Babylon 5 5-22: Sleeping in Light

Episode:

110

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

25-Nov-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I did it, we're here, it's the last episode of Babylon 5, episode 110 of 110. I have finally reached Sleeping in Light! Though here it looks more like Sleeping in Bed. I suppose they do have that lamp on.

It had originally been filmed as an extremely final season 4 finale when their network was collapsing and the future looked bleak. But when the miracle happened and TNT gave them a fifth season, it provided them an opportunity to film an alternative end to season 4 and hold onto this for a while. That means that the episode finally aired 394 days later than planned! The actors and crew knew the story, people from the media got hold of the script, but it seems like no one ever said anything in all that time.

It's the first and only episode of the series to be directed by showrunner J. Michael Straczynski. In fact it was his first time directing anything. Personally if I was going to try my hand at being a director I wouldn't start with the finale to my epic sci-fi series. Endings are incredibly important to a story, they're one of the things that people remember most and it colours their opinion of the whole saga, so screwing up here would be very bad.

Okay you're if you're reading my final B5 review you probably already know the drill by now, but I write about entire episodes scene by scene, with a recap under screencaps, so there'll be HUGE SPOILERS. I'll not spoil anything that happens in the spin-offs, Lost Tales, or any other series however. So if you're hoping for me to compare it to Deep Space Nine's finale, that's not going to happen. I could compare it to a certain other Trek finale though, with its 20 year time jump.

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The episode starts off in one of the busier parts of Minbar's orbit, with Minbari cruisers, White Stars and these new tiny White Stars flying everywhere. I don't think the texturing on these little ships looks so great compared to their big brothers, but the design makes it clear at a glance that they're related. It's funny how we just had a story about Delenn and Lennier nearly dying on their way to propose a project to built giant White Star destroyers, and then the last episode introduces a new class of miniature ones instead.

The imagery is accompanied with a voice over by Garibaldi, who explains that the Interstellar Alliance was founded 20 years ago. And certain people, like him, have been dreading this day. So that means this is set in 2281, which would put it in an imaginary season 24 that would've aired in 2017. It takes place after all of the spin-offs, with only The Deconstruction of Falling Stars coming later in the timeline (which would fit into season 1,000,004).

It's nice that Garibaldi gets to do the opening narration here because he's the only one of the human leads to have never narrated the opening titles on his own, and the episode doesn't have a title sequence at the start for him to talk over.

The episode skips the opening credits and goes straight to that scene of Sheridan and Delenn up there at the top of the page.

It seems that Sheridan's having black and white dreams of events in season four, like this scene in Falling Toward Apotheosis  when the First One Lorien replenished his life-force a second time after his encounter with Bad Kosh. We get some dialogue from the episode as well, with Lorien explaining to Delenn that there's a time limit to this resurrection: Sheridan won't live any longer than 20 years. Season 24 is as far as he goes. So that pretty much sets up what the final episode of Babylon 5 is going to be about: Sheridan's death.

Sheridan gets up and goes to get some air and Delenn follows him. She figures that if this air is good enough to lure him away from her then she should check on her competition.

Sheridan's back to his season four King Arthur beard (because this was filmed in season four) and he's got a bit of subtle old age makeup on it seems. They didn't go crazy with it though. Plus he's wearing a Ranger outfit, like we saw hinted at in The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari... just before he put a white robe on and started glowing. Zathras said back in War Without End that Sinclair was the One who was, Delenn was the One who is and Sheridan was the one who will be. It seems that right now he's the Ranger One who is.

They're still living in the house on Minbar they moved into back in Objects at Rest, but Sheridan's realised that he's never sat and watched the sun rise, so he's doing that now. He knows he's almost out of borrowed time and that Delenn should start sending the messages. He also gives the sunrise a bit of commentary, saying "The sun's coming up."

ACT TWO

Then it cuts to an office that looks very much like the ones featured in Rising Star at the end of season four... almost like it was filmed immediately afterwards while the set was still up. It also looks just like the office that General Lefcourt had in In the Beginning, perhaps implying that it belongs to someone with a similarly high position in Earthforce.

