Babylon 5 3-02: Convictions

Episode:

46

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

13-Nov-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing words about Babylon 5's Convictions, the second episode of season three.

There's a weird pattern going on with the titles here, as season two started with episodes called Points of Departure and Revelations, and now season three has started with Matters of Honor and Convictions. Sadly the episode after this breaks the pattern, as the title A Day in the Strife is nothing like season 2's The Geometry of Shadows. They should've gone with The Day of Strife and spared us from the pun.

Okay, I'm going to go through the whole episode now, writing my thoughts under screencaps, so if you want to avoid SPOILERS you'd better stop reading here. Though I'll only be spoiling events up to this point in the story arc, so if you're watching the series for the first time you don't have to worry about me ruining it for you.

---

It's Zack! And he's being poked by Drazi missionaries.

They heard that one of their angelic beings showed up and saved the captain so they've travelled all the way here to poke things that were in the vicinity to share the blessing. Garibaldi was also hanging around in the customs area for whatever reason, but he was rescued by Ivanova and left Zack instructions to explain to them the station's missionary... position. It's one of those jokes where they make you think the line is going to go one way... and then it does.

Zack's not the most skilled diplomat on the station (he and Garibaldi both entirely failed to get the name of their higher being right) but he's clever enough to redirect their attention to something even more blessed while he sorts out their entry visas. Babylon 5 is often very respectful of people who follow a religion, but sometimes it sends them into the corner to poke a plant.

Whoa hang on, the walkway over the corridor set has a glass window in the floor? How come I’m only just now learning about this?

Ivanova's dragged Garibaldi away because she needs to talk to him about the anonymous messages they've been getting in C&C. The first one said "Chaos is four hours away," and the second said "Chaos is three hours away." After three hours of this they decided 'hey, maybe we should report this to security!' But there's no rush, so Ivanova walked all the way over here instead of using her link.

Garibaldi thinks it sounds like a prank call but he'll look into it. Somehow I'm not even surprised that it's possible to prank call C&C.

Then we're down in a part of DownBelow lit with orange pipes, where a gang of scavengers are looking for trash to sell. It's all been worthless junk so far, but one of them notices that box in the background with the flaps up on either side like it's a human mouse trap and climbs into it.

He gets in, the doors swing closed, and he's trapped.

Then it blows the whole room up! Kind of makes the 'trap' part seem a bit superfluous really.

Man, I hope that lurker climbed in at just the right time. It'd be really embarrassing for the bomber leaving the phone messages if 'chaos' started too early.

And that’s the teaser.

ACT ONE

Act one starts with original Draal and his squad of mysterious druids arriving on the station.

Actually the actor's playing a human monk called Brother Theo this time, though the episode plays with us for a moment by having him appear with his hood up. For a second it seems like he could be a familiar Minbari back from Epsilon 3 with his old face, cosplaying as a monk.

There is a good reason that Louis Turenne swapped roles: he couldn't reprise the role of Draal a few episodes back due to illness, so jms created another recurring character for him to play. Walter Koenig got the role of Bester for similar reasons (though he's not in this story).

Anyway Theo says that they'll be staying there for a while and that's the end of the scene.

Oh damn, the explosion ruptured the pipes and let all the orange lighting out! Now it's flooding the room and making it look like an real TV show.

The camerawork's usually interesting as well, as it pans across to follow Sheridan through the debris until it runs into a giant fan blade, which has to be winched out of the way before it can continue. Director Mike Vejar's back for this one and the episode's already making a good case that he's the best director the series ever had.

The crew aren't ready to presume this was caused by a bomb just yet, as the station is perfectly capable of blowing up all on its own, but they're not going to rule it out either. It's only been like two weeks since that Centauri bomb blew up the core shuttle and it's not like the people here have ran out of reasons to hate each other. Though it's hard to figure out what the political statement or purpose could be in blowing up a room full of nothing but worthless junk down in the slums.

The director couldn't do pretty lighting for this scene in the meeting room, so he had to go for extreme chair perspective instead.

