| Episode: | 47 | | | Writer: | J. Michael Straczynski | | | Air Date: | 20-Nov-1995 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about A Day in the Strife, an episode with a bad title! It's also the third episode of the third season of cult sci-fi 90 series Babylon 5, which I'm going to have to get through before I can start writing about cult series from the 00s or 10s.
The episode was directed by David J. Eagle and written by showrunner J. Michael Straczynski, but that's not really news as they're all written by Straczynski at this point. Some writing rooms struggle to plot out 13 episode seasons, he wrote an entire 22 episode season all on his own. So I suppose I can't really be too hard on him about the title.
David Eagle had only directed one B5 episode before this, In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum, but he came back many times afterwards for episodes like Severed Dreams, And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place and Falling Towards Apotheosis. I plan to avoid giving SPOILERS for anything other than this episode and the ones that came before it but... that's a pretty encouraging list of stories.
But Sheridan still has to deal with a room full of angry people and this hasn't improved his mood any. He set up this meeting with the Transport Association to discuss ways to improve the situation (I was thinking they could get Brother Theo's monks to do all the checks, they love tedious work), but a guy armed with a moustache and some kind of crowbar decides to make the meeting about gun control. I don't think they've ever allowed weapons onto the station, but he feels that Sheridan wants to control all the guns so he can intimidate the rest of them and basically dares him to come down and face him without his pistol.
This actually seems to improve Sheridan's mood very slightly, as he's got something he can do now. He gets up, silently requests a PPG from a guard and walks into the crowd.
The man with the moustache gives up and Sheridan decides to adjourn until tomorrow, before heading back to his table to be yelled at by Ivanova for being an idiot. Then two Narns show up. One's the Narn pilot from from All Alone in the Night! The other is Counselor Na'Far... and he's here to replace Counselor Troi! I mean Citizen G'Kar! Cut to opening titles.
By the way, there's a good chance that this scene gives us a rare sighting of a Worker Caste Minbari, as I'm not sure the Religious Caste or the Warrior Caste are going to be running cargo to Babylon 5.
ACT ONE
Counselor Na'Far explains that Citizen G'Kar's the last of the Kha'ri still around, as everyone else from the old Narn government was arrested, and the Centauri would very much like him taken back and not running around free organising an armed resistance. Sheridan makes it clear that he's not going to be the one to kick him out, and he's a bit surprised that Na'Far doesn't seem as keen to take his planet back. Na'Far explains that he's not keen on 500 of his people dying every time they kill one of the Centauri. They'll make their move, but it'd be smarter to wait a while first.
Na'Far's an interesting character because he seems like he should be a villain, he's in a position of power because he's collaborating with an invading force, but he comes across as someone who believes he's chosen the least worst of a bad set of choices. The guy under the makeup, Stephen Macht, was apparently considered for the roles of Jean-Luc Picard and Benjamin Sisko, and I can believe it because he's pretty good.
I'm surprised that Sheridan's friend back there didn't get to say a single word though. He's Ta'Lon by the way, though you wouldn't know that from All Alone in the Night as they never said his name. I'm not sure they say it in this either actually, you just have to work it out yourself.
It's looking a bit overgrown these days though. My theory is that they couldn't use the old shot because the station interior had been redesigned for The Fall of Night, so they built a new Earharts to go along with the new everything else.
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| 2-01: Points of Departure |
Speaking of objects orbiting in a way that makes them reappear at certain intervals, Garibaldi tells Franklin that the same woman's passing by the table again and he should take the hint and go ask her to dance. But Franklin's just come off 20 hours of work without a break, as usual, and he's exhausted. I'm guessing the only reason he's not in bed right now is because he's so out of it that he wandered in here by mistake.
Then he gets a call telling him that a doctor's sick and he needs to take their shift in two hours, and disappears off to the bathroom.
Oh plus the scene also features a strange conversation about Sheridan, as Ivanova drops by and they discuss his recent change in attitude. She explains that in season two he was just trying to fit in, but now he's starting to make the place a better fit for him. Then they talk about how his personnel file says he's great at taking an inferior force and using it to take on a better equipped enemy, which we kind of know already! They showed him do that two episodes ago, and it's absolutely irrelevant in this episode.
Na'Far has come to get permission from Londo before visiting G'Kar, as he was instructed, and it's really strange to see a Narn in Londo's quarters. I think the only other time it's happened is when G'Kar broke in looking for a plant.
