| Episode: | 52 | | | Writer: | J. Michael Straczynski | | | Air Date: | 19-Feb-1996 |
Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Babylon 5, season 3, episode 8: Messages from Earth. With a title like that you can already tell it's going to be a real thrill ride.
Though it was directed by Mike Vejar, who also gave us the unusually pretty looking Convictions earlier in the season, along with several decent episodes of Deep Space Nine. Here's another DS9/B5 similarity for you: if you see Mike Vejar's name at the start of an episode it's probably going to at least look interesting.
I may have mentioned this once or twice already, but this recap will feature SPOILERS for the episode and other episodes leading up to it. But if you're watching through the series for the first time you won't have to worry about me spoiling anything past this point. This story is as far as the spoilers go.
The episode begins with Garibaldi listing things that suck about his job, but he's just leading up to his real complaint which is his breakfast. Apparently having the same food every morning for three years is getting to him, and despite his authority and connections he's apparently powerless to change this. He definitely can't get eggs brought in, he makes that clear.
I was wondering if this was going to be the teaser where Ivanova falls asleep and they swap their plates to make it seem like minutes have passed.
Actually this delicious torment isn't due to Marcus mistaking Ivanova's intent when she dumped those flowers on him last episode. Turns out that she got him an Identicard and he felt that he had to do something to repay her. Now she wants to kill him for it... but it seems like she'll have to get in line.
People are just lining up for a staff to the face today, I counted at least four of them, but it seems like they're mostly after that woman in the background. Marcus tells her to make a run for it and she does... running straight into a fifth guy. So Marcus knocks away those convenient supports behind him to drop mysterious boxes on his new friends, and races to her rescue.
Anyway Marcus has finally ran out of people to hit but now he's got an unconscious woman to get to Medlab. And that's the end of the teaser.
ACT ONE
The news anchor reveals that that senate hearings into the death of President Santiago have been going on for six weeks now and the President Clark still hasn't been arrested yet. Though on the plus side, the evidence the B5 staff got from the physician in Hunter, Prey has been submitted, so all that effort they went through to save him from government agents during that episode hasn't gone to waste.
Everything outside has been distracting him from himself, but here he's all alone with his thoughts and it's inspired him to write a book. It's about a heroic Narn detective called G'Car who gets drawn into a web of intrigue after being hired by Leighter Alexander, a sexy femme fatale with a gift for getting inside his head.
No, he's using his prison time to write about things like war, the fall of his homeland, the mistakes his people have made, and what must be done to correct them. And he's calling it... Mein Kampf (it means Happy Thoughts in Narn). Actually I don't know what his book's called, all I know is that Babylon 5's cells have really poor lighting. The guy can dramatically disappear into the shadows just by leaning back, so I don't know how he's getting any work done in there.
Incidentally Marcus was told about a package coming to the station in about a week last episode, so it seems like they've got some subtle continuity going on here (we're also getting a lot of information about how many weeks ago everything took place). The package is the woman from the teaser by the way.
They're still waiting for the package to be brought over to the Army of Light meeting room, so Garibaldi gets the scene started with a voice over. Seven years ago he saw something, but was never able to prove it. Now he's finally found someone to back up his story. Her name is Dr Samantha Carter.
For the past 12 years she's been working for Interplanetary Expeditions, conducting missions on other worlds in search of ancient alien technology
Though Franklin seems to think he's in Aliens as he pulls a Ripley and indicates that they're aware of her employers because "We've seen the ads". Man, it's never occurred to me until right now how similar Interplanetary Expeditions are to Weyland-Yutani. They share the same love of alien bioweapons, and people who work for them tend to go missing on distant alien worlds after waking up ancient creatures.
Kirkish's story takes place on a world a bit closer to home though, as seven years ago they found something in a dig on Mars, something buried there for thousands of years.
Sheridan's a bit confused by this, as when ISN aired Keffer's footage of the Shadow vessel blowing him up, EarthGov seemed to have no idea what it was. In fact they sent an agent over in Matters of Honor to ask the ambassadors if they'd seen one before. Delenn realises what we'd already learned by the end of that episode: all EarthGov really wanted to know is who else knew about ships.
