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Wednesday, 1 April 2020

Babylon 5 3-16: War Without End, Part One

Episode:60|Writer:J. Michael Straczynski|Air Date:13-May-1996

Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures has finally returned for its fifth season... and I'm still working my way through season three of Babylon 5. Though that's not so bad, as it means I get to write about the epic War Without End two parter!

I've spent almost the entire last two months preparing for this. I've been growing my hair out to try to get it as long as Marcus Cole's and I've grown an appropriate beard. I've also studied to become fluent in Minbari, I've trained to become a master of staff fighting, and I've been taught the application of terror.

Actually I'm lying, I've done no preparation. In fact it's been so long since I've published anything here that I've forgotten what Babylon 5 even is. I'm sure it'll all come back to me though.

One thing I do remember is that I've already written about the episode Walkabout, even though it was originally broadcast after War Without End. That's because I'm following the Lurker's Guide Master List, which reorganises this block of episodes to look like this:
15 - Interludes and Examinations
18 - Walkabout
16 - War Without End, Part One
17 - War Without End, Part Two
19 - Grey 17 is Missing
Not long now before I get to write about Grey 17 is Missing!

The reason I'm pointing out this story shuffling is because there's going to be SPOILERS here for this episode and anything that came before it, and for me Walkabout came before it, so it's possible I might mention something that happens in it. Like the scene where Franklin goes to a bar, sits down and just listens to an entire song.



The episode begins with our very first glimpse of Minbar, homeworld of the Minibari. Bit of a Freudian slip there by the subtitles guy.

It feels strange that it's taken the series over 3 years to finally bring us to the home of one of its major races, but compared to Star Trek this is actually extremely fast. It took Trek 23 years from the introduction of the Klingons to visit their homeworld Qo'noS, 25 years to visit Romulus, and 37 years to visit Andoria.

Meanwhile in Doctor Who, it took over 5 years for them to finally visit Gallifrey and say 'hi' to the other Time Lords. The Daleks though, they found them right away.

Here's a stitched together panning shot of a pretty crystalline city. Sorry, I couldn't screenshot the soundtrack so you'll just have to imagine the harp that's playing right now.

It says here in my notes that the classic depiction of Superman's homeworld was an influence for the Minbari cities, but I forgot to write down where that information came from so it could be rubbish for all I know. It does look a bit like Krypton though.

The scene cuts to Rangers walking around a temple-looking structure... actually this looks a lot like the sloping glowing wall in Babylon 5's zen garden/Fresh Air Restaurant.

Anyway, a hooded figure walks in, chased by a Minbari carrying a box who calls him "Entil'Zha". Which is incidentally how Kosh greeted Commander Sinclair in the special edition of The Gathering. Well actually he was talking to a shapeshifting assassin that only looked like Sinclair, but he didn't know that at the time.

It turns out that the Minbari have been holding onto this box for over 900 years, as the ancient books were very specific about the fact that it must only be opened on this day. But today's the big day, so they opened it... and found it wasn't for them after all.

It's for someone called Jeffrey David Sinclair. Suddenly Minbari prophecy is starting to seem a whole lot more legitimate. Though I don't know why they had to write it in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer font.

The hooded figure decides that this is too big of a moment to be wearing a hood during, so he removes it to reveal...

It's Commander Sinclair! Sorry, I mean Entil'Zha Sinclair!

You can kind of almost see that he's gotten a scar on his right cheek since the last time we've seen him, which is the same scar that his future self had in Babylon Squared. Though his hair's considerably less grey.

Hey I wonder if this ancient letter from just after the last Shadow War mentions anything about the Shadows being vulnerable to telepaths. Because it seems like that particular fact has been scrubbed clean from the rest of Minbari records even though there's clearly 900+ year old books lying around.

No one in Babylon 5's C&C is getting any mysterious letters from the past though, it's all perfectly normal here. Well except for the distress call they're receiving from Sector 14.

The call is strange for two reasons: 1: there's nothing in Sector 14, not since Babylon 4 disappeared in time for the second time, 2: it's Ivanova's voice on the distress call. Apparently Earth Alliance Station Babylon 5 is under attack!

