| Episode: | 38 | | | Writer: | J. Michael Straczynski | | | Air Date: | 10-May-1995 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm putting the previous DVD back in to watch In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum.
Babylon 5 first aired with the occasional episode out of order, mostly due to the visual effects taking ages, and if you watch the episodes off disc or Amazon you get to experience the authentic continuity weirdness this causes (which is pretty minimal to be honest, it's not really a big deal). But I'm following the J. Michael Straczynski approved Lurker's Guide Master List order, which enhances the narrative by pulling Knives forwards and slotting this in before Confessions and Lamentations, leaving this block of episodes looking like this:
15 - And Now for a Word
17 - Knives
16 - In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
18 - Confessions and Lamentations
19 - Divided Loyalties
By the way, this is one of the few episodes to get a DVD commentary by producer jms and if you're watching B5 for the first time I'd recommend leaving it until you've seen the whole series. In fact all the special features seem to have been produced under the assumption that if you've bought the discs you're probably already a fan. Which is fine, but they could've at least included a spoiler warning. Like this:
WARNING, I'm about to write some massive SPOILERS all over this review! But only for this episode and the ones that precede it. Which includes Knives.
Unfortunately treating a lot of wounded requires a lot of beds and Medlab is running out. Sheridan is adamant that the Narns stay until they're fit to travel, but Zack wants Garibaldi to remind him that they've only got limited resources. So that's a fun scene to start the episode off.
Wait, this is the Vir and Morden scene isn't it? I'd totally forgotten it happened in a teaser.
Morden can tell that his charms aren't working on Vir, so he tells him to sit down and then asks him his trademark question: "What do you want?" If it's not to make the Centauri Republic great again, then what is it? Vir replies that… actually I'm going to quote the whole thing.
"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next 10 generations that some favours come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this. Can you and your associates arrange that for me Mr Morden?"
He didn't need to repeat the wave a second time as he was leaving though, that kind of spoiled it a little.
Anyway Garibaldi's here to discuss the refugee crisis with Sheridan, but he doesn't have to make much of an argument as Sheridan realises that they're going to have be more selective with who gets treatment. But the dying get to have a bed, as no one wants to die alone on the floor of a Babylon 5 docking bay.
With that sorted out the subject turns to what Sheridan's up to, which is sorting through the last of his wife's stuff. She died years ago when her ship, the Icarus, exploded, but I guess he was putting the task off until the day it seemed more appealing than actually doing his job. Incidentally this is why Knives should come before this, because Sheridan's subplot in that episode features a scene to remind viewers of the Icarus and what it means to him.
Garibaldi takes a look at a file listing the ship's crew, and actually recognises one of them. Which is impossible as they're all dead. The camera zooms in on the screen to reveal…
It's taken a long while, but the main characters have finally become aware of Morden! Plus we've actually learned something about him ourselves, beyond the fact that he looks like Rod Serling, hangs out with invisible spider creatures and likes to ask people what they want. It all fits with his first appearance in Signs and Portents too, where he explained to a security officer that his identicard hadn't been updated in a while because he'd spent the last few years doing exploration.
ACT ONE
This is a bit annoying for me as I like to stick a screencap of the episode title at the top of my review, but I can't do that if it's a bloody spoiler! Well I guess it doesn't have "Icarus crew" written anywhere on it, but it was such a good reveal I don't want to even hint at it.
Incidentally the guy playing Macabee, Alex Hyde-White, also played Mr Fantastic in the unreleased Fantastic Four movie made a year earlier. I've heard that the movie had an incredibly low budget (just 25% more money than a Babylon 5 episode half the length!) and was only made so that the company could keep the rights, but I bet it still has more interesting direction than this scene. Then again I suppose there's not much you can do with 'guy comes to Talia's door, he invites her to a presentation he's doing and then leaves'.
The episode moves on to Medlab, which is full of injured Narns as promised.
Whatever he's been up to, he's exhausted. He's so tired in fact that he nearly falls off his chair.
