Babylon 5 3-22: Z'ha'dum

Episode:

66

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

28-Oct-1996

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've finally reached the Babylon 5 season 3 finale Z'ha'dum!

Saying anything about the name would be spoiling earlier episodes, but if you're not familiar with it, it's a made up sci-fi place that has a lot of significance and a lot of apostrophes, and using it as the title gives the impression that this story will be somewhat important. If the fact that it's a season finale didn't already give that away. This unfortunately means that it's given me more to write about than usual, so you're getting a double-length article this time.

You want to know an absolutely pointless fact that I guarantee you've never read anywhere else? Season 3 contains both Babylon 5's alphabetically highest and lowest episode titles, with A Day in the Strife up at the top and Z'ha'dum right at the end. Here's more obvious piece of trivia: this is the second episode of the series to be directed by Leonard Nimoy's son, Adam Nimoy (the first being the universally beloved Passing Through Gethsemane). It's also the last episode he directed, for whatever reason.

This recap/review is first time viewer safe, but there are going to be SPOILERS for this episode and the series so far, so I'd suggest watching it first. I mean you can do what you like, but the series has gotten pretty good by this point and the episode will tell you the story much better than I can.

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Unlike the previous two stories, this time the teaser does not begin with a black screen telling us what 'Z Minus' number we're up to (though it'd still be Z Minus 2 Days).

Instead it begins with various intercut scenes, including this shot from the ending of the last episode. The scene of Delenn and her snow globe was first seen as a flashforward in War Without End, Part Two and was then reshot when the actual event came around in Shadow Dancing. They had perfect opportunity here to film the scene for a third time just for this intro, but that would be crazy, so they chose to just reuse the Shadow Dancing footage. (Which means that it's all zoomed in and fuzzy on my screencap, because that's what reused footage generally looks like on the DVDs.)

We're also given a flashback to the flashback in In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, of the crew of the survey ship Icarus landing on Z'ha'dum itself and discovering that it's the homeworld of an ancient antagonistic race known as the Shadows.

This is like a 'previously on' recap, except more stylish. And entirely focused around one character: Anna Sheridan, Captain Sheridan's wife.

Anna was part of the Icarus' crew during its final expedition four years ago, two years before Sheridan took command of B5, and she hadn't been heard from since. Though we did see her once back in season 2 when Sheridan watched a message she'd recorded before her trip.

But she was played by a different actress back then, so they filmed the scene for a second time just for this intro! They've kept it dark so you can't tell that Sheridan's lamp has transformed into a plant when it pans over to him, but his season 3 hair is a bit obvious.

Anna was presumed dead, but Sheridan didn't really know anything about what happened to her and her ship until In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, a little over a year ago, when he learned that Londo's buddy Morden had also been a crewmember on the Icarus. He spent most of the episode interrogating him for the truth about Anna, but was eventually talked into letting him go to avoid starting an interstellar war against the ancient unstoppable foe he served. Or to delay it at least.

Sheridan wasn't going to just leave it there though. He made it very clear to Kosh that he was eventually going to go pay the Shadows a visit on Z'ha'dum and sort them out personally. Even though Kosh warned him "If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die."

I don't think he needed any precognition to figure that one out.

Shadow Dancing ended with Anna Sheridan walking into Captain Sheridan's quarters very much alive (which surprised the crap out of Delenn), and once the two minutes of clips are over this picks up immediately afterwards.

Anna's played by Melissa Gilbert, by the way, who just happened to be Bruce Boxleitner's real wife at the time. She apparently read his copy of the script, and the two of them thought it'd be cool if she got to work on his show for a bit playing his fictional wife. Even though the show couldn't afford her regular rates and she he had to take a pay cut.

For some reason Anna seems a little annoyed at seeing another woman in her husband's room in the middle of the night, and a little surprised that Delenn didn't tell him she was alive. It's kind of an awkward situation, and Delenn gets out of there as soon as possible... leaving the Army of Light's general alone with a possible Shadow agent. Man, first the reverend got into his office in And the Rock Cries Out No Hiding Place, now this; they really need to step up their security.