Ideally a episode teaser will set up an interesting premise, not just a simple cliffhanger, so the viewer is curious about where the episode is going and is more likely to stick around. This is a bloody good teaser.


ACT ONE


Back on the green screen set Minbar, Jedi Master Sinclair says goodbye to his friend Rathenn and walks off to his ship to do secret prophecy business. The two of them apparently created the Rangers between them but now Rathenn and the others will have to carry on without him.

As Sinclair leaves, a Vorlon comes over to cryptically reveal that Sinclair is "the closed circle", before slinking off again. Bloody Vorlons seem to know everything but never tell you anything. Though it makes sense that this one would already know what the letter's about, as he's probably old enough to have been around when it was written.

I don't think this is Ambassador Fake Kosh by the way. He looks identical, but he has a different voice and hasn't choked anyone yet.

Back on the station, the crew are listening to the recording of the distress call, which is annoyingly non-specific. I mean the other Ivanova did take the time to specify that it was the Earth Alliance Station Babylon 5 being attacked, not any other Babylon 5, but she didn't even hint at who was doing the attacking.

Garibaldi points out that Sector 14 has a big time portal so the message could've come from the future. He also gives a bit of exposition about what happened in Babylon Squared, mentioning his flashforward to his desperate last stand, where he was holding off unseen invaders with a big-ass gun to give the others time to escape after rigging the station's fusion reactor to blow.

1x20: Babylon Squared
Uh, that was actually Sinclair's flashforward, not Garibaldi's. But there's nothing in that episode that says he didn't see it himself at some point, so I'll let it slide.

He wants to take a Starfury out on a boring three hour trip to Sector 14 to see if he can get more spoilers out of the time rift, and Sheridan's fine with that plan. First time Garibaldi went to Sector 14 he rescued the whole crew of Babylon 4, second time he rescued Sheridan (in Knives), so it generally works out for them. Sucks to be the pilot who flew there in a Starfury and somehow got aged to death though.

Meanwhile down in the Customs Area, Zack's on Identicard-scanning duty just as Ambassador Sinclair arrives on the station! Though he points out himself that he pretty much lost his job as ambassador after Earth went fascist.

He also recognises Zack, as it turns out he came aboard just before Sinclair left. Zack's so happy to see him again that he can't be bothered to scan anyone else's cards and just lets them through.

Here's a rare shot of someone sitting in a Starfury cockpit while it's parked inside one of the Cobra Bays.

Garibaldi asks Ivanova if she wants anything from the future, like bagels, and she asks for the winning numbers from the New Vegas lottery. So hang on, Babylon 5 takes place in the Fallout universe?

Meanwhile Lennier visits Delenn's quarters and finds her sitting in the dark. The set looks better with the lights down though, they should do it more often.

She’s also doing the candle thing that Lennier did when she went into a chrysalis, because they know what's going to happen next.

Turns out that she also received an ancient letter, addressed to 'DELENN'. So it's finally confirmed, she really does only have the one name!

No time to dwell on that though, as now the episode's back in the war room with Sheridan, just in time for the epic meeting of Babylon 5's two commanders (though it turns out they've already met off-screen during the Mars riots). This episode's got an unusually quick pace so far, it's skipping from scene to scene to scene more like a movie.

Garibaldi calls to let them know that the rift's gotten bigger, and it's being done by someone deliberately. There's a tachyon field being transmitted into the centre of the rift, straight from Epsilon 3.

Cut to Zathras looking right down into the camera with the flashy inner workings of Epsilon 3's Great Machine towering over him in the background. This episode's directed by Mike Vejar by the way, who tends to be responsible for the more interesting looking stories.

We've seen Zathras once before, 43 episodes ago, as he was part of the crew helping Sinclair steal Babylon 4 in Babylon Squared. But we already knew he was down here on Epsilon 3 after Draal called his name in The Long, Twilight Struggle 19 episodes ago. This storyline's been building for a long while now.