Brother Theo and his monks would like Ivanova to agree to let them move onto the station, and she's surprisingly hesitant. I mean I could understand if they wanted to move in for free, but they intend to move into DownBelow and pay rent... which seems like a bit of a contradiction. Though I suppose there are actual bars down there, so it's not entirely maintenance corridors inhabited by the homeless.

Theo has somehow managed to find a group of well educated scientists who are also monks who don't mind living in a slum, and the plan is that they'll use their skills to make enough money to live here, and then spend the rest of their time chatting with alien visitors about what they've called their gods. The assumption is they all worship the same being and learning all their names will lead to a greater understanding of them.

It's not completely mad, seeing as everyone saw Kosh as a different being from their religion and this only brought them closer together. Though it's a bit optimistic for the monks to start a project that'll take five decades to finish, seeing that we've already seen two flash-forward visions of B5 blowing up in the near future (in Signs and Portents and Babylon Squared). In fact someone's trying to blow it up right now!

Oh shit, it’s Shang Tsung!

The first Mortal Kombat movie came out in August 1995 and this episode aired in November, so Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa would definitely be recognised by this point. When the main villain from a film that just spent three weeks at the top of the U.S. box office shows up as 'bomb technician #1', you have to suspect that there's more to him than meets the eye. Though the character actually does have a name, as Garibaldi calls him Morishi.

Morishi is honked off, as there's nothing here that could've caused an accidental explosion, meaning that his only week off for the last three years just got cancelled. He's going to have to wait another three years now! Maybe.

Man, I hope they haven't forgotten about those phone calls to C&C. They haven't even mentioned if the bomb went off when the message said it would.

Meanwhile Lennier is suffering in customs. Everyone gets to wear a hat but him! Also he's stuck there with a man so annoying that he's credited as "Obnoxious Man". He's played by the director of photography, John Flinn, last seen playing a guy called 'Flinn' in Grail who was trying to sue an alien for abducting his great grandfather.

Obnoxious Man was apparently going to be played by writer Harlan Ellison, but Flinn does a fantastic job of portraying a man who left his wife and went to outer space because she wouldn't stop changing the TV channel. And Lennier actually lies to get rid of him, saying he has a fatal disease spread by physical contact! Named after executive producer Douglas Netter!

He's not just dishonouring himself here, he's dishonouring the entire Third Fane of Chudomo! Man, Lennier, what's happened to you? Though it is horrifying to think of what it would be like to never be able to lie, not even to escape sitting next to Obnoxious Man at the airport. I mean I wouldn't lie anyway, but it's nice to know that if I had to, I could.

But just as Delenn and Londo are coming through the door another explosion goes off, and it looks cool! Look at that poor stunt guy engulfed in flame, it's awesome.

Lennier doesn't waste time questioning why Delenn and Londo are apparently both coming from the same ship, he jumps straight into action! First he knocks Delenn over with a shove, then he launches Londo with his Minbari strength!

Lennier has plenty of time to make it through himself but he hesitates and turns around, getting himself trapped on the explosion side of the blast door. Unfortunately it's the kind of bomb that explodes a few times before it's done so he's hit by another blast, bounced off the door and pinned under a girder. On the plus side it looked pretty cool.

They've got to stop ending every act with a bomb going off though or else there won't be any station left by the end of the episode.

ACT TWO

I guess the proper camera crew were still on their lunch break when it was time to film act two, as the episode's gone handheld for a bit. The documentary look really conveys the confusion and heightened emotions of the aftermath of a bombing, as it's getting right up in their faces as Londo demands that Franklin gives Lennier the best of care. Which is good, because he was going to half-ass it otherwise like he's known to do.

The scene is a bit more claustrophobic than it's meant to be though as they've cropped the shot for widescreen instead of using the full width of the footage like usual.

The next scene starts with a shot of a monitor showing the area the explosion went off, so if you ever wanted to know where customs is, now you know. The Zocalo too I guess, seeing as we've seen people walk from one to the other. It's not actually that far from C&C, so I'll give Ivanova a pass for walking down to see Garibaldi earlier.

