new Kosh. What about you, Brent? What did you guess it was gonna

Brent: Well, I, I got the other half of that correct where I said that this was gonna be an authentic. Aboriginal Australian Crocodile Dundee. God may I apologize to every Australian listener out there, walk about. And I also said that this would be for Dr. Franklin, uh, that he would be doing it, which I nailed, nailed it.

Got it right because it just, him coming off the stem thing, resigning, he was just set up for it, right? And, uh, I said by the end, this would be the episode where we started liking Dr. Franklin. Now, whether or not that sparks true, let's talk about that over the course of this episode. But for the most part, Jeff, I'm gonna say, nailed it.

Jeff: Yeah, big time. And I do, I I have to say that last week when I was editing together the Interludes and Examinations, uh, episode, and we were got to the point where we started throwing out the Crocodile Dundee references. We have a, we have a lot of great listeners in Australia, and, um, from the bottom of my heart, I'm so sorry, , I'm so sorry.

Brent: I, my friend, an Naron who is absolutely from Australia, uh, an naron is one of the most phenomenal singers you'll ever hear in your life. He is an absolutely cool dude. Shout out to his wife Jamie, and his three kids. Uh, he would've slapped me silly for trying that

Jeff: Well, here's your chance to make good on it, because some people might have no idea what we're talking about here. They might not have watched this episode in 25 plus years, or maybe they did watch it and just need a little reminder about what it's about. So, Brent, will you walk us through, walk about,

Brent: I got Chaite. Okay. That's the last time I'm ever gonna do that. All

Jeff: need to stop. We need to stop

Brent: All right. Well, before we get going on this episode, let's just take a moment and recap on where we are. Babylon five has broken away from the Earth Alliance and declared its independence. The off world Naar have largely taken over the state.

The off world Naar have largely taken over a station security. And they plan to mount their resistance back on the cent as they plan to mount their resistance to the Sonari. The Mbar are providing air support or space support for the station, but Sheridan has been working on the League of Non-Aligned Worlds to start chipping in on that front.

The shadows are openly attacking and Ambassador Kosh is dead like dead, dead, like deader than poor Judd dad. And 10 points to anyone who can correctly identify that reference. And Dr. Franklin has resigned his post as CMO of Babylon five due to his drug addiction. And good luck to anyone who's watching this episode for the first time, who hasn't seen the rest of season three first.

So with all of that said, it's a normal, ordinary, every kind of day right here on Babylon five. Well, that's at least what the command staff would like to have you believe. Wado is out there complaining about a Narn heavy cruiser that's flying around outside the station crying. That's my heavy cruiser. I want a heavy cruiser.

Give me that heavy cruiser and I want it. No. Garabaldi says basically what Vaka salt's dad should have said. No, you just tried to flip it off.

Jeff: Little bit, little bit because

Brent: I saw that. I saw that. See YouTube. This is what you guys get. Whew. All right. Kar is actually playing. Hmm. Kar is actually playing host to the captain of the Heavy Cruiser.

His name is Nicole, and this is the last fully functional ship that the Narn have that hasn't been turned over to the Sonari and Nicole has been on the run for months. Nicole is just waiting for the word to strike back at the Sonari government, but Jaar says, wait. Because defending Babylon five is the most important job right now and and what I can only assume is gonna be something that we see happen right before the big heroic comeback.

At the end of the entire story, he says, if Babylon five falls, we all fall. We're gonna get back to these guys later. Right now, the vlan am Mm. Right now the new VLAN ambassador is arriving on the station. He looks a lot like the old Kosh. Mm. He looks a lot like Kosh, except now he's in this sort of new, cool hip electric Boogaloo Countersuit.

It also seems he doesn't speak quite as well as Kosh did, but he meets with Sheridan and Iva who confirmed that they have kept Kashi's death a secret. And no one is gonna know that they just replaced the old hermit crab with the new hermit crab. And no one's gonna be able to tell the difference. Cause after all, we're just gonna call the new Hermit Crab Kosh, just like we called the old one.

Caution. The kids will never know. Well, Kosh two wants to see where it all happened. He's taken to Kosh one's quarters and finding Kosh one's old assistant, Alita Alexander on board. Hey, remember her? Jeff predicted she'd be in this episode. Honestly, I didn't even think about her when this whole thing went down a couple episodes ago.

Kosh two is not pleased with Ms. Alexander at all. He's kind of vicious towards her telling her she's failed. He is roughing her up a bit, but what he really wants to know is if Kosh one has left a piece of himself in her, whatever that means, she says No, cuz she wasn't on the call sheet for that week, which really isn't her fault.

Gotta talk to the producers about that one. But wouldn't you know it? In the very next scene, Lida is meeting with Sheridan and she discovers that he is the one that Kosh left a piece of himself inside of. So she goes running back to Kosh too and tell, oh, no wait. She doesn't do that at all. She just keeps it to herself.

We're gonna get back to this one later. Now, why were Sheridan and lead a meeting, you ask. Well, Sheridan has a plan to put to test Aldi's theory about Telepaths being a vulnerability to the shadows. What he wants to do is he wants to take the white star track down a shadow ship, have a telepath, have a telepath screw with it for a while, and see if he can blow it up.

But don't worry if bad things happen. The Maari, the Narn heavy cruiser, they're gonna be nearby. They can jump in and rescue if anything goes wrong. Sure it's risky. Sure they could all blow up, but they gotta find out if they have an advantage here. Oh wait, uh, I'm sorry. Uh, scratch the Narn heavy cruiser.

Nicole doesn't want to go. Kar understands, at least that is until Garabaldi beats down his door in the middle of the night and yells at him a whole bunch. Basically, he challenges his narn masculinity saying, yo, are you gonna naar up or what? You're gonna lead these people. If you don't, you're not a real nar yo.

We're gonna go back to this one. Later. Out in the hyperspace, the white star finds a shadow ship surprise, and it starts to do its thing. Lida tries to do something, but turns out she's only like a P five investor was like a P 12. So you know, she's just gonna have the power to captain. That is until she touches Sheridan's hand and season, his mind caution's last moments. She sees that it was a shadow, the shadow folks who were attacking him and the shadows are what killed Kosh, which pisses her off just enough to get her up to like a P eight or P nine, and she does what she needs to do and it works.

The shadow ship is frozen and with some extra power from Lanier, the white star fires and blows it up real good. But it was a little too late because it already called for some friends. Four more ships show up. A couple of Imari Teles handle three of them, but Litta and the white stars, power banks are all depleted, so one of them is still coming for 'em.

Just as the tension turns up, it's de sex mocking the time and a voice is heard on your left because here comes Kar and Nicole and a whole fleet of the world. And the whole fleet of the League of Non-aligned Worlds into the rescue, and with all of those people coming in, the remaining buggies are the remaining bogies are bugging out.

This is a great victory for Babylon. Five. We've confirmed the Telepath theory, meaning that we have a way to beat the shadows. The league has now aligned together with Babylon five, and Lida has discovered where Kas has stashed himself inside Sheridan,

which she tells Kash too, Hey, I know where he is, but she doesn't tell him where just yet. I'm sure we'll get back to that one in another episode. Now, after all that recap, I'm sure you guys out there are wondering, what in this wor, what in the world does this have to do with a walk? A absolutely nothing because while all of that was happening, Dr.