There's another one of Zathras's people down here as well, as they're the caretakers of the Great Machine, but we don't see Draal himself. He was probably busy filming some other show at the time; the actor was in basically everything. It's fine though as he's left Zathras instructions.


ACT TWO


Delenn drags everyone to the White Star with the promise that she'll explain everything later, but poor Garibaldi is still out in his Starfury so he's going to miss out again. We're over two-thirds through the season now and he still hasn't had a chance to come aboard their awesome prototype super-ship.

He scans for transmissions again but it's just the same distress call.

Then we get a shuttle ride scene, just like in Babylon Squared. Except without Garibaldi around to ask personal questions about each person's particular process of putting their pants on.

You know, I don't think we've seen a Earth Alliance shuttle interior since Babylon Squared, way back in season one, though I could be wrong. The set's looking a lot better now; turns out that adding more miscellaneous sci-fi junk to the walls can really help sometimes.

1-20: Babylon Squared
Here's what it used to look like if you're curious. Hang on, that's a point, Sinclair was flying back then because he's a fighter pilot, so why is Sheridan the one flying this time? Is Ranger One too good to fly his own ship now? What about Marcus?

Anyway Marcus is in the scene too, and he mentions that back on Minbar the Rangers has a saying: "The only way to get a straight answer out of Ranger One was to look at every reply in a mirror while hanging upside down from the ceiling." I hope that saying is more pithy in the original Minbari, because it's a bit rubbish in English.

Meanwhile Garibaldi has cut life support 15% in an attempt to actually get something on his screen, and that was apparently the amount of power it took to boost the signal because he's finally watching Ivanova's YouTube channel.

Turns out that C&C's on fire, the ceiling's come down, the defence grid is out, the captain's dead, and Corwin's probably dead as well by the look of the place. She's lucky the window hasn't broken and exposed the room to the cold vacuum of space really, as it's bought her a few more minutes to explain how utterly screwed they are. She's practically in tears at this point and I can kind of see why!

Though she still hasn't mentioned who's attacking them! C'mon Ivanova, we've been waiting since season one to know who's going to invade Babylon 5 and cause the crew to blow up their own station. We saw the last stand in Babylon Squared, but we never saw what the threat was.

Oh it's the Shadows. Well, that makes a lot of sense.

The Shadow vessels open fire on the station, there's a flash of light, and then nothing but static.

It's not really a huge surprise it came to this though, seeing as the heroes have a fragile primitive space station that can't move, and the villains have a semi-invincible of fleet of ships built with technology millennia ahead of our own. In fact it's a bit strange that this attack didn't happen the moment Sheridan made his move against them.

Meanwhile everyone else has arrived on the White Star, so Delenn has to finally tell them why she's dragged them all here and what's going on, with the help of some ancient records recorded a thousand years ago during the last Shadow War.

It's a long presentation as she's got a ton of exposition (and no Drall around to share the load), but the gist of it is:
  • As you know, a thousand years ago the Minbari teamed up with the Vorlons and beat the Shadows.
  • But towards the end of the war they were in a bad situation due to their spacestation blowing up.
  • Fortunately a replacement just appeared from out of nowhere: Babylon 4!
  • But a thousand years later the Shadows recognised the station as it was being built and sent ships to blow it up in order to change history!
  • They were stopped by the heroic crew of the White Star, who then went on to steal the whole bloody station. Wait, what?
We already knew that Sinclair and Delenn were the ones who stole Babylon 4, but it turns out that Sheridan, Ivanova and Marcus were part of the team as well! Will be part of the team. But only if they get to it in time to take it through time.


ACT THREE


The exposition continues in act three, as Delenn explains that if the Minbari don't do a thorough job of winning the last Shadow War, it'll change history and the Shadows will have more surviving ships to use in this one. They won't need to move slowly in this new timeline, so they'll be able to wipe out Babylon 5 before they have a chance. The distress call from Ivanova and the flashforward to Garibaldi's last stand are all glimpses of the bad timeline that they'll be stuck with if they screw this up... possibly. I mean they can't be certain what the future will be, they only know what the past should be.