At least Sheridan has the sense to be wary around her, taking a step back when she gets close. So Anna agrees to take any test he wants, let him ask her anything he wants. Because she's going to tell him what it's really all about... just as soon as they get back to Z'ha'dum.

But that's where future Delenn told him not to go!

END TEASER

ACT ONE

We get to see the show's season three titles one last time and then we're in one of Babylon 5's docking bays, looking at lots and lots of nukes sent over from the Gaim. Ignore the giant cone in the foreground, that's nothing, the nukes are the shark-looking things on the top left. (Personally, if I was in charge of a space station carrying 250,000 people I'd move them somewhere else, preferably far enough to put B5 out of range of a 600 megaton thermonuclear blast.)

Ivanova and G'Kar plan to use them next time they figure out where the Shadows are going to strike. If they mine the area with undetectable nukes first it'll mean a lot more Shadow vessels will blow up and a lot less of their own ships. By the way, undetectable mines were also seen in Deep Space Nine, so there's another similarity for your list.

Meanwhile Anna Sheridan's in Medlab undergoing tests. Last episode she was credited as just "Anna" but now that the cat's out of the bag she gets her full name.

Dr Franklin walks out of the isolab to tell Sheridan that... hang on, what's Franklin doing walking around? He was in a wheelchair last night! They've got him using a cane so they haven't forgotten he got stabbed last episode, but it seems way too soon for him to be moving around like this, even with future medicine.

Speaking of future medicine, Franklin's tests have determined that Anna is an exact match to Sheridan's wife even down to her DNA (lucky they had his wife's DNA on record really considering their split from Earth). They've found some scarring around her neck, so that's a bit odd, but there's no sign of anything implanted under it. I hope he's tested her for alien mind control parasites as well; we've had two different kinds show up this season so they're more common than you'd think.

We've seen a few firsts in Sheridan and Delenn's relationship recently, like his first kiss with her, and then her first kiss with him a few episodes later, and now we're getting their first row! I suppose it was inevitable that things were going to get a bit 'soap opera' once his wife appeared from the dead.

Delenn's got a bit of a reputation for keeping facts to herself, because she does it all the time, and now Sheridan wants to know what she hasn't been telling him about Anna. So she admits that she didn't exactly know for certain that his wife was dead. She knew that any Icarus crewmembers who refused to serve the Shadows were killed, and just assumed that Anna wouldn't serve them.

That's some weird artwork on the left, I don't remember seeing that before. I don't remember seeing that bench before either. In fact I don't even know where this is! Did they scrap the Zen Garden set? Is that why we're in this mysterious new room?

Delenn admits that she didn't want to give Sheridan hope because anyone who's seen In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum knows he would've gone straight to the Shadow homeworld to save his wife, and she and Kosh couldn't allow it. Funnily enough, learning that his allies have been denying him his agency hasn't made him any less angry and he's not feeling all that trusting at the moment either.

You know, I've been thinking this for a while, and this seems as good a time to say it as any: I don't really like how the line running across the front of his new uniform stops before it reaches his arm. I'm not sure how they could've fixed it though.

I mean they could've just continued the line around the arm, maybe dyed the area above a slightly different colour (see my Photoshopped edit above), but then they would've been moving into Star Trek territory.

Anyway, the episode cuts to Londo drinking on his own in the Zocalo, and Vir has forgiven him enough by this point to come over and ask him what's up.

Turns out that Londo has been promoted! He's going to be joining the Royal Court as an advisor to Emperor Cartagia in matters of planetary security... and he's real pissed off about it. He knows that they just want to keep him close and under observation because they're afraid of what he might do with the money and power he's accumulated. Also they should've offered it to him 20 years ago when he still wanted it! Man, Londo should stop trying so hard to get things he doesn't want.

They're joined by a sinister human in a suit, but it's not Morden this time, it's the guy the Shadows send when Morden's busy. I guess Ed Wasser wasn't available for this episode. Hey, I wonder if this guy was on the Icarus too.

Not-Morden has a message for Londo: leave the station immediately. This reminds me of a DS9 episode... which I'm not going to spoil. It also reminds me of that scene at the start of In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum that took place at a very similar table in almost exactly the same part of the Zocalo. You know, the one where Vir gave Morden his little wave. But there are no waves for Not-Morden.

