Babylon 5 5-03: The Paragon of Animals

Episode:

91

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Director:

Mike Vejar

|

Air Date:

04-Feb-1998

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still watching Babylon 5, and I've reached season 5, episode 3: The Paragon of Animals. The title's a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet and in context it basically means 'humans are the best'. Though the character saying the line in the play is being sarcastic, so what it really means is 'humans suck'.

It's always nice to get a B5 episode that's put something other than a CGI shot of the space station under its title for a change. I like seeing the station, but you've got to have a bit of variety. Sometimes what you want is a shot of Garibaldi putting his shoes all over a table in the council chamber.

The episode was directed by Mike Vejar, which is generally a good sign as he was one of the series' best directors. Sadly he only returned for one more episode of B5 after this, but he did direct a couple of the TV movies and a third of Crusade.

That's the last thing I'm going to say here about future B5 stories, but this recap and review is definitely going to contain huge SPOILERS for this story and earlier ones. If you haven't seen the series up to Paragon of Animals then you might want to stop reading here.

---

The episode begins in the council chambers, a room we don't visit often. In fact I think the last time was in Between the Darkness and the Light, during the Earth Civil War. It's been redecorated a little since then, and I really do mean 'a little', as they've replaced the 5 on the back wall with an Interstellar Alliance logo and put a few more of them up around the walls. That's all I was able to spot.

We've got the same five characters are sitting behind the big table, despite the massive changes in their lives recently. The Centauri ambassador is also their prime minister, the Earth Alliance representative retired from Earthforce and married the Minbari representative, who is also the head of the Rangers, and I'm still not sure if the Narn even have a proper government. It's a real mess.

All the League ambassadors are all sitting exactly where they did before as well, even though the League has been disbanded, and they're all still yelling. The Drazi are impatient for the technological advances promised to them, but they can't have them until everyone signs the Alliance's Declaration of Principles. Unfortunately everyone sides with the Drazi and they all storm out together. Well, the Alliance was a nice idea, but I guess it's not going to work out!

Garibaldi finds Sheridan hanging out in the Sanctuary, staring out into space. Personally I probably would've gone somewhere else to relax instead of the room I was nearly assassinated in two weeks ago, but Sheridan's not that kind of guy.

We learn that Londo feels like they should drop the principles and Garibaldi agrees with him. It's his opinion that it's unrealistic to expect a room full of aliens from different cultures to agree on ethics and morality right away. Sheridan feels that if they can't agree on what they stand for then the Alliance doesn't stand for anything.

It's nice to see Sheridan and Garibaldi on the same side again, having a chat like they used to, but things have changed so much in the last three years that it doesn't feel as familiar as it should do. The two of them even look different.

2-06 - Spider in the Web

Garibaldi seemed a lot nicer and goofier when he had the hair. And before Bester and friends got into his head.

He used to be Sheridan's bro who watched Looney Tunes cartoons, now he wants things to be bit less 'touchy-feely' and a bit more 'iron fist in a velvet glove'. He advises Sheridan that the ambassadors and their governments only respect strength. Maybe they can change that over time, but they've got to deal with the situation as it is, not what they want it to be.

Meanwhile a planet's being bombed and a bunch of Star Trek aliens are huddling inside a basement.

I'm going to be sympathetic to civilians under attack by default, but the scene goes the extra mile to make viewers care by giving one of them some dialogue. This guy on the left comes in and starts calling for someone called Merkat (not to be confused with the poor extinct Markab). I guess that's the guy on right with the near-invisible moustache.

Merkat is an extra with no lines though, so Merkat's Friend has to do all the talking, proclaiming "He is here, they have come!"

It's a Ranger! Though he hasn't been given any lines either, so Merkat's Friend continues, saying: "He will help us, Merkat. He will take word of our situation to the Alliance at Babylon 5, and they will come. They will fight for us, and they will save us. They must save us. We have no other hope."

