| Episode: | 101 | | | Writer: | J. Michael Straczynski | | | Director: | Stephen Furst | | | Air Date: | 15-Apr-1998 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally getting back to Babylon 5! It's been a whole month since I wrote about a B5 episode, but I guess that's kind of inevitable now that I'm alternating between Sci-Fi Adventures and Super Adventures every week. Plus this isn't the only science fiction series I'm writing about.
I've failed to find any evidence of this to back me up, but I remember once reading a magazine which called this episode The Crops is a Mother, the Crops is a Father and that's always stuck with me. Even though actual content of the story has faded from my brain.
Incidentally its actual name is the longest title in Babylon 5's whole run, with an astonishing 8 words and 32 letters (and a comma)! That's three times your average sci-fi title... probably (I haven't actually checked them all). I can tell you that it's beating Doctor Who's longest title, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, by one whole letter. But it's trailing behind Deep Space Nine's Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places (36 letters), Discovery's The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry (38 letters) and Star Trek's For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (40 letters).
I tried looking at some other series too but I got as far as Farscape's Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part 1: Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda (43 letters) before deciding that any longer titles should be recategorized as short stories and giving up.
This was directed by Vir actor Stephen Furst, who seemed to be showrunner jms's go-to for weird format-breaking episodes, as he also did The Illusion of Truth and The Deconstruction of Falling Stars. I suppose the series must get more normal after this as this was his final episode as director. Though he did direct two episodes of the spin-off series Crusade.
SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to spoil the entire episode scene by scene and I'll probably spoil something from earlier episodes as well. I'll not say a thing about what happens afterwards however.
It cuts inside and we see Alfred Bester walking down a hallway. The music's fairly upbeat and cheerful, the walls are grey and covered in signs saying things like "OBEY". So it's a little bit Orwellian.
As fascist offices go, this place actually doesn't look too stark and oppressive. Though the first thing that struck me about the room is that the Babylon 5 production crew actually went to the time and expense of building a set for Psi Corps HQ elaborate enough that you can walk down a hallway and enter an office!
Al's boss introduces him to his latest Byrons-in-training: Lauren Ashley and Chen Hikaru, who are both a little in awe of the guy. They're nervous but everyone's all smiles and jokes, and Bester agrees to show them the ropes.
Bester tells them a story about two patients at an asylum. One claims that God informed him that he's Napoleon, then the other patient says "I did not!" The moral is that many people overestimate their importance, and despite what Babylon 5's regular cast might think, their station isn't actually the centre of everything that goes on in the universe.
Okay then Bester, if Babylon 5's so unimportant, why aren't I watching season 5 of Psi Cops then? Huh? Or season 5 of Bester? Face it Al, all the Babylon 5 spin-offs we did get failed because Babylon 5 really is the centre of the universe.
One thing that's interesting is that he's not wearing gloves like everyone else so far, but by the look of the walls he does seem to be in the same Psi Corps building. Maybe even that same room we saw a moment ago, except with some different furniture in it. No sense in building another set if you don't need it I suppose.
Anyway it turns out that Babylon 5 is the centre of everything that happens and that's the end of the teaser.
Then we get the standard regular opening credits, except with one fairly major difference: the Babylon 5 sword and shield logo has been replaced with a Psi Corps badge along with text saying "Trust the Corps"!
This is supposed to be an image of a Psi Corps badge right now but it seems that the version of the episode on my Region 2 DVDs just show the normal logo instead. It's kind of disappointing actually, especially as I can't show off what the alternate logo looks like if I don't have an image of it.
Wait, hang on, I know where to get a picture of it! This'll just take a little extra work...
I like when a series breaks format like this from time to time. Maybe I should break format a little myself and take the rest of the screenshots from my VHS copy instead. I mean it's not like my DVDs are the best version of the series available anymore either, since it was remastered in HD. Incidentally, the HD remastered version does include the 'Trust the Corps' logo.
Okay I'm bored of VHS now, I'm going back to my DVD.
ACT ONE
There's only two people in this shot but they seem like real actors who've been composited in. The visual effects people have actually done a really good job of it, considering the reflections and the way the camera tilts up.
The three of them are still unaware that an actual plot got started back in the teaser so they've come to watch these two have a psychic battle. One of them is trying to scan, the other one is trying to block, and they keep practising this to eventually improve the length of time they're able to keep it up.
One thing I like about this scene is that they've resisted the urge to try to depict the mental battle using mid-90s CGI.
