| Episode: | 11 | | | Writer: | Marc Scott Zicree | | | Air Date: | 04-May-1994 |
Looks like another goofy comedy episode this week.
Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Babylon 5 episode 11: Believers, at least that's what I wrote in the title box before I caught my mistake. It was cruel of them to put Believers and Survivors back to back like this, especially as they were filmed over a month apart.
I may have mentioned this already, but B5's first season was shot way out of order, with Survivors being produced immediately after Mind War and just before the season finale. In fact only three episodes in season one have an episode number that matches their production number: the abysmal Soul Hunter, the rubbish The War Prayer... and this one. I'm hoping that's the only thing this episode has in common with them.
Like always I'm going to screencap key moments from the episode and write SPOILERS under every one. But only episodes that aired before it will get spoiled, nothing that aired later.
This means we get to see EarthForce 1, which looks a bit like a squashed version of the ball-shaped starliners. We also get to see some fuzzy little Presidential Starfuries keeping it company. I think they've got blue on them!
This is one of those core shuttles running through the centre of the station where gravity is weakest, so they have to hold railings to get around. Fortunately Ivanova's spent so long in space now that her hair has become immune to low gravity... though it seems to have turned her uniform green. No clue how they screwed this shot up so badly when the colours looked fine on the shuttle ride in Mind War. It's like they got their G channel mixed up with their B channel.
But it's nice to finally get a glimpse at the inside of the ball part at the front of the station. I feel like they're on the train at the start of ‘Half-Life’ on their way to a science catastrophe, but they're actually going to stop by the Cobra Bays.
This reminds me of the ending to The Gathering, where an explosion knocked the station out of position and the crew were desperately trying to get it back in place before it tore itself apart. It was the big action climax to the movie! But this time they don't seem that bothered. Perhaps it wasn't as huge of an explosion, or maybe they're just really jaded by this point and they just get on with it without all the yelling.
ACT ONE.
All the monitoring equipment in the Cobra Bay was destroyed in the blast, but their best guess is that the explosion was a wildfire anti-proton reaction caused from someone forgetting to close the dampers on the plasma driver. Which I think is actually the closest the series has come to a line of technobabble so far.
Garibaldi knows Kemmer, her dad was a friend of his, but it's been 17 years since he last saw her and they didn't part on good terms. They're not parting on good terms here either as Garibaldi storms off and soon catches a criminal in the Zocalo he can take his frustrations out on.
17 years ago Garibaldi was working security for the ice mining operation on Europa and the place was such a corrupt craphole that it drove him to drink. But then he finally met someone else with a bit of integrity: Kemmer's father Frank. They kept Garibaldi sane and sober for a while, until some assholes blew up the shuttle pad to kill him and accidentally took out Frank instead. Garibaldi ended up being fired for negligence and went back to drinking, which presumably makes this the first of the five jobs mentioned in Infection that he was kicked out of.
Then at the exact moment the exposition is over Sinclair gets a call from Dr Franklin saying he's needed in Medlab immediately.
So he knew that Garibaldi had planted a bomb in the Cobra Bays and just on kept welding in there without telling anyone? Did he see it taped to the launch arm complete with a signed confession 10 seconds before it went off? Or was it a cartoon bomb with "Acme" written on the side and he's just making an educated guess?
ACT TWO.
Kemmer's still understandably pissed off about her father's death and she's letting it cloud her judgement. But she's pissed off that he got drunk and ran away afterwards as well, which is something he actually is guilty of.
He's apparently guilty of setting a bomb too, as her lacky Cutter finds schematics for the Cobra Bays and a large amount of Centauri currency in his quarters. So Garibaldi does the sensible thing and makes a run for it!
Sinclair goes off to find Garibaldi before his entire security force can and Ivanova orders a diagnostic on the communication channels to prevent Kemmer from calling Earth Central to override them.
We're apparently supposed to be watching Garibaldi walking by in the background but I didn't even notice he was there until I started counting all the hats in the screencap.
Garibaldi's here in a stolen shirt to see Ambassador Londo for information. There were Centauri coins in his quarters, so that's the only clue he's got to work with. Londo claims innocence, explaining that it's likely all G'Kar's fault. Certain equipment from their Ragesh 3 colony was taken during the Narn attack and the Centauri had to pay the Narn in hard cash to get it back, so he'd have the coins to plant in his quarters. Wow, I haven't heard Ragesh 3 mentioned for a while.