Londo earned some sympathy points last episode with his concern about Lennier, but here he's throwing them all away as he metaphorically rubs his boot all over Na'Far's face. It does help paint a picture of life on occupied Narn though, as Londo asks him about the work farms, relocation camps, construction gangs... and executions. Na'Far is utterly compliant with everything asked of him, but there's just a hint of his anger when he talks about the surviving streets being quite empty and Londo spots it.
Once Na'Far's out of the room Vir finally speaks and he's clearly not on board with this. Londo explains that they need to break the Narns now or else they're going to have to do this again in 100 years. I imagine that some part of him is thinking that if they can keep the Narns down this time then the war he started and the planetary bombardment he enabled can be justified! That they have to do this or all the death was for nothing. But man he comes off like a real Nazi.
They've been monitoring an unknown object approaching the station and they think it may be the main plot, arriving 12 minutes late.
ACT TWO
Man, the station looks so much better now than it used to in the first season. Well, actually to be honest it looks the same as it always did to me, but everyone else seems to think that the effects get noticeably better each season and I've been feeling left out.
Anyway, the crew have determined that the probe is automated and it's sent them a message, but they're going to have to put this plot on hold for a few hours while they work on decoding the language.
Seeing Londo in Delenn's quarters is possibly even more unusual than seeing a Narn in his, as they haven't really talked more lately (or ever, as she points out). But she apparently owes him a favour and he's come to collect. At first the idea seems ridiculous, but then he reveals that he wants her to reopen the diplomatic mission on Minbar and get Vir a job as the new Centauri ambassador. He thinks he'd be a good candidate as he's friendly and he keeps to himself... sounds more like he's trying to get them to adopt him as a pet. Plus he won't even spy on their government because he'd consider it rude!
Delenn thinks that Londo needs Vir and he probably does. How's he supposed to arrange all of his appointments without an assistant? Also Vir's been functioning as his conscience lately, which is probably half the reason he wants him gone. The other half is that he reminds him a little of his younger, more innocent self. He doesn't want Vir to become him and he doesn't want him to judge him either, so he's going to get rid of his only friend.
This scene immediately shows how much closer Garibaldi and Franklin have gotten over the last year since A Distant Star, as he's allowing him to eat pasta.
Garibaldi starts talking about how they're both obsessive compulsives, and people like them fall into habits easily. He's drinking water right now because once he starts with alcohol he doesn't stop. Franklin's offended when he realises Garibalid thinks he has a stim problem, and lashes out at him in the way someone with a stim problem would. But it's not just stims he's addicted to. Yeah he has to pull ridiculous hours sometimes, but he's also taking on shifts he doesn't have to as he's addicted to work.
I was worried Franklin was going to storm out after this, but nope he agrees to cut back on the stims and they're both staying to eat the pasta. Happy ending! Though now I want pasta too.
There's something funny about an alien dressed in body armour with a sword who's just left the ruins of his occupied home picking his glass up to put the napkin under it. I also like how his sword handle looks like a cardboard tube.
These aren't drinks for drinking though, they're drinks for stirring, or at least that's all Sheridan's doing with his. Ta'Lon tells him that he owes him a debt after he saved his life in All Alone in the Night, but it doesn't seem like the series is planning to follow up on that any time soon. I think it's just set up for Sheridan to say 'I don't know what my superiors would say if I got a Narn bodyguard', and Ta'Lon to reply 'they'll say here is a man who'll live to be 150'. It's funny how much more likeable Marshall Teague is here in Narn makeup than he was when he was in Ikarran killing machine makeup back in Infection. Or human makeup for that matter.
He's cheered Sheridan up at least, which is nice.
This time Ivanova's the one on duty when the next chapter of the probe story unfolds. There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that they've been sent an intelligence test and if they get the questions wrong or fail to answer they'll all die in a 500,000 megaton explosion, which is an absurd amount of megatons. I was going to figure out if it was as much as every nuclear weapon on Earth combined, but then I realised I don't actually want to know.
The good news is that if they get the questions right they'll be given cures for every known form of disease and technological information centuries beyond our own. So no one tell the Vorlon or else he'll blow the thing up. Though it is a probe from a species we've never met before, so chances are they don't know a whole lot about our diseases. And how did they work out they were centuries beyond us anyway? Is that just what the message said?
Anyway, they've got 24 standard hours to provide the answers, because somehow the probe knows the length of their days.