Franklin and his civilian clothes is on the station doing a literal old fashioned Australian walkabout, trying to find himself so he can sit down with himself, have a drink with himself, ask himself some hard questions, and get his crap together. And who does he find? Well, if you set a girl, you would be right.

Her name is Caitlin James. She's a lounge singer in the bar down below, like literally the name of the bar is down below. They do get to sit down and they do have a drink, and they do ask some tough questions of each other. Looks like maybe this walkabout thing is kind of working. And then in true Franklin fashion, he sleeps with her.

The morning after Franklin says, Hey babe, is there anything I can do for you? She's like, yeah, there's something you can do for me. Drugs. I want the drugs. Franklin who's trying to get off the drugs says no anything but that. But the next morning, or I don't know, maybe if it was even later that morning, I'm not really sure which.

She steals his ID card and uses it to get the drugs. Anyway, sometime later Franklin finds Caitlin passed out from an apparent drug overdose. He takes her to med lab and turns out it wasn't a drug overdose. She has some weird space disease that's gonna kill her really soon. And the medicine helped with the pain.

She passed out cuz she didn't get the medicine in time. Franklin seeing the error of his ways arranges for her to get all the drugs she needs for as long as she needs it. And what does this teach Steven about drugs? Is his walk about over? Will he return to his post? Yeah, I don't know either. And do we like, And do we start liking Dr.

Franklin from here? Well, I'm not so sure of that either. Jeff, what did you think about walk about

Jeff: What was it you said last week that we need, uh, pallet cleanser

Brent: Alec Cleanser? Yeah,

Jeff: asking you shall

Brent: there it is.

Jeff: Here, here is the pallet cleanser, which means like, you know that, I find that to be very encouraging, right? Because like the, we're we're gonna get, we're gonna get running now, so it's cool. So right off the bat, let me make some people's day because I'm gonna say something nice about Dr.

Franklin. He was right in how he reacted to Caitlin. Like from what he, what he knew and with his experience. You don't go get her drugs. Like, what, how about instead of being like, it helps me sleep, you'd be like, I have a chronic disease and I live in, down below, so I'm on Medicare or Medicaid or whatever, and they don't give me whatever.

And then Dr. Franklin, of course would find, you know, a way to get her the drugs. But no, he was totally in the right on this one. I'm not on the train though of liking him yet. In fact, I'm probably not even at the train station to get on the train. I'm just gonna say he was right. And I'll, I'll stand up for him there.

But yeah, like this is an episode that happened. The, the, this, it's an episode. Um, the telepath thing, you, you said it last week. This probably should have happened last week, but

Brent: this was literally what I called for last

week when they said, Hey, Sheridan, go prove to us that you can win. I said, take the white star out. Go blow up a shadow ship, and then you win.

Jeff: Yeah. Here, here you

Brent: You know how to do it. Go grab the telepath. Like

Jeff: Well, I, I, and I think,

Brent: go.

Jeff: and I think the j m s and crew knew that also, because, I don't know, a like 10% of this episode was Caitlin singing . Like Franklin walks into the bar and she's singing. I'm like, great. And then like I look at my watch and I'm like, she's still singing. And then again, she's still singing.

And then I thought to myself, I'm like, oh, you know, when shows do this, shows do this in one of two situations. Either they just paid millions of dollars to the rights to some big song, and so they're gonna play the heck out of it. Or they're gonna put this on a soundtrack, right? And monetize this whole thing.

Nope, this song exists in this episode, and that's it.

Brent: I was gonna ask you, is this a real world song?

Jeff: Not that I could find. I, I didn't dig deep cause I, I didn't want to like, uncover anything about Caitlin or anything. But from

Brent: I'll, I'll give you a third reason why they, why they put this stuff in there. To fill time,

Jeff: because this is a story that should have picked up last week that they dropped in here and it wasn't quite enough. Cuz last week had more stuff in

Brent: Mm-hmm. . So, um, those songs that she sang were awful.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: They were lyrically horrible.

Jeff: Like ob objectively, mathematically,

Brent: Did not work. It, it, it felt like, you know, listen, j m s I Love you. Your writing has been mostly magnificent writing this song. I mean, she's sang what you put down on Paper, brother, but,

Jeff: And she sounded great. Fantastic singer. Great singer, great performer. Yeah.

Brent: The music was a little weird, but I mean, it's, it's like, imagine just picking up a novel, right? Or, or reading a letter, a personal letter, but you start singing it. Nothing makes sense. Nothing rhymes.

There's no meter, there's no, there's no bars. You're not

Jeff: If you wanna know how to do that, go to a personal favorite of mine who I have met and have a tremendous amount of both musical and personal respect for, but listen to old, like early mid nineties, Lisa Loeb, Lisa Loeb could take those like preteen diary entries or the love letter you wrote in class. And she can do that.

She can add meter to it, she can have a rhyming scheme, she can have those things. And there's a reason that here we are 30 plus years later and she still has an active career. Um, I don't think, I don't think this lady's singing this song anywhere. I don't think j m s is getting any writing credits for lyrics these days.

Like

Brent: I was really hoping you were going with Steven Tyler there for a minute from Aerosmith,

Jeff: that would work

Brent: I'll take Lisa Lopez. Uh, that being said, I can hear j m s cuz he, we know, he listens to every episode here at Babylon five for the first time,

Jeff: It's how he goes back and rewrites this stuff. So we know he

Brent: Well, but he's, uh, uh, he's also saying like, I'm not a songwriter.

I'm a screenwriter. We know dude, like full, like I gotcha. I I understand

Jeff: And you're on a shoestring budget. You can't just go higher. We get it,

Brent: yeah, you get,

Jeff: Also, don't spend four and a half minutes on this song, compress this to 90 seconds. Like just give us a piece. Yeah. Went way too long. I, I dig New Kosh though. I'm not gonna lie. I, I like the look of New Kosh. Um, I am really interested to see how they kind of integrate into stuff cuz they are not, um, they don't seem to be the extrovert that Kosh was.

And that's saying a lot that I'm calling Kosh an extrovert

Brent: Cost lik seemed to know how to communicate with folks. This guy doesn't, like, he doesn't even see, like, he seems to barely speak the.

Jeff: I felt like that speaking got better as it's almost like they were learning how to, to translate their whatever into, into English through the episode.

Brent: I have a confession to make.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: I was spoiled to this one.

Jeff: How?

Brent: Yeah. There it was. It was one of the other, uh, podcasts that are out there.

Uh, people that are, I think they're, it's one of the ones doing a rewatch, like people who've watched the show before. Totally fair. They, it was, it, they were not tagging us. They didn't say, babble on five, look at this, or Babble on five for the first time. Look at this. Like, there was none of that. It just, like, I guess, I think we followed 'em on the thing and somebody put up and said, new Kosh, electric Boogaloo, and they had this picture here.

