Babylon 5: The River of Souls - Part 1

Written By:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Directed By:

Janet Greek

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Release Date:

1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the third of the Babylon 5 TV movies made for the TNT network: The River of Souls. I keep wanting to call it River of Souls but there's definitely a 'the' at the start.

The first two TNT movies, Thirdspace and In the Beginning, were filmed before season 5, in May-June 1997, but this was filmed after the series had wrapped, between 1st-21st April 1998. It's a film about the Soul Hunters, from one of B5's least-loved early episodes, so I wonder how many people showed up for work on that first day wondering if it was an amazingly elaborate April Fool's prank. The series was over, writer J. Michael Straczynski could've told a story about anything, but he decided give the Soul Hunters another shot!

At least the film's got a good director: Janet Greek. She had directed stories like Signs and Portents, Chrysalis, The Coming of Shadows and The Fall of Night. Plus it features some real stars in the cast, including The West Wing's Martin Sheen and Deadwood's Ian McShane. No seriously.

Chronologically the movie should come about halfway into a season 6 that doesn't exist, but it actually aired with three episodes of season 5 left to go. They moved it up a couple of weeks so that the finale wasn't overshadowed by it (or vice versa), messing up the order. I'm watching it after Objects in Motion and Objects at Rest however, so there may be SPOILERS here for the two episodes... in addition to all the stories that came before them. I'll not be saying a word about anything that comes after though, so this is first-time viewer safe.

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The movie's intro cutscene begins with a tour of an ancient ruined city. It's a cliché to complain that CGI looks like it's from a video game, but I won't be too shocked if this ends up leading to four CDs worth of mouse-driven multimedia puzzle solving.

I'm torn on these visuals, because on the one hand this is more ambitious than what you'd see in Star Trek: Voyager season 4 or Deep Space Nine season 7, but the other hand CGI in 1998 just wasn't at the quality of a good matte painting or model yet. Even 1999's Star Wars: The Phantom Menace used miniatures for some of its locations.

The camera flies inside an ancient CGI building, finding a real life set full of real actors, and one of them's Deadwood's Ian McShane! He's playing archaeologist Dr Bryson and his buddy Klaus almost feels like he's playing Susan Ivanova with some of the dialogue he's been given. His line about how it's annoying when the universe makes you work for your damnation is very jms.

They continue digging into the wall and find a disc with the symbols of life and death on it. How it got into the wall isn't explained, but no one seems too amazed about the discovery. In fact Klaus would rather they took a break, or went off to try to dig into an easier vault instead.

He's even less impressed when they finally break through into the ancient sealed vault and immediately realise that it smells of an ancient sealed vault. Everyone's gagging on the stale air except for Bryson who thinks it smells like victory!

Inside they discover ancient CGI, perfectly preserved on DVD.

Klaus is really done with this whole thing now, as he was apparently expecting actual treasure or at least some alien technology they could sell. What they've found is a very inefficiently laid out storeroom for "Thoughts. Memories. Personalities. Souls, if you believe in souls." Man, have they actually found the Soul Hunter homeworld? Is this what the Soul Hunters do with their souls? Stick them on a shelf and then seal them away for thousands of years? They should've called them Soul Hoarders.

Bryson assures his friend that he wasn't lying when he said there'd be money to be made here, as they may have discovered the key to immortality, but Klaus just wants to take his men and leave.

Oh by the way, as they were breaking into the vault there was a shot of this glowing ball rising out of the roof with dramatic music playing. I didn't get what it was about at first, but now it seems like it's a security alarm and Klaus is worried that someone's coming. He and the others make a run for it as they don't want to die for a bunch of whispering orbs.

But in a film like this there's always got to be someone dumb enough or greedy enough to stick their head in the alien egg or take the treasure that shouldn't be taken, and Bryson's not leaving without at least one glowing ball in his bag. He also swipes an alien gadget sitting next to it, because why not?
 

At this point Klaus and his friends have made it back outside, and Bryson reaches the exit just in time to see their CGI stunt doubles being chased by an alien security drone! It looks like they might have a chance to run for cover when it misses and hits the ground behind them, but then the ground explodes. So they're all dead now.

The drone turns and flies past the opening, so Bryson ducks behind a wall for a bit and waits for it to go. Then he starts talking to his precious glowing ball like it's a loved one that needs to be consoled and then rescued. So that's perfectly normal.