And the answer is: Garibaldi knew. He's known about the ship on Mars all along, since before the series started, and he's he's never said a word!
ACT TWO
We don't get to see the event, in fact we don't get to see anyone but Dr Kirkish really, but there's plenty of effects shots and even an brand new set! It's just an empty bunker but it's so nice to see something new on the series that I had to stitch together a panning shot to show it all off. You may notice one subtle clue that this isn't an entirely legit screencap (Dr Kirkish is in there twice).
Kirkish explains that they were told to pull back, so all her team could do for the next week was watch from the sidelines as unmarked shuttles flew in and out of the area... and then an active Shadow vessel.
So this means that Shadows were active and Earth knew about them long before Anna Sheridan's trip to Z'ha'dum three years ago.
Garibaldi was there as well, as the shuttle he was piloting had crashed nearby, and he got to watch it all go down. Him and one other person who he doesn't identify.
I know who it was though.
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| Babylon 5 Issue 8: Shadows, Past and Present, Part IV |
In fact this page is from the same issue that gave away that Talia Winters had been brainwashed just before Divided Loyalties aired, though Sinclair and Garibaldi weren't around to see that. They did find the secret Psi Corps base however... well, in the comics at least. In this episode Garibaldi only mentions that when he went back afterwards all he found was a scorched piece of metal:
So Garibaldi has known that the Psi Corps have been working with the Shadows ever since he realised that the spiky ship he saw was a Shadow vessel... and this is the first we're hearing about it?
Anyway, a few weeks ago Kirkish was called into a new dig on Ganymede (one of Jupiter's moons) and it turned out to be another Shadow vessel. This time though Earth figured they'd just hold on to it and study it to learn all of its secrets. But they don't want to use Shadow tech to fight the Shadows, they want to use it to make us more like them. At least that's what Kirkish thinks.
Sheridan thinks that they can't let President Clark get that kind of power, so he's going to take the White Star into our solar system and he's going to blow the ship up before Earth's fleet comes and blows him up. Somehow.
They're taking this so seriously that the military drums are back again. It feel like it's been either that or a choir singing all episode. It's good though, and I like that they're actually planning to do this right for a change, instead of just coming up with bullshit on the fly like in Matters of Honor. Even on the White Star it'll be a two day jump there and two days back again, so they'll have to do a spectacular job of coving for Sheridan's absence this time. He can repay them all by picking up some bacon and eggs while he's there.
ACT THREE
It's been a while but Sherdian's finally getting a second chance to play Captain Kirk and this time he's got a captain's chair to sit in! Though there's no real need for him to be sitting in it right now as they're in hyperspace. The only order he can give for the next two days is "Keep on doing what you're doing".
This is one of those rare Babylon 5 scenes with absolutely no dialogue, but Delenn does come over to give him her silent support.
You've probably seen Vaughn before if you've watched any Next Gen era Star Trek, as he showed up 28 times, playing 12 different characters from 8 different species. This included a recurring role as a human, as he was Admiral Forrest on Enterprise.
Right now he's telling the Nightwatch members that Earth has been sold out by senators, high-ranking officers and even some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to weaken EarthGov as a prelude to an invasion. So they've got their lists and they're going to start making arrests. They'll also be spying on emails and video calls.
It's not what you want, and it's definitely not what Sheridan wants, especially as they've started to wonder where he is.
I like that they've dressed up their absurdly huge corridor set a bit since we last saw it, but I'm not sure what this guy's job is. Hall monitor? Does the bridge know he's been borrowing their consoles?
Sheridan's struggle to stop sliding down the bed wakes Delenn up and they chat a bit about how weird it is that this closest he's come to Earth in four years and he's going back in a Minbari ship. He also remembers how his dad once turned a garden hose on his roof to simulate rain so he could get to sleep and Delenn astonishes him by using the White Star's technology to play one of the those '10 Hours of Rain' videos you can find on YouTube.
