Babylon 5 3-09: Point of No Return

Episode:

53

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

26-Feb-1996

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got some more Babylon 5 for you. It's episode 9 of season 3: Point of No Return.

Every season of Babylon 5 has its own title, named after one of its most important episodes and the name on the front of the season 3 DVD box is Point of No Return. So I'm going to consider it false advertising if this isn't at least as good as season 1 fan favourite Signs and Portents and season 2's Hugo Award winning The Coming of Shadows.

It wasn't the only title on creator J. Michael Straczynski's list though and for a while he may have been leaning more towards "I Am Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds," quoting Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita. I think he probably made the right choice by going with the title he did.

If you're watching through Babylon 5 for the first time, then I've got good news for you! I won't be spoiling or even hinting at events that take place in later episodes in this review. There will be massive SPOILERS for this episode however, and for episodes that lead up to it, as I'm going to basically recap the entire story.

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The episode begins with a flashback to a scene in Dust to Dust, where Londo was correcting Vir's report back to the Centauri homeworld like a parent trying to rewrite their kid's homework. Though for some reason they've gone to the trouble of reshooting it all. You can tell by the way Londo's wearing his coat this time.

Okay it's not line for line identical to the earlier episode, they are supposed to be different scenes taking place at different times, but some of those lines are pretty damn close.

3-06: Dust to Dust

"But their cities are thousands of years old."

"The lack of new construction is the surest sign of a faltering economy."

3-09: Point of No Return

"The Minbari have carefully preserved their cities over the course of centuries"

"No, what you should say instead is: 'Their cities are very old, indicating a decaying culture'"

Londo honestly believes that it's important to put a negative spin on reports to the royal court to make sure everyone else seems less civilised than they are. Vir's under the impression he's supposed to be providing accurate intelligence (or a Wikipedia page it seems like), but Londo explains that intelligence has nothing to do with politics!

The line's meant to be a joke, but it reminds me of that time Londo ended up having to stab his friend (in season 2's Knives) because of how badly informed he was about events happening back at the palace. I thought he'd learned his lesson back then that knowledge is a weapon.

Vir actually stands up for himself and goes to storm off, but Londo suddenly receives a video call he's been waiting for and needs him around to bounce exposition off. Seems that he's somehow managed to convince a VIP to visit the station: Lady Morella, the late Emperor Turhan's third wife.

Now he just needs things to stay calm and under control while she's here and... oh it turns out the station's already in chaos outside after Earth's declaration of martial law last episode.

Sheridan and Ivanova are chatting to an officer back home and things don't look good. All the monitors have soldiers running by on them and he's holding a pistol!

Clark has gone full Emperor Palpatine and has issued an executive order dissolving the Senate. Though he's also arresting the Senate just to keep things interesting. Some of them have taken shelter in their offices, but the Elite Guard have just opened fire on the building.

Oh, also General Hague has given the officer a message to relay to them: "Everything's gone to hell John. God help us all. You're on your own."

Okay, that's how you do a teaser.

ACT ONE

Sheridan goes down to C&C to chat with his crew about the news. Earth, Mars and Io have been put under martial law and there's no doubt that they're just getting around to giving the order to Babylon 5 as well.

Poor Corwin's very confused, asking how this happened and what they did wrong. Sheridan tells him that it was all Garibaldi's fault for not getting the message out in time about the assassination attempt on President Santiago. If that dumbass hadn't gotten himself shot in the back in Chrysalis everything could've been fine!

Actually he just says that he doesn't know and walks away to have a secret chat with Ivanova and Garibaldi in the corridor.

Wrong hallway mate, back in your lift.

Garibaldi tells them that it seems like General Hague is trying to get a fleet together for a counterstrike. He's the one running their rebellion so if Clark's forces catch him they're all screwed. There's also a chance he might come to B5 so they need to be ready for that.

Security Guard #1 goes to see Zack down by the big 'Traitors Can't Hide' poster to tell him about the latest Nightwatch meeting.

Zack has pretty much had it with these constant Nightwatch meetings at this point, but SG#1 tells him this is a special meeting. The kind you should bring a PPG to, and some extra ammo.