I like the Christmas lights by the way. They don't provide a lot of illumination but the make the place feel cosier. Anyway, the drone flies away past the camera (in a shot they later recycled for the opening credits of Crusade), and it cuts to the title.

ACT ONE

Hey it's Babylon 5 station! It's interesting that despite the huge improvement in processing power and CGI technology over the five years the series had been on for, Babylon 5 itself doesn't look all that different than it did back in episode one. Plus they've brought back the old transport ship too!

Inside the station we see a cheerful Captain Lochley going around the Zocalo buying a vase and talking about how great it is to not be in the middle of a crisis right now, while her sidekick Corwin tries to find a moment to give her the bad news. She tells him a story about the Pauli Effect and how some people are just magnets for trouble. It's basically the opposite message of the episode Grail, which featured a guy who thought he was jinxed because he survived a bunch of accidents. Lochley's pretty much saying that Sheridan and Garibaldi are jinxed and it's nice for everyone here that they're both far far away right now.

The punchline to this joke is that Corwin's finally able to tell her that Garibaldi's on the station, and then a fight immediately breaks out behind them.

The trouble is that Garibaldi's credit comes on screen during the setup for the joke, so it kind of gives away the reveal. Plus I don't think Lochley's been given any reason in season 5 to think that Sheridan or Garibaldi have been attracting trouble (only assassins) and I don't want poor Garibaldi to be cursed. In fact I don't want anyone on this show to be cursed! Babylon 5's not that kind of series, it doesn't really do 'supernatural'. Well... except for all those souls in orbs.

What's interesting though is that the fight only breaks out when Lochley hears about Garibaldi's arrival, not when he arrives, implying that she's causing the chaos subconsciously. Actually what's really interesting is that the fight breaks out almost a minute into the scene, and there hasn't been a single cut yet.

Lochley's very first appearance on the series back in No Compromises featured a complicated one-take walk and talk through rooms full of extras that lasted around a minute. For her introduction this time director Janet Greek has given her an even more complicated one-take walk and talk which includes shopping and fighting, and lasts twice as long! There's a lot that could've gone wrong here, and probably did a few times, but they pulled it off.

At the end of the scene this guy finishes his drink and then heads down to a part of DownBelow I don't remember seeing before. I assumed he must be up to something suspicious involving Lochley, seeing as he left the Zocalo at the same time she did, but that's apparently just a coincidence.

It turns out that this is a holobrothel and he's come to spend some time with a custom made hologram designed to look like the photo he's brought in.

They're apparently making holograms from photographs of people wearing clothes, so I guess it's basically like they're deep faking someone's face onto a sexy hologram body. Which is really creepy.

The owner offers the guy instructions on how to use the suit that's waiting in his room, but he says he's sure he can figure it out. He just wants to get in there already!

With him sorted out, the owner gets back to reading "Lecherous" magazine and making awesome puns like "Another day, another holo". His silent assistant is entirely unimpressed so first he tries to explain it, then he threatens to make her say it every time she answers the phone. I'm not keen on the dialogue to be honest.

That's the suit the customers wear hanging up behind them by the way. I think it's supposed to look kind of bad, as a joke. In fact the whole scene feels like it's from an old 80s or 90s sitcom, with this guy giving a performance to match. He's played by Joel Brooks, who I've seen before in Deep Space Nine. He was the alien who introduced Quark to the game chula in the classic episode Move Along Home. I suppose now he's the one running the holobrothel he's actually become Quark. (Personally I would've cast Ian McShane as the Quark-style character, and maybe put him behind a bar.)

Suddenly the lights flicker and there's a cry of pain coming from one of the rooms, so the owner slams his magazine down and storms over there, yelling that he offered him instructions for the suit!

Hey Garibaldi's got a goatee now like Sheridan!

Garibaldi explains he's been busy investigating all the black projects and research programs started by the previous owner of this company he's inherited. The only reason he's here on B5 right now is to meet a researcher and listen to what the guy's been doing with the money he's been giving him. Then he'll be on his way.

But it turns out that this is actually another comedy scene, as it turns out that he invited the guy to meet him in Lochley's office! Lochley's a bit annoyed by this and asks if he let him stay in her quarters too, and Garibaldi replies he appreciates the offer but he wouldn't want to impose.

Then the two of them suddenly get very serious for a moment... unfortunately they also get really quiet so I had to put the subtitles on to tell that Lochley was asking him if he's still sober. Thankfully he is.

Just then Garibaldi's researcher arrives and it's turns out to be Dr Bryson! It also turns out that he and Lochley immediately hit it off, so Garibaldi is left lurking in the background as they talk.

