Babylon 5 3-06: Dust to Dust

Episode:

50

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

05-Feb-1996

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm reviewing episode 50 of Babylon 5! A few episodes got shuffled around the airing order along the way for various reasons, but not this one. It's absolutely, unambiguously episode number 50... unless you count the pilot movie as an episode, in which case this is 51.

I don't think they did anything special with the episode to celebrate the milestone though. That establishing shot of the station up there looks unusually pretty, but that's just coincidence. However, the episode's called Dust to Dust, which of course means that a major character's going to die before the end credits roll. But which one of them will it be?

It's Chief O'Brien! Sorry O'Brien fans, but this is the story that he dies in. Oh hang on, I forgot to mention that there will be massive SPOILERS in this review, for this episode and for earlier ones as well. But nothing that comes after it. Basically I'm going to pretend that it's February 5th 1996, this is the latest episode to air, and I haven't even watched the trailer for the next story yet.

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2-22: The Fall of Night

3-06: Dust to Dust

I don't know if it was deliberate, but the episode opens with a scene that really reminded me of the one in the montage at the end of The Fall of Night, where the shopkeeper is arrested by Night Watch as Zack looks on from the other side of the Zocalo. The two shopkeepers have got a similar outfit and hair, and I thought it was the same shop until I saw them side by side.

This time though things play out very differently. The man in The Fall of Night was arrested for "potentially disloyal acts", while this guy has 'Kick the Assassin Out of Earthdome!!!' posters with President Clark's face on them openly displayed on his shop and the security officer only wants him to take them down.

Zack couldn't do anything, but Sheridan steps in and tells the officer that it's just an opinion and he can leave them up. And he's going to discipline his officers if they bother people over something like this again. The poor guy, he was just following orders! The problem is that the security officers have got orders coming from two directions right now and Sheridan's being undermined.

For once airing the episodes out of order seems to have worked out for the series, as we're seeing the fallout from Clark's incriminating video chat getting out in Voices of Authority and learning that everything's still up in the air while the senate hearings take place. If Passing Through Gethsemane had aired between the stories like originally planned we would've spent that episode wondering what happened to Clark and why the crew weren't all sipping champagne and ripping propaganda posters down.

Meanwhile Garibaldi has paged Ivanova to come down to security, as he's got some news for her. Their old friend Bester is coming by for a visit! Makes sense, he always seems to appear around six episodes into a season.

Bester claims that it's he in pursuit of an individual who's a threat to them all, but they're a little hesitant to take him at his word seeing as the last two threats he came here to chase were: 1. an escaped test subject who just wanted to a place to hang out while he ascended to godhood, and 2. telepaths fleeing the Psi Corps. It seems like the common link between the people he chases is that their only real crime is wanting to get far away from him.

Cut to someone who's a genuine danger flipping out and murdering someone with a pipe while screaming "The mountain's falling on me!"

ACT ONE

Hey Jim Norton plays Narn Image in this episode! He's been in the series three times already, playing Ombuds Wellington in Grail and The Quality of Mercy, and Dr Lazarenn the Markab Doctor in Confessions and Lamentations. Most of the time he's gotten kidnapped or killed off so I hope Narn Image makes it through okay. Either way, this was Norton's last appearance on the series, as he had to fly back to Britain to get kicked up the arse by Father Ted.

Anyway the Army of Light have a major problem on their hands, as they've got heads full of secrets and Bester is both a mind reader and an utter bastard. The Psi Corps already planted a sleeper agent with an implanted personality on the station to spy on them, and that was before Clark took power, so they can't take any chances now.

It seems that they have two options: 1. get court-martialled and shot for treason, or 2. kill Bester first. Neither choice is ideal, so Sheridan encourages them to find additional options that are less murdery. Fortunately Delenn has a plan! I love that Delenn gets to hang out in the staff meetings and help solve crises now. Maybe they can get her an Earthforce uniform too.

Meanwhile Franklin's in Medlab treating the guy yelling about the mountain falling on him, when some of his staff bring another patient in, explaining that they think her condition's related. Franklin snaps at them when he can't find any similarities to their symptoms, but they explain that she broke her leg recently when a mountain fell on her. Seems like the guy may be taking Dust... which apparently causes you to flip out about other people's traumas.