Meanwhile Franklin's still investigating Anna. Seems that he came back from his walkabout just in the nick of time, as he's on to something here that someone else would've likely missed. I mean the scene plays out in silence, we just see him looking at a computer screen, but it's clear that he's realised that the marks on Anna's neck match up exactly with the implants he was trying to remove from Carolyn Sanderson... before he gave up and went on a walkabout instead.

Carolyn has only appeared once, in Ship of Tears, but she was established as being evil Psi-Cop Alfred Bester's own Anna: the love of his life who went missing due to the Shadows. When they got her back they found she'd been given implants that they couldn't remove, designed to let her interface with a Shadow vessel and act as its CPU.

It's starting to seem very possible that Anna was wired up with the same implants... which means it's very possible she's been the brain of a Shadow vessel for the last three seasons. There weren't so many of them around at first, so it's very possible she could've been the one to destroy the Raiders and recover the Eye for Londo in Signs and Portents! She could've blown up Quadrant 37 in Chrysalis!

Aww, her the shape of her face doesn't match up to Franklin's scan. It's ruining my immersion!

Right now all that Anna's doing is staring at her wedding photo, which is actually her wedding photo (the actress's I mean). Sheridan, on the other hand, is staring at a chunky handheld box. I'm thinking it's probably the Babylon 5 equivalent of a PADD... or I guess I should say 'iPad', seeing as they've been around for 10 years now and exist as a real thing outside of a sci-fi show.

Anna basically repeats what she said to him earlier: if he comes with her to Z'ha'dum she'll tell him everything. It's just like In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, when Delenn promised that if he came to her quarters she'd tell him all the important facts she'd been keeping from him. Except Delenn's quarters have never been the lair of an incredibly powerful ancient alien race threatening everything he holds dear. Well, not recently anyway, though she was involved in that Earth-Minbari War thing a few years back...

Anyway Sheridan's not exactly jumping at the chance to follow Anna to Z'ha'dum for answers, because he's not an idiot. Sure he'd go there in his boxer shorts armed only with a spoon if that's what it took to rescue her, but she's here and a rescue is not required.

So she agrees to tell him what happened to the crew of the Icarus if he promises to go... and he does!

ACT TWO

Sometimes a season finale to a sci-fi series will be an action-packed CGI extravaganza. Other times it's two people sitting in a living room chatting over clips we've already seen.

Honestly though, the first time I watched this I was craving this exposition and even now I know all the secrets I'm still curious about what she's going to say. Also I'm feeling a little sorry for the actress, having to deliver all this information instead of doing acting. Oh hang on, I just realised that now I have to deliver all the information. Damn.

Okay, in Messages from Earth we learned that Interplanetary Expeditions had found an ancient spider ship buried on Mars. Anna explains to Sheridan that when they dug it out it started sending a signal, so they took a few samples from it, planted a tracker, and then got out of the way and waited for it to be picked up.

The ship was taken to a world out on the Rim, and the Icarus was sent out to investigate. Man, Anna's backstory really is Alien.

There was an accident, lots of people died, the radio broke... basically all the stuff you expect to happen when you name your ship 'Icarus' and fly right up to something that's inevitably going to burn you. The aliens they found there were pretty friendly though! Unfortunately they weren't able to offer the crew a ride home, as they'd just come out of hibernation. They weren't at their most formidable and couldn't afford to do anything to draw more attention to themselves. And Anna didn't come right back to see Sheridan after they'd recovered because she didn't know how much time had passed, as it doesn't quite work the same way there. So that's weird.

By the way, Anna pulls out the 'their real name is 10,000 letters long and impossible for humans to say' trope here, and I feel like it was worn out already by the 90s. Plus even if they did call themselves a name that long, it'd be abbreviated in most cases. I mean no one calls that Welsh town Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch unless they want to show off, and that's only 58 letters! Hey remember when I told you about the nukes stashed in one of B5's docking bays? That was about 10,000 letters ago.