We don't get to see the occupant right away (though their identity's given away 10 seconds early in the widescreen edit), as right now the camera's more interested in their Hugo award. I don't know if it's the one jms won for The Coming of Shadows or the one he won for Severed Dreams, but either way it's a nice little cameo.

Oh, it's just Susan Ivanova.

This reveal plays differently than it would've done if the episode had aired right after Rising Star, as the surprise was originally supposed to be that Ivanova's a jaded general with a huge office and a chest covered in ribbons. Now the surprise is that she's back! She's been absent for the last 22 episodes but she's here for the finale.

I have a bit of a problem with this scene though, as the last time we saw Ivanova she was miserable over the death of Marcus. Now we've jumped 19 years ahead and she's still miserable. It makes it seem like she's been depressed for two decades straight. Though I can imagine why as she's apparently got nothing but public speaking events scheduled.

Just then the doors fly open and a security guard is thrown onto the ground. Only one though, as the other one is still diligently guarding the left side of the doorway.

It's a Ranger and he's assaulting people! It’s okay though because the Rangers are super special and awesome and allowed to do anything anywhere they want to. Plus Ivanova's inclined to let it slide due to the fact that she'd given orders that any Ranger should be brought to her immediately, whether she's in a meeting or not.

He's brought her a note in a very fancy envelope and she already knows exactly what it's about, as she requests that a shuttle be fuelled up for her without even opening it.

The envelope raises some questions for me though. Like why a letter about Ranger One, delivered by a Ranger all the way from Minbar, has the seal of the Earth Alliance on it. Maybe it's just her logo and every recipient gets their own.

Deleted Scene

The scene as filmed originally continued for a bit longer. Ivanova would've transferred the lieutenant who wouldn't let the Ranger in to latrine duty for disobeying orders. Then she would've packed her papers away and collected her Starfury helmet from the wall, along with Marcus' pike. (The Hugo would've stayed behind though.)

I'm glad this bit was cut to be honest. We already know that she misses being in the action from the dialogue, and her ending works better without a hint that she doesn't plan to come back.

Next it's Emperor Vir, surprisingly. Who even more surprisingly is in bed with two women. There's a gag here where the palace guard walks to the pillows and announces that a courier has arrived, then turns and repeats the message to the bottom of the bed when Vir emerges from under the covers. Turns out that Vir already knows what his letter is about too.

It looks like everything's good on Centauri Prime these days. A lot of season 5 was spent setting up that the Drakh had secretly infiltrated the planet and taken over the government, but I guess that's all been taken care of off-screen! The events that led to their liberation is apparently covered in the Centauri Prime novel trilogy, but I've never read the books. Maybe this would be a good time for me to finally get around to them.

Now it's Garibaldi and Franklin's turn. It turns out that they're still friends, and they like to hang out and drop facts about their lives in casual conversation. If the episode had aired in season 4 we would've learned here that Garibaldi took over William Edgars' empire and Franklin became the chief of xenobiological research on Earth, but season 5 already set that up so this exposition is old news. It even set up Garibaldi's love of cigars, and The River of Souls established his goatee.

Garibaldi having a daughter though, that's new information! The guy's really doing well in his life these days. It's weird how Garibaldi may have gotten the happiest ending out of everyone, considering how much he suffered in the series.

One thing we don't learn here, is anything about Bester, or Garibaldi's neural block, or the Telepath War. Did it happen? Who won? What happened to the Psi Corps? Why did season 5 spend so long setting all of this up if we were never going to get an answer?

Garibaldi receives his letter and he actually opens it to read what it says. It's pretty much what Ivanova and Vir assumed it said though. Sheridan's dying and they've been invited to Minbar for one last get-together. One weird effect of this being filmed right after season four is that is has to clear up whether Garibaldi and Sheridan still have some animosity due his betrayal in The Face of the Enemy. Garibaldi replies that they had some differences in the past but he's his friend.

ACT THREE

The next act begins with Franklin on Minbar, giving Sheridan a scan. He's got a new advanced sci-fi prop to show that technology's moved on over the last 20 years.