Turns out that he hasn't slept for 36 hours and probably hasn't been eating a whole lot either. The guy really struggles to share his responsibilities, especially when there's a crisis and responsibilities are arriving by the ship-load, and has been taking stims to keep going. Even though Ivanova points out that they hired a whole staff of doctors so that they could take turns getting sleep occasionally.
Last episode Franklin ordered Sheridan to get some rest and now he gets a taste of his own medicine, as Ivanova orders him to go to bed for no less than six hours. Which seems a little low to me actually, considering that he's got a lot of hours to catch up on and he's responsible for people's lives.
Morden eventually admits he was on the Icarus, but claims amnesia. He was outside the ship in a spacesuit, something happened, he was rescued by a passing transport, that's all he knows. He didn't even remember his own name for months... despite carrying that old identicard which presumably contains info on his identity.
I like that stylish door frame behind them by the way. I've probably mentioned that before, but it's nice. Much classier than the glowing grid of squares to the left, and that tiny table. They could've done with something more substantial for Sheridan to shove into Morden's gut when he tried to stand up and leave.
As far as Morden's concerned, he hasn't been charged with anything so his rights say that he can just walk right out of here. But Sheridan points out that Earth Central considers him to be dead, and dead people don't have rights, or anyone who will miss them, so he's not going anywhere. Not until he tells him the truth. Damn man.
ACT TWO
Franklin reveals that he's a Foundationist, which is a religion made up for the series that believes that God is too big to be defined by words (and that souls can't escape a chest cavity when it's been pierced, we learned that one in Believers). He explains that when a patient dies he sees them look past him, as they're looking at something only they can see, and just for a second he can see God reflected in their eyes. In fact he's seen a lot of reflected gods, and he's wondering how they can keep believing in them, when they've stopped believing in us. Well that was a very J. Michael Straczynski interlude but I'm not sure why it's in this episode.
Also I'm trying to think back to Believers to figure out if this is retconning his character, seeing as he was arguing against his patient's beliefs in that story. I feel like it probably fits okay as I can remember him saying the line "my prayers have to be as good as theirs", so it didn't really paint him as being an atheist. It's just that his respect for life outweighs his respect for religion.
Sheridan was nearly silent during the last interrogation scene but now he won't shut up. He hammers Morden with an onslaught of questions, looking for any inconsistencies in his story and trying to get him frustrated to the point where he'll just tell him what really happened to the Icarus and his wife. Mostly his wife.
I like the direction a lot more in this scene, with the camera jumping a little closer to Sheridan with every question he yells. I also like that they've put a monitor in the background again, for the times where it's important to see the side of the suspect's head. I remember they had four of them back in Eyes, but that was when a bad guy was doing the interrogation. A high ranking officer pushing his weight around and holding a man without evidence due to his own personal vendetta. Hang on...
Still, at least he hasn't gone full And the Sky Full of Stars and illegally captured and interrogated someone who claims to have no memory of what happened to him during an event where everyone else around him died. Oh, wait...
Anyway it seems that we've been invited to Macabee's presentation, along with Talia and Zack, so we get to hear about the Ministry of Peace's new early warning system! It's called the Nightwatch, and anyone in this room could make 50 credits per week just to walk around with their scary black armbands and grass on their friends and neighbours. You see, the Ministry of Peace loves peace, but you can't have peace while people are sharing fake news, stirring people up, spreading harmful ideas or having disloyal thoughts, so they'd like it to be reported to them so they can... bring those people back on board with the system. I guess that explains why he invited Talia there; other people's thoughts are her department.
This scene is just a presentation, no one really gets to express their opinion about what's been said afterwards, but personally I don't think I like Macabee much. I don't like how reasonable he sounds, and how he's appealing to his audience's decency, selling them on the friendly side of fascism and offering them a bit of cash to sweeten the deal. The Nightwatch have the opposite recruitment pitch to the Homeguard last year, luring people in with their desire for peace rather than racist hate, and that's got to have more traction with a group of people who chose to work on The Last Best Hope for Peace.
So this is Sheridan's second decision to make. He's already decided that getting the truth is worth breaking the rules, now he has to decide whether it's more important to him than his friend keeping his job. A friend who's one of his few allies in his mission to take on a corrupt Earth government. He doesn't say anything, but Garibaldi gets the message, giving up his badge and his gun… well his link, his identicard and his PPG. In Knives, Londo's friend paid the price for his choices and his obsession and now the same's happening to Sheridan's friends. Still, he hasn't stabbed Garibaldi to death yet, so he's still one up on Londo.