So the Icarus survivors had to stay on Z'ha'dum, but the Shadows had lots of cool stuff there to show them, like Star Trek free energy tech, and Farscape organic spaceship tech; things which could push Earth forward a thousand years! Somehow I don't think Morden was sharing the free energy tech when he was on Earth conspiring with Clark's government though. Also it's interesting that Anna's trying to tempt a guy who runs the Space UN, turned against EarthGov, dated a Minbari, and led a fleet of alien ships, by selling him on what the Shadows could do for Earth.

But she's lived up to her side of the agreement and told him everything he asked to know, so now he'll have to go to Z'ha'dum and hear them out.

Even though he saw Franklin's test results on his fatt PADD and knows Anna ain't quite right.

Sheridan's playing with the device again a short while later when Garibaldi finds him in his office. Turns out that he's realised that the Minbari crew of their favourite White Star aren't logged into B5's security, and he wants them all shipped over and given Identicards. All of them. Simultaneously. It's like he doesn't even realise he's talking to the most suspicious and paranoid man in space.

Though Garibaldi certainly realises something's up when he looks at the list of other things Sheridan wants him to do (that we don't get to see). Sheridan has to ask him to trust him, and Garibaldi is clearly uncomfortable with it all, but he agrees to go along with it. Because they're total bros now. They've even got a secret code phrase! Next time they meet, Garibaldi is supposed to confirm the job is done by talking about the weather.

Sheridan goes to his quarters and starts digging out his PPG pistols, when he sees an old friend in the mirror.

It's ghost Kosh! Though he's just here to reiterate that if it wasn't clear before, if Sheridan goes to Z'ha'dum he will die.

We learned in Walkabout that this is actually the real Kosh, or at least a piece of him left behind after he died, but I doubt knowing that would change Sheridan's mind at this point. He's already had an alien take a ride in his brain and give him visions in season 2's Knives, so he's not impressed by that anymore, and he's pissed off with Kosh for the same reasons he's pissed off with Delenn.

Though he does at least stop to leave Delenn a message on the way out before meeting up with Anna and heading to the docking bay. He finds Garibaldi there, just lurking around suspiciously like he does, and they have a perfectly normal chat about the weather before parting ways like two friends who are totally ever going to see each other again. Anna apparently suspects nothing!

I wonder if Garibaldi finally got a chance to go over to the White Star when he was handling all that stuff on Sheridan's list. I've been feeling really bad for him, as everyone else has been going off on White Star adventures all year while he's always ended up being the one who gets left behind to look after the shop. Though I suppose Franklin hasn't had a turn either yet.

Then it's all smiles as Sheridan and Anna hijack the White Star!

It doesn't seem like a really awesome idea to me though, for him to take their most advanced prototype over to the enemy homeworld. Sure the Shadows have better technology, but let's not give them even the slightest chance to improve what they've got and determine all our weaknesses.

ACT THREE

Fortunately Sheridan knows exactly how to fly the ship, because for the past year he's been paying attention to what the crew were doing and what buttons to press. I thought he was mostly posing/falling asleep in his captain's chair, but he apparently did go around behind it occasionally to see what the others were up to.

Anna is mostly preoccupied with this light, as she fears it. The Shadows believe that if anything remotely Vorlon touches Z'ha'dum they'll die, and this light is pretty damn Vorlon, as is the rest of the ship. Well it's partially Vorlon anyway. Speaking of partially Vorlon, this would likely be a bad time for Sheridan to mention seeing Kosh in the mirror earlier...

Back on B5, Franklin and Ivanova are discussing Sheridan sneaking out on them, and Franklin just doesn't get it. Sheridan saw the test results, he knows what the Shadows did to Anna, so why would he trust her? 

Man, this camera angle makes the shuttle look huge.

Ships travel at the speed of plot in Babylon 5, so the White Star has apparently managed to make it all the way out to the Rim in less time than it took to get back to the Solar System in Messages from Earth.

Wait, hang on, they're walking on a planet! It's been two years, but Sheridan's finally stepping foot on a planet on screen! I think that leaves only Franklin, Marcus and Zack now, out of the regulars. Sinclair, Ivanova, Delenn, Londo and Garibaldi all visited Epsilon III, we saw Vir on Centauri Prime, Lennier on Minbar and G'Kar went to Narn.