Franklin's never really understood how Lorien's energy transfusion has kept Sheridan going all this time so it's hard for him to make an accurate assessment of his condition... but it seems like the dreams Sheridan's been having really are an indicator that he has only days left. So that's a bit depressing. I suppose it wouldn't be much of a consolation for either of them to know that this diagnosis means that the episode can continue. It's not just going to cut to credits 10 minutes in as everyone goes back home.

A few minutes later and everyone's laughing at the dinner table thanks to Garibaldi's weird story about a drunk pak'ma'ra eating a dead cat with a data crystal in and vomiting it all up over Sheridan. It definitely feels like they've allowed some alcohol into the house for the occasion, though I suppose Garibaldi wouldn't be drinking either way.

It's weird seeing Vir at the table with the the rest of these characters as he's never been part of this group, but he actually feels like he belongs now. He's a lot more calm and mature, his hair has grown bigger, and he seems like an equal instead of the bumbling exasperated comic relief. Vir tells his own story about the pak'ma'ra, about how "they're stubborn, lazy, obnoxious, greedy" and Garibaldi joins in with "Kind of look like an octopus that got run over by a truck". Bloody hell guys! I know it was a different time, but we don't talk about pak'ma'ra like that anymore.

Anyway he continues his story, talking about how he and Londo walked past their quarters one time and heard them singing. Londo stood there and listened to the whole thing and when it was over he told him that if any of the gods in their pantheon are actually real, then they sing in that voice.

2-14 - There All the Honor Lies

I read a theory once that the weird unexplained performance that Sheridan witnessed in There All the Honor Lies (that Kosh called 'beauty in the dark') was actually the pak'ma'ra singing... and then jms confirmed it on twitter a couple of years ago. So that's one mystery solved!

They make a toast to absent friends, and each of them says the name of someone they lost. Garibaldi starts with 'G'Kar' (who we know was strangled to death by Londo) and Vir says 'Londo' (strangled to death by G'Kar). Then Delenn says 'Lennier', revealing that he's dead now as well. Someone asked jms on twitter how he died and he replied "Bravely", but I read somewhere else it was apparently meant to have happened during the Telepath War. Then Franklin goes to say his friend 'Marcus', possibly to spare Ivanova from having to do it, but she interrupts him and says it herself.

No one says Lochley (mostly because it was filmed because she was cast), so her fate is still ambiguous. They had the option of filming an extra scene with her in but chose not to. No one says Sinclair either, or Talia, or even Warren Keffer. Man, they used to love going for drinks with Keffer in Earharts, he was totally part of the group. In like two episodes anyway.

After dinner Delenn catches up with a slightly distraught Ivanova and they chat about how the two of them are holding up. Ivanova's feeling a bit lost right now and doesn't know what she's doing in her life anymore. She's lost so many people, now she's losing another one and she feels like the joy's gone.

We learn that Delenn's son David is absent because he's on a Ranger training mission. So that whole thing about the Drakh keeper he got on his 16th birthday was sorted out off-screen as well. It's funny how they cast someone to play Garibaldi's daughter, but we never get to see Sheridan's son. It's like jms wanted to keep his options open for the future. We also get a line literally beginning with "As you know," that reveals that Sheridan turned down his re-election as president of the Interstellar Alliance... two years ago. So he'd been president from 2262 to 2279. That's quite a long time!

Delenn was chosen to be the next president, while Sheridan took over the Rangers. But when Sheridan dies she'll need someone else to succeed him as Ranger One, and she's decided it should be Ivanova! She thinks it'll be ideal for her, as it means no politics or bureaucracy. Plus we know from the first scene how much she wants to be on the team that kicks doors open rather than the one that gives speeches at public events. This will give her all of the action and none of the parades. (Though I think Delenn's maybe downplaying how many rituals Ivanova will be roped into).

That's an unusual angle for Babylon 5. Clever too, as it means I can't tell whether it's a horizontal human bed or a slanted Minbari bed.

Sheridan tells Delenn a story about how when he was a kid, his dad would take him out for a drive every Sunday. They didn't know where they were going, they'd just go. Tomorrow's Sunday, so he's decided to go out for a drive. He won't wake the others, he'll just go out on his own. And never come back.