Londo decides to help his friend out and loan him some cash (it's usually the other way around), which means Garibaldi has enough to get by for now. Though he'll also be buying everything in Centauri currency and that's not going to look good to the people chasing him.
So Kemmer requests that she opens a channel. "Request denied, have a nice day," Ivanova responds, ending the conversation.
Ivanova is mean.
ACT THREE.
G'Kar knew he was coming because he's got people watching Londo. They both watch each other. And he knew that Londo would blame him, because he always blames him. He claims innocence as well, but offers Garibaldi a job on the Narn homeworld, explaining that "The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter and enlightened self-interest." And it's in Garibaldi's interest to be elsewhere right now.
Shockingly Garibaldi turns down the chance to use his talents to betray his own people, even though it would get him safely off the station. You'd think that this would be the part where G'Kar threatens to call security on him, the two have never exactly been friends, but he doesn't even seem to consider the idea. He just lets him escape back down the corridor to carry out the next step in his quest to prove his innocence.
Incidentally G'Kar's actor, Andreas Katsulas, played a notable role in The Fugitive the year earlier, so he's had some experience dealing with innocent men on the run.
But he's not about to admit he's a criminal to the chief of security, even if he claims he's been suspended, so Garibaldi walks away without the security access he needs...
So Garibaldi runs around the corner with the two officers in close pursuit.
Either Garibaldi ran around the block in a loop to confuse them or the director really did just move the camera a foot to the left and hoped he could trick viewers into thinking that they're looking at a different corridor. One that just happens to look exactly the same even down to the signs on the wall. What makes it worse is that the same set was used for the corridor outside his quarters earlier as well, so any time he's been running from people it's been outside this one doorway.
Anyway Garibaldi gives them the slip for now.
I haven't always been impressed by the music this season, especially during comedy scenes, but here it's sounding great. Sure it's also sounding very 90s, but the episode looks very 90s and I liked the 90s so I'm not seeing a problem. Well okay the little victory fanfare that plays whenever the fight goes his way is cheesy, but I'd rather have this than the sonic nothingness going on in the DS9 episodes I've been watching.
Unfortunately for the thief it turns out that Garibaldi hasn't gotten any worse at fighting since their last meeting and he soon has the guy pinned with a chain wrapped around his neck.
Outnumbered, Garibaldi soaks up punches until he's pinned to the ground, where he's mercilessly kicked and beaten. Good work Garibaldi, getting yourself murdered in your first starring episode.
But then out of nowhere a new challenger emerges: Commander Sinclair! He jumps down from some stairs and immediately starts kicking people in the face until they run away. The man managed to go two whole episodes without violence but if there's a fight scene going on, he wants in.
"Jeff, what are you doing here?"Well now we can add 'frying your own butt' to the list of things that humans have said.
"Trying to keep you from frying your own butt."
Sinclair wants to get Garibaldi to Medlab seeing as he just took a serious beating, but he can't give up his daring attempt to prove his innocence now! Not when he's so close to somehow finding a way to get the security access he needs to discover any kind of clue. Plus all the blood on his face is making him look more like Bruce Willis than ever and he can't give that up either.
ACT FOUR.
"No want hat?" the confused alien asks when he returns his headwear, "Take bottle! I go casino."
Garibardi pours a glass of the drink he's inadvertently bought and studies it for a moment. He's fucked up job #6 and this time it's looking like he might well get arrested for treason as well... so why not get absolutely wrecked? The music thinks it's a foregone conclusion and it pretty much is at this point.
Meanwhile his friend in the hat is outside selling him out to security!
Even the other drunks in the bar seem unimpressed by his comic overacting; they likely agree that it's very inappropriate for the tone of this episode. That said, the music is going for the opposite of comedy right now. It's very concerned for poor Mr. Garibaldi as he makes a fool of himself.
Hang on... have they added a clear plastic disc to the neck of that beer bottle in the drazi's hand to turn it into a space-beer bottle? How very Jetsons.
"Drunk again Uncle Mike?" she asks.
Now Garibaldi's in custody, Kemmer's goon Cutter rushes off alone to check the Cobra Bays one more time before the President arrives, to make sure he didn't go and sabotage them again.
Major Kemmer wants Garibaldi to just come clean already, as she honestly believes he's the one responsible for the bombing. Strangely no mention of telepaths have been made at all so far, even though you'd think she'd at least try to get Talia to scan him.