Bryson explains what he's a doctor of, which Garibaldi simplifies to "He digs stuff up," as a quip. Lochley finds that a little patronising however, especially as it turns out she knows a bit about the subject. They discuss palynology for a bit while Garibaldi brings the comedy with his growing impatience, until he finally interrupts so he can talk to the guy he's here to talk to.

Turns out that he and Bryson were only meeting in her office, not having their meeting in her office, so that makes more sense to me now. Though what's weird is that this is the last time that Lochley and Bryson ever talk to each other in this entire film. Plus I suppose the ball glowing in Bryson's quarters is a bit weird too.

ACT TWO

Act two begins with Bryson explaining to Garibaldi what his 2 million credits per year is getting him. He's been working on a project called 'Life Eternal' - searching for ways to eliminate death. (We already know that immortality is possible, as we've met Deathwalker and Lorien, but neither of them are mentioned here.)

Garibaldi presumes that the plan was that only the rich would get the benefit of a longer life, which Bryson confirms. I'm glad the former security chief hasn't forgotten his working class roots already! I guess this means that the contents of the vault really could have made Klaus a lot of money, if he hadn't ran off and got blown up. Bryson's being really cagey about what he's discovered though, so Garibaldi tells him how this is going to work out: either he gets information about what he's up to by tomorrow morning or he leaves and the funding is cut off.

Then Bryson starts getting a bit weird again, talking about the meat on his plate and how death is part of our very consciousness. He's figured that the key to immortality is leaving his meat body behind and living on as purely his mind.

The next person to show up at Lochley's door is Mr Klute, the customer from the holobrothel who got a bit of an electric shock from his suit. He's really not keen to be here and I can imagine why, but Lochley promises this is all going to be confidential. So he tells them about the holobrothel and their faulty equipment, and this is all news to Lochley. She had no idea the station even had a holobrothel, so she's going to send Zack to sort that problem out.

Before the scene's over though, it turns out that Corwin's got a gift for her.

It's a love bat! It came in a box marked 'fragile', but I think they were being overly cautious there as it's a padded baseball bat designed to play affirming voice clips during the process of self-flagellation. It apparently helps Corwin with his own stress so he figured it might do her some good too. And it actually does! Well she finds the concept funny at least.

The thing is though, this scene is 23 minutes into the movie; if this was a regular episode it'd be halfway over by now, and there isn't really all that much of a plot happening at the moment. There's been more comedy than story and it kind of feels like the film's dragging its heels.

Writer jms mentioned that part of the reason the movie turned out this way was because he'd just written 21 episodes of a 22 episode season and as far as his brain was concerned he was done for the time being. He was exhausted and ready for a break. But he wrote it anyway and when he's tired he apparently writes more comedy. Unfortunately he was tired so it's not great comedy.

Meanwhile Bryson's determined that the device he took from the vault needs to be plugged in and I guess they don't have plug sockets in the future, as he's opened up the wall of his quarters and has pulled out some cables. That's probably not what you should be doing with live wires!

He inserts the cables into the gadget to see what happens. Sparks and smoke happens. But he just carries on and discovers that it's a little holographic screen.

When he points the screen towards his ball he sees an alien face!

Bryson decides to test the capabilities of the device and determine if this soul-vision is two-way by asking the alien face if it can hear him or see him. The results are inconclusive. But we do learn from his journal entry that it's currently the 11th of June 2263, so about a year after Byron's hunger strike, two years after Thirdspace, four years after the beginning of the Narn-Centauri War and five years after the discovery of the Great Machine on Epsilon 3.

At this point Zack's made his way to the holobrothel to shut them down, but the owner (Jacob Mayhew) isn't all that interested in being shut down. He does spend a moment showing off the technology though, explaining how the sensory telemetry body suit gives you the feeling that the hologram is actually touching you. Meanwhile the guy he borrows the suit from has to stand there looking incredibly embarrassed.

Speaking of suits, it turns out that Zack's still in his Interstellar Alliance uniform, Corwin too, so I guess they haven't finished selling the station back to the Earth Alliance yet.

Anyway Jacob says that his entertainment permit didn't say he couldn't set up a holobrothel and the station apparently never checked what kind of business he was putting here. Also he's allowed to do this because of "freedom of speech" etc. Zack's willing to make a fight out of this though, and he mentions quite loudly that he might want to warn people that his equipment's dangerous. So Jacob gets 'Riley' on the line.