Cut to the sound of someone being tortured in one of the station's cells.

Actually it's just G'Kar singing. Garibaldi mentioned last episode that there was a petition to get him to stop and seeing as that didn't work he's just going to release him instead.

He has another three weeks to serve for attacking Londo, but with all the chaos going on Garibaldi needs his security officers elsewhere. I've noticed that G'Kar always mentions what his crime was whenever someone drops by his cell like this. Either he's worried the audience may have missed an episode or he's worried that Garibaldi's forgotten. Funny that he never mentions that he also attacked Vir though. Maybe it's because it's like mentioning that you kicked a puppy.

Outside the station the jumpgate fires up and a ship comes through. But it's not General Hague, it's Lwaxana Troi!

Actually Majel Barrett-Roddenberry is the special guest star playing the role of Lady Morella, third wife of Gene Roddenberry... I mean Emperor Turhan. (She was Gene Roddenberry's second wife).

She tells Londo that she has learned much about the good work they have been doing here, and by that I assume she means everyone on the B5 production crew. Though actually she says 'we' as she also speaks for her late husband.

The reason Londo went to so much effort to arrange this visit is because Morella has same precog power as Lady Ladira from Signs and Portents. Though if she was any good at foretelling the future she probably wouldn't have dropped by an Earth Alliance station on the day that Earth fell apart.

Lots of Centauri have some ability to see the future, as they sometimes dream of their own deaths. Or so Londo claims. What Londo wants to know is whether the great destiny he's seen is set in stone, or if he can avoid it. Or as Ebenezer Scrooge put it: "Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!"

Back in the Earthforce plot, the crew are having another conversation with an officer back home. Don't scoff at the size of their TV, it was 1996.

It's got some proper scanlines though. It's like watching an FMV mission briefing from a video game in, well, 1996.

He's got the pattern from the top of Sheridan's desk behind the logo! I love how when Babylon 5 finds a use for something, they'll keep on finding other uses. The same shapes keep repeating everywhere, like a fractal.

General Smits informs Sheridan that the political office is good at finding other uses for things too, as they're putting Nightwatch in charge of Babylon 5's security exclusively. He reminds Sheridan where these orders come from and suggests that he looks upon this as an opportunity, not a burden.

Smits says that this is for Garibaldi's benefit as well, which makes sense. He's just been handed an opportunity to go home to Mars and have that proper bacon and eggs he's been craving for three years.

The scene's intercut with Security Guard #1 briefing Nightwatch members, and he's definitely looking upon this as an opportunity. I guess this means he's unambiguously Zack's boss now then? Because I've been getting confused.

SG#1 is still telling his buddies with the armbands that they're hunting down traitors to protect Earth, and it's hard to know if he really believes that or if he just wants to be the one with all the power and all the security monitors. Either way, Babylon 5 belongs to the Nightwatch.

ACT TWO

Act two begins with G'Kar heading home and finding that Ta'Lon's been standing outside his quarters all this time. Well, not all the time; he's been taking a nap every week. Ta'Lon tells him he's sensed an opportunity to repay his debt... though I thought his debt was to Sheridan.

Meanwhile this guy's brought Zack some presents! Zack's been busy handing out armbands to all the security officers lining up to join Nightwatch (to wear after they've had their background checks), but he's not interested. The guy's just here to hand over his badge and his gun. Poor Zack, he's so disappointed. He just wants everyone to get along!

Garibaldi's a bit pissed off about all this as you might expect. Sheridan tries to talk some sense into him, like everyone tried talking sense to him back when he went rogue to learn what happened to his wife in In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, but he doesn't stand a chance.

The most important thing in Sheridan's life has been his wife and he was going to stop at nothing to find out what happened to her. The most important thing to Garibaldi may be bagna càuda, Daffy Duck, or it may be his 1992 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-11, but it seems safe to say that loyalty and job security are right up there. The guy has 'getting fired a lot' issues and 'getting shot in the back by his second in command' issues, so the idea that someone is firing the officers loyal to him and tempting the rest to betray him is way past the limit of how much he's going to tolerate. Nobody sells out his people like this!