Turns out that the next in line to be security chief is Zack, so he arrives to take over during Garibaldi's 'brief leave of absence'. There's no armband on him so I guess there's no immediate danger of him reporting Sheridan to the thought police, but it's a growing concern. Zack's first job as the head of security is to go find Talia, but Sheridan finds he has to take a break and heads to his office to do his own job for a bit as Vir needs to speak with him.
ACT THREE
Vir's request has given him another puzzle piece and that's only added more fuel to his fire. He tells him that diplomatic immunity only counts when someone's been charged with a crime, and Morden's actually in protective custody, then walks away as if he believes he's found a loophole that'll actually hold water with anyone.
This actually reminds me of Eyes again, as back then it was Ivanova who abandoned her duty for personal reasons (she refused to be telepathically scanned). Then she got drunk and beat up a bar full of people. Thankfully Sheridan's choices haven't sent anyone to Medlab yet.
Sheridan tries to use his "it's not forbidden if the records say that he's dead" loophole again, but she's more concerned about the spirit of the law than the letter of the law, so it's not going to happen. So he makes another choice: to have Morden transferred to another cell down the same corridor that Talia's using to go home.
I don't know what he was expecting to happen here, as it's not like she's going to read his mind as Morden walks by, either accidentally or deliberately. If being in the same room was all it took for her to sense a person's true intentions then she would've realised what Sheridan was up to! But she does have a strong reaction as they pass each other and for a second she sees... something you don't want to see.
Talia ends up in Medlab after her ordeal and Sheridan turns up to apologise... and to maybe find out what she saw.
Franklin takes the opportunity to join the long list of people trying to talk some sense into Sheridan, but he's not swayed, especially now he knows there's something really special about the guy. I think a lot of new viewers would actually be on Sheridan's side at this point, partially because they'd want him to learn about Morden's sinister associates and do something about them, and partially because they'd want to know what the guy's deal is themselves. And everyone would be on Sheridan's side if it kept cutting away to Anna Sheridan surrounded by spider aliens with a blade swinging over her like a pendulum.
Anyway, so that's Garibaldi, Ivanova, Franklin and Vir that have tried to talk Sheridan out of holding Morden so far, and Talia gave him a slap. I don't think there's been any other characters in this story, aside from Zack. Maybe it'll be his turn next.
Actually no he doesn't! It'll take more than representatives from the two most advanced galactic powers to stop him from getting to the bottom of what happened to his wife. So they agree to give him his answers themselves in a massive exposition dump.
What destroyed the Icarus has been a mystery since the start of season 2, the mystery of Mr Morden and his associates has been going since the middle of season 1, and the mystery of what Delenn is up to has been there from the start, so this is fairly good way to lead into commercials.
ACT FOUR
We've already heard about the First Ones from G'Kar back in Mind War when he was talking about the mysterious ship at Sigma 957. Though he didn't use that term, and was under the impression that they were so far beyond us that if they tried to talk to us it'd be like one of us trying to communicate with an ant. He wasn't entirely wrong though, as communicating with us isn't Kosh's strong suit. Speaking of Kosh's suit, we learn that the reason he can't leave it is because he'd be recognised... by everyone.
Sheridan's a bit shocked to learn that he's been hanging out with a First One all this time, which surprises me because the Vorlons were already the most legendary, secretive and powerful of the races. Personally I'd be more surprised by the revelation that they stuck around to help, considering that they never get involved in anything except for that time they blew up the cure for death. There's a reason for for their inaction though, as they're trying not to tip their hand and advertise the fact that they know the Shadows are back and they're doing something about it.
Kosh decides to project the next bit of the exposition dump right into Sheridan's brain, to get around the rule that all flashbacks have to be in black and white on this series:
This is what Sheridan's been after all along: the true story of what happened to the Icarus, which Kosh and Delenn have known the whole time. Delenn could've just said "Have you ever seen the movie Alien? Because it was actually a lot like that," but she's not the type to say a sentence when a whole monologue will get the job done just as well, so we get the full tale.