Meanwhile Bryson has decided to try increasing the power and ends up summoning a soul right out of the ball. We don't know if it's the gadget making this happen or if souls can just manifest as ghosts, or what's happening here. All I know is that this is Wayne Alexander back again, playing his fifth alien on the series.

Bryson figures that he must be an alien mind preserved at the moment of death, but the alien tells him he doesn't understand... in English. So that's weird and convenient. Then the alien starts screaming "LEAVE US ALONE!", turns red, and dives back into the ball. Bryson decides that he should be writing this down.

A while later Bryson's fallen asleep and his pen slips out of his hand, knocking the soul ball so that it rolls into the device. This is apparently a bad thing, as the wires light up with ghost electricity, which escapes into the station's power system. It's like jms finally ran out of Babylon 5 stories and went back to writing The Real Ghostbusters for a bit instead.

Zack is taking a stroll through a dark empty hallway when he discovers a transparent figure crying on the stairs, asking "Where are my children?" over and over. He tries to ask if she's okay or needs help, but she just leaps off the stairs, turns into a blob of energy, and flies off. So that's a bit weird.

ACT THREE

Lochley hasn't actually had much of a crisis to deal with this episode, but that changes when James Riley interrupts her breakfast. He's the attorney for Jacob Mayhew, owner of the New Way Holosystems Corporation, and he's brought her a restraining order, an official service of papers and a subpoena.

Both Lochley and Babylon 5 are getting sued for restraint of trade, harassment, infringement of free speech, not allowing him to have an attorney during questioning, and slander. Wait, has anyone ever had an attorney present during questioning before in this series? Also all Zack said was that he should tell people the equipment is faulty is dangerous, because that's what Mr Klute told him. And what does running a holobrothel have to do with free speech anyway? The holograms don't even say anything!

Turns out that Riley's played by just as broad of a comedy actor as Mayhew (in fact he voiced Earl Sinclair in Dinosaurs), so this subplot probably isn't supposed to be taken entirely seriously. Riley fails to see anything funny about any of this though, especially as it could cost Lochley several million credits in fines.

I feel like the first rule of being a Babylon 5 director should've been "Don't stick the camera right up close to the walls". The sets have been getting better I think, but these older ones have some flaws and they don't look any better when they're magnified like this.

Anyway, Garibaldi's arrived at Bryson's door to talk about those notes of his, but the guy doesn't want to see anyone right now. So Garibaldi lets him know that he's absolutely fine with walking away and taking his money with him, and the door opens.

Turns out that Bryson's been busy burning his notes. We're going back to Thirdspace's Lovercraftian themes here as the scientist has stared a little too deeply beyond what is comprehensible to mortal minds and has gone even more loopy than he already was!

He asks Garibaldi a hypothetical question: if he took his memories away would he now own him? Probably not the best thing to say to someone who was brainwashed by telepaths for a year. Garibaldi keeps his temper in check and tries to inquire further, but Bryson doesn't even want his money anymore. He just wants to listen more closely... to them.

We get a voice over from Zack saying "He's nuts! He's out of his fraggin' mind!" which is an interesting assessment seeing as he's not even in the scene.

Turns out the movie was using that editing technique where you play the first lines of the next scene over the end of the previous scene to make the transition slicker. Zack's actually talking about Jacob... or maybe his lawyer Riley. Whichever one came up with the idea of suing them. Lochley says that their plan isn't necessarily to win, it's to intimidate them and keep them from shutting down the holobrothel until the lease has ran out. Scare tactics.

Zack brings up the fact that they've fought the Shadows, so there's no way they should be letting this guy beat them! (Well, they were around while other people fought the Shadows). He also mentions that Jacob used the hologram of a crying woman to scare him earlier, though Lochley points out it wouldn't be possible for him to project the holograms that far. Because of the power requirements, not the range of the projectors, weirdly.

Then Garibaldi turns up to tell them he's leaving the station...

... just as a Soul Hunter ship appears from the jumpgate! I was wondering if Garibaldi would be able to recognise it from the glimpse he got five years ago and it turns out that he can. He doesn't mention that they were banned from visiting the station though. Meanwhile Bryson's soul globe starts really glowing and he decides to take it for a walk.