Sheridan decided to take an Earth Alliance shuttle down to avoid anything Vorlon touching the planet, which has me wondering if White Stars can actually land. There was a time in live action sci-fi where giant spaceships generally couldn't and typically stayed way clear of the atmosphere, but since the USS Voyager started parking everywhere it doesn't seem so rare these days. It's a bit of a shame really I reckon, makes them seem less impressive somehow.

New sets! Funny how they can go to the most ancient and alien world, located out on the outer rim, and the light fittings still look like IDE connectors.

Anna waits until Sheridan's inside the underground complex, then asks him to hand over his gun. Either she's worried that the Shadows can be shot, or she's worried that the humans working with them can be shot, either way she's putting a moratorium on all shooting. Of course we know that he brought two guns... though what he thinks he's going to do with gun #2 remains a mystery.

He investigates one of the identical doors, but Anna tells him it's the wrong one. Writer jms explains in the commentary that it's meant to be a metaphor, of the road not taken, but I did not get that at all from the scene. I was too busy trying to work out the layout of the place in my head, and as far as I can tell the room they do go into is too big for the wrong door next to it to actually go anywhere. It's just painted on!

Sheridan enters the room and discovers that the Shadows actually went to the trouble of getting them some furniture and putting a carpet down. Also Morden's in the episode after all!

We don't know the other guy, so Sheridan sensibly asks "Who are you?" The man's not keen on giving a straight answer though, possibly because it's the Vorlon question and the Shadows and Vorlons don't get on. Sheridan should've started with "What do you want?" as the Shadows love that question!

After being asked a second time, the man gives a really strange answer, which I'm going to just quote:

"Who decides that the work day is from 9 to 5 instead of 11 to 4? Who decides that the hemlines will be below the knee this year and short again next year? Who draws up the borders, controls the currency, handles all of the decisions that happen transparently around us? I'm with them. Same group, different department."

So the ancient alien race that just woke up recently after being defeated a thousand years ago... controls the hemlines? I mean I knew they were working with EarthGov and Psi Corps, but they're working with Big Fashion as well? The Shadows are the Illuminati?

The guy asks Sheridan to think of him as a sort of middleman and says he's called Justin. I was expecting to see a flashback to his Kosh dream where he was told "The man in the middle is searching for you," but nope.

Incidentally, jms had a certain performance in his head when he was writing Justin, from a 1966 movie called Seconds. So when it came time to cast the character, he just got the same actor. Makes sense.

It's at this point that Delenn finally gets the message Sheridan recorded just before he went to Z'ha'dum. It's just like the time Sheridan got a message from Anna that she'd recorded right before she went to Z'ha'dum. Fortunately he hasn't pulled a Sinclair and made her guess a password before she can receive it.

His message doesn't go the way you'd expect though, as he tells her that he jumped forwards in time in War Without End and saw Centauri Prime in flames. Future Delenn told him not to go to Z'ha'dum and that got him wondering if that future could be averted if he went and walked right into their trap. He admits that it's not what he wants, but hey "What do you want?" is a question that can lead to all kinds of bad outcomes. For all the Centauri have done, he's still willing to go to his death to save their world. This is all Vir's fault I reckon, for showing him that there are some Centauri who aren't total dicks.

Then the episode cuts back to the hell that he's enduring at the hands of the Shadows.

It's time for tea and exposition on Z'ha'dum, as Justin tells Sheridan about the First Ones. Most of the old races got bored of the galaxy and left, but two stayed behind to help the younger races evolve: the Shadows and the Vorlons.

Justin compares the Vorlons to parents, who want you to follow the rules. Which I guess explains why Kosh was always appearing in dreams in the form of someone's dad. Not really a point against them for Sheridan though, as he loves his parents. The Shadows, on the other hand, believe you only get stronger through competition and adversity. Survival of the fittest. Death of the weakest. Lots of stress and misery for everyone.

Doesn't entirely explain why they've helped impose a fascist government on Earth though... unless the Vorlons and Shadows are both your parents, with both of them wanting you to do what you're told. Both insistent on the correct height for hemlines.