The Icarus was sent to investigate the ruins of an ancient race on Z'ha'dum...
Some of the crew left the
After inadvertently waking the Shadows from their hibernation the crew of the Icarus were given a choice: serve them or die. Delenn doesn't say what decision Anna made, instead she brings the subject back to Morden needing to be released. The Shadows moved too fast in the last war, that's why they lost, so they're building up their forces slowly in secret this time, unaware that we're also building our forces in secret. But if Morden gives them away they'll strike now, before we have a fighting chance to stop them. That means Morden will be killed, Sheridan will be killed, then everyone else will be facing a fleet of unbeatable spiky Shadow ships with technology a billion years more advanced than ours.
So now Sheridan has to make the most important decision of his life... and he finally decides to let Morden go, then joins Team Delenn to fight legends and save the galaxy!
He asks Zack if he's ever studied ancient history. You know, the twentieth century, World War II, that kind of ancient. Dude, you've just learned that Kosh has library books more ancient than that and they don't even need to go back yet, you need to recalibrate your perspective. Then he goes into the story of how the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, sacrificed the population of Coventry by not calling an evacuation in order to avoid tipping off the Germans that we'd cracked their Enigma code. Sheridan gets really into the story as well, looking actually distraught just thinking about all the innocent people killed by the bombing, and the camera's happy enough to stay locked onto his performance and ignore Zack for the time being. Turns out this is actually another story about what you can see in a person's eyes, as when he watched newsreels of Churchill visiting the ruins he saw that he was haunted by the choice he'd made.
There's contradictory claims about what Winston Churchill actually knew, but I spent five minutes checking Wikipedia and it seems like people are leaning towards it being false these days. But that's not important for this scene. What is important, is that Sheridan is actually comparing his choice of whether or not to let Morden go to Winston Churchill's choice of whether or not to allow hundreds to die in a bombing raid! He seriously needs to fix his sense of perspective.
But just then Sherdian hears a sound coming from Morden's cell and gets Zack to scan on other wavelengths.
Zack's too busy messing with the camera to notice them while they're there, but he asks Sheridan what he saw and he says "Nothing. Shadows". He came so close to lying with the truth there but messed it up by actually lying at first.
Now Sheridan has proof to back up Delenn's story, and he knows that they'll hear everything Morden says, so he tells Zack to let him go with the crappiest explanation possible "Tell him... it was all a mistake." Meanwhile Modern starts smiling on a monitor screen in the background like he was listening in somehow and he knows that he's won. His ignorance is actually pretty critically important here so let's hope that he wasn't.
ACT FIVE
Sheridan admits that he was wrong, though he can't explain what changed his mind. Garibaldi might be in the ‘Conspiracy against President Clark' loop, but he's not in the ‘War against an ancient terrifying evil' loop yet. It's only fair I suppose, seeing as Garibaldi hasn't told him that he's working with Sinclair and the Rangers yet.
Once Sheridan's gone Zack comes by to pay Garibaldi a visit as well, and he's got a stylish new armband to show off.
It probably wasn't deliberate, but when Garibaldi asks what the armband is, Zack says "nothing", which is the same thing Sheridan said when he saw the Shadows hidden in Morden's room. I'm not saying a black armband is on the same level as an ancient alien race who return every thousand years or so to wage war against the galaxy, but it is kind of sinister.
We're not told whether Talia joined or not though. In fact her plotline disappeared from the episode entirely before the halfway point, and Franklin's plot was over within the first third!
Like he tells Sheridan here that if he goes to Z'ha'dum he will die, but doesn't elaborate on how he knows this or how it'll happen. So Sheridan gets to join the 'premonition of how they'll die' club along with G'Kar (strangled by Londo), Londo (strangled by G'Kar) and Garibaldi (killed by invading invisible spider aliens... hey we know who they are now!) Sheridan accepts that his death is a strong possibility, but comes up with some prophecy of his own, saying that he won't go down easily and he won't go down alone. So he's fully committed to Team Delenn now!