I had no context for what that meant. I just thought Kosh gets a new costume. You know, like that's, that's all it was. I mean, this was a long, this was like back in season two or something like that. Um, like it was a, so I just sort of, You because we've seen gifts and things of people, we have no idea who they are or what's going on, and you just sort of file it away and say, well, we'll, we'll figure it out when we get there.

It was just one of those sorts of things, but I knew that there was a new, uh, but I saw Kosh too, electric boogaloo, and so that my, my recap just worked. I worked that into the recap just for

Jeff: Well done. But yeah, like I, if I, I, I never, like, I never saw this kosh before the, the, the costume or

Brent: He looks cool. Looks way

Jeff: cool, it's sleek, very sleek, little meaner, right? Like, in fact, I, I even feel like it has more of a feminine feel to it than the Kosh one. I, I just, I really got the impression until the voice, like when it started talking, then it was weird talking and it got a little better.

I halfway expected more of a feminine voice. Out of it, but had I seen what you saw, I literally would've thought that like, Hey, they got new uniforms, so why doesn't Kosh get an upgraded suit? Like it would, that would've made sense.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: What about you? What were your first impressions of this one?

Brent: Very similar to you. I thought this was a good transition episode, and I'll say that I like, I I want to put that out there. I thought this was a good episode.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: I, I suspect when we do our rankings, this one's probably gonna find itself towards the bottom of the middle, maybe even in the bottom tier of the season, because season three's been pretty strong.

And I've got a feeling with these remaining six episodes, at least four of them are gonna be top tier episodes. It's just a feeling. I don't know, I don't know. I'm just, you guys have hyped up this show so much and we're in that part of the season. I'm just, just guessing here. Uh, this episode was not spectacular though. It was a pallet clean. Like you said, it was a pallet cleanser. We had ship of tears, we had interludes and examinations. I don't know coming, what's coming next week, but like you said, Jeff, I feel it too. I feel like it's gonna be big, mostly because of how low key this episode was. And like I said, where we are in the season, it just, you know, I think we're used to the rhythms of how these seasons run, you know?

Um, I did feel that this was an episode that was wrapping up some dangling threads of previous episodes and getting those taken care of so we can be ready for whatever's to come next. KA is dead. We got a new ambassador back on the, on the station. Lida was hanging out there. I didn't even th you thought about Leeta.

I didn't even think about Leeta. You know, what's going on with her. She was cautious. Uh, a personal assistant. Uh, there's the whole thing about, um, uh, Sheridan and, and, and, uh, Whatever his connection to the first Kosh was. There's the whole thing with the telepathy and does that harm the shadow ships? Like there's just all these little things.

Franklin Franklin's deal. Let's be, that was like the DP plot,

Jeff: Yeah, but they, but they, it should have been, you know what I mean? But like, it was, it was the most of the episode.

Brent: was it really, did it take up the most time on the episode? I don't know. I didn't, I

Jeff: I'm just feel,

Brent: time thing.

Jeff: maybe I'm just feeling that way because honestly because of the song, like I'm not joking. That thing was over four minutes of screen

Brent: well, you know, let's let Matt watch that and see how he feels about it. Um, but anyway, uh, with all of that, uh, uh, while this was not a knock it out of the park episode, this also did not make me want to change the channel all law. That King Arthur episode, we had, uh, several episodes back. Like that was just garbage.

Uh, that being said, this was a necessary. And ultimately a fine but rather forgettable episode to me. I call this a laundry episode. You know, it's an episode you're watching, it's on tv. While you're folding laundry, you're not gonna change the channel. You'll just l you'll walk in and out of it and you're fine.

It's a laundry episode to me.

Jeff: Yeah, makes sense. Can we then just talk about what, to me is the biggest issue in this entire episode, other than the song taking too long, which I'll, I'll get off that soapbox.

Brent: Does it have anything to do with weed?

Jeff: No,

Brent: Okay, go ahead.

Jeff: it should though

Brent: Oh, we'll talk about that.

Jeff: Yeah, but it's close. It has to do with the plant.

Brent: Okay,

Jeff: How in the name of the maker does dude walk down below and buy an orange?

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: Didn't we have a whole episode or a part of an episode in the second season where Sheridan was like, oh my God, I, the techno made, just gave me an orange.

Brent: are right.

Jeff: Like oranges are like god's nectar that comes down and, and Frank's just like, you know, just buy, just buy an orange and eat it here and down below. How, how does that happen?

That's my

Brent: they have like the hydroponics bay out there that he's like, I'm just gonna go run through the hydroponics bay. But I mean, in a, in a station of 250,000 people, it's gotta be a pretty big hydroponics bay to feed all of them. Like to make it that

Jeff: they don't even have healthcare in down below, but you can buy oranges that the c o of the station has to like flex to get stuff.

Brent: right.

Jeff: Come on. This whole series just lost all credibility with No, not really.

Brent: he's serious about that folks. And you can find him at Jeff babylon five first.com. Email him all of your thoughts.

Jeff: Right? Let's talk about weed.

Brent: Let's talk about weed. Jeff. Listen, I thought that this episode was gonna be about Franklin finding himself, getting over his drug addiction, his stem addiction, and then it turned into an advertisement for why you should legalize marijuana. Seriously. Like there's the whole thing about Franklin and then the drugs that Caitlin needed.

And, you know, it is, is the metaphor here that stems are really just weed. Okay? Some people use 'em recreationally. Some people can use them, I guess dangerously if you use weed dangerously. Um, but also at the same time, it can be a good medicine for folks who really need it, and you shouldn't be so quick to judge when people ask for it. understand whatever she was asking for was not the same thing that she, that that dude was on, but stick with me here. Because she said, I want these drugs. And he went, no, because I'm dealing with that and I gotta get off it. And he judged her. He judged her like that. And turns out she, it was actually medication, not recreation that she needed it for.

So I think this episode was about legalizing weed.

Jeff: Wow. I didn't get that at all. But I can see it a little bit. And I, and actually I see it more like, cuz it is the nineties, it's about legalizing weed. But I see it now in the more modern conversation of like psilocybin and peyote and things like that. Cause we're, you know, weeds just a thing now for most of the country, but

Brent: To, to, to be clear, that was an entire joke.

Jeff: I know, I know, but but you made

Brent: No, the people out there don't though

Jeff: okay. Okay. I just, but you made a really good. In him just straight up judging her. Cuz I think I've talked quite a bit about trying to remind myself when this show came out because I got really hung up on my first watch through and then it's like, oh, so is the stems aren't a problem anymore.

Like, we're just fine. And now it's him finding himself where we're smarter now and we know that you have to like work your way into recovery and then manage your recovery. And it's, it's, it's, you know, an ongoing disease that you, you work with. So I had to remind myself of that. And when I did, when he judged Caitlin, like, and he and he, his face like everything, he's in bed and he is like, oh, what do you like?

He, he started with curiosity, you know, what do you need it for? Oh, it helps me sleep. And you could just see him like crumble or he is like, oh my, you're every stereotype that I thought, you know, from a lurker down here doing stuff, no, no, you can't do it. I think if anything, this is more an episode, not so much an episode about legalizing weed, but more about med management and med control.