Suddenly Lou Welch interrupts. He was ordered by Sinclair to search the dead welder's quarters and he's found pamphlets linking the guy to Homeguard, the pro-Earth group they kicked off the station back in The War Prayer. Turns out that he was the bomber! He didn't know they were using plasma drivers in the bay and got caught in the blast when his bomb was triggered prematurely.
Garibaldi's theory is that the bomber intended to have the Cobra Bay blow out at the time of the President's visit. His alien immigration and trade agreements aren't very popular with the anti-alien Homeguard. Plus he has an additional theory: Cutter is the one who framed him and he's sabotaging the Cobra Bays right now!
You might be wondering why they’re called Cobra Bays when the fighters inside are called Starfuries. It’s because they run along the necks of the Cobra Arms, which look a bit like cobras.
So she walks one suspect alone to the other suspect, and then turns her back on both of them. You’ll never guess what happens next!
But the dumbass is distracted for a moment while reaching for Kemmer's pistol and Garibaldi takes the opportunity to kick the gun out of his hand and get into another fist fight.
People joke that Jerry Doyle looked like Bruce Willis, but if I told you this was actually a screencap from Die Hard you'd have to think about it for a second before you realised I was bullshitting you.
 |
| Die Hard |
After a short round two against Cutter, Garibaldi gets on the link again and this time Ivanova listens to him and cancels the launch countdown... with 1 second remaining on the clock. The episode has no shame.
ACT FIVE.
The Major has let her hair down because she’s not uptight and hateful any more. Or maybe she can just finally relax for a while now that the President is leaving the station. She tries to apologise to Garibaldi, but he lets her off the hook saying that "17 years we both died inside but somehow we survived. For better or worse that's all we can do." So that finally explains the episode title!
She gives him a hug, the end.
CONCLUSION
It took 11 episodes, but Garibaldi's finally has his own episode to himself, where he demonstrates the charm, ingenuity, integrity and dogged determination that got him fired from all his previous jobs and sent him spiralling into alcoholism.
Wait, 11 episodes? That means I'm halfway done! Well, with season one anyway; I'm only a tenth through the entire run.
Survivors is all A plot and probably better for it as there's no wild swings in tone and there's enough going on with Garibaldi's race to prove his innocence to fill up the run time without padding. It's just kind of a shame his investigation goes absolutely nowhere and after 20 minutes all he can do is run away, get his ass kicked and get drunk. Sure he had to fall to rock bottom before he was miserable enough to crawl back into a bottle, but it'd be nice if he learned something about the saboteurs along the way. Sinclair basically has to send Lou Welch to get him a free clue because he's struggling so badly, so it's not exactly a showcase for the security chief's investigative skills, and that made it less enjoyable for me than it could've been.
The episode doesn't have any shocking revelations, new pieces of the mythology, standout classic scenes or huge changes to the status quo, but it's watchable enough and there's a few nice moments in there (usually involving Ivanova making Kemmer's life miserable). Plus it builds onto the continuity, with the reveal of Garibaldi's drinking problem and secret backstory answering a mystery set up back in Infection. It also brings back the Homeguard group introduced in The War Prayer, which is kind of a shame as I was trying to forget that episode entirely.
As an episode I'd say it was pretty skippable, but I think the season overall works better with it around. Like Believers it's a reminder that certain pieces are in play, and having an extra bit of set up is only going to make later episodes stronger.
Babylon 5 will return with By Any Means Necessary. But next on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Doctor Who's Face the Raven.
That's all the writing you'll get out of me today, but if you want to write your own text in the box below I'm not about to talk you out of it. Share your own opinions on Survivors or my writing, either way your feedback is appreciated.
Whenever they mention Homeguard I can't help but think of Dad's Army. It's a bit of a tonal shift.
ReplyDeleteWow, I've never made that connection before. You've ruined Babylon 5 for me now.
DeleteSpeaking of ruining things, I visited the Dad's Army wiki page just to double check that they were in the Home Guard, and learned that there's a Dad's Army movie by the director of Johnny English Reborn and it came out this year. They did well sneaking that one past me, I had no idea.
"Don't panic, Mr Sinclair!"
DeleteThere seemed to be a big push for the Dad's Army film, right up until release day, then it all went a bit quiet. I don't think it was very good.