And just like that all my sympathy for these people has evaporated. I just can't cope with how cheesy that was. Nothing about the dialogue, his performance, or this scene in general rings true at all.

ACT ONE

Act one begins with that shot you saw earlier of Garibaldi putting his feet all over the tables, waiting for the others to finish figuring out Alliance problems. But G'Kar's gotten distracted doing a rewrite of the Declaration of Principles to make it more linguistically appealing, so they invite their Head of Covert Operations down to share his idea.

Garibaldi wants to use telepaths from Byron's colony to gather covert intelligence. It'll be against Psi Corps rules, but screw those guys, and none of the other races have any problem with psychic espionage. He compares it to guns, saying that if everyone has them he wants to have the biggest one he can… a sentence which seems designed to catch the attention of viewers who have given any thought to the subject of gun control. Or nuclear weapons. If a viewer didn't have an opinion on telepathic spies before that line, they're likely forming one after it.

Either way they'd never force the telepaths to sign up, he just wants permission to offer them the job, Then afterwards they can vote on whether to go ahead with the idea. Garibaldi's very good at planning out a whole conversation in advance so he's got all the angles covered, and it works out this time: Sheridan gives him the go ahead to chat to their local telepaths.

So Garibaldi heads down to the telepath colony and finds it to be the most miserable place imaginable, with everyone just standing against the walls in silence, or trying to read a book in candlelight. Though he doesn't need to be a telepath to suspect a bunch of hot young actors are probably up to something else here too. The camera pans over as his attention drifts to that woman on the right for a moment, which has given me an opportunity to stitch the shots together and give you a rare 2.32:1 widescreen image.

Garibaldi tries to be polite, asking for directions to Byron, but that lasts about 10 seconds before he snatches whatever he's reading out of the guy's hands and tosses it onto ground. Man it's no wonder G'Kar doesn't like to lend him books anymore. Garibaldi is a bit of a dick.

Personally if I was trying to persuade a close-knit group of people to take part in my telepathic espionage scheme I'd probably try being respectful to them first, but we already know that Garibaldi's more keen on the 'iron first' approach than the 'touchy-feely' one. And his approach actually works! He threatens to tell Sheridan if they don't bring him Byron, so they send a telepathic message and call him out.

Byron comes out and says 'No'.

Garibaldi says he hasn't even heard what he was going to say, but Byron points out that he's a telepath and he's heard exactly what he going to say. The pitch, the expected responses, the counterarguments… everything. And seeing as they've both already been through the conversation he's decided to skip to the end.

We learn a little bit about how telepaths block thoughts here, as it turns out they run rhymes and songs around in their head, just like people do when they don't want telepaths to read them. So whenever Bester said something to Talia like "Drop the walls and listen!" what he meant was "Stop thinking about that annoying catchy tune you heard on the radio this morning and listen!" Anyway Byron's people are sick of it and they make no apologies for hearing everything Garibaldi was broadcasting at them in their own home.

Man, I should've realised that a colony of shampoo advert extras would have an immediate distrust of a man without hair. They haven't taken him hostage yet though, so there's that at least.

Byron's really trying to dominate this conversation, bringing all his people in to surround Garibaldi, pacing around him, interrupting him when he tries to talk, psychoanalysing him… he even brings up how his need to rehearse conversations in his head must have cost him a few relationships. Byron is a bit of a dick.

Garibaldi remains composed though, not raising to the bait or bursting into tears. The people he wanted to breach people's privacy just breached his privacy and he doesn't have the high ground to complain.

Suddenly White Star 90 arrives, requesting emergency docking on account of its wing being missing! They're going to be disappointed though, as ships that big can't dock with Babylon 5, it'd never fit through the door.

They must have gotten people onto it somehow though as the Ranger from the teaser is wheeled into Medlab, saying "You've got to help them, they're all going to die!" Oh no, I'd forgotten the people getting bombed in the teaser. I don't want them to come back!