Franklin actually apologises for getting angry, which surprised me, though he doesn't mention that it happened because he's an overworked stim addict. He's become a real crappy boss lately.

Over in C&C we learn that Babylon 5's defence grid can be voice activated, as Ivanova clears all the witnesses out of the room and then gives it the order to destroy Bester's ship. Sorry Bester, but with a title like Dust to Dust, someone was going to have to die eventually.

Fortunately for Bester, Sheridan was serious when he said 'no killing!' earlier, and he turns up just in time to belay her order. He's very understanding about it though. I mean, who doesn't want to kill Bester? Especially after what the Psi Corps did to Talia. Though it should be pointed out that IVANOVA JUST POINTED A GUN AT BESTER AND PULLED THE TRIGGER. That's where we're at now in this series.

Bester's furious when he finally docks, telling that security officer who hassled the shopkeeper in the teaser that he was hit by a sense of great personal danger. Telepaths don't have a spidey sense, they can't predict when a computer controlled mechanism is about to fill their ship with plasma bolts, so it turns out that Ivanova's hatred of the Psi Corps is so great that Bester can read it through walls and across space! He gets another hint that the crew don't like him much when he storms into Sheridan's office in a strop and finds it's full of Minbari.

ACT TWO

These Minbari are telepaths, here to make sure Bester can't read their minds. At least until he agrees to take sleepers to temporarily shut off his telepathic abilities. It seemed a little unfair last episode that Garibaldi and Delenn refused to tell Zack or G'Kar about their secret club, but it's becoming very obvious why they need to keep the circle small.

Sheridan actually straight up tells Bester that he doesn't like him, his attitude, the Psi Corps, or his Psi Cop uniform. Oh, plus he holds him responsible for the death of Talia Winters. There's so much anger in the room that people are actually talking over each other for once, and Bester letting slip that the Psi Corps dissected their friend doesn't do much defuse it. 50% of the officers in the room were in love with Talia, so that's a very effective button to press, though we've no way of knowing if it's true or if Ivanova's right and he's just trying to piss them off so he can read their minds easier. By the way, I like that it's Ivanova who tells them not to get riled up by the Psi Cop; the woman who hates them so much it can be detected from space.

Bester knows they're up to something, they know the Psi Corps are up to something, and they both know that if either of them reports it, everything they know will come out. But they don't know how much the other knows and who'll suffer most from being exposed, so for the time being the safest move is to find a compromise they can work with. Which means Bester gets to do his job, but he also has to take the drugs. Which he finds to be "sad" and "hysterical".

Speaking of compromises between people that hate each other, Londo and a pair of Drazi are having a chat, with the Minbari mediating. The new meeting room with the glass table is only for war council or mad bomber business, so they have to carry out their business in an entirely different circular room. It's really weird that a space station with limited room wastes so much of it with these curved walls. Though no more strange I suppose than using curved walls on a soundstage with limited space for sets.

Turns out that the Drazi are still a bit upset about the Centauri invading their space and killing a bunch of them. Londo maintains that the Centauri only attacked them because they need a buffer zone, like they said before... though now they need seven colony worlds instead of just two. It's all the Drazi's fault he explains, as the Centauri now require more of a return on investment after having to put more resources into the war that they themselves started. Then he basically threatens to flatten their homeworld like they did to Narn! I'm surprised Vir didn't stand up at this point and say "Oh for fuck's sake!" Instead he confides in Delenn that he still has hope for Londo, and that maybe a trip to Minbar would do him good.

Oh did I mention that Vir's back... after just two episodes. In previous seasons he'd go missing for weeks at a time, but now that he's been reassigned to Minbar we can't get rid of him!

Lennier feels that "A darkness carried in the heart cannot be cured by moving the body." Which seems a bit pessimistic about the possibility someone could gain new a new point of view after literally moving to a new point of view. But then he's probably just horrified by the idea of Londo ever setting foot on his homeworld.

After waiting four hours for the sleepers to kick in, Bester finally gets to tell the crew why he's here. Turns out that the Psi Corps believes that one of the main distributors of Dust has come to Babylon 5, which seems plausible considering all the Dust victims that have been coming into Medlab recently.

Dust is a drug that temporarily enhances the latent telepathic gene in most humans, letting them invade someone else's mind and experience what they've experienced. Kind of the opposite of the drug that Bester just took. I think this is the first time we've heard of what the drug does, but Dust's been a problem in the series before this episode. In fact it was the very first problem the B5 crew ever faced, as a Dust dealer took someone hostage when he was discovered right at the start of The Gathering. But only in the Special Edition.