Garibaldi's going to go down there to confront SG#1 and he's bringing fury along with him. Funny thing is, I think this will be the first time the two characters have been on screen together.

Meanwhile in Londo's plot, he's still keen to give Lady Morella a tour of the station, blissfully unaware of the security officer civil war that's threatening to kick off.

Morella talks about how Emperor Turhan wanted to prevent the insanity he knew was coming. The Centauri insanity I mean, not the Earth insanity. Maybe I'm just too used to her playing Lwaxana, but I'm a little surprised at how subtle Majel's performance is here.

The two of them have a bit of a chat about how we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst and it's hard not to read it as being a conversation about Gene Roddenberry. Though I'm trying not to! Especially when she says lines like "This place has become a memorial to his unfinished work."

All through the series Londo has repeatedly claimed that he has no choice, but Morella assures him that there's always a choice, and if he understands that then there's still hope for him. Interestingly Turhan mentioned in The Coming of Shadows that he regretted going through his whole life without making his own choices, so he clearly hadn't taken his wife's advice.

Meanwhile, Garibaldi has made it down to security and he is turning over all of the tables. Zack tried to talk him into taking an armband and playing along for a bit, but Garibaldi's not in the mood. That's probably for the best actually, seeing how bad he's been at bullshitting people this season.

His people can barely even look him in the eye, never mind talk back to him. Mostly because they're extras (though apparently some are members of the production staff). Jerry Doyle, on the other hand, has been given plenty of lines and he is making the most of them.

Unfortunately not one of them listens to his plea to tear off their armband, and Security Guard #1 relieves him of duty, giving his job to Zack. So hang on, SG#1 has the authority to promote Zack, but he's made Zack's the new head of security? Now I'm more confused than ever! Where's Marcus and his homemade org charts when you need him?

ACT THREE

Things are a lot calmer over in act three, with G'Kar telling Ta'Lon about his profound and substantial revelation, and how it's transformed him.

Though when Ta'Lon asks what exactly was revealed to him he's more poetic than informative and Ta'Lon counters by pointing out that all answers are replies but not all replies are answers. It's a surprisingly thoughtful response from a guy who carries a sword everywhere and hasn't slept for four days.

G'Kar picks up a candle, then he picks up the book he's written, and then he holds the two of them close enough to have me worried. He didn't print that book out, he hasn't got backups somewhere, that's his only copy! Anyway the revelation is in the book, or at least some of it is.

The gist of it is that for the Narns to save themselves they need to sacrifice themselves. Not just their lives, but their pride and their vengeance. The humans are the key, and if they turn that key they'll find salvation on the other side.

Unfortunately the humans are screwed, as the order to declare martial law on Babylon 5 just came in. Now Sheridan has to read this out over the PA and make himself the most popular person on the station.

Morella's tour of the station has reached the Zocalo at this point and for the first time in the series we get an explanation of what the word means. Vir says it means "great marketplace" and he's pretty close. It means 'main square', named after the plaza in Mexico City. Which was named after a plinth.

And then General Hague finally makes his appearance!

Well his ship does, on the television. He's having a bit of a firefight with Clark's ships at the famous transfer point on Io. Sheridan may not have been able to bring himself to fire on an Earthforce ship in the last episode, but Hague's fleet has been pushed to fight back and Clark's forces are having no issues sending red energy beams their way.

Fortunately Hague is able to escape after damaging two other Omega-class cruisers, the Excalibur and the Schwarzkopf. Producer jms once mentioned that there's meant to be a theme to how Omega-class ships are named, with the pre-Clark ships like Hague's Alexander and Sheridan's Agamemnon taking their name from Greek mythology and history, and the post-Clark ships taking their name from whatever people typically name ships after, like people and swords.

Though this gets a bit confusing when it comes to the Schwarzkopf, as we've seen it before and it's not an Omega-class ship.

2-10: GROPOS

It's General Franklin's older Nova-class ship from GROPOS! You can recognise the difference right away, as the Nova class is covered in comically oversized guns and doesn't have the spinning bit in the middle. Maybe the original Schwarzkopf got replaced in the meantime, it was kind of archaic. Either way I wouldn't be shocked to find out that Franklin's dad is fighting on Clark's side.