Man, it's been ages since the C&C crew have had reason to react to something coming in through the jumpgate. Not that we actually see the C&C crew here. There isn't even voice over from Captain Lochley.

ACT TWO

Delenn and Franklin discuss the patient's condition, and he's not in good shape. That's two episodes in a row that Delenn's been looking through this window at someone lying in Medlab at the start of act two.

Franklin explains that the Ranger passed out before he could explain who did this to him. Uh, that's not how I remember it Franklin. The Ranger said "Listen, you've got to help them, they're all going to die, you've got to help them," and you replied "I understand". Then you put an oxygen mask on him and told him to breathe instead of taking your one opportunity to ask "Who needs our help?" Unfortunately the Ranger's fallen into a coma and he's going to die soon, so he won't be saying anything ever again.

But if they do not find out, then his death will be meaningless. Those aren't my words, that's exactly what Delenn says. Here's a question, what happened to the rest of the crew on White Star 90? These ships are huge, maybe as big as the USS Enterprise in Star Trek; they're not designed to be crewed by a single Ranger. Why is this guy the only person who knows where the ship has been?

Anyway, Delenn decides to bring Lyta in to get the information straight from the Ranger's brain. It won't be admissible in court, but there are higher courts. Uh, is she planning some Ranger Justice?

Oh no. Lyta gets a first person view of the NPC who gave the Ranger his quest, and it's Merkat's buddy from the teaser!

Man, I really can't take that name seriously, every time I look at it I think of a kitten with the tail of a fish that lures unfortunate sailors to their doom with their cuteness.

Anyway, Merkat's Friend hasn't gotten any less theatrical with his line delivery, and he's another Byron who speaks for a room full of silent followers. Turns out that his planet has been raided twice each year for the last year… by the Raiders. Hey I remember those guys from season one! They were pirates who preyed on freighters until they got thoroughly sliced up by the Shadows. Turns out they weren't entirely wiped out however, as they've been bothering these people in the meantime. In fact they destroyed their cities, killed their leaders and took all their stuff, so they've basically pulled a Centauri and conquered their whole planet. Merkat's Friend explains that they do not have the capacity to defend themselves but they are going to fight anyway, so whether they live or die now depends on the Rangers.

Merkat's Friend is not a big fan of contractions. He is a big fan of the Alliance though and wants to join up! Merkat probably wants to join too, but he doesn't talk.

He just looks at people with those giant cat eyes and melts their hearts...

Don't you hate it when you have to stop what you're doing to quickly draw a cat mermaid?

I've lost my flow now, what was I even talking about? Oh right, Lyta is in Medlab telepathically scanning through a dying Ranger's last memories to find out who he promised to help.

Suddenly the Ranger is in the room with her! I mean obviously he's there, she's got her hand over his head, but now there's a telepathic ghost version of him there as well. I like how Lyta gets a reflection and he doesn't, that's a nice touch. Possibly achieved using the low-tech trick of just having him stand in front of it.

She can see him standing there and she can hear him talking, though weirdly she can't see him talking. He just nods along to his own dialogue being broadcast telepathically, even though he's a telepathic image. And then he literally goes off in to the light! Seriously, a portal of light opens up and he walks into it.

Well. More like stretches off into it. Without his legs.

Fortunately Lyta was paying more attention than I was and got all the important information. We know because Delenn tells Sheridan all about it over dinner.

Actually she tells him after dinner, which is much better for the actors as they don't have to take a bite during every take. Turns out that the aliens in need of rescue are called the Enphili (not to be confused with the Minbari cruiser Enfili). They live at the edge of Drazi space, but the Drazi have shown no interest in them.

Sheridan would really like to avoid getting into a fight right now, but G'Kar's Declaration of Principles apparently declare that they need to step in and save the day in situations like these, presumably because the Enphili have pledged to become a member. Well, Merkat's Friend has pledged them to become a member anyway, who even knows if he's a member of any kind of government.