Though wait, hang on, most humans have a latent telepathic gene? I'm assuming that has to be very different to Ivanova's latent telepathy, or else she has been freaking out about nothing this whole time.

Bester thinks that someone on the station has an interest in buying the Dust to use as a weapon, and even though the crew don't outright say who that might be, it's clear they've got a prime suspect. In case we haven't figured it out ourselves the episode gives us a big clue by cutting right to G'Kar buying some Dust.

The Dust dealer explains that the drug accelerates neural processing and stimulates a gene, and then you become a telepath for a bit. Not sure that's how genes work, but then this guy's not a geneticist and neither am I.

G'Kar's been trying to create Narn telepaths since The Gathering, because they don't have any, but he feels like there's a good chance they still have the latent gene. Turns out that they did have telepaths once, but they were all exterminated long ago. Probably 1000 years ago knowing this series. Everything happens 1000 years ago.

The dealer asks him who he's going to sucker into trying it, like he'd even know any of the other Narns on the station. The question's really just an excuse for the episode to tell us that the drug has never been tried on a Narn and they've no idea what might do to one of them. It might kill him or might cause him to embarrass himself by yelling about a mountain falling on him in the middle of the Zocalo.

I'm saying 'him' because even though G'Kar's reluctant to admit that he's going to test it on himself, that does seem to be where this is going.

I spotted another one of Brother Theo's monks! That's two scenes I've seen them in so far this episode. I haven't noticed any Rangers wandering around though.

Also we've got a Bester and Garibaldi team up! Bester's getting used to the mental silence now and doesn't seem to be freaked out at all about losing one of his senses. Though he's a bit bothered about Garibaldi's bigotry, assuring him that his blood's the same colour as his.

C'mon Bester, don't try to twist this around. Garibaldi loved a telepath and it's hard to say that his hatred of the Psi Corps is unwarranted, seeing how they turned her into a spy and killed her. I get the feeling that Bester doesn't really draw a distinction between 'telepaths' and 'Psi Corps' so to him hating one is hating the other.

Afterwards the episode returns to G'Kar's quarters and it looks like the aftermath of a hurricane. Oh man, I hope his table's alright. He's had it since he broke the last one in anger back in The Coming of Shadows, and I like it way better than the old one.

G'Kar's eyes are all black, so it seems that while Bester's lost his telepathic powers, G'Kar has successfully gained his own (for a limited time only). I just hope he finds a better use for them than Bester has, though the way he says "Mollari" before stumbling out into the hallway isn't a good omen.

ACT THREE

Hey it's the Sea Witch! You can't really tell, but the fuzzy Starfury in the middle of the shot has a picture of a mermaid and the words 'Sea Witch' written on it. It's the kind of personalisation you don't typically get to see in science fiction.

It's also one of the many decals that came with the Revell Starfury model kit. I went with the Psi Corps design though for my one, because... well, it's all one shade of black so it was easier to paint. The road to evil is paved with laziness and shortcuts.

We must have seen an exterior shot of a transport tube in the series before now, but it's been so long that I can't really remember, so here's another screencap of one.

Here's a couple of interesting transport tube facts: they're not tube shaped and they don't travel in a tube. Plus it looks like if they ever come off the rails the occupants are basically dead, so G'Kar and Londo were very lucky to survive their tube crash back in Convictions.

Though just making it down the corridor is an adventure for G'Kar right now, as he's seeing the world in 3D glasses vision and freaking out like he's on drugs or something.

Meanwhile Garibaldi and Bester have done the old cop show trick of bringing in the person who knows everything about all crime, so that they can just ask him who's dealing Dust and skip all the tedious investigation.

He claims he doesn't know, but Bester claims he's lying and that his thoughts of his complicity are leaking all over the place.

Bester's lying, he doesn't have any powers right now, but he's got a scary uniform so the guy cracks and reveals everything. Well, once Garibaldi grabs the back of his neck anyway. If Bester can bend the rules, so can he! The Psi Cop points out that Garibaldi also uses his own uniform to intimidate people in the exact same way he does, so he's in no position to look down on what he does.