You can tell that this is a real crisis as they've got a table absolutely packed with people here and only four of them are main characters. Things haven't been this serious since Confessions and Lamentations. They've even turned the lights on under the table!

Garibaldi's figured out what the two targets have in common: they're both areas with a lot of people around. So the bomber either wants the station's population to be scared or to be dead. On the plus side it seems like they'll be able to trace where the explosives came from.

Ivanova wonders if it could've been Homeguard or Free Mars who set the bombs, and man it's been a long time since I've heard either of those names. Homeguard were the anti-alien hate group from season one, and Free Mars were last mentioned in early season 2 I think.

The director couldn't put the camera right up to a chair this time so he's put it up in this extra's face instead. She did a fantastic job of not being distracting while Franklin was talking though.

Ivanova finally mentions those anonymous calls they got earlier and Sheridan says that they should assume they're connected. Not that it helps much.

Sheridan's also decided that they're going to dial down people's freedom to enhance their security, for the time being. They're breaking up groups larger than ten, they're confiscating and scanning unidentified packages and they're questioning people in restricted areas without proper identification. And just to make sure we can picture what he's talking about, we see clips of it happening.

But we're not the only one's watching! Nice shot of the monitor reflected in his glasses there.

My first thought when I saw him was 'oh damn, it's the arms dealer G'Kar was meeting with in Comes the Inquisitor!' But no, the bomber is an entirely different person with entirely different round glasses.

Speaking of things that are entirely different, Lennier's coma has given us a chance to see more of the new Medlab. I'm still not keen on those glowing grids on the walls, but the diagonal bars help make them look a little less cheap somehow.

Franklin explains that Lennier's head bone worked like a crash helmet and saved his life. So Delenn had better avoid getting blown up now that she's lost most of hers. One of the side effects of being half-human is an increased vulnerability to explosions.

Meanwhile Garibaldi has to deal with G'Kar yelling at him from the customs area all the way to the Zocalo in a one-take shot showing off how big these interconnected sets actually are. The scene is played for comedy weirdly, with the way G'Kar goes the wrong way at one point and eventually loses him entirely.

G'Kar's desperately trying to convince him that the Centauri are obviously behind the attacks, as they were the ones who bombed the core shuttle a few weeks ago. The fact that Londo was nearly killed and two other Centauri are dead doesn't shake his certainty one bit. It's a shame really, as G'Kar had a good run going. He's been right so consistently over the last year (without people believing him) that it's sad to see him leap to an incorrect assumption based on anger instead of evidence.

Oh, Garibaldi mentions that a Centauri vessel was leaving at the time of the bombing, so Londo must have been there to see someone off. The biggest mystery of the episode has been resolved.

By the way, check out G'Kar's new patchwork coat. At least I think it's new, I don't remember seeing it before. Delenn and Londo have had both a costume change to go with their evolution as a character and now G'Kar has too.

The Gathering

This is pretty much the outfit he's been wearing up to this point, for comparison.

The look of this series has come a long way since The Gathering, but G'Kar's still following Earthforce officers down the corridor complaining about things.

Of course while this is going on, Londo's ranting to Sheridan, trying to convince him that the Narn are obviously behind the attacks. He doesn't seem to see how his 'now you finally see what they're like, what we've been going through!' argument isn't likely to work on a person who was blown up by a Centauri bomb last month.

Londo also visits Lennier, as it's his turn to be Obnoxious Man and chat to him while he just wants some peace. Though he does actually shut up in the end to give Lennier a chance to talk. And a threat, that if he doesn't then he'll start talking again.

I get that Londo's rambling dialogue is supposed to be funny because he keeps awkwardly going on and on about nothing, but I feel like jms really needed to cut back on the dialogue on this series sometimes. There's really not a lot that needs to be said when the most hateable character in the series turns up to keep vigil over the man who saved his life. The fact that he's there at all says everything about what he's feeling, and that he's not a complete bastard.