This gives Bruce Boxleitner the opportunity to do a Londo impersonation, saying "I imagine you are finding your principles most inconvenient now, yes?" and he does pretty well! I mean he doesn't sound like how Peter Jurasik delivers the line in my imagination, but maybe I'm just bad at imagining accents.

Trouble is that they have no idea of what they'll be facing there, only that the enemy was able to seriously damage a single White Star, which means that Sheridan has no idea how many ships to send. Delenn shares some wisdom she picked up from her mentor Dukhat, saying that "terror is a form of communication." She's scary this episode, but Sheridan's into it. They'll send every White Star they can spare all at once, to overpower their unknown enemy with utterly overwhelming force and send a message to everyone else.

ACT THREE

Act three begins over on this guy's shelf and never switches to a close up. It's a good way to for the director to save a bit of time and money, plus it makes the scene just feel wrong somehow.

Sheridan is meeting with the Drazi ambassador to let them know what their White Stars will be up to and ask them for help, and the guy has no problem with that! Seems like the White Stars will be joined by some Drazi vessels at a rendezvous point for even more overwhelming force. Everything is going really well.

Things feel even more wrong when it cuts to outside, as Byron is lurking around, spying on the Drazi ambassador.

Meanwhile Garibaldi catches Lyta sitting in the Zocalo, just staring blankly into space, and decides it'd be a good time to make another pitch to another telepath.

But she interrupts, reminding him that she just saw someone day from the inside of his brain and she's freaked out. She also mentions how she saw the light (which she calls a door) and says that's probably the only way our minds can perceive what's happening. Because we were never supposed to see this and live to think about it.

Another thing that's freaking her out is that she believes a part of her soul just got pulled through that door with him. Garibaldi doesn't believe in souls, but Lyta tells him that whatever it is, you feel just a little bit colder and emptier inside, forever. She's only done it twice now, but she's met telepaths who've done it just two or three times more and she could see in their eyes that there was nothing there anymore. So this is kind of a big deal.

She also mentions that there's a rumour going around that Bester kept volunteering for death bed scans and that's why he's the way he is. Sounds a bit like bullshit to me, as I wouldn't describe the guy as 'dead behind the eyes'. He's a very caring guy... it's just that he only cares about his telepaths.

Garibaldi waits patiently to hear her story and she rewards him by listening to his job offer: he wants her to go speak to Byron and convince him to let him hire some telepaths. Turns out that she's pretty much on the same page as Byron though and walks off, leaving her food.

Garibaldi follows though, and explains to her what's motivating him, or perhaps what he think will motivate her. He came back to B5 to help give Sheridan and Delenn a fighting chance to make their Alliance work, because they think they can make a difference and help people, even though he's not so sure.

He swears that if she makes his case to Byron he'll never ask her for anything ever again… until the next time. I think that little bit of humour was the straw that breaks her resolve as she gives in and decides to help.

Last episode Delenn was woken up by a message in the middle of the night, this time Sheridan's the one who has to get up as there's someone at the door. Though he finds the hallway empty aside for a mysterious scroll. Seems like there's another assassin after him!

Actually it's a copy of G'Kar's revised Declaration of Principles. That's one way to save time and money: have the character with the expensive makeup job ring the doorbell and run away before we get to see them. Sheridan said 'open!' as quietly as possible, but he still accidentally woke his wife up and now she wants him to read it for her. Sadly he doesn't attempt G'Kar's voice so we don't get a second impersonation this episode.

It does transition into G'Kar reading out the speech though, and we even see him walking down the hallway, followed by a shot of the fleet of White Stars flying through hyperspace. This is the opposite of saving money!

The montage continues into Medlab, with this shot of Franklin's letter confirming that Babylon 5 uses US English, otherwise the spell check would've caught 'honor'.