We already know from A Voice in the Wilderness that Delenn really doesn't like it when people she loves 'go to the sea', but he does have a reason for his choice. The Interstellar Alliance has become half reality and half mythology, so he's deliberately going to give the life of the first president a proper mythological ending by disappearing in space. In Deconstruction of Falling Stars the future academics claimed that the story of Sheridan's death was "clearly designed to perpetuate the myth of his character". It turns out that they were actually right!

ACT FOUR

It turns out that Sheridan has chosen to dress up in his old Army of Light costume for this drive, even though he only wore it for one and a half years in between his career as an Earthforce officer and his tenure as the president of the Interstellar Alliance. I suppose this is who he thinks of himself as being.

Incidentally that cross in the background was accidental, but jms definitely left it there intentionally when he spotted it.

Sheridan walks down the hall and finds Delenn standing at the other end. She's dressed up nice, as she's been "told by a reasonably reliable source" that it's Sunday, and people dress up on Sunday. Man, their dialogue is so great in this episode. It really sells how the two of them are the perfect match for each other. Though it doesn't seem like Delenn's keen to give him a farewell hug.

But then she hugs him! The music's only just warming up at this point but the scene's enough to bring people to tears on its own. Especially when Sheridan says "Goodnight, my love. The brightest star in my sky." No one else in the series could pull off cheesy lines like that except for these two, but right now, at this moment, it's maybe a little bit devastating. He even remembered to say 'goodnight' instead of 'goodbye', because the Minbari don't use that word.

Sheridan walks away on his own, while Delenn reaches out to him. We're given a moment to wonder if he's going to turn around to look at her one final time. But he doesn't.

And that's the last time Delenn ever sees her husband. I'm not sure the episode gives a reason why he had to go on his Sunday drive without her, but he does.

Cut to, uh? I'm struggling to make out what I'm looking at here.

Oh it's an ancient Earth Alliance cruiser (with an antiquated rotating section) getting in the way of one of our last glimpses of Babylon 5 station! Turns out that against all the odds Babylon 5 has survived another couple of decades, presumably under the command of Captain Lochley.

I was wondering if the name of the ship had any relevance, so I looked it up. It turns out that in Greek mythology Talos was a giant bronze robot that patrolled around Crete to protect a princess that Zeus was into. Not much relevance it seems.

Sheridan's flown here in one of the tiny White Stars, though the thing's only on screen for maybe two seconds so they didn't give me much of a chance to figure out what I was looking out. I guess the episode's got better things to do than hang around staring at spaceships. Instead it goes straight to showing Sheridan walking into the customs area from the docking bay.

Deleted scene

There was originally going to be a scene here showing the station's current commander sitting in bed with basically every medicine known to 23rd century science arranged in front of him, but it wasn't necessary and it took up time so it had to go. Plus it's kind of distracting. The episode's supposed to be all about the main characters and their feelings, but then we're asked to wonder about what strange disease this guy's got that means he needs to take this many pills every night.

The place is basically abandoned right now and the only guard on duty is too busy reading his newspaper to really care that the former President of the Universe just walked in. Though Commander William Nils eventually rushes in to greet him with a salute... which has me wondering if we've seen people salute in the B5 universe before.

Okay I've done the research and it turns out that officers do salute in Babylon 5, sometimes. Ivanova saluted Sheridan when he arrived, Corwin saluted Lochley, and Sheridan saluted General Franklin. It doesn't happen often though.

Sheridan's the head of the Rangers and married to the president of the Interstellar Alliance, but he's somehow completely unaware of the fact that Babylon 5's being shut down soon. Seems that the Interstellar Alliance succeeded a little too well, making the station kind of redundant. Plus there's been budget cutbacks too, which have apparently contributed to the fact that no one comes here anymore. It's just a ghost town now, a ghost town scheduled to be disassembled as it's "a menace to navigation".

Uh... how can it possibly be a menace to navigation? It's the only thing in the system worth visiting, aside from the Great Machine on Epsilon 3 and anyone paying that a visit is likely to be shot down. You would have to be incredibly lost to stumble into Babylon 5 by accident.

Sheridan's getting weak now, but he decides to go on a little tour while he's here and ends up in the Zocalo. It's looking a bit like Garibaldi's evil dream twin came back with his super machine gun and really did a number on the place again, but really it's just been abandoned.