ACT THREE
The computer's working on the questions, but there's 600 of them and a few are pretty advanced and theoretical so they've had to send back to Earth for some of them. They never mention anything about contacting the Minbari or the Vorlons, so I suppose they're pretty confident that they can answer them all. They do have all those genius scientists that came in with Brother Theo last week... though they're not mentioned either.
Ivanova wonders why the probe would blow them up for being less advanced anyway, and Sheridan replies that whoever sent it considers intelligence to be the most important factor in who should live and expand out into the universe. You really sure about that Sheridan? I mean you sound sure, but are you? Really?
Na'Far has finally made his way to G'Kar's quarters, bringing the number of quarters we've seen this episode up to four. He makes his case for why the resistance isn't helping, pointing out that they're shooting down Centauri relief ships bringing them food. G'Kar was kind of in comedy mode last episode, laughing as Londo choked to death in a fire, but in this scene he's furious. He points out that the Centauri are trying to win their loyalty, and he'll get his own food drops coming in soon. He admits it won't be enough, but then the Centauri weren't bringing in enough either. Man this situation seems bleak.
G'Kar is absolutely certain that they have to fight back now, not bide their time, but Na'Far gives him another reason he might want to go back home: the families of his people on the station are going to be harassed, maybe even locked up and tortured if he doesn't surrender and hand himself over to the Centauri.
It doesn't help that he gets interrupted by Ivanova who'd really like some answers from Earth about the medical questions. She knows he's got patients to look after, but they'll all die in a 500,000 megaton explosion if he doesn't get his priorities straight.
I like the interior lighting he's got, even if it might be a side effect of it being under a backlit panel. I want a tiny fridge light inside all my desk drawers now.
Anyway the decision's been made and Vir has no say in it. Londo did this to protect him, because the station isn't a good place for him to be right now, but the promotion also has a few other benefits. He'll make more money, people will notice him... women may eventually find him attractive. Man just think of all the backhanded put downs Vir will be missing out on when he leaves. It was a good line though.
Vir's departure wasn't actually part of jms's plan. Stephen Furst got a starring role in a sitcom called Misery Loves Company, so they adjusted his B5 contract so he could spend less time here and more time over there. If you haven't heard of Misery Loves Company, that might be because it got cancelled after eight episodes and they only aired half of them. There's an episode on YouTube if you want to see what it takes to get a sitcom cancelled in the mid 90s. It's got Christopher Meloni in it!
"You are a blood traitor Na'Far. The Centauri failed to break us with bombs and guns and ships. And now you come to break our soul."Seems like he's already starting to win their loyalty.
His bodyguard Ta'Lon half-draws his blade. Not because of what they're saying, but because one of them is sneaking around with a dagger to stab Na'Far in the back. Though while he's dealing with him someone else draws a pistol! Man, they really need to do a better job of scanning cargo for weapons on this station.
That's a very Space: 1999 pistol he's got there, with the four barrels in a row in front of the handle. I don't like it.
G'Kar's not happy with the attempt on Na'Far's life, and says "Have I taught you no better than this?" which has me searching my memory trying to find any example of G'Kar teaching anyone anything. Anyway, he's teaching them something now, and that's that he won't let the Centauri drive them to be at each other's throats. He's made a decision: he's turning himself in. That way the Centauri won't torment their families (as much) and they won't be driven to murdering people they don't like in the hallways.
So we're going to lose Vir and G'Kar in this episode! That's so dramatic that there was no need to end act three with a reminder of the thermonuclear bomb outside.
ACT FOUR
This is a good episode for anyone who wants to get a sense of C&C's layout, as the camera's been all over the place. The characters have been all over the place too, especially now as they're running around trying to get all the information ready to transmit.
If that wasn't chaos enough, the Transport Pilots Association calls wanting to know when they're going to get this meeting started, so Sheridan arranges it for one hour after the bomb goes off. Tactically it's a brilliant move, as either way the probe situation ends he still wins. Though he makes a mistake by joking about Ivanova's pessimism, as she considers retaliating by reprogramming his shower.
G'Kar doesn't take his advice, he has to go back to save the families of his people here on the station, but he appreciates it. The guy's a stubborn man, once he's decided to pack all his ornaments up into suitcases there's no stopping him. I guess he wants to make sure his cell is well decorated.
Back in season one's Mind War, when a Narn doing something nice for someone counted as a plot twist, G'Kar said that no one on Babylon 5 is exactly who they appear. I think we know exactly who G'Kar is now.