It's a really touching moment, especially with her line about catching him if he should fall. I don't think she'll be fast enough though; that guy's going to wake up on the carpet with a bruise.
This is one of those 'the other person clearly isn't listening' moments, except it turns out that she is listening, she's just struggling to figure out how Marcus even fits in here. I mean what rank does he have anyway! And what rank does she have if they're fighting their own government now? Ivanova is all about the military, but the foundations to her structure are being excavated from under her.
They take turns feeling guilty that they're not the ones taking the White Star on this suicide mission, as apparently Marcus assumed Sheridan would send him. Uh, why would he do that, when the last time they had a problem like this Marcus came all the way to B5 to ask Sheridan to sort it out.
Well the good news is that they don't have to shoot at an Earth base to blow the Shadow vessel up now. The bad news is that they're up against an active Shadow vessel with an insane pilot and they don't have the firepower to destroy it.
ACT FOUR
Somehow I doubt we'll be seeing this move again in future episodes, though the things are surprisingly well made for Babylon 5. They're a lot more detailed than something like Delenn's shuttle cockpit in season one, even if the Minbari on the left only gets like six buttons to press. Not that she can see that from where she's sitting.
But Sheridan's happy with the result, as all he really hoped for was to get the thing mad enough to follow them to Jupiter. He's going to see if he can trick the Shadow vessel into descending so low into the Jovian atmosphere that it can't escape the planet's gravity. Here's another Deep Space Nine/Babylon 5 coincidence for you: the USS Defiant went into a gas giant to escape enemies like this just four months earlier. That was a pretty good episode too.
Unfortunately Sheridan's plan relies on the White Star not being crushed first and they have no idea how many atmospheres of pressure the ship can survive as it was never tested. Though it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
So that's two unstoppable Shadow vessels down so far this season and we're only eight episodes in. I'm starting to see why the Rangers were so adamant that Sheridan had to be the one sitting in that chair.
Though just when they think they've won the bridge starts shaking again.
If the White Star is the USS Defiant, the EAS Agamemnon is the USS Enterprise: the most heroic and powerful ship in the Earth Alliance fleet. It's also full of Sheridan's friends as it used to be his ship. In fact they teamed up with Delenn to rescue him a few months back when he got abducted by aliens in All Alone in the Night.
Could the Agamemnon take on the White Star? The Minbari ship is much smaller but it's far more advanced, overpowered for its size and its stealth system should keep it from being tracked in space. It's a lot easier to spot when it's in an atmosphere though and the Agamemnon is a post-Minbari War ship built to deal out as much hurt as possible to races hundreds of years beyond Earth in technology, so who knows?
So it's Delenn who has to take command and come up with the genius scheme. They move to the edge of the atmosphere and then open a jump point to escape. The really clever part will be not getting blown up when the jump point ignites the hydrogen.
So now Team White Star can add 'jumped to hyperspace inside an atmosphere' to their list of things no one else but them has ever done before. Turns out all you need is a bit of moxy and the most advanced starship ever made by the younger races.
Apparently it's a shot from Hypernauts, a children's sci-fi show whose special effects were also being done by B5's effects company. But it's only there for a fraction of a second and you'd have to go frame by frame to even spot it, so it's not a massive distraction.
How it ended up there though is a mystery.
ACT FOUR
The crew are watching ISN again and this time they're on it! Though it's not good news for them as they were apparently destroyed by the Agamemnon. So that's a bummer. Also jumping into the solar system and blowing stuff up has only justified people's fears of an alien invasion, and President Clark will be using it as an excuse to step up planetary security. Nice job heroes, you pulled a Keffer and made things worse.
Sheridan seems shocked and outraged that Earth is spinning this to make them look like the bad guy, after they blew up their rogue Shadow vessel for them. What the hell did he expect them to say?
Fortunately a mysterious ship we've never seen before came to our rescue and destroyed the ship before it could attack any major settlements. The EAS Agamemnon then tried to kill them and failed. Now here's Matthew with the weather."