Cuz apparently with just an ID card, you can walk into the pharmacy and walk out with whatever you want. There's nobody on shift, there's no cameras. Like, nope. Just do your badge and snag what you want.

Brent: Right, right. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a thing and she, man, she passed out right before she could take it. That's, that's how much pain she was in, you know. Okay. So here's the big question I have. Where is, where is, is Franklin at the end of this episode? Is he still on walkabout? Like, cuz we left him with like a, give her whatever she needs, it's authorized or whatever, and then like he walks out and like, that's the end of his story for the episode.

So is he, is he back as c m o is he does, is he still addicted to his stems? Is this what he had to get over because there really was. That point. They, I mean, he set it up real well. He's like, listen, you're out here. You walk around, you walk until you meet yourself. You eventually meet yourself and you sit down and you have a drink with yourself, and you ask yourself the hard questions and you search yourself.

And then you get up and you're able to walk away as one person. And then he goes in and he meets Caitlyn. And I'm like, okay. She is his mirror reflection. And they sit down and they have the drink and they're asking hard questions. And she's very much as equal in this whole thing, you know? And, and they even share some time.

And then she even goes for the whole like, Hey, I'm gonna do drugs, which is him facing his own demonn. And then they drop it on a, actually it's a medication, it's not an addiction. And you're like, oh crap. So is

Jeff: So what was it? What was

Brent: So what was this for him?

Jeff: They went so far as like when they were doing the drink, like she's holding up the glass, right? And like doing the whole, like looking at 'em, which I thought was brilliant filmmaking, you know,

Brent: Cool. Cinematography? Absolutely.

Jeff: It's like look, here are, here's the broken Franklin in the sides of him.

It also selfishly, I, I had this whole thought where I'm like, oh my God, she's not a human. Like she's one of those ne grath aliens and she's like holding that up because it lets her see like through the compound eye. It's like that, um, the, uh, Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode teacher's pet where like she lures lurkers in to sleep with her, but actually she's a bug and she eats them.

But instead, no, it was beautiful poetic cinematography in filmmaking. It was so good. And then like it's just, um, like. Is, is it we need to legalize weed? Is it uh, personification of Franklin's walkabout? Is it commentary on universal healthcare and the need for adequate medication for people? Or was it just an excuse for us to get some more Franklin stuff and, and yeah, it had a lot of potential and just kinda like,

Brent: It just fizzled at the end. It like, I, well, and I don't even know that it fizzled. I just don't understand it, you know? And, and my biggest hope right now is people are out there writing in the comments. Just, you wait. Just, j m s doesn't just do anything for no reason. He doesn't just leave it out there.

Just, you wait. Like, uh, okay guys, thanks. Cool. Um,

Jeff: Well to those people, I ask you this, where is the Great egg? Right? If he doesn't leave anything out there, we'd have some resolution to that story. So

Brent: Mm. And then you're gonna get the other people, well, not everything

Um, yeah, that was pretty much the Franklin stuff. Uh, Jeff, we got Kosh too. Boy, he was pissed at Leeda. Uh, okay. I've gotta ask though. His big thing was, did cost leave any of himself inside of you and then turns out Oh no. He left himself inside of Sharid. This seems huge. This is a piece that is going to be like, this is gonna pick up much later, or maybe not much later.

Maybe next week. I don't, I don't know when that's gonna pick up, but that's, what do we make of, there's a piece of Kosh inside Sheridan.

Jeff: So this, this ties right back to last week in inter interludes and examinations. When Kosh said, as long as you are here, I'm here because

Brent: Oh.

Jeff: Yep. When he was doing, when he was doing the, when he was doing the dad dream or whatever, he basically put his fingers on Sheridan's face and said, remember he transferred his katra to Sheridan in that moment.

Brent: Great.

Jeff: But that's where it is. And so here's, here's my guess this, this is gonna be a thing that Kosh 2.0 and brings up. I think Lee's gonna have some jealousy, I think is the thing around it, because clearly she was more than just in her mind at least, was more than just Kashi's aid. And so

Brent: It's almost like she was going to be his vessel at some point.

Jeff: was expected that w like they knew he was gonna die and she was being prepped to, to take him on or whatever.

We're gonna see the payoff when Sheridan is on Zaha Doom and he's about to die. And then Kosh will burst forth from his chest as an angel and whoosh be the hand,

Brent: die on Zha doom, right?

Jeff: He's gonna die.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: But Kosh will live on and possibly live on through him. Death of self to be life for all kind of a thing.

Brent: in kind of the same way that we said a while ago, uh, that Sinclair was a mbar and turns out we were right about that,

Jeff: Sheridan's of Orlon.

Brent: a for lawn. And you know what? That actually outside of it, it was expected of li. Let's erase that and just say they actually knew that it was gonna be Sheridan the whole time.

Lida was just there for whatever other reason. Okay. That makes a whole lot more sense when Dalen looks at Kosh at the end of season two and says you have to go get him, and you know why? That makes a whole lot more sense. It makes that whole phrase make sense. So I, boy, that's a good way to write a story.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. This is so good. Especially because he's seated us. Right.

Brent: Oh my. Oh, Jeff. Oh, Jeff. You know what that is though?

Jeff: huh.

Brent: That's Ben. Cisco becoming a prophet at the end and leaving everybody Oh no.

Jeff: You know. Oh, okay. Let's go down that. Right. So Sheridan and Len hook up,

Brent: in a tree. Yep.

Jeff: but they won't, they'll be doing more than

Brent: Oh no. Yeah.

Jeff: He's gonna leave a family, not

Brent: Oh, no,

Jeff: unborn child.

Brent: too, right? Oh,

Jeff: totally. Gonna be Cisco and Yates and the little unborn kid.

Brent: but see, d you know why we know Deep Station nine didn't copy that directly because there's no Jake stand-in

Jeff: Well, if there is, it's Ivanova, like she'd be the

Brent: No, that's, that's Kira.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, yeah. There is no, Jake.

Brent: there's no Jake.

Jeff: You know what? Okay, I'm gonna, can I sidetrack for just a second?

Brent: sure.

Jeff: It's been a long time since we've gone down this path of who stole what, from who or whatever.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Back in, when did they drop this From H B O, like back in December or whatever.

So

Brent: no. It was, it was like, it was like the end of January, beginning of February. Somewhere in there. Like pretty close. Yes. Sure. Fine. It doesn't matter. Go ahead. Sorry,

Jeff: A while ago I, like many other people, went to go cancel my HBO O Max subscription cuz I don't need it anymore, essentially. Turns out I paid for the year and so my wife and I were like, well we should watch something on it. So we decided to rewatch Game of Thrones and you know, whatever.

Everyone's got opinions on Game of Thrones. We're taking our time through it this time. And then it's fun as I've been enjoying it. It's neat to see how TV has progressed, which is my point. Very first episode of Game of Thrones. When it ends, you think, oh yeah, there's gonna be like

Brent: Jeff's about to spoil Game of Thrones for everybody out there. Just warning, if you haven't seen Game of Thrones, fast forward about 30 seconds.

