Babylon 5 5-17: Movements of Fire and Shadow

Episode:

105

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

John C. Flinn III

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Air Date:

17-Jun-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the Babylon 5 season 5 episode Movements of Fire and Shadow. Sounds like it should be the name of a Game of Thrones novel, but you know that things are getting real when the word 'Shadow' shows up in a B5 episode title.

It was the final episode to be directed by John C. Flinn III, but he carried on in his other job as the series' director of photography until the end. The main thing I remember about Flinn's episodes is that he's not great at shooting actors in monster suits, but if they can avoid that here this might be a good one.

We're getting really close to the end now, only 5 episodes left after this one, but they decided to be cruel during the show's first airing on TNT and make people wait 19 weeks for the next episode. That's four and a half months! We had it even worse in the UK, as we had to wait 2 weeks longer than that. Though they did at least air the B5 movie Thirdspace in the meantime... which confusingly slots in during the events of season 4.

I should probably mention that there will be SPOILERS beyond this point for this episode and earlier episodes too, but I've written this warning over a hundred times now and I'm getting pretty bored of doing it, so you're just going to have to live without it this time.

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The episode begins with a space battle at Draxis Colony, on the border of Drazi space (at least that's what the text on screen says). The Drazi fire off a huge swarm of missiles at an incoming fleet of Centauri cruisers, but they're easily shot down. Unfortunately the Drazi are less adept at dealing with the Centauri missiles... or mines... or whatever they are. Exploding homing balls.

We've been told that the Centauri are one of the most powerful races this side of the Rim, second only to the Minbari since the departure of the First Ones, and this curb stomp battle is definitely backing that up. Their ships didn't even get scratched. The CGI is significantly less powerful unfortunately; I guess some ship designs are a better fit for this 90s iteration of Lightwave they were using than others, with the Earthforce hardware typically looking the most realistic in their renders.

Then we get a log entry voice over by Captain Lochley, who (in aired order) hasn't shown up since the Byron arc, about 3 million episodes ago. Writer jms apparently deliberately kept her out of the series for a while in order to get season 5 back on track and make it feel more like Babylon 5 again. Now she's finally returned only to learn that the other regulars have made a real mess of things during her absence. We get a montage of clips to accompany her narration, starting with Franklin treating a Centauri in Medlab.

It turns out that Centauri are being murdered on the station, over half a dozen so far. I don't remember things getting this bad during the Narn-Centauri War, but then I guess they hadn't flattened the Narn homeworld with asteroids at that point. Lochley mentions that she's doubled security on every level, but it hasn't helped. I want to make a joke about how B5's security force being 50% Narns might have something to do with this, but you know what, the Narns don't deserve that. They've been ideal security officers for over two years now.

Lochley is thinking of keeping the Centauri away from anyone they're at war with, but they're at war with the Interstellar Alliance, so that's basically everyone.

Hey, it's a candle! That's usually not a good sign in this series. I've also noticed that Lochley's got half a jungle in her quarters back there.

It looks like she's showing off some Earthforce flight pyjamas right now, which is a bit unfair on characters like Sheridan who never got to wear any. Speaking of Sheridan, he just dropped by and interrupted her log recording because he's got some bad news: the Centauri are apparently targeting jumpgates now. It turns out that destroying jumpgates is bad for more than the obvious reasons. They could make the entire hyperspace beacon system fall apart, which presumably means that no one can navigate hyperspace anymore and faster-than-light travel is completely off the table.

Lochley's pretty shocked, as blowing up jumpgates is a violation of every rule of civilised warfare. It just doesn't happen.

3-01 Matters of Honor

If either of them remembers a certain tactic used by Sheridan in the Markab system a few seasons ago, they're not mentioning it. To be fair when Sheridan blew up that jumpgate in Matters of Honor he wasn't fighting a civilised war.

Lochley thinks that if the Centauri will understand that Babylon 5 will be an important part of arranging peace and not something they want to blow up. She's not taking any chances though, and has stationed half their Starfuries around the station and the other half in hyperspace. Uh, I hope she means half the active Starfuries and the pilots are still taking shifts. Leaving everyone sitting in cockpits all day is a bad idea for so many reasons, including the fact that there'll be no one to replace them tomorrow.

Sheridan's got more bad news for her however: the White Stars have just been authorised to assist member world ships, meaning that B5 just became considerably less neutral.