The place is jogging Sheridan's memory though, and he has a black and white flashback to happier times.

Actually he flashes back to the crowd cheering after his return to the station in The Summoning, which was a happy moment in kind of a bleak time for the galaxy. They were at war with the Shadows and the Vorlons were gearing up to blow up some planets. But he and his team were big damn heroes and they stood up to them and won. That's the kind of thing you can look back fondly on!

Also we get a glimpse of Lennier in this scene, noticeably not cheering Sheridan with the others. But then cheering was never his way.

The scene cuts back from the cheering to the silence of the empty room. And this is a pretty huge empty room, as it presumably curves right around the station.

Just then Zack appears, and he's back in an Earthforce uniform! In fact this is the first time we've ever seen him in the Earthforce security chief uniform with the leather strip down the front.

The last time these two met (in Objects at Rest), Zack told him he'd probably be here until they turned off the lights, and he says the same thing here. He did go back to Earth in the meantime though, and it turns out his moving around is why the Rangers couldn't find him to deliver his letter. They're good at barging into the highest levels of power, bad at doing basic research.

Zack's walking with a bit of a limp these days but he seems happy enough and Sheridan's not going to spoil the mood by telling him why he's here. Zack echoes something G'Kar said in his last conversation with Sheridan, saying that he can 'hear them'. The fingerprints left by a quarter of a million people coming and going every day for 25 years, layers of people's lives.

He offers to get something to eat with him, but Sheridan doesn't have the time. He's got to go to the Coriana system, where the Shadow war ended. If this had aired in season four it'd would've seemed like Sheridan was heading out there to dwell on past glories some more, but in Day of the Dead he got a message from Kosh saying "When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning."

Of course that sneaky Vorlon would've known that Sheridan originally travelled to Coriana 6 in an episode called The Long Night!

ACT FIVE

Sheridan arrives at the Coriana system with barely enough strength left to tell the ship to jump to normal space. Meanwhile Delenn finds herself hugging one of Sheridan's pillows.

It's a really emotional moment spoiled very slightly by the texturing on his mini White Star.

The textures on the big White Stars look dated, the textures on this just look bad. The Coriana system's looking nice though. It's still got that big red nebula running across the star field.

It's weird how the bridge window's so dark when there's someone in there. We should be able to see into the room from here.

Hey they brought out the old season 3 White Star railing for his mini White Star bridge! They didn't throw it away. Sometimes being a hoarder pays off, especially if you're making a science fiction series.

The computer voice starts warning that the pilot's life signs are entering the danger zone, but he just turns it off. There's next to no noise in the bridge but even that's too loud for him and he verbally orders everything shut down. And then he just stares out into space, until he can't keep his eyes open any longer.

Then a familiar voice starts asking him questions, like "Who are you?" "What do you want?" "Why are you here?" and "Where are you going?"

It's a surprise Lorien appearance!

He tells Sheridan they've all been waiting for him beyond the Rim. 'They' being all those people he fought a war against and nuked I'm presuming. I'm sure it'll work out fine though. I mean that other time he fought a war against an alien race and nuked them he ended up marrying one of them afterwards.

Though if Sheridan leaves with Lorien now he can never return. I guess not every sci-fi hero gets to come back from the realm of the gods once their story is over.

Sheridan repeats a line he said near the beginning of the episode:

 "The sun's coming up."

He's sleeping in light, except not quite, as he's beginning another journey. Which is good, because it means he's not really dying, but bad, because he'll have to hang around with Vorlons and Shadows all the time. And wizards like Lorien probably.

Though this is all from Sheridan's point of view, so we've got no evidence that this isn't just in his head.

Oh there you go, the cockpit windows are glowing from the inside.

Ivanova gives us a bit of voice over narration here, telling us that they eventually found Sheridan's ship but he wasn't in it and the airlocks were sealed. He really did just vanish without a trace.

So Sheridan's wife got to be president, Delenn's friend got offered the job of head of the Rangers, and Lorien's friend got to ascend and join the First Ones as a being of light. The moral of the story: it's all about who you know.