Bester explains that telepaths learn to endure what they're going through thanks to constant exposure and repetition, which seems like it could apply to the Psi Corps in general. The reason these guys are training so hard because when you join Level 12 Investigations (the Psi Cops), you have to face rogue telepaths who'll do anything to escape. You can't catch telepaths if you can't defend yourself.
He tells his interns that they may be up against dangerous people, but Psi Cops should only be ruthless as a last resort! Funny how often Bester has been pushed to his last resort over the last few seasons.
Chen doesn't feel like rogue telepaths appreciate all the work that Psi Cops do to bring them in 'intact' so Bester brings them to that room again (now redressed as a theatre) to show him that he's actually wrong about that!
It turns out that Gordon wasn't always a handsome TV presenter. Six months ago he was on the run. He was hungry, scared and looked less like Troy McClure and more like Garth from Wayne's World without the glasses.
Gordon shares some statistics, revealing that 42.5% of telepaths that leave the Corps go on to kill themselves within a year. I imagine it used to be lower but then Byron invited half his followers to take part in group immolation and really messed up the average.
The interns are genuinely getting into the video, but Bester has to stop it here because something's come up. I wonder if they're disappointed that they didn't even get up to the subliminal messages yet.
Bester's told that the woman who found the body was going to go with the victim to dinner before attending the concert later, so he comes over and reassures her that he'll make it right. This is Bester's episode and he's making sure that he's the hero of it!
You can tell that Bester's off-duty right now as he's wearing a more casual set of black clothes and he's taken one of his gloves off. The two of them talk about Bester's wife and how she lives miles away on Mars, and then Lauren suggests that she could... stay the night. Bester does his best to turn her down without making it any weirder, saying that he already loves someone, and that she shouldn't be embarrassed because nothing actually happened here!
Okay I just double checked and it turns out J. Michael Straczynski wrote this script, not Walter Koenig. It's actually interesting seeing Bester in a very different context, where everyone likes him and people actually appreciate his jokes. It's also interesting getting a glimpse at Psi Corps culture and how Bester being married didn't put Lauren off one bit. It raises the question of what the other high-ranking Psi Cops are doing with their trainees.
Right after Lauren leaves, Bester's boss arrives with news about their rogue telepath: they've learned that he's heading to Babylon 5. You don't have to be a telepath to sense what Bester thinks about that.
ACT TWO
Harris bought a ticket to Babylon 5 so they know where he's likely going and what transport he'll be on, but there's no point informing security as they'd be no match for a P10 rated telepath and when he gets away from them they'll have no idea where he's going. Besides, they need to keep up the illusion that nothing ever goes wrong within the Psi Corps to keep the mundanes from looking too closely at what they're up to.
Oh plus it turns out that Harris has trained to be a mind shredder who can tear a person's mind in two, so that's maybe something Bester needs to be aware of. Psi Cops actually have a pretty dangerous job!
Bester asks his replacement reflection "Why?", "Why'd you do it?" with the telepath in the mirror speaking the words along with him. The reflection replies that something went wrong and he'll never know what, and that's all he gets out of him.
Anyway, Chen dropped by to say that they're ready to go to the Space Port and catch a flight to Babylon 5.
Then when it cuts inside the music disappears entirely.
The rogue telepath has come here to join this game, but he has to ask the rules because he's never actually played it before. He's all cheerful enthusiasm though, not even slightly discouraged by the condescending chuckles from the others.
Chen wonders if the mothership they're departing from ever leaves hyperspace, which is an interesting bit of information to just drop on us. The Psi Corps has a secret mothership huh? That explains how Bester showed up on his own in a Starfury that one time; it must be a carrier for the Black Omega wings. The answer's "No", by the way. Bester tells them that this mothership stays hidden in hyperspace, just like all the others.
Meanwhile we see that Harris has been cleaning up in the casino, which hasn't made him any less cheerful. Though as he walks out with his sack of winnings the camera zooms in to someone sitting by the door, who's apparently taken an interest.
It's at this point that the Psi Cops finally dock at B5.
This is Zack's big opportunity to prove all Bester's claims of the station being unfriendly to telepaths wrong, though there was zero chance of that ever happening. Zack wasn't fond of the guy to begin with, but this episode comes weeks after Bester turned the telepath colony crisis into a full on tragedy, so the first words out of his mouth are "Don't you ever go away?"
Bester, on the other hand, is on his best behaviour in front of his interns, even when Zack wonders if he's here to hunt down freedom fighters, or maybe annex the Sudetenland. Damn, Zack's breaking out a surprising knowledge of World War II all of a sudden for someone who once claimed he used to fall asleep in WWII history lessons.