Jeff: Skip just a little bit here. So you watch that first episode and you're like, oh yeah, some. Kingdom med, political, whatever stuff is gonna happen. But the big thing are the white walkers, like that's the story. They're doing stuff and then like nothing in season two. Nothing. Three, I mean little, little here, there nothing.

Nothing. And then, whoa, winters finally come. The first episode of Game of Thrones is signs and importance when they're like, yeah, the the shadows are gonna kill you. So what does that even mean? I don't even know what that means. Yeah. What it means is you just seated like the big bad guy through the whole thing.

They Game of Thrones ripped off Babylon five, not Deep Space nine, not Battlestar Galactica Game of Thrones.

Brent: Preach, brother. Preach.

Jeff: Jms needs to go after George r r Martin or whoever it is, who's literally just like, oh, it's a pretty cool little fun thing you did with your little sci-fi show there. Watch what I do with billion dollar episodes every

Brent: Right? Well, you know, I mean, he wrote the books first and then he stopped writing the books,

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: he's never stopped writing the books. And that's the problem.

Jeff: Yeah. It just keeps going, but yeah. All right. Sorry for my little sidetrack there. I'll

Brent: You know what? I like the theory. I buy it, I'm buying it. Game of Thrones rips off Babylon five.

Jeff: Can we talk about that? We are all Kosh. What do you want me to call you? Kosh. We are all Kosh.

Brent: What is the implication?

Jeff: I,

Brent: Is that, is that an implication that all the bolon are like, are they one like collective continuum? Go ahead and buzz. Cause you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Jeff: I don't, I think it's, I took it more as it's the minbar religious belief that the, that the universe exists and we're all just manifestations of that universe. The, the Volans set up this whole religious thing with the Minbar to basically be like, you're gonna worship us. We're the universe. We're all just manifestations of it.

So the universe is like, if you translated VLAN to English, Kosh means universe. I wonder though, what he, we heard his name, his last name.

Brent: He did have a last name. Yeah. Narai or something like that.

Jeff: something like that. Kosh. Nik. Niag Niag. Naoc

Brent: Ragner. Rock,

Jeff: Something like that. I wonder if that's a thing where it's like, uh, everyone is Kosh, but like, there's like Kosh, Nara, Naro, and then N Naac. Okay. Kosh. Noran. Yeah. So it's like, uh, there's Kosh Noran. Here's Kosh Brent, here's Kosh Jeff. And we just go by Kosh like, my friends call me Nornic.

You can call me Kosh

but I feel like between that we are all Kosh and then Kashi's statement to Sheridan, as long as you're alive, I'm still here. Which like, there's, there's a lot there and I don't know what to make of it all yet, but it's more than just a convenience of, don't let anybody know he is dead. I'm still just Kosh.

Brent: I like it.

Jeff: So Sheridan pulls everybody together

Brent: No, no, no.

Jeff: no,

Brent: pulled everybody together.

Jeff: no, no. He later, he. I'm telling

Brent: Oh, you're talking about the, okay. You're talking about like the war council guys

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Okay. Okay. Sorry.

Jeff: So I have a, I have a nephew who has, uh, he, he's on the autism, autism spectrum. And when he was very young, the only way to communicate with him like three or four years old was he loved that, uh, poem.

You know, we're going on a bear hunt. Going on a bear hunt. Gonna be that, like, that was the,

Brent: not scared. I'm

Jeff: not scared. Yeah. That was the way to communicate with him. You'd say those words, but like, it'd change his nonverbal communication and it was great. So I felt like Sheridan was pulling everybody together and being like, we're going on a shadow hunt , going on a shadow hunt and then pulling the telepathic people together and, and going for it how?

I, I said this before. How did no one know this? It worked so well. The minbar were a one-to-one ratio, three tele pads, three shadow ships went by, went down. How is this a revelation after all this time? It's, to me it is, it is unfathomable that they're just now, after all these years, uncovering

Brent: Okay, J. Just clarification. The war that happened a thousand years ago with Jaquan and the Narn were the mbar part of that war.

Jeff: That's my understanding.

Brent: Okay. Did the Maari have telepaths back then? Had they

developed?

Jeff: don't know. That's a good question.

Brent: uh, I mean, because I, I was trying to figure this out too. Like, we know now that the Narn had telepaths, the shadows eliminated all the telepaths, uh, of the narn, which is why they don't have any today.

But if the Maari were around back then and they have their logs, their memories whatsoever, cultural memories of that war, why didn't they know about the patella path thing?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: And frankly, if they were around, how did you defeat them? The narn weren't space faring back then, so maybe they don't know what happened.

They just, Hey, you're on my planet, and you guys sucked. And then you went away. Like, but the mbar, oh, maybe the bar weren't space firing either. Like, I don't, I don't know,

Jeff: I, I think they were though. I think, like, I think if, if, if I understand it right, like the Volans and the Party first ones and others were the, the, you know, real war that was happening. But the Menari were kinda like the humans. Yeah. Like, Hey, we're here and we're, we're gonna help. We're

Brent: Hey guys. Wait for me. I'm coming.

Jeff: And I don't know if they have tele.

Maybe they didn't have tele pads then, but, but the Volans shirt probably Did you know other ones? Probably did. Or is telepathy a whole new thing? The only, the nans were the first ones to develop it, and then it got, it. Just, I don't know. To me this is a, this is a big like just plot hole in the whole fabric of this whole thing that this bothered me a lot.

Like it's great that it was effective. Cool. But seriously now, and Lida having to get like bleeding from the eyes

Brent: All right. First of all, that was, that was the part that took me out. Okay. Just because she saw what happened to Kosh, it pissed her off enough and now she could do what she was physically unable to do. I understand adrenaline and you can like superhuman strength and lift a car off somebody that you couldn't normally do.

Like that happens sometimes for her to be able to do what she did, that that just seemed a bit over the top, you know? But I appreciated the, it's stranger so much. She went all, you know, 11 from Stranger Things on us, you know? Uh, and then she was done. She was wiped out. She couldn't do anymore and, you know, kind of, kind of blew your wad on that one.

Jeff: Yeah. And it reminded me a lot of, and I think I've referenced to referenced them before, but the Wheel of Time books and the earlier ones, there's a character named Nye. And, uh, there's a lot of magic in this, in this story. And they, the way they do the magic is they access the one true source. And women, um, have, what is it sayin?

And the men use Saar and it's, or the other way around, I forget. But how they channel that's, they channel the source to do their magic. And Ny Neve is one of the most powerful channelers that has ever lived in history. But she can only touch the one true source when she is furious. Like she has to be mad.

And so that's, that's what I got. It's like, oh, so lead's a P five. But when she gets really, really mad, then she becomes a P eight or not, like you were saying on the recap. Like, what is that? So the whole time I'm thinking, and I know I, I understand why they didn't have beter for this, right? One K's got other dude stuff he's doing, he probably costs a couple bucks to bring on.

But Basters on Mars, he's on earth, he's doing whatever he is doing. But what could a ster do? What if you brought Baster and his partner Syop, that apparently is played by Walter K's wife, which is pretty cool. But what if you brought those on, they're two P twelves. Could they take out two ships at peace or are the menari like P twelves and

Brent: say, what are the mbar, because the menari seem to handle 'em. No problem.