Though the fact that we're at the end of act two had me worried that Medlab was going to explode next.

ACT THREE

Act three begins with Garibaldi letting the others know that they caught the next bomb before it went off this time. So that's why act two didn't end in an explosion!

You know, it occurs to me that we haven't seen Sheridan's office for a couple of episodes. Maybe they forgot where they put his desk and trophies between seasons so they can't rearrange the curvy wall pieces to assemble the set.

Morishi phones up to tell them that the explosives are the same batch used in a series of bombings on Proxima 3. Man they're going to feel so stupid if Proxima 3 got anonymous phone messages about chaos as well and it never occurred to anyone to check. Though it does occur to Ivanova that the bomber might be returning to the scene of the crime, so they could check the security cam footage to see if the same person keeps turning up.

Well, they can't do it, as there were too many cameras on the scene filming too much footage, but the monks can. Brother Theo's surprisingly rude and impatient about it though. Plus he shushs Ivanova!

By the way, notice how the guy's hood goes right up to the very edge of the monitor screen but doesn't overlap it? I think it actually does overlap a tiny bit, but the screens have been composited on top of it. My first clue that the screens weren't live on set was the way the footage shakes a little but the monitors don't. (The second clue is that they don't all fit inside the grey frames.)

Meanwhile Londo has to leave Lennier alone for a minute to do something, and the explosion absent from the end of act two finally sees its chance to get him. Though really there's nothing planned about this, as it's pure chance that Londo was next to two of the bombs when they went off. Just like it's chance that G'Kar is standing in the transport tube he needs to escape.

Londo hesitates for a moment looking for some other option, before finally leaping between the closing doors. It's like he learned nothing from what just happened to Lennier.

By the way, Peter Jurasik isn't standing in a corridor here. Babylon 5's famous for relying on CGI instead of models, but in this case they apparently built a huge miniature a few meters long and then sent some actual fire down it.

Yeah, that looks pretty real to me. The hallway's surprisingly convincing as well, though I'm not sure it's a compliment to say that Babylon 5's sets look indistinguishable from a tiny model put together in a hurry.

The transport tube has a ceiling! There's something we'll likely never see again.

At first I thought it was funny that parts of the set were wobbling apart as they were shaking it, but then bits started falling off and I realised it was intentional.

So now the lift's broken, and Londo are G'Kar both trapped inside. Who could've seen this coming?

Whoa, nice composite shot. It's a bit strange how the hole has such straight edges, but that's the kind of thing you don't even think about until you're staring at a screencap thinking of something to say. raised the camera up and moved the junk around.

There are so many good effects shots in this episode, it's just a shame that the video quality goes to crap whenever they're on screen because they weren't produced for widescreen.

Londo wakes up on the floor of a ruined transport tube to find that he's been out for two hours and G'Kar hasn't done a damn thing to help them escape.

There are no buttons on these lifts, they're entirely voice activated, so he yells "Green 2" a couple of times, burns his hand on the door, and then calls for help with equally little success. Actually that's not entirely true as when he shouts "Can anyone hear us?" he gets a quiet answer of "I can hear you!" from the Narn who's laughing his ass off on the floor behind him.

The terms of the Narns surrender state that if a Narn kills a Centauri, 500 Narns will be executed including the perpetrator's own family. But there's nothing there about what happens if they let them die from smoke inhalation. And after what Londo did in season 2, it'd be G'Kar's pleasure to watch him die.

When I think of this episode I always remember it being about G'Kar and Londo in this elevator, so it's weird to me that the scene takes place two thirds of the way through. I guess one of the best moments in the whole series is going to stick in your mind better than most. It was apparently intended to have a different tone, with G'Kar calmly accepting the fact that he has a chance to let Londo die through inaction if he also sacrifices himself. But Andreas Katsulas had the idea of G'Kar finding the situation hilarious, which had the side-effect of making the scene hilarious, and it works.

Though I'm still not convinced he says "Up yours, die!" like the subtitles claim, because that's a dumb thing to say.