ACT ONE

Act one starts with Delenn getting the mistaken impression that Sheridan's asking her to wear that gift she doesn't like. Everything seems pretty bleak right now, so I can't tell if she's just joking around to lighten the mood, but either way it's nice to have a rare glimpse of Playful Delenn before they start discussing more serious business.

I expected that serious business to be the galactic war that's currently threatening everything, but that's not what's on Sheridan's mind right now. It turns out that their White Stars are a finite resource, the Rangers haven't been making more to replace the ones they've lost, but Sheridan has made plans to get funding from Earth to construct some badass supersized destroyer-class White Stars. In fact he's just had a courier deliver his proposal to President Luchenko and has already gotten an answer back somehow. 

If both sides agree then this is going to be another Earth-Minbari joint project like Babylon 5 itself, only this time Earth's providing the cash and Minbar is providing the technology instead of vice-versa. Earth's basically paying to get its hands on some of that awesome White Star tech, which is maybe a bit of a dangerous thing for the Minbari to hand over, seeing as right now their giant blue ships give them a huge advantage in starship battles over the other races.

The catch is that Delenn will have to be the one to deliver the proposal to the Grey Council, in person. They can't use a courier for this because... then there wouldn't be a plot. And they have to do this right now, in the middle of a war, with Centauri all over the routes to Minbar because... it makes things more dramatic.

It's a bit weird to me that he's only getting around to telling Delenn about any of this now, seeing as she's the head of the Rangers! I'm just glad the two of them aren't having another conversation about how it's too dangerous for her to go (even though it probably is). Maybe he learned his lesson from that whole situation with Lennier a couple of episodes back.

In the next scene we finally get to see Vir's quarters... except they're actually just some other place he's staying in for the time being. The same thing happened when we saw Lennier's quarters in Day of the Dead as well now that I think about it.

Vir's called Franklin and Lyta over because he needs a telepath and a high ranking Alliance doctor to go to the Drazi homeworld and find out why they haven't been releasing the bodies of the Centauri they've killed. They need to make sure they really are dead and not secretly being tortured. He's arranged for a Vree ship to take them there, as they're neutral and will be able to get them there safely. Wait, the episode can't drop that fact on us in the very next scene after Delenn goes off on a dangerous trip to Minbar! Why didn't she take a Vree ship?

Franklin agrees and Vir thanks them both, but Lyta points out that she hasn't agreed to go anywhere yet. I mean she will, but she wants a higher fee than usual. Lyta's grown a backbone lately and she's collecting contributions to her rogue telepath fund. In this case the contribution she requires is 500,000 credits, which is enough to rent cheap quarters for 1000 days, to buy 10 G'Quan Eth plants at Londo's 'fuck you G'Kar' prices, or to pay for 38.5% of Babylon 5's docking equipment upgrades.

Speaking of Londo and G'Kar, it turns out that they're still sharing a cell under the Centauri Royal Palace after almost three days. There's a subtle clue here to show where they're at in their friendship: Londo's letting G'Kar use his jacket as a pillow!

Londo could leave the cell any time he wants, he's the prime minister, but his plan is to build up some outrage that he's being held without charge so that he'll have support when he goes up against Regent Virini. If enough people are convinced that Virini's gone a bit loopy they can attempt to stop the war without being executed for treason. G'Kar doesn't think much of the plan, but he is amused at the idea that anyone would actually give a damn that Londo's locked up down here. 

It's Londo's turn to take the bed, but there's a sudden flash of light that knocks them both unconscious! Then some people pick him up and drag him out of the cell. I have to be honest, this is not the way I expected this scene to go.

ACT TWO

Whoa, did they build a new corridor set? Wait, are those the aliens we saw in Ship of Tears, when the crew recovered some telepaths stored in cryopods and one of them had flashback to an X-Files scene? Either way the aliens definitely seem to be abducting Londo.

They stop in a dark room and run a beam of light across him to do an x-ray.

I felt like stitching the whole scan together into one image though, so here's a glimpse at Londo's skeleton you'll likely never find anywhere else! Seems like the Centauri aren't all that different on the inside, at least not their bones. We also know what he's dreaming about, as he smiles and says "Adira".

Then they break out the drill for some proper alien probing, which would actually be kind of horrifying if it wasn't so cliché. The scene's appeared so much in TV shows and movies that Babylon 5's actually done it already, in the episode All Alone in the Dark. Twice in fact, as we also saw it in that X-Files flashback in Ship of Tears.