I'm a little disappointed in Garibaldi though, as he didn't recognise that what Bester was saying during the interrogation was a clever lie. Even I knew it was a lie! Also he was more annoyed about the anti-telepathy drugs appearing to wear off than he was about Bester appearing to ignore their suspect's rights, but then I suppose he did stick a bag over a guy's head and have him scanned without his permission just two episodes ago in a room much like this. That's another benefit of the episode shuffling, as it was supposed to be just one episode ago.

I've been staring at that thing behind Londo's head trying to work out what it is, and it's just occurred to me that it's his safe. In fact he had the thing open last season in Knives, so I guess I'm just bad at remembered things.

Londo's got a few suggestions to improve Vir's report about Minbar, mostly along the lines of 'find more ways to make them look bad.' His protégé needs to revisit his observations with a more cynical perspective. For example: the cities are a thousand years old... and this lack of new construction is the surest sign of a faltering economy. Man, if Sheridan needs a new political officer now that Julie Musante's gone back home, Londo would be perfect for the job.

Vir's promotion to the Centauri Ambassador to Minbari has changed a lot about his life, except for when he's on Babylon 5. Then he's right back to getting ordered around by Londo. The guy even sends him to answer the door.

Oh damn, G'Kar knocked him out off screen! I know the guy's been through a lot recently and he's out of his mind on drugs, but hurting Vir has to be one of the most unforgivable things you can do on this series.

Londo reacts by dropping his glass and we get a rare shot of his floor.

So much detail down there that we never get to see. Wait, I recognise that pattern; this isn't Londo's floor, it's Sheridan's desk! 

G'Kar drops Vir with a thud and then approaches the camera, sneering.

Meanwhile the crime fighting team of Garibaldi and his partner Bester are hiding behind a crate in a cargo bay waiting to bust their Dust dealer.

Bester points out that if he still had his telepathy they'd know when he was coming. Garibaldi points out that if he had his baseball bat he could hang Bester up and use him as a piñata. Bester is a bit surprised that Garibaldi sees him as being something bright and cheerful, full of toys and candy for young children, but he's cool with it.

So basically what should've been another dramatic and emotional G'Kar story has been overshadowed yet again by the more memorable comedy scenes in the episode's other plot.

It's like Acts of Sacrifice all over again!

Their suspect finally arrives and is met by people carrying cases full of Dust. He mentions that they're right on time, which seems like an understatement seeing as they all walked on screen at the exact same moment. But they don't even get around to the 'checking the cases' part of the process before they're all suddenly incapacitated by an ear-splitting noise. Though some of them need to get shot a bit before they take the hint.

It was a cunning plan by Team Garibaldi, who are all wearing ear protection. Well that's good, they've solved the Dust problem in two scenes! Though I can't see any Night Watch armbands on anyone's arms, so I guess they're not invited to the cool drug busts anymore. Sorry Zack.

Then we go from the cops confiscating the Dust to Dust-addled G'Kar hanging out with his buddy Londo. Hey, so that's what the episode title means! Londo's currently lying in a dirty Downbelow alley, beaten and crying, and very aware that the G'Kar that's staring at him isn't in his right mind and may actually kill him. Then act three ends with a close up of his screaming face as G'Kar pounces.

ACT FOUR

Well G'Kar didn't eat him during the act break, so that's good news at least.

This feels a bit like Convictions, Part 2, with the way Londo's bleeding and at G'Kar's mercy, only this time G'Kar's not content to just sit back and watch him die. In fact he's already done a lot of hard work dragging him from his quarters all the way down here. No idea how he pulled that off without anyone seeing him.

The camera zooms right into his face again and we get a flashback, in colour for once!

It's Londo, two days before he left Centauri Prime to take the job of ambassador on Babylon 5!

The scene doesn't quite match up with The Gathering, as Londo's jacket's less fancy and his hair's neater, but I can imagine him letting himself go a bit once he got to the station. He was a depressed drunk at the time after all, and here we get a hint to why.

The other guy explains that Londo was given this honour because no one else wants it and the position is basically a bad joke. But when Emperor Turhan saw his name on the list he decided he should be the one sent to the alien deathtrap space station to do the job.

I feel like we already knew that the position was considered a joke, but Turhan's involvment helps explain why Londo was so pissed with the guy. The tragedy of it is that we already know that Turhan loved Babylon 5, so Londo's assignment was actually an honour. To say that Londo let him down with his performance in the job is a bit of an understatement.