Morden uses the example of knocking over an anthill over and over, so that the next anthill will be redesigned to be better. That made my mind jump to the Babylon stations, and how a new one got built each time the previous one was blown up (or stolen). Unfortunately the fifth of them definitely isn't the strongest.

This becomes a real problem when the Shadows finally decide to come by in person. Oh so that's why Not-Morden told Londo to leave the station immediately!

If this was Star Trek, the station could survive a few shots before being overwhelmed thanks to its sci-fi deflector shields. Unfortunately Babylon 5 does not have shields and if those just one of those Shadow vessels uses their beam weapon now it'll slice the space colony in two.

We soon learn that they've jammed communications with Epsilon 3 and B5 can't call on the Great Machine for help, so that finally explains how they were able to destroy the station unopposed in the Babylon Squared flashforward future... which, incidentally, seems to be back on track, just a month or so later than originally scheduled. I hope Ivanova remembers what to say in her distress call.

ACT FOUR

Back on Z'ha'dum, the Icarus survivors are still trying to sell Sheridan on the Shadow philosophy of chaos, pointing out how thousands of years of wars on Earth pushed humanity to develop the technology needed to develop space travel and write poetry.

Then we get some more history: the Vorlons and Shadows had a deal that they'd manipulate worlds equally, but the Vorlons started meddling with races genetically, so that we'd see them as angels... so that we'd have telepaths. Eventually the Vorlons teamed up with other races like the Minbari and used these telepaths to wage war on the Shadows.

The Shadows got the human telepaths out of the equation with the help of the Psi Corps, but now Sheridan is screwing up their plans by organising the races they've been trying to get fighting each other! He's a nexus apparently, and the world has a tendency to follow him. So either he joins the Shadows here or they'll remove his support structure: Babylon 5 and all his allies. I guess Kosh should've really said "If you go to Z'ha'dum, everyone else will die."

In fact they've got no intention of killing Sheridan, because a: they're not evil, and b: it wouldn't help. Like Boggs said in Ceremonies of Light and Dark, if they kill him he'll become a martyr and someone else will just take his place.

Sheridan's not entirely convinced though. Actually they never stood a chance of winning him over, not after he saw Franklin's report and realised that Anna wasn't his wife anymore. Turns out that Anna Sheridan chose not to serve them, so they really did wire her up like Carolyn Sanderson and put her into one of their ships, only pulling her out when they realised who she was to Sheridan.

Being in the ships for a while does something to the brain though. Like with Brother Edward in Passing Through Gethsemane, the original person has been killed and now someone new is walking around in their body. Like Talia Winters actually now that I think about it. Anna's now literally the mind of a Shadow vessel in human form.

So Sheridan pulls the second gun out of his leg holster and shoots the Shadow sneaking up behind him. Why wasn't he invisible? Dumbass Shadow.

Back on Babylon 5, Ivanova's got a plan to get their nuclear weapons outside to use against the Shadow vessels, but unfortunately there's no way to get them far enough away to vaporise the Shadows and not themselves. I'm glad they remembered them though, and they weren't just introduced as something for Sheridan to use later.

Oh, by the way, G'Kar's just discovered that Sheridan took two of the nukes.

Cut to a wounded and bleeding Sheridan finding himself at a dead end. Though it's a dead end with a great view of the Shadows' capital city, and the giant pit below him. I'd say it was very convenient, if I could figure out how a giant pit is convenient right now.

This is an underground city, but they do have a nice skylight in the roof to let some sun in, assuming this planet ever gets any.

Hey it's a view looking up for once! The series has been so shy about spending the extra cash to show skies and ceilings that I've learned to appreciate a shot like this when I get it.

Sheridan decides that this is the best reception he's likely to get and starts pressing buttons on his link.

Turns out that he really does know how to use the White Star, as he's even figured out how to operate it under remote control from his link! See, this is why Delenn always keeps things from him until the last moment: because she knows that he's actually really smart and will come up with lots of horrifying uses for her precious spaceships. Though I suppose Garibaldi must have set some of it up.

There's no way Sheridan was the one who put the two Gaim nukes down in the engine room and got them rigged to activate by remote control.