3-14 - Ship of Tears

This is what poor Carolyn Sanderson saw when she was being operated on by servants of the Shadows. They were apparently installing hardware for her to interface with a Shadow vessel, but I don't think that's what's happening with Londo. For one thing all the Shadow vessels are gone, so there's nothing for him to fly. Also we saw what kind of a pilot he is back in A Voice in the Wilderness, and I doubt truly advanced aliens would trust him with their stuff.

Hey now Londo's awake and seeing them as well! Wow, that the makeup looks so much better in this lighting. Nice job John C. Flinn III, you filmed the monster suits well.

Londo asks them "Who are you?" and "What do you want with me?" which are both very reasonable questions. They're also the Vorlon and Shadow questions, which probably isn't a coincidence. Then he wakes up in his cell again like nothing happened and G'Kar tells him it was all just a nightmare. Hey G'Kar, it wasn't cool when Lyta pulled that crap on Garibaldi a few episodes ago and it's not cool here either!

At this point Londo's got a bit of a feeling that something's not right and it's more than just the fact that they're currently at war with literally everyone (well, except the Vree). He needs a way out of the cell that will let him save face. G'Kar immediately knows what to do.

Cut to Londo escaping a smell so nasty he thinks his buttons are melting. Seems that Narn farts can be among the most devastating in the universe. Or maybe he threw up, it's not entirely clear. All we know is that Londo's out and G'Kar's trapped in there with it. I'm kind of glad I'm not eating anything right now to be honest. Though now it's got me wondering what the toilet situation's like in these cells.

One thing that Babylon 5 likes to do is play with the mood, so it can go from a fart joke to something very serious and tragic. I mean I'm not saying this is leading somewhere tragic... but it wouldn't surprise me. There was that candle early on and I'm telling you it's a bad omen.

Back on the station, generals Na'Tok, Daro and Kulomani of the Narn, Drazi and Brakiri have gathered around one of Babylon 5's famous glass tables to discuss the war.

They're grateful for the support of the White Star fleet, which has helped avoid this turning into a repeat of the Narn-Centauri War, but they're determined not to work together as a unified force. They're an Alliance working in common cause... in their "own individual and sovereign ways".

You'd expect the former League worlds to be like this, they usually only come together and agree on things that allow them to do something stupid individually, but they've noticed that the Centauri also seem to be divided. There are fleets protecting their bases and fleets out waging war, but there's no interaction between the two. The defensive fleets do at least have a goal, but the offensive fleets don't seem to have any kind of overall strategy. Sheridan points out that "You can't just start a war to start a war and honk off your neighbours" but they don't see any other goal here.

I feel like someone in this room should be bringing up that this is like the Shadow war all over again, but they're not. Those who forget previous story arcs are doomed to repeat them.

Hey is that Robin Sachs under the Narn makeup? That means this must be the same Narn commander that Sheridan saved in the season 2 finale The Fall of Night! The one that didn't want to help him out in season 3's Walkabout.

No, hang on, that was Na'Kal, captain of the G'Tok, and this is Na'Tok. Did jms get the name of the captain mixed up with the name of his ship?

The Narn general is a bit frustrated that they're not just going out and bombing the Centauri homeworld, which is something they're apparently in a position to do right now. Sheridan has been mostly offering suggestions so far, not actually leading the forces, but he puts his foot down here. There's to be no bombing of civilian targets! They're not doing that!

Oh shit we're in C&C, with Lochley, and Corwin's here as well! I don't even remember the last time we got to see them in here this season. Was it episode 4, A View from the Gallery?

They've picked up a Centauri cruiser in hyperspace on the long-range sensors but it doesn't seem to have any support craft. Or weapons powered up. Or crew. It's definitely got jump engines though and they're detecting something weird from them...

Lochley orders Alpha squadron to fly in and blow that ship up immediately, as she's realised that it's pulling the same trick that Sheridan did with the Markab gate. If it opens a jump point within an active jumpgate the explosion will absolutely destroy the gate and probably Babylon 5 as well. It's maybe surprising that people don't try this more often considering how simple and devastating it is, but I guess they did mention earlier that everyone needs the jumpgates in order to navigate hyperspace.

They get the struts moved as far apart as possible, but even if the Starfuries blow the ship up in time there's still going to be a huge explosion.