Man, most people with a full time job running a military outpost/city while representing their government at the Space UN find their plate is pretty full, but Sheridan's also part of a secret conspiracy to stop his planet sliding into fascism and now he's going to fight the most ancient and powerful alien race in the galaxy at the same time. Ivanova's going to have to come over and give him a speech about not taking on too much responsibility soon.
CONCLUSION
In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum is all about Mr Morden failing to give people what they want, which is a shame really because he's usually quite good at that.
It seems to be following a few plots at first, like the refugees, Franklin overworking himself and Talia being recruited by Nightwatch, but by the halfway point that's all been boiled away and all that remains is Sheridan's obsession. It's a bit weird, as it makes Franklin's monologue about seeing the reflection of God seem like filler and the Nightwatch presentation feel like a block of the ongoing story arc they couldn't find a better home for. Plus they're both about a character talking at the camera, which then happens twice more with Delenn's exposition dump and Sheridan's ancient history lesson. At least Franklin gets to pass some advice onto Sheridan and Zack gets an armband, which gives some kind of resolution to their stories. Talia just slaps Sheridan and then storms right out of the episode.
But that's okay, because Sheridan's plot is so good. We learned that he'd thrown himself into his work to cope with his wife's death all the way back in his second episode, Revelations, and A Race Though Dark Places showed his stubbornness as he chose to sleep in his office over paying slightly more rent, but here we learn that his wife is more important to him than his duty, his friends, his morals... everything, and once he's got his teeth into something he will never let it go. Kosh had to intervene personally because he knew he knew that Morden would break first. We already knew that Sheridan is a friendly, compassionate guy who likes oranges, cheesy dad jokes, stories about the Dali Lama, mysteries and demonstrating his unmatched tactical insight, but now we know that there's also real determination there. He's a lot like Franklin in that regard, except he's better at growing the 'I've been doing this for hours without sleep' stubble.
I don't think anyone watching the episode would actually sympathise with Morden in this story. We're well aware that he's a right bastard and even the nicest person in the whole series wants to see his head on a pike. Plus Morden knows the answers to mysteries that have been tormenting fans for two years by this point, so first time viewers would have a good reason to want Sheridan to stay the course. But it's not about the misery that Sheridan's putting Morden through, it's about how he's hurting his friends, himself and everything they've worked for. Like Londo in Knives, Sheridan realised that he'd travelled a long way down a road of bad decisions, but instead of coming up with excuses to stay the course he made the hard choice to step away from the abyss.
Though it's a bit weird that the episode kind of paints Sheridan's decision to let Morden go and join Team Delenn as being a heroic act of self-sacrifice for the greater good, when really it seems like a better route towards his goal of finding out what happened to his wife. Or avenging her at least. Plus his persistence was actually rewarded with answers and the only real consequence he faced for his actions was a sore jaw.
So now we finally have a name for Morden's associates (which explains why that episode and the season overall both ended up with the title The Coming of Shadows), and we've got a much better idea of what Delenn and Kosh have been doing these last two years. This episode also reveals that Babylon 5 isn't going to be one of those series (like The X-Files) that keeps stringing viewers along with endless mysteries. From this point on the series is going to be less about the mystery of what's going on and more about figuring out what to do about it.
The moral of the story: Ivanova is always right. You should listen to Ivanova. You should not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. And don't call your spaceship the Icarus.
NEXT TIME
Please leave a comment if you feel like it!
Sheridan's stubbornness in this episode is frustrating to watch, but it does demonstrate the tenacity he'll need later on, when it's channeled more constructively (and cooperatively).
ReplyDeleteThis episode also reveals that Babylon 5 isn't going to be one of those series (like The X-Files) that keeps stringing viewers along with endless mysteries.
ReplyDeleteYou're right; for all its many, many faults, at least B5 had focus. It had a story to tell and it told it, even if it got a bit wonky towards the end when the series got cancelled then un-cancelled.
I love(d) both series, but my gosh the we-don't-know-we're-making-it-up-as-we-go-along-ness of The X-Files was annoying, I think because they pretended to have an ongoing arc, but they really didn't. Well done to JMS for sticking to his story.