Speaking of archaic tech, you can tell how bad the DVDs are when the effect shots on the TVs in the Zocalo look better than the ones edited into the episodes. Not that we get any full-screen effect shots of the fighting in this particular episode, as producer jms wanted to hold off for now and let viewers see the conflict from the same distance as the people in the Zocalo.

Though the danger is getting closer all the time, as Nightwatch security start to show up with their batons. They're clearly not keen on people celebrating the General's escape, accusing them of 'inciting a riot', and they start moving everyone out.

Sheridan appears on the screens to inform them about martial law, but people are too busy actually rioting at this point to pay any attention.

Then Vir instinctively shields Morella from a bottle to the head!

Nice work Centauri guards, by taking no action whatsoever to protect your boss you've managed to keep your important ceremonial helmets from being covered in sticky glass! That was a good stunt by the way, it looked very convincing.

It seems like Zack's the only one here that's not getting involved in the action. I suppose he has to stand and guard the obviously composited in monitor screen. 

Funny how the camera's moving all over the place when we're looking at the fighting, but over here it's perfectly still. Well, the image on the screen is anyway.

Someone eventually throws a chair into the screen and blows it up, but it's too late, Sheridan's already finished his speech. Then he scrunches it up into a little ball and launches it across the room.

Franklin drops by his office to cheer him up, telling him that General Hague and the Senate can still beat this thing, so they just need to buy time for it all to blow over. Though that's a bit hard with Nightwatch running security and monitoring every channel.

Then Franklin says that you can't fight the chain of command and this leads to the one big misstep of the episode, in my opinion.

Sheridan's reminded of something General Smits told him earlier, and decides to cut together an edit to reveal the secret message for the benefit of no one but the audience. He doesn’t need to check what Smits said, he’s already figured it out, but we have to wait 40 seconds for him to rewatch the clips anyway. It's not a great scene.

Meanwhile G'Kar's giant leather boots have made it over to C&C and the camera eventually pans up to reveal the rest of him's there as well.

He confides in Ivanova that he's had... an idea.

And that's the end of the scene! All these people drove to work and went through costume and make up just for that. Well, that and all the other scenes they shot that day.

Meanwhile Zack heads to his quarters after a long day of giving out armbands and standing next to a monitor screen, only to discover that he's been invited to the B5 crew's secret meeting after all!

In fact they've brought the secret meeting to him.

So now Zack's presumably going to learn everything they've been up to... which is exactly what SG#1 wanted to happen! On the plus side, G'Kar's been invited too, which must have cheered him up a bit. He's been wanting them to be honest with him for exactly as long as Zack has.

Speaking of learning dark secrets, Lady Morella accidentally brushes against Londo's hand while cleaning the blood and glass out of Vir's hair and gets a vision of the future.

In fact she gets a flash of Londo's vision of the future, which we first saw in The Coming of Shadows (in colour). It's just future Londo sitting on a chair and coughing a bit, but the fact that he's dressed as emperor and the chair is the Centauri throne is a bit concerning. She's got enough experience with prophetic visions to know it's probably not cosplay. Though she doesn't say anything.

Back in the present Zack finds SG#1 hanging out in his favourite place, next to the security monitors, and immediately gives away everyone in Sheridan's conspiracy! Actually that's not entirely true, as he does leave Ivanova and Franklin out of it. And Delenn and Kosh. Anyway he tells him that Sheridan's got a shuttle coming in carrying a couple of hundred Narns from one of their colonies to replace Nightwatch as station security. Zack wanted to help them, but he just... couldn't.

Has he really betrayed the B5 crew? We only have to wait two minutes to find out.

ACT FOUR

Act four begins on a staircase somewhere in the Narn part of B5 where everything is dark and tinted red. G'Kar is having a meeting with the Narns to ask for their help... and that's the end of the scene. He's been getting a lot of short cryptic scenes this episode. Shows up in C&C, says almost nothing. Shows up in Zack's quarters, says absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile Sheridan's sitting in his office in the dark, looking miserable. I thought it was his quarters at first, as he set an alarm clock for 2:30am (and then didn't go to sleep), but then he stood up and I noticed the curved wall with the slats.