Boom!

It's rare to see a side view of a jump point vortex like this, probably because it looks weird. Fortunately they still have a gate afterward as they got that Centauri ship blown up in the nick of time. But it's taken damage, so that's going to need to be fixed.

Inside we learn that Drazi and Narn generals have been watching Babylon 5 on the monitor (in full frame 4:3, so it's probably the HD remaster) and they're not impressed. They're not freaking out over nearly been killed, they're just disappointed with how sloppy the humans are. They clearly don't have the stomach for this war!

So at least two of the generals are going to work together after all... to strike the Centauri homeworld without the Alliance's help or approval. I hope they're at least going to phone up their own governments and check with them first. Or send a courier, if open communications are too risky right now.

ACT THREE

Hey Delenn's White Star has red railing posts!

This had me wondering for a moment if it could be a repaired White Star 2 (the ship that Sheridan used to end the Shadow War at Coriana 6, Delenn used to fight the Drakh, and Ivanova used to destroy the Shadow Omega cruisers). But it doesn't have the B5 logo on it, so it's not.

Anyway Sheridan calls up Delenn and they catch up on what's been going on. Turns out she'll be at Minbar in two days, so that's good.

This episode's going all over the place, as now we're back on the Drazi homeworld. I suppose the producers must have known that these sets would be getting used again when they built them for The Ragged Edge, as that's why they were able to spend more money on them. Though there are people in the streets this time, and a surprising amount of them aren't Drazi. I suppose they are right next to the space port and the hotel at the moment

Hang on, if Lyta and Franklin set off a day before Delenn in a slower ship and they're already here, that implies that the Drazi homeworld is also closer to B5 than Minbar is. I can do absolutely nothing with this information.

I like Franklin's weird fold out map; another cool B5 prop. The two of them have managed to get lost but Franklin's determined not to ask anyone for directions, despite Lyta's obvious frustration. Plus she's the one that's carrying all their luggage! Even reborn-from-the-ashes confident telepath revolutionary Lyta still manages to end up being put-upon! This was actually improvised by the actors though, so blame them, not the writer.

It's great seeing these two finally working together again, a whole year after their trip to Mars last season. Franklin gets to be more of a character when he's out of Medlab and Lyta's more of a character when she's given anything to do at all. One of the Drazi seems to be finding them interesting as well...

Hey they've gone back to the old look for the Centauri Royal Palace CGI, with grey spirals around the columns and gold spikes on the the corners of the rooftops. It's looking good!

Inside, Londo's trying to convince the ministers that Virini was perhaps a poor choice of regent. Plus we finally get a name for that smug minister who's been popping up these last few episodes: Minister Cholini, head of the defence ministry.

There he is on the left.

Cholini tells Londo that he can't offer him his support, because the regent hasn't actually ordered any attacks against Alliance shipping! The Centauri fleet is currently defending the Centauri Republic and has been all along. He claims that all the accusations made against them are just propaganda... though his attitude makes me think he knows something. I'm sure we're not supposed to believe the Centauri are completely clueless about what's going on as Londo was just kidnapped from his cell in the Royal Palace and we know that Virini has a Drakh keeper on him.

I guess the other guys in the room are part of Cholini's entourage as they all leave when he does. So this meeting didn't help much. It's a real shame that all of Londo's actual friends in the palace either died in previous seasons or got mind-controlled by an alien parasite.

Back on the station, Garibaldi keeps ringing Sheridan's doorbell and it turns out that "What?" is one of the programmed phrases that'll make the door unlock and open. Though maybe only if you say it with enough frustration in your voice.

I was expecting Garibaldi to have screwed something up again, but nope he raced here because he's got urgent news. So urgent that it had to be delivered in person instead of calling Sheridan on his link or the Babcom system. Turns out that 30% of the Drazi and Narn fleets have snuck away and Garibaldi's theory is that they're heading straight to Centauri Prime! What would 30% of the Narn fleet even be at this point anyway? Two and 1/3rd ships?

Sheridan was already annoyed and now the music's building to match his increasing intensity. His first thought is that he needs proof before he takes any action, but this is Competent Garibaldi that's turned up to work today and he knows that if Sheridan doesn't get to Centauri Prime ahead of that fleet there's going to hundreds of thousands of dead Centauri civilians.

Then we get a new establishing shot of that Drazi hotel that Garibaldi was staying at a few episodes back. They clearly didn't go crazy with the model's mesh complexity, but it gets the point across.