Everyone decides to believe it (Ivanova says she'll be in the car), though Sheridan decides to check in with Garibaldi first to see what new info he's gotten. Turns out the distress call was sent just eight days from now, so they won't have long to wait to see if their plan saves them. Though of course they wouldn't know what's coming in the altered timeline, because their timeline would be altered...

Sheridan's still not entirely on board with stealing a second Earth Alliance station this year, so Sinclair starts listing famous partnerships to encourage him to team up: Butch and Sundance, Lewis and Clark, Lucy and Ethel. Well I recognised two of them at least, though it's supposed to be Lois and Clark! Bit of a screw up there for a writer who went on to write a Superman comic.

They head full-speed to Sector 14, but Zathras is able to catch up to them with his Epsilon 3 shuttle! It makes sense, as Delenn admits that the technology of the planet is ahead of their own, that's why they need Zathras's boxes of toys. Though they land more like boxes of nothing when he accidentally drops them on the floor (I love Sheridan's reaction to his eccentric performance).

Sinclair has a flashback the moment he sees the guy, remembering how he met him on Babylon 4. Zathras stood up like he recognised him, but then sat back down, saying "Not the one." So Sinclair straight up tells him of their future meeting and explains what he has to do!

I'm used to characters holding back on future knowledge for the sake of drama so I didn't expect him to be so immediately on the ball and forthcoming. Though he also asks Sheridan to keep Garibaldi out of the loop and order him back to the station without telling him that his best friend's back in the show. Their two ships pass by each other as they go in opposite directions, and Sinclair remembers his vision of the bad future from Babylon Squared (the one Garibaldi said he saw).

So it's a flashback to a flashforward to a potential alternate timeline. But does the timeline have to change for them to end up here?

They're both wearing flak jackets, so there's nothing to say that Sinclair didn't change out of his Entil'Zha robe and Garibaldi out of his Army of Light uniform. We never get a good look at Sinclair's right cheek so we can't tell if the scar's there or not. I think the only possible continuity issue here is Garibaldi's hair, and I don't know exactly how fast hair grows in eight days. It's a shame jms didn't ask Jerry Doyle to grow his hair a little longer in advance so he looked the same when this two-parter came up.

Anyway the flashforward ends with Lady Ladira's vision of Babylon 5 exploding (from Signs and Portents), firmly establishing that as being a Bad Timeline event as well. So that's another loose end being wrapped up.

They're about to head through the rift, but first Zathras has to hand out anchor devices to keep them from becoming unstuck in time or suffering accelerated ageing, just like the Enterprise crew had in the Next Gen episode Timescape! Man, this episode really has gone full Star Trek.

Apparently the only reason the rift didn't age Sinclair and Garibaldi last time was because they got lucky, so I really hope he brought enough for the whole crew.


ACT FOUR


Oh good, the others are wearing them too, that's a relief. This is a nice view of the bridge; really shows how crowded it is back there today (I still don't like the pods up at the front though).

Anyway it's 30 minutes into the episode and they've finally started their time travel adventure. Sinclair looks over to Delenn and Sheridan holding hands as the ship flies through the time vortex, and gives an unseen smile of approval. So now the fans know that Sinclair is totally shipping the two of them and there's not going to be a love triangle here.

Meanwhile Garibaldi arrives back at the station and learns from Zack that Sinclair came and went without saying a word to him! Garibaldi is very confused.

Back on the White Star, we've got the same camera angle but a narrower field of view, so the captain's chair looks wedged in between the two pods and the place looks even more crowded.

Sheridan's clearly a lot more comfortable with his ship than he was back in Matters of Honor as he knows exactly what orders to give and what's going to happen when he gives them, walking up to his holographic display to see what's going on outside.

They've arrived in 2254, 6 years in the past, and they're picking up Shadow ships doing something sneaky not far from the newly constructed Babylon 4.

Wait, is that the USS Voyager's warp core?