This is the point of no return, as if he goes through with his plan he'll be publicly siding against Nightwatch and the Clark administration, and this has clearly got him stressed out. He can kick the can down the road afterwards but in the end there are only two possible outcomes from this decision: Clark goes or he goes.

Nightwatch arrives at the docking bay in full force, as they'll need everyone with an armband if they're going to intercept an entire replacement security force of Narns and get the evidence that incriminates Sheridan. The senior staff are on the move too, and everyone's marching to the same place, each with a pistol on their hip (or in their hand).

SG#1 is so hyped for this he doesn't even notice that Zack has suddenly gotten a lot more enthusiastic about what they're doing and isn't bitching about everything for a change. He's also completely overlooked the fact that he's brought all his people into an enclosed area as well. Though he finally catches on when Zack gets on his link and gives the order to drop the doors and seal them all in.

Sorry SG#1, turns out that Zack was the boss after all. Though he could've stood closer to the door before giving the signal.

The others arrive just in time to pick him up off the floor and tell him he did the right thing. Poor Zack still doesn't know if he really did, but he's feeling happier about this choice. And he's delighted to rip that bloody armband off already. I think it worked out for him in the end though. 50 creds a week over eight months or so... that's about 1600 credits he's made from wearing the armband, plus it put him where he needed to be to take care of the station's Nightwatch infestation.

Sheridan gets on his link and informs his prisoners that he's placing them under arrest for conspiracy to mutiny... and failure to obey the chain of command. Their orders came from the Political Office, which is a civilian agency outside of the chain of command, which is what General Smits was trying to tell him earlier.

The heroes managed to do the classic B5 trick of finding a loophole to get things back to the status quo again! Except not quite, as this is only going to buy them a week or so while they wait for Earth to send the orders through the proper channels. But buying time until Hague and the others can save the day is all they can do right now. Well, aside from bringing on a whole lot of Narns to supplement Garibaldi's loyal security officers. Turns out there was a lot of truth to the lie that lured SG#1 into their trap, that's why it was so convincing.

Lady Morella's really running out of episode now, so she finally decides to tell Londo what she saw about his future, and it's more than just him coughing on a chair. Turns out that he'll have five opportunities over the course of his life to avoid the fire that awaits him. Well, three now, as he's already messed up two of them.

1. He's wasted this one already. (Starting the war with the Narn maybe?)
2. He's wasted this one too. (Enabling the invasion of Narn perhaps?)
3. He must save the eye that does not see.
4. He must not kill the one who is already dead.
5. He must surrender himself to his greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy him.

These are all pretty damn vague, and Londo immediately makes things even more ambiguous by replying "I don't understand," potentially making himself a candidate for the 'I' who does not see. Sorry Londo but you can't save yourself to save yourself, that makes no bloody sense. It's not referring to the Eye from Signs and Portents either, as he already saved that.

This is pretty good news so far, as Londo's been tormented his whole life by a future he thought was inevitable. Though Morella claims that there's no way he'll get out of becoming emperor, that's straight up fate. Also Vir will be emperor too, which he finds hilarious until he realises that she's not joking. That's a hell of a thing to drop on a guy who didn't even seem to want to know his future!

ACT FIVE

One of them will become emperor, then they'll die, then the other one will become emperor. And this isn't a 'maybe, maybe not, who knows?' vision like the one Lady Ladira had of Babylon 5 blowing up, this is just fact. Unless she's wrong.

Either way things have suddenly gotten very awkward between Londo and Vir. Somehow they've become very focused on the 'Vir has much to gain from Londo's death' part of the prophecy and not the 'Londo will inevitably become emperor and live to be an old man' part.

Elsewhere G'Kar makes another request to join the Army of Light, Morella takes an awkward ride in a lift with B5 security officer Ta'Lon, and Ivanova gives Sheridan the latest depressing news from ISN. Apparently most of General Hague's rebel fleet has been destroyed, so he probably won't be saving the day. In fact chances are he'll be captured at his next stop and then Clark's forces will be coming for B5.

Funny, they never thought it would end like this.