There are a number of reasons that Lyta and Franklin have deliberately returned to the same hotel and most of them are 'they already had the set built'. I hope they've fixed the wobbly balcony wall since Garibaldi was here.

Okay this is an unusually clever shot for Babylon 5. You can't tell from a still image, even this one I've stitched together myself (badly), so I'll explain what's going on here.

It's possible to incorporate visual effects into a moving shot by locking the camera down so it can't move, putting the effects on top, and then adding the movement afterwards by zooming in a bit and panning across the composited frame. That's not what they've done here. This is a matchmove, with the camera panning across the live action greenscreen footage and the CGI background moving along with it. They haven't pulled it off perfectly, it's a bit shaky, but it's good enough to impress me. In fact the camera keeps going left past Lyta to follow Franklin as he walks around to open the door behind them. All in one unbroken take!

Whoa, they've entered the weird colour filter zone. At least for this shot.

It turns out that the Drazi who was following them is actually Dr Literana Varda, the person they were coming here to meet! Franklin shakes his hand, which seems wrong somehow seeing as he's greeting a Drazi on the Drazi homeworld. Maybe even as wrong as the Drazi's strong British accent.

Varda's got bad news for them: they don't have any Centauri bodies to give back. He's seen the damaged ships and the bodies were mangled so badly that there was just a mess of parts floating in space. Unfortunately he's talking to an ultra-powerful telepath who's gotten tired of being restrained, so she knows he's lying.

Just then a crack Drazi assault team rappels down onto their balcony. I can tell they're well-trained as they manage to land without knocking the wobbly balcony wall.

One of them takes a shot at Franklin, but Phoenix Rising revealed that he can dodge PPG blasts at point blank range and he does it again here. Then he takes one down like a marksman, making me wonder if all sci-fi doctors have deadly aim. The PPG effects look great here by the way, with just enough heat distortion.

Franklin tries to get Lyta to stay down, but she pushes him off and takes on the remaining assassin in a staring contest. She forces him to raise the gun to his own head and pull the trigger, and she didn't even need to make her eyes glow to do it. Not exactly the non-violence that her beloved Byron was trying to teach, but then he was a terrible teacher.

If Franklin has any objections to her cold-blooded execution he doesn't voice them. Then again she's a telepath so he wouldn't have to. For her next trick she scans Dr Varda and finds out what he's hiding... but she doesn't tell us what it is yet. Whatever it is, we'll find out soon enough as they're going to make Varda lead them to it. Which means they ended up asking for directions after all.

If there's one thing I've learned from this scene is that Garibaldi was an idiot for telling Franklin he didn't want him on own mission a few episodes back. He should've brought Lyta too, and got the whole Between the Darkness and the Light team back together.

"Get me a White Star, I don't care which one," is what Sheridan said, but Garibaldi's gotten him a whole fleet! I've been looking out for the Maria, with the name written on the side, but I haven't spotted her yet.

Sheridan's all fired up, frustrated and pissed off, but it's great to see him back in the captain's chair of a White Star. Even if he is the President of the Galaxy now and he's looking kind of out of place in his suit. It's a White Star with blue railing poles by the way, though they haven't told us a number yet. Hang on, if he's the president, shouldn't this be White Star One?

ACT FOUR

Act four catches up with Delenn's White Star just two jumps from home, whatever that means.

Suddenly they detect four Centauri cruisers ahead of them! The maths are not in their favour, even for the most advanced warship in the galaxy, so they turn tail and run. They decide to drop into normal space but they're hit before they can open a vortex. In fact the Centauri ships take a whole damn wing off! We learned in Endgame that "Every engagement in hyperspace has turned into a disaster for both sides," but they've been going pretty well for the attacker in every fight so far this episode.

It's rare that you see Dr Franklin with a gun to someone's head, though it's Lyta that Varda's most afraid of. This plot really shows what we've missed out on by the series not pairing these two on spy missions more often.

Fortunately the secret turns out to be within walking distance of the hotel (either that or they all rode a bus with him at gunpoint the whole time), and Franklin gets Varda to open the door.

Hey, it's just like that shot of the room full of cryopods in Ship of Tears, except opposite. In that the heroes went after weapon supplies and found telepath pilots instead, in this they went looking for pilots and found hardware.