Ivanova claims that it's a fusion bomb and Sheridan realises they're going to blow the place up and make it look like an accident. We learned in Grail that the other three Babylon stations were sabotaged, but we never learned who did it. Makes you wonder if the Shadows have been blowing the things up from the start.

(The series never gives us an answer, but writer jms revealed online that it was actually someone else.)

The White Star races to intercept the Shadows before all hope is lost. Hopefully these ships don't need to be jammed by a telepath before they're vulnerable because I don't think Delenn brought any.

Six years later, Garibaldi finds that he's got a message on his system from Sinclair, but it's password protected.

While he works on that, the White Star gets to work slicing through Shadow fighters. They take a few hits in the process, but the ship's fine. It's mostly just an excuse for Lennier to tell Sheridan that the vessel's skin is organic Vorlon technology that learns from experience to become stronger.

First Garibaldi tries Sinclair's name as the password, which says a lot about his respect for Sinclair's password skills. Then he tries his own password, which is just weird. "Susan" and "Michael" are both failures as well, thankfully, and Garibaldi apparently remembers their conversation in the shuttle back in Babylon Squared a lot more fondly than Sinclair does as "Socks", "Fasten" and "Zip" all fail as well.

He finally remembers that last time he got a message from Sinclair (back in The Coming of Shadows) the guy greeted him by saying "Hello, old friend," and using that as the password gets his new message playing. Sinclair says that he's sorry he didn't say hi, but he couldn't allow him to come along. Sinclair knows he's not coming back from this, and if Garibaldi had joined the mission he wouldn't have been able to come back either.

Meanwhile everything goes negative on the White Star as they take out the fusion bomb, because they blew it up while inside the blast radius. Well okay, not everything is negative, as they've only inverted the luminosity channel and left the hue and saturation alone, but that's not important right now.

What they should've done is use the ship's tractor beam to pull the bomb away from the station so they could blow it up at a safe distance. Actually that would've probably set it off as well. See, this is why I'm not a starship captain.

The White Star flips around to fly away, but they're not quick enough to avoid the blast and Sheridan's time stabiliser is hit! Well that's what they say happens...

What we see happen is a swirly energy effect flies in and heads straight for the thing. It's a bit weird.

The device glows for a bit and then Sheridan just vanishes. Sinclair and Garibaldi suffered from flashforwards when they visited Babylon 4, but they didn't outright disappear like this, so I'm thinking that this is probably bad.

Zathras picks up the broken pieces of his time stabiliser and explains that he's unstuck in time. Hopefully he's also unstuck in space, as the ship's in motion and if he comes back exactly where he was standing he'll be floating in a vacuum.

Oh, putting fur in front of a green screen probably wasn't the best idea they've had. It's a shame they couldn't have borrowed the starfield from C&C for this shot, seeing as the background's not even moving.

Zathras is a weird character, because he seems like he should be more obnoxious than Neelix on Voyager, but he kind of isn't. At least not to me. I think it helps that he's nothing but helpful, he's just got a strange way of expressing himself and family of dead racoons piled up on his shoulders.

With Sheridan missing it's Sinclair's time to shine, as he takes over the mission and nicks Sheridan's seat. Though I suppose it's his ship really anyway, seeing as he's the head of the whole organisation.

Delenn and Ivanova want to stop and get Sheridan back, but he tells them that the priority has to be Babylon 4. He explains that "The explosion sent out enough EMP to blow out their scanners for a while", so they've got an opportunity to dock undetected. "Enough EMP"? Shouldn't that be something like "an EMP strong enough"? Never mind, not important, what's crucial here is that they get to the station before they lose their window of opportunity.

Sinclair's actually pretty good at this ship commanding thing, it's a shame he's never gotten a chance before now. He can even speak Minbari so he doesn't need to relay orders through a translator!

Meanwhile Sheridan is dragged before an aged Emperor Londo Mollari, making a surprise appearance in the story 37 minutes in. It seems that Sheridan has Quantum Leaped into his future self, and his future self isn't doing well seeing as he's gotten himself captured on Centauri Prime (two homeworlds in one episode!)