Jeff: yeah.

Total one. They're, they're laying down relaxed.

Brent: you have those mbar on board with ster Like before any, like before ster even came on board, didn't you have 'em? Like why isn't that an issue?

Jeff: Yeah. Like this has never happened before.

Brent: right. You, you mbar don't have that as a record that like, hey, you can stop the shadow ships so you see them and you should do so like you, you're right about that.

There is something here. Jeff, I'm going to assume that there's just information we don't have yet about the history of how all this went down.

Jeff: There has to be. Has

Brent: going to assume that that's what it is cuz I don't know that that could just be a super good ca plot hole point or it's just one of those that everybody goes,

Jeff: eh,

Brent: you like Star Trek, right? You're familiar with plot holes, right?

Jeff: right? Yeah. It's kind of part

Brent: discontinuity. Right?

Jeff: No, the board, were always coming after. They're always trying to assimilate. There was never a time they were trying to control dominator. Destroy ever. We'll forget q, who ever happened. It's just, yeah.

Brent: we'll reference it once. Yeah. Um,

yeah. So, hey, what what we did is we confirmed what the theory was, and I'll go back to where you started. This. Jaar brought everyone together. I mean, awesome conversation between Garabaldi and Jaar, where Garabaldi just called him out for accepting blah, and he, he didn't just bring the Narn heavy cruising, he brought the whole gang, you know, and, and the shadows went, oh, oh, we're getting outta here.

Which means they can be beat,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: they can be beat.

Jeff: And they can be beaten and you'll probably talk, I dunno if you'll talk about this in the Delta's conversation or not, but they'll be beaten when we come together. Together. We can achieve this, you know, on our own. They're gonna eat us up together. I loved Jaza. In his quarters and his door starts going, he wakes up in my head I'm like, this would better be Garabaldi.

He'd better be paying Ja back for how he, and it totally was. And he shoved the book in his hands. I'm just like, yes, this is a, this has been two really good Garabaldi episodes. Back to back.

Brent: Uh, well, Jeff, you just mentioned. The Deltas portion of the show. So why don't we jump into that portion show? Cause I think that's where the meat of the rest of our conversation lies. Let's time to boil it down. Let's see if this show has any of that Star Trek quality to it? Does it have that deep moral message?

Is it holding up a mirror to society? Is it giving us hope that we can be better in the future? Is it trying to communicate a lesson that we can apply to ourselves today to be better tomorrow or later today? Uh, I'm gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five Deltas as far as how Star Trek, uh, this episode is.

Jeff, you're gonna do this episode on a scale of zero to five star furries as to how Babylon five. How much does this show do it in a Babylon five way? And how much do we just like the episode? You're gonna do that. I'm gonna go, first I wanna talk about Deltas. Uh, Jeff, I said it earlier. I'll say it again.

This show was about one thing and one thing only to me legalized weed. No, I'm just joking. That is not what it was about. It actually was about that conversation from Garabaldi and Kar. And so I didn't wanna talk about that. I didn't wanna get too deep into that. Uh, which Garabaldi shows up and he says, here's your stuff.

You gotta get in there and do that. Oh, well, it's Nicole. He's the thing. Or dude, are you the ambassador or not? Are you the guy leading this or not? Because if you are, then you gotta get in there and talk to him. You understand the entire scope of everything that's going on. He only sees his one little piece.

He will follow you if you tell him what to do, but you've got to tell him what to do. You can't give him all just pure authority to do whatever he wants to do. You've gotta lead Jaar. You've got to lead. Lead your people, bring people together very much in just what you said, Jeff. The shadows will run when we all come together, but what does it take for us to come together?

We need you to show up folks out there. Here's the message you need to show up. We as a society need your contribution, whatever that is, whatever your contribution to society is, it's different. Kars was not, Nicole Jaar was not in charge of the heavy cruiser. Jaar had a different job, and when he would engage in his job, in his contribution, he was able to rally not just the heavy cruiser, which was the actual idea, but he was able to rally everyone.

He was able to do something bigger than even what his own scope was when he came in. And he is like, oh look, the Bernard Heavy Cruiser. Nope, I'm not on the cruiser. I've got my own ship. And all the red circles started opening up and they all slid into the place, you know? Um, It was, it was just phenomenal.

And here's the thing, the other side of that is if you don't do your job, if you don't, if you are not, you be you. We need you folks out there to be you. It could all go wrong. We could all die. We could all be taken over by the evil ones. So that's the message. That's the Deltas in this episode. Jeff, is we need you to be you.

Here's my problem. This was barely half the episode, right? So I'm gonna give this barely half of the Deltas. I'm gonna do a rating I've never done before. I'm gonna give this 2.25 Deltas

Jeff: It. It's funny you say that because my immediate thought was, please say two and a half, please say two and a half, because if you don't know, uh, often on the YouTube and the Twitter, we do a little graphic of what our ratings were and I have to make those, and now I have to be like, how do I do 2.25?

Brent: Well, because what y it's, it's a, it's a, a, a shadowed out version of, of a delta

Jeff: Of the Delta.

Brent: and then like you color it in, like you, you recolor it as far as how far it goes. So good luck only doing a quarter of one this time, Jeff.

Jeff: Thanks for the extra work this week. It's pretty great, but I don't disagree. That's such a great and powerful message that's gonna pay off as we move. This was the seed and totally worth it

Brent: Yeah. How about you? What are your star furries?

Jeff: this was, we talked about this, this was an okay episode. It wasn't bad at all. This is good. It's fine.

Adequate. It did what it needed to do. Um, I think it had some cool Franklin stuff, right? And that, that's a means a lot coming from Jeff. You know, people out there get really upset with how I feel about Franklin. I can be fair. I had some good stuff Garabaldi shined in this one. I, I'm gonna rate this one though, like, If I was just gonna rate this on how much we liked it, whatever, I'd probably give it two star furries, but it's also kind of how Babylon five this is.

And so I'm gonna bump that up really based on the conversation you had on that scene. My wife's opening the garage door, so I have

Brent: I heard it too.

Jeff: Yeah, great timing. It's great. Okay. I know exactly where I can break back in, so I just have to wait for her to shut it again.

Brent: Oh yeah. Cause once it goes on, now it's gotta come

Jeff: Ah-huh . Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Message anybody out there who's like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna build a music room or a studio in my house.

Don't do it over your garage. It seems like a really good idea cuz it's like nothing happens down there except when it does, so I guess it is better. My other option would be to build it above her office and that wouldn't, that wouldn't go well.

Has

Brent: yet.

Jeff: no, it has not. She's probably on a call. She does this whole thing. She's like, I'm on a call and, uh,

Brent: Try to get through it. See, uh, now I'm just curious, can you get through your spiel before she closes it? Go ahead. Nope. There it goes.

Jeff: it now. Yeah,

Brent: Oh, this is great tv.

Jeff: this is good stuff.

Brent: Mm-hmm. There it goes.

Jeff: But we also rate it on how Babylon five the episode is. And to me, what you just talked about really hits that in that scene where all the jump gates and stuff are opening up and just that big hole in the ship ships we've never seen before. You know, or if we have haven't been noteworthy, they come out and the shadow tux tale, and that is a, that has got to be like a Babylon five moment.