They must have finally gotten around to telling people about Babylon 5's decommissioning as most of the characters have turned up there in their dress uniforms. No Lochley, Corwin, Dr Hobbs, Tessa Halloran or Ta'Lon though. We didn't even get an appearance by Lou Welch!

It's really depressing how many of these actors we've lost already. Many didn't actually live to be twenty years older.

• Stephen Furst (Vir) - Died 20 years later.
• Jeff Conaway (Zack) - Died 14 years later.
• Mira Furlan (Delenn) - Died 24 years later.
• Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi) - Died 19 years later.
• Richard Biggs (Franklin) - Died 7 years later.

G'Kar's not here, but his actor, Andreas Katsulas, died 9 years later, and Sinclair actor Michael O'Hare died 15 years later. Thankfully Claudia Christian is doing fine.

They're all just silently saying goodbye to the place before entering the transport tube. Garibaldi is the last one in and he grabs a shot glass on the way as a souvenir. The final crime on the station. An interesting choice for someone who beat a drinking problem.

Though they can't be leaving just yet, as they're going into an elevator and the docking bays are down the hallway behind them.

The corridors don't usually have a ceiling on them as far as I'm aware, but they've stuck plastic freezer spacers up there today to create this moody look.

This unnamed maintenance guy was played by showrunner J. Michael Straczynski, getting himself the writer, director, producer, actor combo in the final episode. It turns out that this switch here turns out all the lights on the station, both inside and on the exterior, so it's lucky no one's accidentally flicked it before now. Fortunately the rotation carries on working, along with the docking bay doors, so they're able to get out on a shuttle.

Then we see that there's ships here from the different Interstellar Alliance races, and the Centauri too. Wait, it's just occurred to me, with the Drakh gone and Vir in charge maybe the Centauri are back in the Alliance now!

This shot really helps show the scale of all these ships, with the White Stars dwarfed by the Hyperion-class ship next to them. Hey those were old even by the time of Babylon 5, so they must be absolutely ancient by this point. I wonder where the Omega-class Talos went. Also I like that the Narn ship and the Centauri ship are both parked side by side... even if the Centauri vessel is parked backwards and showing the other ships its ass for whatever reason.

Anyway all the ships turn to face the last departing shuttle for some reason (possible to get a bit of distance between them and the station) and we get this beautiful looking shot. Then the music really builds up, and...

Boom!

Signs and Portents' prophecy of the station exploding as the last shuttle leaves has come true after all. And it all ended in fire, just as Kosh predicted. Even Ivanova's prediction was right. No boom today, boom tomorrow. Sooner or later, BOOM!

This is clearly meant to be the biggest emotional moment of the episode as it's when the music finally finishes building and goes to full heartbreak. The soundtrack to this episode is exceptional, one of the most perfect scores in television. They've also nailed the CGI when it really counted, at least for 1997, giving us one of the most impressive shots in the entire series. You can even see the pylons for the central monorail getting blasted out through the giant tear across the side.

So that's 5 exploding Babylon stations that Jinxo's outlived now, presumably (the final fate of B4 was revealed in a jms-penned canon comic book). This means he's got the set! I wonder if the guy ever found the Holy Grail though.

Look at all the debris burning up in the atmosphere of Epsilon 3! Draal's gonna be so pissed with them.

Then Ivanova's voice over returns for some final narration over clips of the characters getting on with their lives, starting with a clip of Garibaldi coming home to find his daughter asleep in front of the tennis trophy she's won.

"Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future and it changed us."

"It taught us that we have to create the future or others will do it for us."

"It showed us that we have to care for one another because if we don't, who will?"

Hey another set! Though why's Franklin still rushing into surgery wearing scrubs? Dude, you're the head of xenobiological research, quit treating patients!

Twenty years later and Franklin is still a deeply committed healer. You can tell by the way he's  heroically rushing a pak'ma'ra into surgery despite the clear and present threat of it upchucking a half-digested dead cat on him.

"And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places."

In the episode A Tragedy of Telepaths, Lochley joked in her log entry that she might quit running B5 and go work for Londo instead. It turns out that's basically what Zack has done! It seems like he's now working as one of Vir's advisors, with part of his job being to keep him from distractions when there's important paperwork to look at.