Franklin basically tells he that if she doesn't get the information the last thing he'll do before he dies is get her fired, which doesn't seem entirely unfair. Any doctor who loses 250,000 people due to poor judgement should probably find themself having to find themself another job.
I've been worried about that other patient he was treating earlier, as I thought Franklin might make his own error in judgement which led to tragic consequences. But it seems like the only tragic consequence here is that Franklin's reached the end of his rope and he takes another stim. It's hard to really blame him though, seeing as this is the kind of crisis he should really be awake for. Like when he took the stims in Confessions and Lamentations to save the Markabs... not that it worked out so well back then.
Back in the Narn sector of Red Sector, Na'Far's trying to talk the Narns into accepting him as their leader and putting armed resistance on the back burner for the sake of their families. Security is more important than their freedom, at least for the time being. But his own bodyguard Ta'Lon speaks up against him!
They're just about ready to send the information now, with only minutes to spare, but Sheridan's been thinking and something about this doesn't make sense. He says that they've been operating under the assumption that it's been sent by a race who's been pruning species based on their level of intelligence as they feel that only the smartest are worthy... though I seem to remember he was the only one who made that assumption.
He's come to the realisation that anyone with that philosophy isn't going to give out knowledge as a reward, and the probe is more likely to be a berserker, sent out into the galaxy to kill off potential threats without leaving any trace of who made it.
With 15 seconds left on the clock Sheridan makes the decision not to send and when the timer runs out it turns out that they are going to... live!
So Sheridan calls upon Maintbot 17 to sacrifice itself to potentially save billions. For some reason Corwin told him that there's only one bot out there, so the second one in the background is off the hook.
The drone flies out a few thousand kilometres to a safe distance and the transmits the answers. Fortunately the probe is too dumb to realise that it's a tiny robot messenger and not the space station it came out here to interrogate, and it immediately explodes.
We may never solve the mystery of where the probe came from, but we did at least get closure on two other mysteries. Yes it was definitely a berserker, and yes they got all the answers right! Someone needs to get in touch with the doctor whose holiday they interrupted and tell him that his theories are all absolutely correct.
By the way, now that I've finally got a screenshot of the floor I can point out that the lighter section and the hazard stripes around the outside of the pit are both new for this season.
Ivanova's relived that they've once again escaped being blown up, but Sheridan's hit by a grim realisation: now he'll have to attend that pilots meeting.
A lot of jms's humour works for me, but some of it really doesn't. Like pretty much everything Ivanova and Corwin say to each other in these scenes.
"If I live through this job without completely losing my mind it'll be a miracle of biblical proportions."Nope, don't like it. Though maybe I just cringe whenever any characters talk about how crazy it is around here, like Endawi a couple of episodes mentioning how strange Babylon 5 is because Garibaldi said something weird. I'll never stop being grateful that they dropped the comedy music though. It's been gone a long time and may this time grow ever longer.
"Well there goes my faith in the Almighty"
ACT FIVE
The Narns have found a non-violent solution to their G'Kar problem: they're going to block off the corridor with this guy's chin so that he can't get to his ship. They've decided that the Centauri aren't going to break them by threatening their families, because the only thing more important than their safety is their freedom.
This seems like it should've been enough to do the job, but then Ta'Lon steps up and draws his K'tok blade. G'Kar's like 'uh, you know that sword can't be put back until it draws blood right?' and I'm not sure Ta'Lon does because I don't remember any blood being drawn in the scene earlier where he had it at a Narn's neck.
G'Kar's still outraged at them being at each other's throats like this, but Ta'Lon only drew the blade to be poetic, saying that G'Kar carries swords in his heart and in his mind, so he's got a 2 to 1 advantage in arms. G'Kar's got no defence against poetry, so he decides to stay and they all go off down the pub or whatever.
Why is it always the palm that people cut in these series? G'Kar did exactly this to make a statement to Vir a few episodes back. Though he used a tiny dagger, not a full length sword. I was getting worried that his fingers were going to fall off once he'd reached the end of the blade. I've read that actor designed and paid for that sword himself, so I hope he got a blunt one.
It's great though that after all those episodes last season where G'Kar had to defend his position and win respect, this time his people were there for him.
By the way, that's the old background behind them, the one with just one strip of lights running down the centre of the tube. Seems that they made a new CGI scene for Earhart's exterior but didn't print new backdrops.