Wait, hang on, "literally thousands of people"? These are the inhabitants of an entire planet! Sure it's not unreasonable to have a planet with only a thousand people on it, maybe they're a colony, or maybe there was a zombie apocalypse, but it seems really unlikely that the Raiders would have cities to destroy if that were the case.

G'Kar's narration goes on for almost two minutes, talking about the language of hope and how they need to be kind to one another, but the important point he wants to make is "We are one".

Lyta's made it down to Byron's telepath colony by this point, and the first thing he does is get in her face about the fact that she's keeping them all out of her brain. But he doesn't need to read her mind to know that Garibaldi sent her, or that she's used to running errands for people like this.

He points to a chair and says "Here, sit," then yells "NO!" and kicks it away when she tries to sit down! She takes a bit of offence to this, possibly because she would've liked to take the weight off her legs for a moment. But he's trying to make a point, which is that it wasn't phrased as a request, and yet she did it anyway. She's not interested in being condescended to and walks away... until he says please.

Byron tells her that his telepaths are all tired of being used as cannon fodder, inquisitors, executioners and bloodhounds. Uh, I can see the last three, but cannon fodder? That doesn't sound very Psi Corps. Doesn't sound very Bester anyway, he'd say that his telepaths are not expendable (because he cares).

Then Byron decides to quote Jean-Luc Picard (quoting Shakespeare), saying "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god."

In fact he goes a step further, dropping the episode title as well: "The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!" Of course Picard knew that Prince Hamlet delivered the monologue with irony, and Byron doesn't exactly agree with it either. He believes his telepaths are better than humans, not just because they can read minds, but because people have been terrible to each other for centuries!

Byron telepaths, on the other hand, care for one another. So he tells Lyta that he'll send two telepaths to help her friend, but only if it matters to her. She said it does, and Garibaldi gets his telepaths! Oh, plus Byron's already got some covert intelligence to share with her: the Drazi ambassador is planning a trap for their White Stars.

ACT FOUR

 

Lyta heads down to the council chambers and gives away the whole Drazi plot. They're the ones who've been supplying the Raiders and allowing them to attack border worlds, in exchange for half the take. Makes sense to Garibaldi, but then he's always able to see the worst in people. By doing this the Drazi are keeping the border worlds down and taking their stuff, while getting to claim ignorance. Then we get a second impersonation this episode after all, as Garibaldi puts on a Drazi voice and says "Oh, no, not the Drazi, we do not exploit other worlds."

She explains that the Raiders are going to attack the Enphili homeworld and murder everyone there in retaliation, while the Drazi fleet destroys all their White Stars. Or attempts to anyway, White Stars are the most advanced warships left in this region of space, they took on the Shadow vessels, the Drahk, and Earth's Shadow Omega destroyers, and the Drazi would be up against all of them.

This is usually the point where Lyta gets ignored, but Sheridan actually stops to thank her, pointing out that she's saved a lot of lives here.

Then we get one of the new shots from the season 5 opening credits, with the Raider ships doing a barrel roll in orbit of the Enphili homeworld. It's been ages since we've seen these flat triangle fighters show up! I don't remember them having missiles on the wings before. Hang on, why do the missiles having glowing engines if they're just hanging off the wings right now?

Down on the planet, Merkat's Friend wakes Merkat up to show him what's outside. He thought it was a new star in the skies, but they are not stars! They are the jump points of the White Stars coming in to kick ass (off screen).

Man, I thought I couldn't hate Merkat's Friend even more than I already did, but I kinda do. The guy speaks like he's from a primitive world which didn't even have language until the day a passing Shakespeare troupe arrived on their world. But it can't be that primitive, they have cities and bunkers!

I do feel sorry for poor Merkat himself though, as the guy has to live with him.

"Merkat, look! I thought a saw a vision appear the corner of our living room, of people coming to save us, but it was not a vision, it was the television! It was a rerun of Stargate Atlantis, Merkat! The people were helping the villagers fight the Wraith, who are the enemy of good people in that world. But the Atlantis team came Merkat, they came through the magic ring to fight and save the villagers!"