ACT FOUR

Brother Theo's team has come through! They've found the same person at the site of every explosion and he looks like a RoboCop villain.

With the hard work done the computer's able to take over, checking the face against the passenger manifest of every ship coming in from Proxima 3 recently. Turns out it's just some nobody called Robert J. Carlson... and he's currently working in Station Maintenance.

Then the episode checks back in on G'Kar and Londo in their lift for a moment. G'Kar seems to be singing his song from Parliament of Dreams again, or maybe it's a sequel. "Not many fishies left in the sea, not many fishies just Londo and me."

Sheridan joins Garibaldi and his tac team as they go to knock on Carlson's door, but then the lights go out, the corridor starts sparking, and they're strongly encouraged to get behind a wall. Sheridan stands there for a moment to make a quip though, because no one in this bloody episode has the sense to run from explosions!

Carlson informs them that he's holding a dead man's switch linked to a bomb big enough to destroy the entire station, and asks if Sheridan's out there. Garibaldi yells "No!" but Sheridan yells "Yes!"

Garibaldi likely thought he was done worrying about his commander having a death wish when Sinclair was reassigned, but now Sheridan's going to go hand himself over to a mad bomber to buy them time and hopefully get them some information they can use. Though Garibaldi tells him that hiding his link under his shirt would be too obvious, so he shoves it down the back of his pants instead. Well okay it's not clear exactly where he shoves it, all we know is that if they jack up the volume they'll be able to hear what he had for lunch.

Fortunately they have the sense to make sure no one calls him while they're doing this, to avoid a "Your pants are talking to you," moment like in Parliament of Dreams.

Carlson may be an amateur mad bomber but he had the sense to go for the quarters with all the TV sets on the wall. Plus unlike Brother Theo, his screens all fit inside the grey rectangles! He's also smart enough to tell Sheridan to take off his jacket and open his shirt, to make sure he's not carrying anything. I don't think he mentions anything about pockets though.

Turns out that he's the kind of mad bomber that gets ALL SHOUTY every couple of lines, and he's basically lashing out at the universe because he got fired and his wife left him. The guy really needs to take a page from Obnoxious Man's book and try to see the positive side of life's annoyances. Right now though he just wants Sheridan to get him a ride off the station.

Carlson mentions that if he doesn't get what he wants, the station will go up in an explosion as bright as the sun. Garibaldi's listening in and realises that his job in station maintenance would've given him access to plant a bomb in the fusion reactor.

There's no explanation given for how Carlson managed to sneak a such a huge bomb out an airlock and into the reactor though. Or for how he smuggled all these explosives onto the station in the first place for that matter.

If this was an earlier season Garibaldi would probably get into a spacesuit and go out there himself, but instead he sends CGI Morishi. Only Shang Tsung can save them now, as long as Sheridan keeps Carlson distracted for long enough. They could just walk over the docking bays together, that'd keep him distracted for ages, but Sheridan's determined to do this the hard way.

He tells Carlson that leaving the station wouldn't do him any good as every Earth base 30 light years in every direction will know about him. That's maybe the first clue we've been given to the size of the Earth Alliance, if it potentially spans 60 light years. Though Babylon 5's only 10 light years from Earth and it's in neutral territory so who knows.

Anyway, Sheridan sits on his link and his ass beeps, which infuriates Carlson.

And soon there's a huge explosion as bright as the sun. Because it's the end of act four.

Fortunately Sheridan was able to keep Carlson from letting go of the dead man's switch long enough for Morishi's team to take the bomb outside. Sheridan knocks the mad bomber out while he's whining about it not being fair, then walks over to disarm the bomb on the door... leaving the PPG on the floor right next to him. Did they not teach him in starship captain school that you should always take the gun away from unconscious mad bombers?

Well, at least the monks will be happy. The crew have bought them at least another week to do their research! No boom today, boom tomorrow. Though G'Kar and Londo are still trapped and dying of smoke inhalation.