So that moment alone on its own is worth half a star Fury itself. I'm giving this one, two and a half star Furies.

Brent: Well, Jeff, just like, well, Jeff, just like last season, we are creating the absolute 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of the third season of Babylon five. So the question that you get to answer today, I don't have anything to do with, is where are we gonna rank walk about our current top five ranking is severed dreams, point of no return, ship of tears, messages from Earth and interludes and examinations.

Just because I think I know where this one might be headed, let me give you what the bottom five are. The bottom five are a day in the strife, convictions, exogenesis ceremonies of light and dark, and a late delivery from Avalon. And then there's everything else in between. Jeff, where do you place walk?

Jeff: When we ranked, I think you ranked a late delivery from Avalon, and we talked about when we did that, we talked about, you know, we could do it, we did last season and just put it down at number 22. And, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But in reality, when I look at this list, like we have ceremonies of light and dark at number 14, and then late delivery Avalon at 15, it really is much further down.

Like there's a real separation between ceremonies of light and dark and a late delivery. So, so I, I'm clearly above Avalon. Where I'm kind of landing right here, honestly, is I'm looking at a day in the strife.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: number 10, or number 10, which is seek transi, vir seek vir for putting this one. And when I think about that, seek transit, vir, it needed some help as an episode, but man, it had some heavy hitting stuff that it got for us.

A day in the strife was a good episode. It was fine. You know, it was interesting. I think this one was better. I'm gonna put this one, our new number 11, just uh, above a day in the strife and below, seek trans vir.

Brent: I, I, I'm not allowed to disagree, but yeah, I That sounds about right. I I will, I will. Uhoh, I lost Jeff, folks. Oh, there he goes. Now he is back. Lost you for just a second.

Jeff: that's scary.

Brent: Yeah. Is your wife messing with everything down there?

Jeff: Maybe she's just like, you know what? You're done recording for the night.

Brent: We're almost done. We're almost done, g. Just give, just give us a few. Um, no, Jeff, I, I think that is, uh, very accurate. Like I said at the beginning. I think by the time we're done with this ranking, we're gonna find it towards the bottom of the middle, maybe in the bottom tier. And this is, this is right there on that cusp of middle to bottom.

And so, yeah, I'm, I'm right there with you on it, man.

Jeff: And then a really, and you said it earlier in a really strong season. I mean, we've.

Brent: it's season. Three's been, look, this is, this is one of the weaker episodes of the season and it's a, we've said several times. It's a good episode. I feel like we've kind of been pooping on this episode a lot, but it's actually a good episode.

Jeff: Well, we've had, we've had so many incredible episodes this season. The the, just to get a little bit of, of criticism Sounds like that I'd watched this before almost half of the second season. You know what I mean? Like, cuz that one took some time to get going. But at this point right now, we're done with Walk About next week, Brent, we are watching War Without End Part One.

Now I'm gonna be clear. It's part one. This is a two-parter. And listen, I know, I know. And I, God, I appreciate so much your thoughts, your input on this. But please save your, save your keyboard strokes, right? Like we don't need the comments or the emails here, the tweets. This is our first time watching this whole series.

This is how we're going to experience it. Next week, we're gonna watch War Without End Part One. The week after that we're gonna watch part two. And yeah, when we're done, maybe we think, like we did with the voice and the wilderness, we got, we broke 'em up. We're like, yeah, we could have done this as one.

Maybe we'll land there, but this is how we're going to

Brent: because, we'll, we'll get the break and we'll be able to talk about what just happened versus what we Th I, I think the big thing is what's gonna happen next. I guess it wraps up. Um, Jeff, I, I got the, oh, Jeff. A war without end.

Jeff, this is the episode I've been waiting. My palate is officially cleansed. I'm ready for this bad boy. Okay, Jeff, I do not remember when, but a long time ago. Do you remember when I made a prediction about Babylon four? And do you remember what I said? It was about Babylon four. It was about the war with the shadows and the volans.

And what I said was the nature of the shadow war is going to be where, like what? Like there's the old wars, the old wars over, and then there's this one. And what it's what's gonna happen is, is Babylon four is gonna be bouncing between the timelines, okay? And all it turns out, all of these wars are actually gonna be the same war,

Jeff: Like the 10,000 years ago, the 1000 years

Brent: we're gonna bring the first ones and we're gonna bring the jaqua jaquan and we're gonna bring the, these guys together and, and it's like gonna be this one ultimate war happening all at the same time across all these different timelines. And Babylon four is the thing that's bouncing through, like making all of that happen in facilitating that.

Jeff: The connective tissue between everything.

Brent: Jeff, I've been waiting for this cuz I've been holding onto that. Like, I think that's where this is going. If this is the war without end Oh Jeff,

Jeff: Do you

Brent: because this is, this is, this is where it has to be. This is the year of the shadow war.

Jeff: But I think the shadow, so I, we don't ever do this. Like, I wanna dispute your, because I think the shadow war is happening. It's where all the little wars are fighting on behalf of the shadows. I think it's too soon for

Brent: don't think so. I do not think so. I think Now here's the thing. Is it all gonna wrap up in a two-part episode? No, but I think this is the thing that's gonna kick us off. We're gonna see Babylon four again. We're gonna start skipping through time and, and we're, we're gonna, we're gonna get there. This is a war that has been raging for millennia, for eons.

And this is, this is like a, a bill and Ted bouncing through time, collecting the great warriors of the past. The first one, like I said, the first ones in Jaquan and uh, what's, what's the Mambas dude name?

Jeff: Vain,

Brent: Valin. Yeah. Him. Which by your thing might have actually been Kosh.

Jeff: I guess I've always thought it was Sinclair, like I thought that's the sole he

Brent: Sinclair was Val?

Jeff: I did for a long time. But we've been told now that Vains not of Minbar. So I think he probably is vlan.

Brent: Sinclair's a Mbar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. Oh baby, it's Sheridan. What's the,

Jeff: Cuz if he's vlan. , he's, it's Kosh, Valen. God, I, I love it. I love it. And I will, I will lose my mind if that's what it is, but I just, I feel like it's too soon to pull it to, to bring that out.

Brent: mm. I think Zs is coming back.

Jeff: really

Brent: I think Zs has to, okay. Here's the deal. We got Zs, who was an awesome character in that one. There was Babylon squared, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: heard Atheros mentioned withdrawal down on Planet Epsilon three. Right. And we're still not entirely sure what he does on Epsilon three. Right. I've heard too many people talk about Atheros.

For him to be a one-off character, who then gets name dropped. He's, he's got to come back. Okay. So

Jeff: I, I got a question for you. Do you think it's gonna be Z Atheros and Crew? There was one other key player in the Babylon squared thing, and that was the one Sinclair in the blue spacesuit. Do you think? We're gonna see, not necessarily Ranger one Sinclair, but like Babylon squared. Sinclair May, or maybe that is Ranger one, Sinclair. I don't know.

Brent: I,

Jeff: Or he was not the one, right? That was Z's thing. Not the one.