The Shadows were so concerned about what would happen if anything Vorlon touched their planet, they never even considered what would happen if anything Gaim landed on it!

Shadow-Anna finds Sheridan trapped on the balcony and tries to talk him around. Sure she's not the Anna he fell in love with, but he could fall in love with a new Anna!

Sheridan's already in love though, and the episode cuts back to Delenn's quarters to show him telling her that in his message. He was angry earlier sure, but he still loves her.

And poor Delenn goes to pieces in front of the monitor screen, which is pretty understandable. Good acting too. From both of them. All episode.

It looks like Sheridan's going to get a chance to die alone in the dark, without anyone really knowing what he did, because he believes his cause is more important than himself. Which is what Jack the Ripper was testing him for in Comes the Inqusitor. Seems the Vorlons got exactly the person they wanted.

The music gets dramatic, the White Star descends to Z'ha'dum, the Shadows are closing in, and the little Kosh living in Sheridan's brain tells him to jump. Now.

It's like the season two finale all over again. Once again Sheridan's trapped with a bomb about to go off, and all he can do is jump and hope he (or Kosh) can come up with a solution on the way down.

This is a pretty decent looking effect I reckon, with the way the camera pans down to watch him fall, though it's spoiled a little by the way the balcony seems to wobble a tiny bit.

Anna screams like a Shadow vessel as the White Star crashes through the window and annihilates the city with the force of two 600 megaton bombs. So there's one of the most iconic moments in Babylon 5 for you. Poor Shadow-Anna though. Poor Morden and Justin as well. This was definitely not what they wanted.

The ships around the station also start screaming and fly away, knowing that they've got bigger problems back home, and the day is saved! Even better, with Sheridan out of the way Lennier's in with a chance with Delenn now! Though he doesn't know that yet.

Ivanova has an inkling though, as either through telepathy or intuition she understands that Sheridan is dead.

ACT FIVE

Season one ended with Lennier keeping vigil with a candle, with no narration. Season two ended with Ivanova lighting candles while giving her narration. This time Delenn and Lennier are both sharing a candle and G'Kar is narrating.

It's the end of 2260 and the Shadow war has paused. He explains that life can be broken down into moments of transition and moments of revelation, except for this moment which has the feeling of both.

But everyone's so concerned about Sheridan that it takes them a while to notice that Garibaldi took a fighter out when the Shadows swarmed around the station and he didn't come back.

He's been captured by a Shadow vessel!

G'Kar continues by saying that the war they're fighting is against chaos and despair, as the death of hope and dreams is worse than the death of flesh. The future is waiting to be born. We don't know what the future will be, only that it will be born in pain.

This speech apparently struck a chord with the actor, Andreas Katsulas, and his performance of these lines was the last thing heard during his memorial after he died. Sorry to end on a downer, but then Babylon 5's season finales have all had sad endings so far. I think they may have outdone themselves this time though as that was pretty damn miserable. In a good way!


CONCLUSION

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I might have mentioned In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum a few times up there, but I pretty much had to as Z'ha'dum is both a mirror to that episode and the payoff.

Both stories are about Sheridan coming across a survivor of the Icarus on the station, and interrogating them, both have a lot of exposition about the fate of the ship and the nature of the conflict between the Vorlons and the Shadows, and both have Sheridan going on a bit of a rampage due to his deep love for his dead wife. In the original episode it took a real effort from everyone to talk Sheridan down from doing something reckless and getting them all killed, and even then they only managed to negotiate him down to 'suicide mission on Z'ha'dum at some point'. This time around one person chose to support him, and that was all Sheridan needed to get his suicide mission plan in motion. Turns out that when John "Starkiller" Sheridan, the man who got the only proper victory in the Earth-Minbari War, says he'll take some of the enemy down with him, he'll likely find a way to do it. And it'll probably involve nuking a ship with 'Star' in the name.

Poor White Star, it only survived a single year, but it died as it lived: blowing up an implausible amount of Shadows. In fact as iconic starship deaths go, this was among the most impressive I reckon. I mean I could list some that rival it, but that would be a lot of spoilers for other shows and movies, and I'm exhausted enough just spoiling this one.