Come on, keep zooming out, I want to see this damn building Sheridan works in!

We've seen the outside of his window before in episodes like Geometry of Shadows and Divided Loyalties, but it looks a little different this time.

I'd rather nitpick other things though. Like the light strips running down the centre of the station are on the right of the frame, but the shadows indicate a light source on the left. Both of these things are wrong as the station's interior is curved and the lights are directly above every building. Also it's nice to finally get a clue to where the building is (somewhere halfway down the cylinder it seems, a long way away from C&C), but we know that Sheridan's office window looks out towards the curving side of the landscape, so either the building's been turned around 90 degrees or it's sitting in a half-pipe.

Basically everything about this shot is wrong. Looks nice though.


CONCLUSION

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Basically everything about this episode is right.

Well I mean the President dissolving the Senate and declaring martial law is pretty wrong and bad, and I can't say that I'm on team Nightwatch, but I can see how people would be. There are still messages from Earth coming through, but communications are being monitored, information is being controlled, and station personnel are being fed a steady diet of lies. For a season and a half the crew have been worried about Earth's slow descent into fascism, and the people in the Zocalo seem to be firmly Team Hague, but who knows what the people wearing the armbands actually believe. Not that it matters now, as they're all gone!

The episode's called Point of No Return and it really does feel like the command crew have crossed a line here. The heroes finding the loophole in the rules to save the day is a Babylon 5 tradition stretching back at least as far as season one's By Any Means Necessary, but this seems like a loophole too far, as now they're standing in front of President Clark's bulldozer and there's no way that's going to be tolerated. Sheridan and Garibaldi were already under suspicion but this has pretty much blown their cover entirely, and now all they can do is hope things back on Earth get put back together as quickly as they fell apart, without Hague's help.

Meanwhile in the Centauri side of the plot, Londo learns that he surprisingly hasn't reached the point of no return! Vir was right all along, who knew? In fact he's got three more chances to avoid a bad ending, though the prophetic hints he gets are vague to the point of bring practically useless. There's another thing Babylon 5 has in common with Deep Space Nine: worthless prophecies. If this was season two, Londo would've spent the episode trying to get Morella's blessing in order to gain more influence back home, like he did with the Technomages in Geometry of Shadows, but he's become a lot less certain in his beliefs and a lot more concerned about where the road they're on is taking him, and this is reflected in the conclusion. Both episodes end with someone foretelling his future, but the Technomage predicted that his stubbornness will lead him only to darkness, while Morella tells him that as long as he believes he has choices there's still hope. Though back in The Coming of Shadows Kosh told Emperor Turhan that it'll all end in fire, so who knows?

G'Kar's in this story as well, though he doesn't get much to do but appear in various places and be vague. The man's had a revelation, and it turns out to be as useful as it is spiritual, as it gives Sheridan a force of Narns to back up his authority. G'Kar's had an epic character arc over these past four years, and now he's completed his journey being from the vengeful villain who schemed to assassinate Kosh and frame Sinclair to start a war, to becoming the wise leader with the plan to help Sheridan save everyone.

And the episode also features Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, here to carry on Emperor Turhan's dream of peace by helping jms extend an olive branch to angry Star Trek fans. I don't know how successful she was, but she does a great job in the role of Lady Morella, portraying her as wise, compassionate and sad. A good match for Emperor Turhan, even if he apparently never took her advice about making choices. But dropping that revelation on Vir at the end was pretty thoughtless of her. Maybe he didn't want to know his inescapable destiny! The Centauri Republic could do a lot worse than having him in charge though.

Overall this was a bloody good episode, one of Babylon 5's very best. Though it's the second part of Messages from Earth so that's not a huge shock. After seven episodes of 'pretty good, not amazing' the pace has kicked into high gear and every story is flowing into the next. Trek fans who refused to give the series a chance didn't know what they were missing.

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TOMORROW

Babylon 5 will return with Severed Dreams. Man, I've been waiting a long time to type that.

When the series was originally broadcast on US television, fans had to wait five whole weeks to find out what happens next, but you'll only have to wait one single day for my review. And you don't have to wait at all to leave a comment about Point of No Return.