When Zack learns that the Psi Cops are here hunting a man who murdered one of their own he acts confused about how this is a bad thing. C'mon Zack, seriously? Then he's even more confused when Lauren starts giggling. Turns out that Bester mentally told her a dirty joke, with the intent to make Zack wonder what shameful secrets they've pulled out of his brain.
Okay, when they said Harris was a mind shredder, I figured he could shatter someone's psyche, not cause actual physical damage. That seems kind of bad, though the guy who was spying on him earlier is still lurking around and he seems intrigued.
ACT THREE
Bester goes off to a BabCom unit to call security to open the door, and while he's gone Chen decides to show some sneaky initiative and get the door open himself. Chen, he's getting security because that's the procedure you idiot, not because he can't open it himself. He literally just told you this.
Chen creeps into the pitch black room, trips over a dead body, and then screams in his face. I've got to give the actor playing the corpse credit for not flinching. Though maybe they just ADR'd the scream in afterwards, I dunno.
The victim this time was a gambler, but not the one who harassed Harris in that earlier scene. Turns out that Harris wasn't using his telepathy to cheat at cards, telepaths actually suck at gambling because they haven't had the practice (though that never stopped Lennier). What Harris did was use his telepathy to rip the guy's card-counting skill out of his head. So that's a new trick I think.
It's at this point that they learn about that other victim down in DownBelow who started bleeding from the eyes when Harris mentally Hulk'd out.
Franklin's examination of the victim has revealed that half his brain cells erupted, so that seems a little beyond telepathy. It's one thing to read a mind, it's another to explode a person's head. Bester assures the doctor that brain exploding can only be done by a P12, while their rogue telepath is only rated P10. And they don't make mistakes when rating telepaths.
But once they're out of the room, Bester drops his façade and tells the interns that this could be really bad! Harris might be more of a threat than he knew, and he already knew that he's a mind shredder! He has Lauren tell the main office to send them a copy of everything with writing on in Harris' room and then has Chen check out all the places you can go to do some gambling on the station. One of these jobs seems considerably more dangerous than the other.
Chen escapes at the last second before he can learn the terrible secret of what a pak'ma'ra's hump really is, but according to writer jms it's their female mate. So I guess this means that when we saw a pak'ma'ra in the Rangers a few episodes ago, that was actually two pak'ma'ra.
The reason he's in such a hurry is that he's actually spotted Harris! Chen was told over and over again not to go after the suspect... and he actually listens this time. He goes out to a BabCom unit to call Bester. Unfortunately Harris' creepy observer from earlier sticks a knife in his chest. So that sucks. He obeyed Bester this time and still got punished for it.
ACT FOUR
It's funny how this is supposed to be footage recorded by the BabCom unit behind Chen (was this episode sponsored by BabCom?) but it's clearly been filmed from the side.
Main office also sent over a video of a training session. Lauren mentions it's a shame they can't record thoughts and Bester replies "Give us time." Wow, the Psi Corps just became even creepier somehow! Though wasn't there a guy in season 1 who could actually do that? He had a weird hat and looked even weirder when he took it off.
This would usually be another lesson to the Psi Corps that experimenting on people to increase their power is a bad idea, but this time it was actually the training session that caused this to happen. Or at least that's what Bester thinks. So I guess the Psi Corps is actually innocent for once? Damn, this episode really is breaking format.
Bester told Lauren to find out if Harris has checked in anywhere under the name of one of his other personalities and her research has somehow brought them to a corridor in DownBelow where he's walking with Bryce. I dunno, maybe it's right outside his quarters.
Either way, Zack and his security team are here too and they've got them both surrounded. Unfortunately Harris and Bryce have decided to duck behind some DownBelow boxes and start shooting at anyone who comes close, so Bester tries to talk Harris down.
But when Bryce decides to take a shot at her Bester dives in the way to save his intern! This gives Zack a chance to resume shooting and move in to capture the two killers.
Bester's taken a PPG blast to the shoulder, but he still comes over and tells security not to hurt him. He's demonstrated a concern for Harris' wellbeing all episode and it seems genuine. The 'multiple personalities and one of them is a killer' trope is kind of cliché and probably not doing any favours to the people who suffer mental health issues in real life, but it does mean that for once someone actually didn't want to leave the Corps and Bester may be able to get him the help he needs. The Psi Cops are the good guys this time!