Hey, this means that Zack's finally set foot on a planet in this series! He waited until almost literally the last minute, but he made it. So that means that everyone in the main cast has at some point left the station sets and walked on solid ground. Oh wait, I forgot that they added Lochley for season 5.

"Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there could always be new beginnings. Even for people like us."

I don't know why the line "Even for people like us," always hits me so hard. There's some magic going on with this episode.

Next we see that Ivanova ended up accepting the job of being Ranger One. She doesn't seem very happy about it, possibly because she's wearing an outfit that looks just like Marcus' did, but she seems hopeful. It's nice that Ivanova does the ending narration I reckon. She missed out the entirety of season 5, but when she finally came back she got to have the last word.

She reveals that every morning for as long as Delenn lived, she got up at at dawn to watch the sunrise. This is interesting as it's the first time that we've gotten information from a narrator that they couldn't know. Unless Ivanova somehow outlives Delenn.

Then we see Delenn sitting alone on her bench.

And then Sheridan leans forward from behind her into the shot! That's clever directing.

But really she's alone and she reaches out her hand to the light just like she reached out when Sheridan walked away from her for the last time.

So if you weren't crying already you really should be by now. And I don't just mean because the sun's directly in your eyes. Seriously, don't stare at sunrises, it's can't be a good idea.

Just to spoil the mood even further, if Delenn always gets up before the sunrise now, that means she's never sleeping in light again. 

Oh what? 

The biggest twist of all is that this whole series has been an ISN Special Documentary. Even the episodes about ISN Special Documentaries! I've read that the ending was originally going to expand on this a bit, with adverts for books written by the characters, but they cut it way back. Probably the right choice. It's not quite finished yet though.

The next bit is a special feature for people who bought the videos or taped it off the television. It's something called a datablast or a databurst: a series of images that you can see if you pause the recording and go forward frame by frame. There's about 30 images flying by in a single second and they look kind of mangled in the DVD version. They don't look too great in the HD remaster either though and I think it may even be missing some of them.

It takes a lot of people to make a TV series! And a lot of them had stuck with the series from The Gathering right to the end.

This isn't quite all of the slides though, as I skipped a few of them.

Like this photo of a pack of velociraptors peering through the foliage at their prey.

And this image of dog that apparently worked in the special effects department. I believe the term 'special effects' refers to effects created practically on the set, while 'visual effects' are things like CGI that's added after filming. So the dog would've been working to rig up sparks and things like that.

Hey it's Kosh without his jukebox costume on! I don't know the other two, but he's called Jeffrey Willerth and he was also one of the hosts of a podcast I used to listen to called The Babylon Podcast.

Here's a shot of the entire crew sitting next to Earthdome taken from the 4:3 HD remaster, because the bottom row of people got cut off on the DVDs and I feel like J. Michael Straczynski should probably be included when it's his name on screen. This sequence was a bit of a gift to the crew, giving them some proper recognition. They put in the work to get this series to the finish line and together they pulled it off.

While the White Stars are flying over their head there's one last line of voice over, saying that the program was funded by the Anla-Shock memorial fund. So that kind of put a new spin on the whole thing. Maybe the series feels like pro-Ranger propaganda at times because it is pro-Ranger propaganda! The documentary twist puts the whole series into doubt, especially things like Sheridan's disappearance which had no witnesses and left no evidence.

The episode's still not quite done yet though as it's saved the Babylon 5 logo and the opening credits 'til last. The episode has a new credits sequence all of its own, based on the season 4 credits, which shows two clips of each character side by side. Though this time one clip's from early on and one's from later. And none of them are of Lochley.

Damn, some alien characters went through radical changes in makeup during the series, but this is a proper transformation. It's funny how going bald can make a person look entirely different. The guy's personality really evolved over the course of the series as well, as he went from a loveable everyman joker to kind of grumpy and intimidating.

Growing hair can make someone look really different as well.

The episode was filmed as part of season 4 which means Marcus gets a credit too! It's not often that you learn about a character's fate by his picture in the credits, but this reveals that Ivanova had Marcus' body put in cryonic suspension, like the telepaths were, until the time that the technology exists to revive him.