Brent: he says, oh, you're Not the

one, not the one, you're right, right. Uh, because of Sheridan,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: uh, the, the Sheridan puts on the suit. Um, I think it might be too soon for that, that we might get there, like later on in season three, maybe season four

Jeff: Or five. There's so much more of this series

Brent: Yeah. But, but, but I mean, Jeff though, in, in the, the narrative structure, I think season, like the shadow war has to end before season five.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: And then season five has to be about what do we do after, right? Like that's, because we, we've been told that like we understand j m s has written these according to a narrative structure. We're in the rising action. The third section is your climax, right? Like, this is where everything gets so intense. So to put this in right here, this two-parter in this, this episode 1718 slot, again, I don't know that we're gonna get all of this in one episode or, or two episodes, but I think this is where we really start this war without.

And we're gonna start all of these pieces, bringing them back together. I, Jeff, I've been holding onto this for so long, like this, this has been in my back pocket since I don't even remember when it first occurred to me that this is it. I hope this is where it's going because I love this idea of a narrative storyline and I really hope this is where we're going.

Jeff: I love your interpretation of war without End and how literally, like it's happening in all time at all times with the same stuff. Like that's, that's intense.

Brent: and here's the thing. So I, I have a personal, have I talked about this on the show? I might know right now. Anyway, r briefly. My own personal theory is, I believe time travel is possible, but I believe time travel. I believe time is a closed loop

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: rather a closed cylinder. It's not a loop. I think it's a, it's a, or not a scenario, I'm sorry, a sphere.

Time is a sphere. And from the center of that sphere, all points exist at all time. At at, at the same time. In equal parts, right? So if you can travel through the, through the center of that sphere, you can get to any point in time as it exists. Okay? Um, but that, what that also means is it's because it's closed.

You can't change the future. And just how it happens is how it always happens, you know? And so like to, to go in and not be like, oh, we're gonna change everything. Like when lady, when that lady came in and that, what was it? Signs importance episode and was like, oh look, you are, uh, that that's only one possible future.

You could change the outcome. I was like, man, get outta here. Like, let it be like,

Jeff: Well I think, I think though that can live with your theory cuz if there's, if time all exists in a sphere from that centerpiece, why can't there be multiple spheres?

Brent: That could also, that could also be true. But again, but it's all, but it's all happening. If you could get to that center point, you're all, it's all happening from the same dis because the center of a sphere is equal distant to every other point in the sphere, right? So all points of time are equal distant from where you are. Now, I'm breaking, I'm breaking some physicist, physicist minds out there, but trust me, folks, the physics, the, the physics lines up on it.

Jeff: Brent is like literally like has paper and degrees and stuff for this stuff. Like people don't know that about you, but you're a highly educated person. it's, it doesn't show at all

Brent: what's that phrase? I've, we use this in football. He's forgotten more about this than I'll ever know. It's, I think I've forgotten more about it than I will ever know, to be honest with you. Jeff, what about you? What do you think this episode's gonna be about?

Jeff: God, I feel like an idiot with my prediction right now cuz I, I was thinking, I'm thinking so much smaller and I guess what I'll do, I'll offer this as counterpoint, right? Because I, I I, I want so much for what you're saying to happen. I just think it's so soon. I think this is gonna be a, a minbar, an earth thing and that the war without end is the earth menari war.

Brent: Oh, it's flaring back up.

Jeff: Yeah. The Warrior cast is, is upset. Right. Dalen broke the council. There's four of them. This is gonna set them up. Uh, in fact, this is what I think is gonna happen. This is gonna set them up for that alliance with the shadows that we talked about a while ago where the Warrior cast will line up with them thinking they can just wipe out Earth.

But it's all gonna launch when it'll be Naroon. Yeah. Naroon is gonna come onto the station and he's gonna basically say, We're here for Dalen, like you have to hand, she's a criminal. She's broken up our government and we are gonna try her and you have to give her to us. He's gonna go into Sheridan's office and tell, and while he's doing that, he's gonna see that piece of the black star that Ivanova got him for Christmas last year and he is going to lose his bone crested mind and he's gonna use that to relaunch the war.

And so I think we'll get the start of this being that. And then in the second part, well we'll get to the predictions on the second part. But I think long term, this is what gets the Warrior cast lined up with the shadows and truly breaks minbar

Brent: I, I mean, that is a dangling thread that is still out there. That has not been pulled on at all.

Jeff: and barely mentioned.

Brent: Exactly. Exactly that. Uh, Jeff, I just, oh. Okay. Maybe I just jumped the gun because I like Jeff, I'm, I have been holding onto this for so long, like I've, I so want this to be what it is about and, and, but

Jeff: In my mind, if you're right

Brent: a little smaller than that, so.

Jeff: in my mind, if you're right, this is what it'll be. What episode? 17 of this. So I think that's the rest of season three and probably the first five or six episodes of season four, because I mean

Brent: I, I don't think that this gets wrapped up. I, I don't think this gets wrapped up in a two-part episode,

Jeff: no, no. Whatever happens in this two-parter, I think, which, whichever one of us is closer, it's two parts that sets up the next.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Like thi this is what kicks off that final. Narrative. Like, like we're here at, we're here at the top, we're here at the Apex, and now here's everything that happens after it. Like, here's the war, here's how things start going bad before they, before we pull out the day of sex Mauna and win at the very end.

You know? Uh, and then, and then season five, is that, that just sort of skating off. Alright, where do we go next? Uh,

Jeff: I'm excited to watch this now, . I can't wait. I gotta see what it is.

Brent: are you sure? We have to do this in two parts.

Jeff: Yeah, we do, we really do.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: I'd say that now, . Let

Brent: You'll text

Jeff: back to you.

Brent: You'll text me

Jeff: Well listen, I'm, I'll stand on my soapbox and tell everybody we're gonna do this. Don't tell us to do it otherwise.

But if you log on here next week and you see the whole thing done, don't be surprised But here's the cool thing about that, right? We are all, every single one of us here is gonna fi we have all have something to look forward to next week, right? You, the community, have to look forward to. Are we gonna do it in one or two parts? Brent, you and I have some incredible episodes to look forward to right here on Babylon five for the first time.

Thank you all so much for joining us for this conversation. If you haven't already, please subscribe or follow us wherever you're listening or watching, and leave us a review pop over to Apple Podcast or Pod chaser, good pods, any of those places, audible, leave us a rating or review. I'll read it right here on the podcast.

So, Brent, until next time. Oh yeah. Hey,

Brent: Hey, um, did you get that text I sent you?

Jeff: I is , is it the one that said that I'm supposed to refer to you as, uh, Londo in, in public now.

Brent: I, I have often told you that that's the character that I want to be and play and cosplay, so, yeah. You good? What, what do you think? You like it, you good with it?

Jeff: Um, sure. I mean, I can call you Alando, but like, can I still, like, can do I have to change your contact in the phone? Like, can I still just call you Brent when it's us?

Brent: Londo

Jeff: No, I'm, no, like just you and me. Like if I were just talking, can I just be like, Hey, Brent.

Brent: Londo.

Jeff: Well, um, oh, all right. Londo, please. Victory and Long Life.