Turns out that the Centauri warships they destroyed didn't have any crews on board, just these things, and when Lyta tries telepathically listening to one she hears a Shadow scream. So that's why the episode has 'Shadow' in the title: the bad guys are using Shadow tech! This was foreshadowed by the Centauri cruiser that attacked the jumpgate earlier. Part of the reason Lochley assumed it was a suicide attack was because there were no life signs, but it turns out that none of the ships have life signs.

It's so bloody typical that the Drazi government discovered this critically important bit of information and then kept it a secret because they they wanted the technology for themselves. They only care about what benefits them. Though I guess they must all be on their lunch break because there's no one here right now.

Oh sorry, I was wrong, there's someone with a PGG off-screen and he's just killed Dr Varda! This isn't doing the 'kill the witness but leave the heroes alive' cliché though. The assassin tried to kill Franklin first, he just dodged the shot! When will they learn that you can't hit Franklin with guns. You've got to get him with a knife.

Meanwhile, on Centauri Prime, Londo returns to his room to find someone there waiting for him.

Oh no it's Regent Virini!

The last time someone came home someone and found Virini sitting on his couch, they were discovered hanging from the ceiling soon after. Londo's glad to see him though, as he's been trying to meet with him for ages.

Virini's tired and depressed, and he tells Londo that he's glad that he won't be around to see what happens next. So that's not entirely reassuring.

Wow, this is basically the exact same screencap I used earlier except with Sheridan in the chair instead of Delenn and different colour railings poles. I wonder what colour poles I'd want for my White Star. The one with purple poles looked pretty good, though maybe it'd be a bit much combined with the purple stained glass on the walls.

Anyway Franklin and Lyta get in touch with Sheridan to let him know what's up: there are two separate Centauri fleets and one of them might be entirely automated. In fact they've got a lot of exposition to deliver here as they've figured out the whole plot. Which probably wasn't great for Patricia Tallman as she was allergic to burlap tent they were in during filming and kept sneezing.

They think that either the regent is running a war with the help of a few others in the military, or a third party is trying to frame them. They also think that the Drazi kept the devices a secret because they wanted a war. Basically there was no goal behind the Centauri attacks other than to give the Alliance races the excuse they wanted to go after them. They started a war just to start a war and honk off their neighbours.

Sheridan really needs to get to Centauri Prime now as "the lives of several million people are riding on this!" You can tell things are getting worse, as Garibaldi only predicted a "quarter million dead Centauri" at the start of the episode.

Well I can count at least four corpses back there, but Delenn and Lennier survived! Just like how Ivanova and her first officer were the only two to survive in Between the Darkness and the Light. Maybe they can revise the plans for their new White Star destroyers to include seat belts, and see if that increases the survival rate of the bridge crew.

Lennier's leg is broken but other than that he seems alright. The ship's not doing so well though, as they only have enough power in the thrusters to keep them from drifting off the hyperspace beacon for a limited time and they don't even know if the distress signal's working or not. Perhaps someone should go over there and put that fire out before it eats all their oxygen or melts their hardware. Then the next step should be to get the auto-repair working again!

ACT FIVE

Act five begins with a shot of the Drazi and Narn fleets on their way to mess up Centauri Prime.

Then we get to see G'Kar writing in prison again. Possible re-revising his opinions re: the Centauri being dicks.

Regent Virini hasn't got much time left and the actor's really milking every line he has. He tells Londo that they said he'd be dead by morning and tomorrow Londo will be the emperor. Now I've got that Robot Chicken sketch in my head where Palpatine's on the phone to Vader asking "Who's 'they'?! What the hell is an 'Aluminum Falcon'?!"

They say a lot of things, but he's not ready to disclose their identity just yet. These are Londo's final hours of freedom apparently, so he shouldn't rush into learning the terrible secret of space. Plus there's something else they told him to do, and he did it twenty minutes ago: to send away their fleet and turn off the planetary defence network. I'm starting to think that the Centauri system of government might be flawed. Not that it's the only flawed system in the B5 universe, as President Clark had personal control of Earth's defence network as well.

Now it seems like Virini's going to succeed where Cartagia and Clark failed: he's going to get his own world destroyed.

Londo rushes outside in slow motion to look at the jump points forming in space above them. One last variation on his 'staring up the sky over the Royal Palace as ships appear overhead' nightmare. Turns out all those ships he saw flying around when he got here last episode were good ships and they could really do with them coming back right now.