Londo's doing alright for himself though. We saw him dream of becoming emperor in The Coming of Shadows, Lady Morella prophesied that it was inevitable in Point of No Return, and now we know that he actually will be sitting in that chair at some point in the future... possibly. The White Star crew are currently in the process of manipulating time so it's hard to know what future we're in.

All Sheridan knows is that this is the future where Londo's going to kill him.


ACT FIVE


Some writers would think that's a good spot for the cliffhanger ending, but the episode's still going. We're going to dock on this bloody station before the end credits come up dammit!

On the White Star, Delenn tells Sinclair that this wasn't the plan and they've got no idea where in time Sheridan has ended up. Sinclair tells her it'll be alright, then adds in Minbari "I know what's coming." Seems like the letter he got contained more spoilers than her letter, and now he's got no hesitation or doubt. He's definitely a man at the end of his character arc, who's gotten over his issues and solved his mysteries.

Back on Centauri Prime, Sheridan wants to know what he's doing there, so Londo tells him it's punishment for his crimes. The crimes of neglect and convenience.

Oh damn, there's windows behind the curtains! Well there's a window somewhere anyway. I've always had the feeling that the throne room set was just some curtains and pillars arranged to create the impression of a room, and this episode's done nothing to change that feeling.

Londo drops some huge spoilers here, revealing that Sheridan won the Shadow War and drove the Shadows away! So now we know for a fact that the unstoppable foe is very stoppable. Unfortunately their minions came to Centauri Prime and totally ruined the view from the Royal Palace.

In The Coming of Shadows, Centauri emperor Turhan got to speak with Kosh just before he died and asked him how it would all end. Kosh replied "In fire." Turns out he was being literal.

They really needed to use some higher resolution textures for the close ups on this series.

The ship latches onto the station and begins drilling a hole through the hull, like the breaching pod in Severed Dreams a few episodes back. Though back then the invader came through a wall for some reason, while our heroes are coming up through the floor like they're supposed to.

In fact they're all coming through, even Delenn! They're all going on a Star Trek adventure together! Well except for Lennier, he's needed on the ship.

Well Ivanova's gotten her wish. In Babylon Squared she said that if Babylon 4 turned up again "I'm going and Garibaldi's staying behind," and here she is!

This is one time that Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 do something different. Both series feature an episode where the heroes visit another station of similar design to their own, but DS9 blatantly reused the same sets while B5's made an effort to give B4 a distinct appearance. Here's a spooky coincidence for you though: both episodes were by the same director.

The team's goal is to plant a device on the fusion core so that the Great Machine at Epsilon 3 can yank the station a thousand years into the past... but it's going to take a while because this is where the episode ends.

TO BE CONTINUED


CONCLUSION

War Without End, Part One moves like a damn rocket, though I suppose it had to considering how packed full of revelations and exposition it is. It's just a shame that the dialogue suffers a bit as a result, plus there's a lot of 'I'll explain later, but we have to do this now'. In fact the episode is so fast paced you can almost miss the fact that it's basically all about Delenn trying to get everyone in the van, then persuading them to go on a road trip. Sinclair gets a letter, Ivanova picks up a distress call, Garibaldi receives a message, and they all have to listen to a lot of exposition, but they don't actually do a whole lot. It seems that an event this epic takes a bit of setting up.

In fact they've been setting it up for a very long time now, ever since jms sneakily put Voice in the Wilderness and Babylon Squared back to back at the end of season one, knowing that most people wouldn't guess that the Great Deus Ex Machina was the cause of the subsequent time weirdness. In fact the set up goes back even further, as we learned that Babylon 4 mysteriously vanished way back in Grail.

When Babylon 5 first aired there was no guarantee that we'd ever get a follow up to Babylon Squared or the vision of the station blowing up in Signs and Portents. Television back then wasn't in the habit of giving viewers a glimpse of the future and then actually paying it off (in fact I'm still waiting to see if Star Trek: Discovery ever pays off the glimpse we got of its future in Calypso). But even though the plan had changed dramatically and one of the main actors involved had left the show years ago, B5 actually went and did it.