G'Kar apparently finds this flashback very amusing, as he sits in the void laughing.

Now that he's got Londo here he intends to pull a And the Sky Full Stars, and go through his nemesis's mind to learn his secrets. Though we've been spared from scenes of Londo walking around a dark abandoned Babylon 5 in between memories, as this time they've skipped the scenery and just gone with dark. Uh, ignore any stray filming equipment that might have crept in around the left side of the frame.

Flashback #2 is sepia tinted, for some reason. They're usually black and white on this series, and the last one we had was in colour, so I wish they'd make up their mind.

This time G'Kar's spying on a season one conversation with Morden, where they discussed how his associates have destroyed the Narn base at Quadrant 37 for him. Past Londo is moderately appalled by all the deaths, and you'd think that'd play well to his Narn audience, but what G'Kar takes away from the scene is that Londo was at the centre of things all along.

By the way, this scene took place in Chrysalis, shortly after the destruction of Earthforce One. This means that Morden arranged to get Clark into power and had an incriminating conversation about it that was spied on by Ivanova last episode, then he arranged to get Londo into power and had an incriminating conversation about it that was spied on by G'Kar this episode. Morden was a busy man during Chrysalis.

Londo reveals that he isn't working with Morden's associates any more, but he can't tell him who they are, so G'Kar gets very shouty and starts digging through clips in quick succession to find the answer.

G'Kar doesn't just see the past, he sees the future through Londo's precognitive dream, getting glimpses of the Shadow vessels in the sky over Centauri Prime, of Londo being emperor, and of them strangling each other to death. Man, there must be a record number of different Londo coats in this episode.

Unfortunately it all flashes by so fast that I don't think G'Kar really knows what he's seeing. Or feeling I suppose, as the Dust's supposed to let him feel everything his victim felt at the time. Though there's no guarantee that it has that effect on Narns.

The datablast stops and G'Kar hears a voice telling him that it's enough.

Whoa, we're on the Narn homeworld now, in G’Kar’s memory of him running off and joining the resistance as a child.

In And Now For Word... we heard the story of how G'Kar's dad spilled a drink of hot Jala on the mistress of the Centauri household he served in and was hung from a tree for three days. Before he died he told young G'Kar to go and fight, and the next morning his son went out and killed his first Centauri. It was the turning point in his life.

But this time a stranger appears... and it's Narn Image! Or is it G'Quan himself? (I don't actually know, but he is dressed a lot like his dad).

He tells G'Kar that the Narn and Centauri are both dying races, and are obsessed with each other's deaths. He asks him if he'll continue what the Centauri started until there are no more Narns and no more Centauris, pointing out that when they're both dead no one will care who is to blame.

They need to turn from the cycle of death to something greater. And if they are a dying people, then they should die with honour by helping the others. Some of us must be sacrificed if all are to be saved.

G'Kar asks why he's getting this second chance now, and where they've been all this time. And Narn Image replies "I have always been here." Oh damnit Kosh! That line about them being a dying people was one of Kosh's as well now that I think about it. He said it to Sinclair way back in Midnight on the Firing Line.

Then we get to see Kosh in his Narn angel form just to confirm that it is him messing with G'Kar's head. Well, to us anyway. G'Kar has no idea that this is Kosh.

This scene pretty much explains why the Vorlons went to the trouble of appearing as angels, as they've been using religion to give them the power to push people in whatever direction they need them to go. If you're a believer and you get a vision from an angel telling you to sort your life out, that's going to have a profound and lasting effect on you. Interesting though that when he gave Sheridan a vision in All Alone in the Night he appeared in the form of his encounter suit instead.

G'Kar may have hit rock bottom, drugged out of his mind on the floor of Downbelow, but he wakes up with an epiphany. And possibly a headache. Somehow I doubt Londo's been so lucky though; it'll take more than divine intervention to give that guy a hint.

There he is, sneaky Kosh, standing in front of a sign saying "WARNING" that's revealed once he leaves. Reminds me of all those signs that appeared near the kid in Mass Effect 3 that turned out to foreshadow absolutely nothing.