Bester's wound requires another visit to Franklin, who admits he doesn't want him around. But when Bester slips off the bed, Franklin goes to catch him. This hasn't exactly changed Bester's mind about mundanes, he's sure that Franklin wouldn't have bothered if he'd had a second to think about it, but Franklin gives him permission to scan him to prove his desire to help is genuine. Now we're finally getting to see Babylon 5 characters in their true light, not just a Psi Corps perspective.
Lauren arrives and tells Bester that both prisoners have been turned over to their custody, so for once they'll finally be able to leave Babylon 5 with the person they came for! She mentions that Zack will just be happy to be done with this, as he doesn't like their kind. Franklin asks how she knows that, and she replies "He said so." Aw come on Zack, why are you letting mundanes down here!
I mean I know he was probably talking about Psi Cops or maybe Psi Corps in general, not telepaths. He loved Lyta! But I guess from the perspective of a Psi Cop intern, telepaths and the Psi Corps are the same thing.
Also they've gotten the job done and are on their way to bring their rogue telepath home, plus one extra, both of them currently drugged unconscious to make the process easier. Lauren volunteers to be the one to take care of the mundane and Bester allows her.
It turns out that Lauren's exactly what Bester wanted Byron to be: Psi Cop material. It's a shocking ending that shows that despite everything, the Psi Corps were shits all along.
CONCLUSION
The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father is basically a surprise episode of Psi Cops slotted halfway into Babylon 5's final season. In fact most of the Babylon 5 characters don't even turn up, and the two that do are just supporting characters. This is Bester's episode, he's the unambiguous protagonist. Well, maybe a little bit ambiguous as Lauren and Chen get their own stuff to do. Still, Walter Koenig's the lead actor and he gets the job done, giving us a much more sympathetic and three dimensional Bester than we've seen up to this point.
In fact the whole episode's about shifting the perspective and showing things from the Psi Corps' point of view. It's a struggle to root for Bester after everything he's done, but Chen and Lauren seem untouched by its darkness and potentially able to be reached by people like Franklin. If only they'd stop wandering off whenever he's about to prove that there are mundanes that do care about telepaths. We're led to wonder if maybe one of the interns will see that not all humans are like Zack, or perhaps they'll at least make us see that not all Psi Cops are like Bester. Nope! It was just false hope to make the ending hit harder.
Lyta shared a rumour in The Paragon of Animals that claimed Bester had scanned people at the brink of death too many times and lost a piece of his soul in the process, but now we know that he's perfectly capable of being a decent human being when it suits him. He'll show sympathy to a traumatised woman, take a bullet for his partner, and protect a mentally ill fugitive... just as long as their mum and dad are both called 'Psi Corps'. Bester didn't lose his soul, the Psi Corps took it from him, and it turns out that exposure and repetition has made Lauren just as heartless towards mundanes as he is. She reminds me of Lyndisty from Sic Transit Vir in fact, all sweetness and giggles on the surface, but she'll murder someone who belongs to the other side without hesitation and it won't even occur to her to feel bad about it later.
The episode shines when it's giving us more insight into the Psi Corps, but the actual plot is less interesting. It's intentionally a pretty formulaic cop story about a veteran showing rookies the ropes that's elevated by how it tempts you to root for the bad guys, even as they're walking through corridors with OBEY written on the walls. It might have worked better in season 2 or early season 3 however. For one thing there's absolutely no reference to the recent telepath arc here. Plus we've already seen the station from a new perspective (View from the Gallery) and watched a group of outsiders get justice (Learning Curve). And it's weird to say this, but I might have had too much Bester recently. He's shown up in three other episodes this season already, and his appearance here doesn't feel so special anymore.
Also there are just 9 episodes of Babylon 5 left at this point and it feels like they should be skipping the skippable stand alone stories and start building up to an epic ending already. Oh hang on, I forgot that the finale's an epilogue that was filmed at the end of last season so there's really only 8 episodes left for them to wrap all this up.
NEXT EPISODE
That's not what's coming next however, as it turns out that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens. So I figured I'd check that out.
Please leave a comment if you're into leaving comments!
This episode always starts to feel metatextual to me. Bester is the protagonist, and suddenly Zack is being embarrassingly belligerent. It's as if the show shifting focus has shifted people's personalities as well, suggesting that the series has always been an unreliable narrator. What if we'd had a Morden-centered episode? Would Delenn have come across as a frothing religious zealot?
ReplyDeleteThen they casually murder a guy at the end, and everything is back to normal. Never mind!
I'm not sure there's anything sudden about Zack being embarrassingly belligerent, but it definitely hits differently when the Psi Cops he's talking to include Lauren and Chen. It's lucky Ivanova wasn't in this really because she'd be downright horrifying to them.
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