It was nice to finally see Sinclair again for the first time in more than a season, even though he and Sheridan don't really get a lot to do for the most part but stand around and have gravitas. I never had a problem with the actor in season 1 and I definitely don't have a problem with him here. Though the Army of Light have a real problem with delegating tasks as they've sent their entire leadership out on this mission, except for Garibaldi. And they would've totally brought Garibaldi if Sinclair hadn't stopped them! Though I suppose there's no arguing with a predestination paradox, especially when the alternative is the station blowing up.

The series has given us prophecies and visions of the future before, but up to this point they've never conflicted with each other. Now the heroes are deliberately messing with time and we don't know what's going to happen any more. Are there just two possible timelines, or can Sheridan make a third where they win and Centauri Prime isn't razed by Shadow minions? Which timeline does G'Kar strangle Londo to death in? Will we ever find out? Will we find out in part 2??

It's impossible to watch this and then think 'Nah, I don't immediately want to watch the next episode', even though we've already seen what happens next way back in Babylon Squared. The time thieves take over B5, a guy with a spacesuit appears and zaps Sinclair in a 'the same person can't be in the same place at the same time' kind of way, Zathras gives him a time stabiliser, he takes his helmet off and it's Sinclair! Okay maybe we weren't shown that much and there's still a little mystery left. Like how they're going to rescue Sheridan from the future, and what Garibaldi's going to do now that he's got the house to himself.

Overall, this was a pretty good episode I thought! Even if it did feel more like the first half of a B5 TV movie that's been awkwardly wedged into a story arc.



COMING SOON
Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's War Without End, Part Two! Because there's no way I'm waiting more than a week for this one.

If you've got any opinions of your own about this episode you're welcome to leave a comment. Especially if they're good opinions.

8 comments:

  1. So the "War Without End" in fact ends after two parts? Plot hole, JMS!

    I remember this being one of my favourite episodes, in part because of the way it ties into Babylon Squared. I like how, even though we know what happens next (as you say), JMS adds a bunch of new things to wrongfoot us. When he was good, he was good!

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    Replies
    1. Maybe the next episode afterwards is called 'The Endless War Continues'!

      Oh hang on, it's not. It's Grey 17 is Missing. Damn.

      Delete
  2. Interesting revelation in this episode, that it's the good guys who altered history to their own benefit, while the bad guys are trying to preserve the integrity of the timeline.

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  3. I try not to think about how our heroes are only in a position to alter the past because they've already altered the past and know exactly what they need to do and when to do it. I can deal with that when it's a fixed time loop, but this story says the past is mutable, so there should be an unaltered history, but we don't see any sign of that in the story.

    It reminds me of an old Tomorrow People story where the 20th century Roman Empire sends a representative back to the 1st century to introduce the steam engine, which is what made the 20th century Roman Empire possible in the first place. When the steam engine is destroyed, the representatives of the modern Empire vanish along with their timeline. So where'd their timeline come from originally?

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    Replies
    1. Time travel will give you a headache in any story, but here it seems like the unaltered history is the one they're living in.

      Free will is apparently in the equation here, so until the job's finished the Signs and Portents/Babylon Squared timeline also exists as a possible altered history and its future can be sensed and recorded. But as long as the heroes act in character and don't deliberately try to sabotage themselves, history will ultimately remain intact and they'll get to keep the incredibly helpful predestination paradox that came as standard.

      Delete
    2. So it's like that animated Star Trek episode where Kirk and Spock find they've changed history by preventing Spock from going back in time to save his younger self's life. Spock eventually goes back anyway and sets the paradox back up, except this time his dog died.

      Delete
    3. At the risk of sounding like I don't get how the time travel works in that episode, I'm gonna say... I dunno, maybe!

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    4. Ah, youngun! Lewis & Clark were a couple of 19th Century guys who mapped the old West, while Lucy & Ethel were characters from "I Love Lucy" which was probably still in syndication when this ep aired!

      Delete