| Episode: | 69 | | | Writer: | J. Michael Straczynski | | | Director: | John McPherson | | | Air Date: | 18-Nov-1996 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures it's Babylon 5 episode 69: THE SUMMONING. They've switched back to an upper case title after the last one went lower case and now it looks like they're shouting.
The Summoning was the first and only B5 episode to be directed by John McPherson, who I know absolutely nothing about. But IMDb tells me that he directed episodes of The Incredible Hulk, Alien Nation and Sliders before directing a full third of Seven Days (which he was co-executive producer on). He was also director of photography on *batteries not included, Short Circuit 2 and Jaws: The Revenge!
That's a nice shot of the station up there I reckon. We've seen it before actually, as it's one of the Foundation Imaging stock shots and it's been around since at least the start of season three. Though it would later go on to appear much earlier, as in 1998 it was retroactively edited into the pilot movie, The Gathering, for its Special Edition. There's some VFX stock footage trivia for you.
I'm full of pointless information about previous B5 stories and you can bet this recap/review is going to spoil the hell out of this episode, but there'll be no SPOILERS for anything that comes after it. This is a first-time viewer friendly website.
I'm always impressed when a series pulls off a long scene like this, but I have to nitpick everything so I couldn't help but notice that after Ivanova joins the other two from another hallway the corridor never branches like that again; it's just a single winding path for the actors to travel. Also they only take right hand turns and end up going around in a big circle that leaves them standing in front of the same transport tube door they started off at.
Ivanova tells them she won't need a translator as she's been studying Minbari, like Marcus suggested back during Shadow Dancing. The thing is, that suggestion came just after a screenful of text saying "Z Minus 6 Days", which puts the scene a week before Sheridan and Garibaldi went missing. It's been maybe two weeks now since they disappeared, probably less, and Ivanova was sleep-deprived and distracted for most of that. That means she's been studying the language for maybe three weeks, in addition to running a space station and drinking away her guilt...
I doubt it would hurt her feelings too much to reveal that she hasn't in fact mastered an alien language in less than three weeks, but Delenn never misses up an opportunity to lie and still retain her honour so she lets her carry on thinking that she's got this. Though she insists she has to bring Marcus... just to help. There's a hint of comedy music there just to finish the scene off, but just a bit, it's fine.
By the way, this scene was apparently filmed for the previous episode and cut for time. I think it worked out better this way as Delenn's a lot more cheerful here than she was in the last story and it would've seemed weird.
G'Kar hasn't had a drink in three days so they're having fun tormenting him with a glass of water. Not Londo and Vir, the Centauri nobles.
Actually I'm not so sure now. We get a good look at the flooring when one the guards kicks his leg out and lets him fall on his "honour" and it doesn't seem so carpety from closer up. But all I really know is that Vir and Londo are very clearly not into this.
ACT ONE
Zack Allan's had better luck as he's found the information G'Kar wanted about the transport that found Garibaldi's Starfury. They can't spare anyone to go looking for G'Kar though, as they can only care about one missing character at a time.
Hang on, why is he reporting to Delenn. Wait, is Delenn running C&C? Oh crap, everyone else has gone so Delenn really is in charge of Babylon 5! And I suppose Corwin would be her Ivanova. Man, I want to see the two of them take on a season one style station plot now.
It's nice to finally see C&C again by the way, it's been a while.
It's a panning shot, so I couldn't resist stitching it together to make a bigger image. And Londo and Vir can't resist having a conversation about the emperor in a public place without even scanning for bugs first. Though they do at least lower their voices when Cartagia himself comes storming out, his hands covered in blood.
Vir hadn't fully embraced the 'assassinate Cartagia' part of Londo's plan up to this point, but meeting the guy has really brought him around. The thing about Vir is that he really believes that there's good in people and they can be redeemed. He stood by Londo in The Coming of Shadows even as he started a war with the Narn, he wouldn't give up on Lyndisty in Sic Transit Vir even after he learned she was a mass murderer, but Cartagia... Cartagia has made it onto Vir's shitlist.
By the way, G'Kar's refusal to scream in pain was established way way back in season one's Parliament of Dreams... a little while after screaming in terror when he found an assassin's mark in his bed. In that episode he specifically says to his captor that he'll die before giving them the satisfaction of crying out, so it's the satisfaction part he really has a problem with.