Garibaldi explains that Soul Hunters go around collecting the souls of important people at the moment of death. Just then Zack starts coughing and they both stare at him. Hey that's a joke that kind of works... I think. Lochley realises that Garibaldi's first-hand Soul Hunter experience makes him useful and asks him to stick around as they go to greet the pilot in the customs area. I'm sure they must have a Minbari ambassador they could ask for insight as well, but there's always a risk that they'll grab a gun, yell "SHAK TOT!" and try to kill them.

And in this movie the Soul Hunter's played by...

... Martin Sheen!

They originally offered him the role of Dr Bryson, but he read the script and was more interested in the Soul Hunter, even after they warned him about all the makeup. This was an interesting period for Martin Sheen's career as a year earlier in 1997 he was playing the villain in the terrible comic adaptation Spawn, and a year later in 1999 he was cast as the lead in The West Wing. So Babylon 5 got him at good time really.

The original Soul Hunter from the episode Soul Hunter, struggled a bit with speaking English at first, and this guy's the same. They can apparently pick up languages telepathically and become fluent very quickly, but we're not told that's what's happening so the scene comes off as a bit weird.

The Soul Hunter explains why he's here via voice over while we get to watch Bryson unpacking his ghost ball somewhere in DownBelow. It's very fitting considering that this is the point where the Soul Hunter takes over as the guest star and Bryson basically just stares at an orb in silence for the rest of the movie. No wonder Sheen didn't want the role.

Turns out that the Soul Hunter knows that Bryson stole their ball and he knows he came here with it, because Bryson's dead friend told him. The lights start flicking and he holds up a soul sphere to illustrate how. Man, poor Klaus. He didn't believe in ghost storage and now he's in one (probably).

We then get some exposition about what's actually in the ball, with some CGI clips to make his presentation more interesting.

This is the planet Ralga, home of an advanced race of poets, dreamers, philosophers, and leaders who decided they liked their tiny city by the sea so much that they never left their world. (They had other kinds of people too, but those are the targets the Soul Hunters like to claim.)

The Soul Hunters are able to sense the coming of death and they felt that this entire race was going to die somehow.

So they couldn't resist swarming in to 'save' everyone. Not just the greatest of them, not just the rare shiny souls, but every single person on the planet. We get lots of shots of this to demonstrate. I don't mean of the 'saving' part, we never actually see anyone on Ralga, I mean we get lots of shots of the swarming. Dozens of ships flying past the camera from all kinds of angles.

Personally if I was a Soul Hunter I'd probably stop for a moment here to make absolutely sure this mass extinction wasn't caused by something like an incredibly infectious plague that could cross species, or a supernova, or a Shadow Death Cloud. Because chances are that something that can kill all of them on the exact same day can probably kill you too.

I can get why they did it though. I mean this must have been the best day ever for the Soul Hunters. They were getting lots of souls saved and hanging out with other Hunters that they hadn't seen in forever.

Wait, how did we get to Lochley's office? The Soul Hunter started the monologue in the customs area but once the CGI was over they were all in here instead; that's really weird. Anyway the Hunters put all the Ralga souls, one billion of them, into a single vessel and then stuck it in one of their Whisper Galleries somewhere where people would never find it.

Once the exposition is over the four of them have a bit of Star Trek conversation to discuss what they just heard. Garibaldi doesn't believe in souls, but he thinks it's plausible they could've pulled a Black Mirror and recorded their minds. Lochley doesn't think it matters either way what's inside the orb as it's stolen property and should be returned.

Zack, on the other hand, is horrified by the whole thing. The way he sees it, the Soul Hunters had no right to steal their souls in the first place and they definitely have no claim over them now. The Soul Hunter argues that there's no afterlife, so preventing people from dying is a good thing, but Zack believes that there is a Heaven (and gets a bit defensive about it), so this is keeping them from it. And maybe after a thousand years of captivity they've got revenge on their mind.

Anyway they've discovered that Bryson's gone missing and the Soul Hunter explains that if the souls have someone with knowledge and resources (and a physical body) working with them, they may be very dangerous.

Cut to Bryson having a one-sided conversation with his eye ball. He's clearly able to hear the souls better now and they've got a plan to destroy the station to end their existence. I don't know why he can't just crack the soul globe open, as that released the souls just fine in the episode Soul Hunter. I suppose he could've tried that already off-screen. Maybe he's been kicking it down all the corridors and dropping stuff on it, trying to break it. Basically reenacting the start of Ace Venture: Pet Detective.

Or maybe the souls are just as bored as I am right now and they want something dramatic to happen, I dunno.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO

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COMING SOON

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The second half will be coming very soon, so I hope you're hyped for that.