Oh great, I've said Merkat too many times and now I'm also thinking of those Meerkats from the comparethemarket.com adverts. I don't even know if that's a thing outside of Britain.

Well that doesn't look right.

I mentioned way back in my All Alone in the Night review that the stretched shot of the station at the start was the only uncropped intact 4:3 effects shot to make it onto the DVDs. Seems like I spoke too soon, as they clearly forgot to chop the top and bottom off this shot before displaying it in 16:9. It seems very possible this aspect ratio error only exists in the region 2 DVDs though, so fans in the US may have missed out.

Anyway, Sheridan's invited everyone over to the council chambers to see how much ass their White Star fleet is kicking right now. Especially the Drazi representatives, he wants them to get a real good look at Londo's hologram, and see all those Raiders getting massacred.

Hey they've got a new Gaim ambassador! Hope they last longer than the previous one did.

The Drazi ambassador is a little bit anxious at the moment, because the Drazi fleet is currently on its way to Enphili to help the Raiders blow it up, and the White Star fleet is currently in place ready to annihilate any ship that arrives. Very soon there's not going to be a Drazi fleet.

They keep putting the pressure on the ambassador until he finally has to admit to everything, then force him to beg the other ambassadors to let him leave to call his ships back. Plus as a bonus, everyone's suddenly a lot more eager to sign the Declaration of Principles now!

It's a joy to see Londo so happy to be on the right side of this, winning with Sheridan.

Huh, Lyta's allowed to wander right up to the council chamber when it's in session? She's got line of sight of everyone there right now. If she wanted to she could've scanned them all and they'd never know. Except for maybe Delenn, I forget how Legacies went down.

She looks in and sees everyone smiling, but she doesn't seem to take any pleasure in what she's helped to make happen. In fact she comes across as looking left out. All the ambassadors get to hang out and be friends while she's all alone. Always alone.

ACT FIVE

Act five begins in the same room, just a little while later. Long enough for all the ambassadors to have signed the Declaration and for Sheridan to feel like he can put his feet up on the table this time. He wants to savour the moment. But G'Kar rushes in and steals all the signed documents because he's written a better version for them to sign, so that's still an ongoing problem!

What's worse is that telepaths played a crucial part here in saving the day on two separate occasions, which means... Garibaldi was right. But Sheridan's aware that they've got to be really careful about this as they're standing on a slippery slope. We already know this is leading to disaster, but it's at least nice to know that it's not blind arrogance taking them there, they've chosen the road paved with good intentions instead.

Here's a question though: they brought up earlier that the Minbari and the Centauri use telepaths in espionage, so why doesn't the Alliance use Minbari and Centauri telepaths as well? It's not like it's a human organisation, they were the last ones to join! Well except for the Enphili.

Meanwhile Lyta has decided to subscribe to Byron's newsletter, or at least hear a little more about his ideas, so he invites her deeper into his lair. And then after a moment he adds the word "please", so that it's a request and not a command.

Either way he has gotten what he wanted.


CONCLUSION

---

I've been comparing Captain Sheridan's introduction in season 2 to Captain Lochley's introduction this season, and the main difference I've noticed so far is that Sheridan was actually in season 2. This is the second episode in a row that Lochley's missed and seeing as we're only on episode 3 that's not good!

To be fair they did have less money to work with this season, so they couldn't use some of the actors as often. Plus the series' slow transition from B5 operations to Interstellar Alliance business over the last few seasons meant she was never going to take the lead character role like Sinclair and Sheridan. Still, the show's doing a crap job of establishing the new captain and making us like her.

The Paragon of Animals is about three things. Well actually it's about lots of things, like ethics, how we see others, how we treat others etc. but it's also about Garibaldi trying to recruit some telepaths, Sheridan trying to get the ambassadors to sign a Declaration of Principles, and the Enphili trying not to get wiped out by Raiders.