ACT FIVE

Over in Medlab, Franklin tries to tell Delenn a joke, but Lennier wakes up and ruins it by giving away the punchline. It's something he heard Londo saying earlier, so he was actually listening to him during his coma! Poor guy.

The way a TV episode should go is that Lennier realises that Londo's still got good in him and appreciates him dropping by Medlab, but instead Lennier actually kind of regrets saving him! He did what he did because he believes all life is sacred, that's why he's on the bridge crew of a warship. But when you save someone with a track record of doing really bad things, chances are that bad things are going to continue to happen.

It's just occurred to me, they still don't know that Londo's dying right now! They must think that he got bored and went off for a drink. Though there's still just enough time left in the episode for a rescue team to find the two ambassadors, much to G'Kar's annoyance. I want to like the final scene, but jms's tendency to keep the joke going too long strikes again as neither of them seems to be able to let the other have the last word. They just keep talking and talking and talking until one finally yells "Shut up!"


CONCLUSION

---

Convictions is an episode about two people at the peak of their hatred for each other trapped in an elevator together. Well, that's how I've always remembered it anyway. Turns out that's actually a very small part of the story.

When a writer puts two characters in a box together, it's often a way to force them to actually discuss their issues, learn something about each other, and work together to escape. But Londo and G'Kar are way past the point where they could talk through their disagreements and they really don't have much to say to each other. G'Kar's happy to just sing a song about fishies until they're both dead and the episode ends with them trading insults. There's no growth, no turning point in their story arcs, the only purpose of it was to update us on their current levels of hatred for each other. We got a great scene out of it though.

The episode was pretty stand alone in general, as the only consequence likely to stick is the arrival of Brother Theo. I'd say that this was kind of like an episode from the first season, but I wish season one episodes were this well directed. Babylon 5 always seemed a bit cheap and goofy even back in the 90s, but this is like a real episode of television! I don't know if it's the best looking episode of the whole series but it's got to be a contender.

It's a bit of a station in crisis episode, a bit of a cop procedural, and it's got a lot of scenes of the characters working through the problem. Though one of those characters almost had me wondering if I'd skipped an episode. It's not unusual for one of Garibaldi's officers to get a speaking role, in fact Zack Allen and 'Security Guard #1' both get screen time in this episode, and it makes perfect real world sense for them to call in a bomb specialist, but something about Morishi's role in the story is weird to me. The main villain from Mortal Kombat shows up, has a few scenes with Garibaldi, then saves the day at the end in a voice over, but the story's never about him in the slightest and unlike Theo or Obnoxious Man his part could've easily gone to a main character. I don't know if he's meant to be a red herring, or what.

There are plenty of other people with convictions in this episode though. There's the monks of course, who have to be fairly convicted to want to move to a slum so that they can ask people what their gods are called for 50 years. Lennier's convictions have him save Londo even though it may have been a mistake. G'Kar's convictions almost kill Londo, which should be a sign really that Londo should maybe rethink his convictions, as everyone wants him dead. Even the mad bomber almost manages to blow him up twice and he wasn't even (consciously) aiming for him!

Carlson the Mad Bomber is more of a trope than a person and I think I would've preferred it if his performance was a bit more John Malkovich and a bit less Nic Cage, but he worked I thought. There are so many characters on this series with very good reasons to hate other characters and even try to assassinate them occasionally, but Carlson was just striking out randomly at everyone everywhere. No one on the station ever did anything to him but "we live in chaotic times" so he decided to make himself an agent of chaos and terror. As people sadly do.

I think the folks back home are going to approve of Sheridan's actions this episode though, with how he curtailed people's freedoms to increase their security. The episode might not push any ongoing story arcs forward but it fits right in with the series' overall themes. Plus I remembered this being one of the better episodes, and it was. Well, it's up in the lower top third for me maybe. Perhaps upper middle third. It's a fairly average story elevated by the conspicuously unaverage direction and the scene of the ambassadors sharing a lift.

---

COMING SOON

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, Babylon 5's third season continues with A Day in the Strife.

Thanks for reading all of that. I'll make it up to you by reading your comments.