There's a short story by jms that gives more details about this called Space, Time, and the Incurable Romantic, and people often recommend that no one should ever read it.

Vir's gone from comedy sidekick to wise emperor, just as Lady Morella prophesied. He lost a bit of weight as well.

This is one of the ones where I compare the clips and think 'yeah there's definitely 20 years between these two scenes'.

Wow, that early G'Kar makeup did not look great. Old G'Kar looks very convincing however. That is pretty much what he would've looked like in this episode if it wasn't for that keeper on Londo's shoulder making him get all strangley in War Without End.

The credits go through a lot of characters but I'll end with Londo, just because it's funny seeing his scruffy season one hair again. Unfortunately we don't get any credits for Sinclair, Na'Toth, Keffer, Lochley or Talia Winters. They missed their chance to have season one Talia on the left, and her body being dissected by the Psi Corps on the right.

The beautiful emotional music continues playing even as the typical end credits start, so for once an episode doesn't have a jarring shift in tone at the end. It doesn't even play the Warner Bros. fanfare when the logo comes on. Well, unless you're watching the HD remaster, then it does.


CONCLUSION

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Alright, I think that has to be Babylon 5's last ending now. The show has finally finished saying goodbye to its characters.

I thought the last few episodes were kind of light on plot, but Sleeping in Light is really just a story about a guy who invites his friends over for a meal, says goodbye to his wife, then goes out for a drive. Though to say it's a bit of a downer at times is maybe an understatement. The dialogue and performances are precisely calibrated to bring you to the edge of tears and then that music comes in and finishes the job. It's got emotions it wants you to feel and the soundtrack is there to make sure you comply. This is the only review I've ever written where I've needed to have a tissue handy to get the liquid out of my eyes so I could continue typing my dumb jokes.

Though it pulls off a clever trick in its final act. The hero dies, the station explodes, and Delenn will be missing her soulmate for the rest of her life, but it feels okay. Babylon 5 was their last best hope for peace and it fulfilled its purpose. Everyone's safe and living decent lives. Ivanova's found a new career, Garibaldi's daughter won the tennis tournament, Franklin's still saving lives even though that's not his job. It's a happy ending... that you may end up crying through anyway. This was jms's first time as a director, it could've turned out to be an amateurish mess, but what we got was the purest version of what he had in his head. Or at least the purest version of his character-focused farewell, with lots of static shots that hold on characters and show the emotions on their faces.

It's a bit of a shame though that Babylon 5 station was ultimately demolished like an old skyscraper, as the place was an important historical building! It's the birthplace of the Interstellar Alliance, the site of Kosh's angelic intervention, and the former home of the prophet G'Kar! Plus 25 years isn't very long for a space colony to be around, Deep Space 9 was already couple of decades old when its series started. Then again B5 never quite functioned properly as a society, with lurkers living rough in the slums, so maybe it's for the best that they got rid of it. Hang on, I hope they made sure to get all the people in DownBelow out first!

Sleeping in Light is a great episode in my opinion, but is it a great finale for the series? Well coming after three or four episodes of endings in a row it didn't exactly have to do a lot of heavy lifting, but it definitely got the job done. In fact I'd put this as one of the best endings I've ever seen from any TV series. Okay it doesn't resolve all the plots set up during the final season, but that was never going to happen. The episode was sitting in their Avid waiting for the final edit for a whole year, so it was season 5's job to lead into it!

There are some other things that might hold it back from being an ideal conclusion to the series as a whole. Like how it's centred around the death/apotheosis of a character who didn't appear until 23 episodes in and how it doesn't even feature any Londo and G'Kar, but I'm really stretching to find flaws here. It's maybe strange for one of TVs most epic serialised sagas to end with a simple quiet story specifically designed to wreck you, but it absolutely succeeds.

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COMING SOON

That's it, that's all of Babylon 5 done with now! Well, except for A Call to Arms, Legend of the Rangers, The Lost Tales... and my Babylon 5 - Season 5 review!

If you'd like to share your thoughts on Sleeping in Light, you're extremely welcome to leave a comment.