I appreciated them putting a face to the Enphili, as classic Babylon 5 episodes (like Matters of Honor) didn't always introduce us to the people the crew were trying to save. The trouble is that the episode gave them a face I wanted to punch. "Merkat, look! I have seen a star in the sky! At first I thought it was an omen, Merkat, but it is them! They have arrived to save us Merkat! They are our only hope, and we will repay them for all they have done for us!" I hated them. I hated them so much.

Speaking of faces that are asking to be punched, this was also an episode where Garibaldi admits that his suggestions put him to the right of Attila the Hun and then makes the case for them anyway. He says that the Alliance should drop their principles because the others aren't ready for them, that they should invade other people's minds because everyone else is doing it, and he keeps pressuring Byron's telepaths to join up even after he's got an unambiguous 'no'.

Garibaldi's getting kind of scary lately, mostly because he's in a position to influence those in power now. I don't think his world view has changed much after his brainwashing ordeal, but it's more of a concern when he's helping to make policy. He's not coming across as the paragon of animals here and we already know this is all going to end with a hostage situation, with him being the hostage.

I really get the feeling he's motivated by the right reasons though and he really is trying to do what he thinks needs to be done to help his idealistic friends make their empire work. And maybe he's right! The arrangement with Byron saves all their White Stars, protects an entire planet, ends the attacks on worlds along the Drazi border, and gets G'Kar's Declaration of Principles signed as a bonus!

Or maybe he's wrong and using the positive outcome of one breach of privacy to justify more is a terrible idea. This is how President Clark operated! They do get irony points though for pushing the ambassadors to sign a Declaration of Principles by doing something disturbing, invasive and immoral. That's kind of hypocritical and shady. Though actually, now that I think about it, Sheridan and Garibaldi hadn't made an agreement with Byron when he scanned the Drazi. He made an argument earlier that he's not doing anything wrong by hearing the thoughts others are openly broadcasting, but he was deliberately lurking around the ambassadors, out of sight. He's got no high ground to stand on here and the fact that he decided to do it on own is kind of troubling.

Byron finally meets another telepath with speaking lines this episode, which gives him the chance to explain where he's coming from, and what he thinks about mundanes. He has a big speech about how the telepaths need to look after one another, and he comes across as a very caring, benevolent guy. But his speech comes immediately after G'Kar's, showing the stark difference between his philosophy and that of the Alliance. They both want people to come together so that they can help each other, but G'Kar says "We are all one" and Byron says "We are better than them". He might have Professor X's powers but he's a bit more of a Magneto at heart.

The character of Byron was originally designed for an Ivanova plot, that's why he's a poetic Brit with long hair like Marcus and he's a telepath like Talia, and he's a piece of crap like everyone else she's ever dated. So I've been thinking about how the scenes would've played out differently if Ivanova had been in Lyta's place. I can imagine Ivanova's reaction to someone kicking a chair away in front of her, and no one's going to be able to convince her that she always does what mundanes tell her to. Ivanova's the one who does the telling, even with Sheridan a couple of times.

Though I'm actually more curious about how Ivanova would've reacted to Garibaldi's idea of scanning people without their permission, considering how she nearly resigned over a telepathic loyalty check, and tried to murder Bester to protect their secrets. Oh plus she was in love with a woman who turned out to be a telepathic spy and nearly brought down their conspiracy. Maybe she would've just pulled a Lochley and stayed off-screen for the whole story.

Overall I thought this was an interesting episode that dragged the heroes into murky territory, but it was really spoiled by the Enphili and Byron for me. Not terrible, could've been better.

---

NEXT EPISODE

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'll be getting the lower decks perspective on Babylon 5 in A View from the Gallery. 19 episodes remaining.

Thanks for reading all that by the way. Or skipping to the end, whatever worked for you. Either way, by making it down this far you've unlocked the ability to leave a comment and share your own thoughts!