Though the shot's kind of spoiled just very slightly by the way that everyone is standing in the exact same places they were in the first scene. Of course you'd never know that if you didn't look for it.
Here's a weird fact for you (I read it on the internet so it's probably true). When they were shooting the scenes of the Docker's Guild on strike in By Any Means Necessary a few years earlier, they had people from the production crew playing some of the union members, which they could get away with because Babylon 5 wasn't a union set. But the union finally caught up to them during the filming of this episode, which led to actual protests and actual negotiations as they tried to figure out a way to keep the series affordable without having to escape to Canada. (They figured it out in the end).
And the episode concludes with Londo seeing Vir off at the customs area, staying on the safer side of the blast door this time. It's not great that Vir's being put on the same bus as Sinclair but at least he got a send off, unlike Na'Toth. I just hope he's remembered to pack all his ornaments.
CONCLUSION
It's just occurred to me that they could've swapped this and Convictions around, and had this episode end with a surprise explosion as Londo's walking back from seeing Vir off. That way they could've had a shocking cliffhanger for free and not had to change a single frame of Convictions to resolve it.
A Day in the Strife is a strange title as it leads you to assume this is going to be about a day in the life of the people on Babylon 5, and it really isn't. Not any more than any other episode anyway. In fact it starts a 24 hour countdown halfway through! A countdown that only affects half of the plots going on. They should've called the episode 'A Couple of Days of People Feeling They've Got Good Justifications to Make Bad Decisions', because there's a bit of a theme going on:
Londo starts the episode role-playing a Nazi and ends it shipping his only remaining friend off to an alien world, and he spells out his reasons for it every time. He feels he has to break the Narns or else all the horrible things he's done were for nothing, but it's hard to be a bastard when you've got an angel on your shoulder the whole time. Funny though how he sends away his angel just a couple of episodes after sending away his devil (Morden).
Na'Far and G'Kar both feel like they're justified in handing the leader of the Narn resistance over to the Centauri to be tortured and executed. One's a collaborator, the other's giving himself up, but they're both doing it out of duty to their own people. Or at least that's the impression I get from Na'Far, as he may be an agent of the Centauri but he still has some pride left. He's definitely infinitely more sympathetic than all the season one villains sent over from Earth.
Franklin's convinced himself that he has to take on extra shifts and then take stims to get through them. Garibaldi doesn't think he has to though, and even if he does, Sheridan's obviously up for negotiating these things if there's a problem. The guy took money out of the military budget just to have bigger quarters, he'd find a way to keep his doctors sane and healthy. Either way this clearly isn't sustainable, and it seems like he's forgotten the cautionary tale from The Quality of Mercy of the stim addict doctor who accidentally killed a patient,
And the person making the most catastrophic bad decision this story is Sheridan, who nearly got 250,000 people killed, including many leaders of the Army of Light and Conspiracy of Light, after taking a probe holding them at gunpoint at its word. And he never even discussed evacuating!
The berserker probe plot is the least important, but apparently the most memorable as it's the only one I could remember on this rewatch. It reminded me a little of A Voice in the Wilderness, with the device powering up to annihilate the station, and Deathwalker, with the advanced knowledge that everyone would want to have, except this time there's absolutely zero focus on anything but 'explosion bad'. There's nothing like the scene in Voice where Sinclair tells Garibaldi to make sure Ivanova gets on the last ship out, and they never once mention who gets given their prize if they win. Do they give it to Earth? The Rangers? Everyone? It left the story feeling a bit insubstantial to me, but then I guess the substance is over in the other plots.
Overall this was a decent enough episode I thought. Season three is on a streak of competent but unexceptional stories so far. And explosions.
COMING SOON
Thanks for reading, by the way. You should leave a comment below, give me something to read in return.
I don't think they've ever allowed weapons onto the station
ReplyDeleteCertainly no guns. Londo had to put together a gun from scattered pieces in the very first regular episode. Swords seem to be allowed, though. I suppose swords explode less.
they could've swapped this and Convictions around, and had this episode end with a surprise explosion as Londo's walking back from seeing Vir off.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea! You should produce your own 90s sci-fi TV show, Ray.
I've thought about it, but then I wouldn't have enough time to write about Babylon 5 episodes anymore.
DeleteI have almost zero memory of watching these episodes the first time around but I do clearly remember the scenes where Londo is trying to send Vir away, because it's so sad.
ReplyDelete