This was apparently one of the very very rare shots in Babylon 5 that was filmed out on location. That location being the car park outside the studio.

It's a pretty good cliffhanger ending this, as there are two fleets flying to Centauri Prime, Sheridan's fleet, and the Drazi/Narn fleet, and we don't know which is going to get there first. Or if Sheridan's going to be able to make a difference even if he does beat them there.

Oh, wait, there's no cliffhanger here. The Drazi and Narn fleets arrive first and immediately open fire on the planet. I don't know if they're aiming at anything in particular or just murdering civilians, but there's a lot of energy blasts fired at the camera here. And that's how the episode ends, mid-bombardment. So that's a bit unexpected.

Damn, do you think they packed enough stuff into this episode? I'm worn out now after typing all that!


CONCLUSION

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Movements of Fire and Shadow is a bit of a poetic title, but it's fairly apt. Turns out that the Centauri vessels were being moved by Shadow technology and the Narn and Drazi were moved to fly over and set their world on fire.

There's lots going on in this episode, with everybody leaving the station again like it's a season four story. Delenn's in a White Star, Sheridan's in a White Star, Franklin and Lyta are on a secret mission, G'Kar and and Londo are on Centauri Prime. Even Lochley got something to do, even though she didn't go anywhere herself, and I was very surprised that Garibaldi plays a crucial role in saving the day and doesn't screw up once. Well, he would've done if Sheridan had actually arrived in time to save the day.

All through the series we've been encouraged to reassess who the real bad guy is, the Narn or the Centauri. At first it was the Narns that seemed the most belligerent, attacking a colony in the first episode, then the Centauri went way further, ultimately bombarding and occupying Narn. Now the wheel's turned again and we can finally see who the true villains were the whole time: the bloody Drazi! In The Paragon of Animals we found that they were teaming up with raiders to attack helpless planets and they planned to ambush and destroy the entire White Star fleet. In The Ragged Edge the government was using smugglers to ship contraband and they tried to kill Garibaldi when he went there to find a witness to the Centauri attacks. Now in this episode they refuse to team up with other Alliance races until the idea of planetary bombardment comes up, then they rush to get it done before Sheridan can stop them. Oh plus they try to kill Franklin and Lyta when they investigate something that could've ended the war. It feels like they've committed every crime the Centauri have, except they didn't need the influence of the Shadows or decades of bad blood to push them into it.

It was nice seeing Franklin and Lyta on an adventure again, though their plot suffers from being a bit compressed. They go on a whole spy mission in three scenes, with the first scene being about them searching for their hotel. Plus the warehouse being in walking distance of the hotel seemed kind of ridiculous (especially as it wasn't far from where the survivor was hiding in The Ragged Edge). It makes it seem like the entire Drazi homeworld is just a couple of blocks around a hotel. Still it was nice to see characters walking the streets of a planet again. This has only happened twice in the whole series as far as I can remember.

The problem with Delenn and Lennier's trip is that it seemed really contrived to me. She has to take one of their precious warships and go fly though a war zone to Minbar on an urgent mission to... propose a joint project to build a couple of new ships. Couldn't this have waited a bit? Plus expecting the Minbari to give Earth the contract to build the advanced destroyer seems a bit optimistic, considering the whole 'fascist police state' thing they've just gotten over. Humanity's still scraping most (but not all) of the 'obey' signs off the walls, and Sheridan and Delenn think that they can be trusted with the ability to construct ships more powerful than even the Minbari's fearsome Sharlin war cruisers? Still, it's nice to know that the Minbari still have the ability to construct new White Stars even after the Vorlons departed beyond the Rim.

Seems like everything's going according to the Drakh's plan and our heroes have failed to stop any of it. It's all a bit depressing really. But hey, at least the war was ended in like 3 days so there's a silver lining to this semi-apocalyptic outcome. Even if it makes Sheridan and Delenn look even dumber for not delaying her trip by a week.

I mostly liked this episode, it feels big in a way that season 5 really hasn't for the most part. But it's still not quite reaching the highs that season 3 and season 4 did at their best.

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NEXT EPISODE

Babylon 5 will return with The Fall of Centauri Prime, eventually. Though I won't be making you wait 19 weeks like they did at the time, it'll probably be more like... 4. And you'll get the Thirdspace movie in the meantime!

Thanks for reading, and extra thanks if you decide to leave a comment.