So Kosh has brought G'Kar all the way back to the crossroads in his life where he was put on the path of revenge, and this time he's given him a speech to push him down a different path. That's pretty crazy really, the idea that Kosh would ever say that much, and so clearly. G'Kar must be really important to their cause. Londo, on the other hand, seems to be irrelevant at this point. He's just lying unconscious on the floor, ignored.

So that's both Dust plots resolved now. There are still five minutes of episode left though.

I think this is our first look at the operating theatre/isolab at the core of the new Medlab set. It's surrounded by windows so that everyone who visits gets to watch the surgery! It's also missing a bit of hazard stripe tape on the top left of the door frame, but you'd have to be staring at a screencap trying to think of something to type to ever notice.

The camera's more interested in what Franklin and Vir are up to, and it travels through the room, over Londo and right up to the window to get a better look at them. I don't think we saw Londo lying on a Medlab bed at all in the first two seasons, but now he's been a visitor twice in the last five episodes.

They've got a new court set as well! Or to be more precise they've stuck a new front wall on the council chamber and brought in the fluorescent tube and back wall from the old court set. We've got a new Ombuds as well, even though they had the actor who played Ombuds Wellington in this episode in a different role. Seems like a missed opportunity to give the character one last appearance.

G'Kar declines the presence of counsel and pleads guilty to beating up two Centauri diplomats while on drugs he purchased. Sheridan does speak on his behalf though, pointing out that once the Dust was in his system he was no longer making rational or deliberate decisions. But the Ombuds feels that going straight to Londo proves premeditation, so she has him imprisoned for... 60 days. Hey that's not so bad, plus he gets to keep his personality and doesn't even have to be a monk! If Londo had died then there'd be 500 Narns being executed right now on his homeworld, so he got off incredibly lightly.

But was it really premeditated? My impression is that G'Kar just wanted to test a weapon before he bought it and the test got a little out of hand. Then again I suppose he would've had to choose someone as a target, or else it wouldn't have been much of a test. It wouldn't have been enough to simply take the drug and then see if he could sense the waves of negative emotions eminating through the station from the hate centres of Ivanova's brain.

Garibaldi's here as well, as he thought he should return the book of G'Quan that he lent from him last episode. But G'Kar tells him to keep it as feels that he needs it more, seeing as he's closer to the source now. So that was G'Quan in his vision then?

ACT FIVE

Turns out that Vir is still bringing Londo his drinks, despite the fact they're both ambassadors and he's the one with his arm in a sling. He's lucky he didn't spill that hot Jala on him, the state he's in. Then he'd have to be hung from a tree for three days.

It's no surprise that Londo is keen for his friend to stick around for a bit longer, at least until everything stops aching. But Centauri Prime wants Vir to leave for Minbar tonight for some ceremony and Londo's glad that they give a damn, telling him that they should never consider his position to be a joke. So there's a big hint that Londo relived all the things that G'Kar was dredging out of his memory. Though the way he was editing Vir's reports earlier to make him look better makes me think that this has always been on his mind.

Oh right, Bester's in this episode isn't he? G'Kar had actually stolen it from him for a while, but he's reappeared just in time to leave with his prisoner. This is also the second appearance of Walter Koenig's wife, Judy Levitt, in the role of 'Psi Cop', after she showed up at the start of A Race Through Dark Places. Maybe one day she'll show up in the middle of an episode.

Those sleepers that Bester took will be wearing off about now and there are other Psi Cops walking over, so Garibaldi gets himself out of their line of sight in a hurry. This means that the telepaths also get to keep their secrets, even though they're talking about them out loud. Turns out that the Psi Corps were the ones that invented Dust in the first place as part of a plan to create new telepaths, though it didn't work like they hoped. But at least they've kept it out of the hands of aliens.

And the episode ends with G'Kar in his jail cell, thinking back to what he was told in his vision. It's possible he's also feeling a bit cheated that they never gave him a prison outfit, so that he could finally wear some different clothes for a change, but we don't know.

Oh, here's another B5/DS9 similarity for you: a fan favourite character gets thrown into prison for a while for getting a bit violent while attempting to get revenge.


CONCLUSION

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Dust to Dust is like a police procedural crossed with A Christmas Carol. Except the Ghost of Christmas Present is pulled away halfway through the story by another ghost to so he can receive his own epiphany, and the story ends with him going to prison while Scrooge ends up learning nothing. Also the cop's new partner invented drugs.