Sheridan has tried to talk Delenn out of doing something dangerous a few times this season, so it's perhaps a little hypocritical for him to be mad at her for trying to keep him from getting himself killed trying to save a woman she was mostly sure was dead, but I could definitely see where his anger was coming from. Delenn is way too fond of keeping secrets, and it really come back to bite her here, as the last conversation she had with the man she loves was a row. We're only allowed to believe that Sheridan's chosen Anna over her for a few minutes though, as the clues start piling up that he's not just stealing the White Star to get him to Z'ha'dum, he's got a bigger plan. I definitely didn't expect his quantum leap in War Without End to play into his motivations though, especially as Future Delenn quite clearly said don't go to Z'ha'dum. I guess now we know why, though it's still a mystery what Sheridan's sacrifice has done to change the future.

At least we can be pretty sure that Delenn didn't need to worry too much about Sheridan trying to think like the Shadows, as here he withstood a full dose of their philosophy right at the source, with his wife right there backing them up and guns to his friends' heads as additional persuasion. The Shadows clearly underestimated Sheridan as well, in every way. They thought they could tempt him into a Faustian bargain for wonders that would make Earth great, even though he turned against Earth because of what they'd already done to it. He's had more than enough of their 'help' already! Sheridan has being trying to think like the Shadows, but they weren't trying to think like him and so they couldn't predict him. And yeah, technically they died when something Vorlon touched their world, but really it was a Minbari/Vorlon hybrid vessel loaded with Gaim nukes and piloted by a human. He used unity against them, which isn't just a huge middle finger to their philosophy that chaos brings strength, it also knocked down their anthill for irony points.

But the funny thing is, the episode actually does make the Shadows seem less evil. A lot less evil actually, if their true goal really is to help the younger races grow and evolve, instead of stagnating within their comfort zones. I mean genocide on a galactic level is a bit crap really, plus brainwashing people who don't serve them isn't entirely ethical either, but there's a real possibility that they're convinced they're helping. On the flip side, everything negative they say about the Vorlons rings 100% true. We know they've been messing around on Earth for centuries as they kidnapped Jack the Ripper, we know they like to disguise themselves as angels and appear in people's dreams as a parental figure to influence them, and we know that they've been next to zero help in the war so far. There's been one Vorlon vs Shadow fight this season and since then the most active they've been is the time New Kosh strangled Lyta.

The episode also explains a lot about... well, everything. The Shadows never attacked Babylon 5 directly because if they killed Sheridan someone else would just take his place (like in the last war, when Valen turned up with a brand new space station and whooped their ass). The Vorlons and Shadows don't attack each other directly because their war is philosophical (that's why the Shadows went after Kosh for retribution after the Vorlons attacked them first). And dress hemlines are all the Shadows' fault... actually that bit made no sense to me.

One thing I know for sure is that it's one hell of a cliffhanger for Sheridan, as it cuts right before Valen swoops in on a hoverboard to catch him. Though the amount of waiting a viewer had to suffer back in 1996 depended on where that viewer was viewing it. In the US, fans had to wait seven whole days to learn whether it was Ivanova's show now and whatever happened to Mr Garibaldi. In the UK, on the other hand, fans had to wait 300 days. That's 10 months! I remember at the time wondering if the series had been cancelled, or if that was the actual intended ending. I've seen series with some real bleak endings before, so I could easily believe that this was it for B5.

Anyway, Z'ha'dum is a pretty good episode in my estimation. There's next to no comedy this time, it's all tension and horror and characters sitting in comfy chairs dealing out exposition. No space battles either, but after three seasons of set up, the exposition's pretty compelling! Now all the secrets are out, the Shadows have been dealt a massive blow, and Londo's got a new job, so the stage is set for the story to take a different turn in season four.

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NEXT TIME

Babylon 5 will return in The Hour of the Wolf, eventually, months from now. But next on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's my Babylon 5 Season 3 Review!

Today I want to thank everyone who hasn't left any comments on my reviews. You selflessly let others take the limelight time and time again, even though you must have so many opinions you want to share, yet you gain nothing from your sacrifice and no one ever knows about it.

Anyway, what did you think about Z'ha'dum?