#1 has worked out that Sheridan hasn't been in his quarters in the last four days and they've decided that qualifies as unusual behaviour. Man, even when Sheridan puts the effort in and tries to do his sneaky conspirator thing properly he still screws it up. Now Nightwatch are onto him and they feel like he must have had help from security to cover up what he's doing.
So he wants Zack to go see Garibaldi, tell him that he knows they're up to something and that he wants to help. He can be Nightwatch's undercover agent inside the group.
Zack replies that if he trusted him that much he would've brought him in weeks ago! Oops, he just gave his friend away. The way he looks at his Nightwatch arm band afterwards makes me think that he's starting to regret ever putting it on... but not enough to take it off. Maybe he's thinking that if he does this job for them they'll give him a second armband and double his pay to 100 credits a week.
It's a homemade org chart showing where they all fit in the grand scheme of things. Man, Nightwatch are closing in on them, trying to figure out who's part of their conspiracy, and he's just carrying this thing down the corridor. Someday we’ll get a 4k Blu-ray release and be able to see what’s written on it.
He's doing something daft to make her laugh, just like Delenn did for Sheridan in Divided Loyalties with her conversation about butts, and it actually works! Though it doesn't work for long, as ISN has one last message from Earth, reporting that President Clark has signed a decree today declaring martial law.
CONCLUSION
Messages from Earth feels like an episode of a better Babylon 5 from a parallel universe where the series had a budget. Though I always think that when they get a good director in.
It also feels a bit like a second attempt at Matters of Honor at times, with the Marcus pike fight in Downbelow at the start and the space battle against a Shadow vessel at the end, and the Nightwatch plot is getting very familiar now, but everything has been taken up a level. Sheridan's not just taking on a Shadow ship, he has to face the Agamemnon as well. Clark's government aren't just nibbling away at civil liberties, they've declared martial law and are preparing to move against Sheridan and Garibaldi. Plus the guest star doesn't just get a few scenes scattered through the story, she gets a seven minute mini-episode of her own spanning two acts! Then she vanishes without a trace.
The Mars sequence reminded me of Delenn's tale at the end of In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum about the fate of the Icarus, except this time it's told by someone who was there. Babylon 5's not exactly a high water mark for CGI, but the effects are more than up to the task of telling the tale of the mysterious spider ships on Mars, and it's a chilling little flashback that shows that the Psi Corp and the Shadows have been working together a lot longer than we knew. Though they're not quite sharing everything they're up to. Things are getting very X-Files.
Flashback aside there's two and a half plotlines going on through this episode, as Sheridan has a mission to destroy the crazy Shadow ship, Zack is freaking out about Nightwatch getting ready to move, and Marcus just wants to cheer Ivanova up.
If there's one thing I've learned from Sheridan's encounters with Shadow ships, it's that you really want to have a ship that can dodge lasers and generate jump points. Being able to fire back isn't so important as long as you can do those two things. I've also learned that having a chair on the bridge helps, as Sheridan comes across a lot better in his second go at playing Captain Kirk. He seems more comfortable in the role and I imagine the people behind the scenes had gotten more comfortable as well now that they had some experience with spaceship bridge action. The scene of Sheridan and Delenn just lying on their slopey beds and chatting about the rain was great too. All the relationship with none of the drama.
Meanwhile Zack is really starting to feel like maybe he picked the wrong side, and he's clearly not buying into Nightwatch's claim that aliens are attempting to weaken the government before starting an invasion. Security Guard #1 may be quoting Thomas Jefferson and talking the price of freedom being eternal vigilance, but his love of security monitors is a dead giveaway. By the way, that quote reminded me of the game Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom, which came out just a week earlier and has similar themes. Plus it has Keffer as the villain! Unfortunately Zack can't just look up a walkthrough to get past the part he's gotten stuck in.