It's funny how episode six of season one introduced the First Ones at Sigma 957 and Bester, now we're at episode six of season three and we've just met both of them again, though not in the same story. Plus it has a strange structure this one, as it starts off with Sheridan dealing with Night Watch, then we see Franklin in Medlab dealing with the victims of Dust, and soon Ivanova's trying to kill Bester. Delenn gets a few scenes as well, as she mediates between the Centauri and Drazi... and then none of these characters are seen again until the end of the story. G'Kar, on the other hand, doesn't appear until 17 minutes in, but once he does he hijacks the episode. Well, half of it anyway.

G'Kar's drug trip brings him back to the turning point in Londo's life and then his own, and we get to see part of what's been driving the two of them all this time. The two ambassadors are similar in a lot of ways, but it says a lot that G'Kar's turning point was seeing his dad strung up on a tree for three days for the crime of spilling a drink, while Londo's turning point was being told that the Emperor thought he was a joke and getting sent off to Space Siberia. They're both driven by hatred, or a least they were, but a lot of Londo's dissatisfaction in his life came from the perception that his empire was in decline and his life was going to crap, and it seems kind of petty by comparison. Especially as we know now that the Emperor was very fond of Babylon 5 and his concessions to the Narns were an attempt to make peace and end their cycle of hate.

The effect that the Dust experience has on them is similarly disproportionate, as it causes G'Kar to rethink his most fundamental beliefs, while Londo comes out of it wanting to help Vir avoid the shame and despair that he'd gone through himself. G'Kar had already found a chance to put his hatred of the Centauri aside once when he saw them at their best, in The Coming of Shadows. Now he's doing it again at the point where they're at their very worst, because he's sure that the others are secretly preparing to fight something even worse.

At this point G'Kar finally knows that Londo had been working with the Shadows, and presumably Kosh does too, but it seems like this revelation is fairly irrelevant to them at this point. Going after Londo is pointless, and going after the Centauri is apparently counterproductive as well, despite the fact they're currently waging war with everyone. G'Kar's attention has been split lately between the ancient enemy that's been returning, and the enemy that's currently occupying his world, and Kosh wants him (and his people) focused on the Shadows. Not for their own good, but because they're doomed either way and if they save the others then at least they'll be remembered as heroes. Kind of depressing really, but it cheers G'Kar up. At the end of the story he's in prison and Londo's getting drinks served to him, but he's the one that's happy. Though that's partly because Londo feels like a transport tube got dropped on him again.

Meanwhile Bester and Garibaldi went after the drugs that G'Kar took. You'd figure that that the two Dust plot lines would inevitably collide at some point, but they never do. The Bester plotline is also really straightforward, as they go straight to the person who knows everything, learn where the deal's taking place, and then arrest everyone. And that's it. They spent almost as long dealing with Bester's arrival as they did catching the Dust dealer, and it was all over before G'Kar had even started his trip into Londo's mind. But really it was just an excuse to put Bester and Garibaldi together so that the Psi Cop could drive him mad. Bester gets all the best lines this episode, as he deliberately riles everyone else up and lets nothing faze him... well except for Ivanova making a genuine effort to kill him. He even makes a couple of good points in the Psi Corps's favour, noting that a cop using a uniform to intimidate people is fairly universal, and that the group spends a lot of the time dealing with actual threats and keeping people safe. For a while it seems like there may actually be some shades of grey to them, but then the ending makes it clear that we're not supposed to ever trust or like these people.

But Bester got a win for once and that's what matters. You don't want to your sinister villain to become too much of a ineffectual joke. Sure he wasn't able to pry all of their secrets out of their heads and expose their conspiracy, but the way that he dominated every situation even without his telepathy shows how he doesn't need mind powers to pull mind games, and when he does have his powers you need four other telepaths just to block him.

Overall I thought this episode was pretty good. Almost equally as good as every other episode so far this season. It hasn't fallen into a slump like season two had by this point. It helps that jms is writing all the stories now, though he also wrote season 1 episode 6 (Mind War) and season 2 episode 6 (A Race Through Dark Places) and this is better than both of them, in my opinion.

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COMING SOON

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, Babylon 5 season 3 continues with Exogenesis. But that'll be the final Babylon 5 review until December as I'm taking another two-month break.

Thanks for reading by the way. I'm sure you're dying to write a comment so I won't delay you any longer.