Not that the rest of the B5 staff are having an easy time. They've been conspiring against EarthGov for a while now (around 18 episodes) and it's starting to get to them. When they got Clark's video confession in Voices of Authority it seemed like they had him, but his Orwellian game is strong and things are just getting worse. Their attempts to kill the beast just feed the beast, and if Earth has become the enemy where does that leave them? Sheridan's strategic superpowers desert him the moment he faces an Earthforce ship, and Ivanova doesn't know where she fits in anymore, never mind all these Rangers she has to deal with now. Personally I'm more curious about where Security Guard #1 fits in, as he just came out of nowhere but he acts like he owns the place. Is he Zack's boss? Does he work for Zack? Where does he fit on Marcus's elaborate org chart?
Anyway, this episode gives you exactly what you want from Babylon 5. Conspiracies, space battles, people getting hit with a pipe in Downbelow, political drama, comedy, romance, bacon and eggs. It's probably not the very best episode of the whole run but it's up there.
TOMORROW
But next on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's your comments! And you can read them just as soon as you've finished writing them.
I like your screenshot of the org chart scene because Marcus looks almost distraught while Ivanova is completely focused on this crucial information. It's a terrific juxtaposition to the actual tone of the scene.
ReplyDeleteI can't help how the actors chose to use their faces!
DeleteI like Zack's arc, how he's wary of what he's gotten himself into early on, but he also goes along with it for a long time rather than draw attention to himself. Plus, while he's not sure about Nightwatch's methods, he also knows something fishy really is going on in his chain of command, so maybe they have a point. It's realistic.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's pretty well written. He's getting misinformation from both sides, and doesn't have any truth to work with.
DeleteObviously what Nightwatch are up to is pretty bad, but they've admitted that in their secret meetings and explained why it is they're doing what they're doing. Maybe Nightwatch are right and there actually IS some shadowy alien force in spider ships that have infiltrated EarthGov at the highest level!
I guess all he can do now is look at the people who have more information than him, and decide if Sheridan, Ivanova and Garibaldi seem more righteous than Mr Welles, Julie Musante and Security Guard #1.
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DeleteZack joining the Night Watch draws some interesting parallels with how normal people ended up members of the Nazi Party in the 1930s.
DeleteAs the writer Alan Moore put it, its far too easy and convenient to dismiss the Nazis as just monsters from Hell. Many people joined for many different reasons. Some were cowards, some were careerists and some had a genuine belief in fascism.
Zack goes along with Night Watch because he is, at this point, a coward. The scheme was sold to him as a PR stunt to make EarthGov look like they were being tough on crime. He got to wear a swanky armbad and take home fifty credits extra a week. All he had to do was the job he was being paid to do anyway. But now, those credits he took come with a price.
Like Garibaldi, he's a misfit who doesn't really fit in anywhere and lacks the conviction to speak out. He also know his boss is up to something and he's being deliberately kept out of the loop. So he doesn't really know where he stands with the Chief, and isn't sure if he can go to him with his doubts over Night Watch's transition from political gimmick to Thought Police.
Garibaldi could also have expended a bit of trust in Zack. He's likely been reluctant to put as much trust in his deputy after the last one shot him in the back and Lou Welch disappeared halfway through the last season with no explanation.
That thing about Garibaldi knowing about the Shadows and not mentioning it is a bit weird, given how JMS is supposed to have had most of B5 plotted well in advance. I suppose it was one of the minor details that wasn't.
ReplyDeleteYeah. It did feature in a comic book published mid-season 2, so it was part of the plan from at least that far back, but it's weird that we didn't get a hint of it in the actual series. You'd think Garibaldi would've maybe said something during that episode where he helped a combat veteran who'd encountered a soldier of darkness on an alien world. "Hey that happened to me once too, only it was a different kind of shadow creature and there was another witness with me who could back up my story and I wasn't driven insane."
DeleteHang on, that's a point, there was another witness with him! Why did he need Kirkish to back up his story? Was Sinclair not answering his phone calls?
I imagine Sinclair is right now busy with... stuff.
DeleteWhilst the backstory of Dr. Kirkish witnessing the original excavation was important, Sinclair wouldn't have been witness to the second, more recent excavation that actually drives the plot.
Delete