Lyta explains that Bad Kosh is against the concept of unnecessary distracting furniture (and I'm sure he'd probably know if she tried to sneak something in). He has at least let her keep that bit of cable on the right of the screen though.
I was curious about whether this was one of the rare occasions that production equipment was revealed by the switch to widescreen, and the answer is nope, the cable's there even when the image is cropped to 4:3. I imagine it's plugged into the light illuminating the side of her face, but there's no reason there can't be a lamp there in-universe so it's not even an issue. It just stood out to me because of how empty the room is otherwise.
It's obvious that Lyta is not having a good time with Bad Kosh, Londo's not the only character in this story dealing with an abusive monster, but Delenn's about to go on a potentially suicidal mission to strike the enemy with everything they've got, so she asks her to go ask him if he can at least tell her anything about what they're up to. Lyta clearly doesn't want to, but she agrees.
I like how Zack's got his shuttle all lit up green by the way, though this is his first time leaving the station in the show so it might just be that a warning light's come on and he doesn't know how to turn it off.
Hang on, is that Starfury firing from the wrong part of its gun? Actually, never mind, no one actually cares... though the reused clip from Signs and Portents that comes right after it says 'yes'. This was Netter Digital's first time rendering a Starfury scene though so I'll let them off. They were still working this stuff out!
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| 1-13 - Signs and Portents | 4-03 - The Summoning... I think |
The Starfuries are only halfway through getting the job done when the transport suddenly explodes for no reason! Fortunately it ejected a single escape pod before exploding, containing a gift-wrapped Garibaldi.
There's nothing about this set up that isn't suspicious, but the most suspicious part is probably the weird pattern being projected onto Garibaldi's face. It's like the kaleidoscope imagery the Psi Corps used to communicate with their programmed agent back in Spider in the Web. It's also slightly suspicious that the computer announces "Contact confirmed, initiating program." right before Garibaldi opens his eyes. Oh no, Garibaldi's a robot now!
We don't actually get to see Zack and friends burst in to save him, but that's probably for the best as this is an Earth ship so there'd be no gravity. The actors would be swinging around on cables and it'd all be very awkward.
ACT TWO
Then it cuts to Bad Kosh transferring out of Lyta back to his encounter suit again. Does this mean he overheard everything in the scene with Delenn earlier?
Lyta gets the line "You didn't have to pull out of me so fast, you hurt me," here and actress Patricia Tallman immediately realised what it sounded like. She asked jms if that's really what he wanted her to say and turns out that any double entendres in the dialogue weren't entirely intentional. But they were deliberately left intact.
Bad Kosh says she can go and sleep now, but Lyta feels like she deserves some answers. She believed in the Vorlons enough to let them increase her telepathic abilities so she could carrying them around in her head, and now she wants a little bit of respect in return.
He replies with "Respect, from whom?" which pisses her off to the point where she decides she's just going to read his mind. This... doesn't go well for her.
I have to wonder if Londo's feeling a bit of regret now for all those times he was the one putting a metaphorical boot on a Narn's neck. For when he ranted at Vir for using his position to save some of them. He is at least able to put himself in G'Kar's position right now and he insists he knows exactly what he's asking from him.
In fact he's currently begging for a Narn to help him right now! Sure that's not a huge sacrifice for Londo, but he knows that if G'Kar survives this then 20 years from now he will strangle him to death, so saving his life here is kind of a big deal.
They have a chat about what they're going to do once the war's over, and Marcus mentions that there's someone special waiting for him back home, though she doesn't know it yet. Ivanova is somehow not creeped out by that line, even though she maybe should be (because he's secretly talking about her). Marcus explains that he wants it to go right as he's never been with anyone before. Ivanova's a little surprised by this, joking that she thought the First Ones were rare, then also joking that they may have picked up a unicorn on the scanners. Poor Marcus.
Their White Star has picked up something weird hiding in hyperspace though and only because it has amazing Vorlon sensors. They take the ship to over to investigate, which has me worried. Aren't you supposed to stay on course in hyperspace in case you lose track of the beacon and get lost there forever?
There's a lot of Vorlon ships here, however the fleet is utterly dwarfed by whatever that thing is back there. It's not the prettiest 3D model I've ever seen, but what it lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in kilometres. It's apparently 3 or 4 miles across, though they don't mention that until later.
ACT THREE
This is the second time Garibaldi's missed the start of a season and woken up in Medlab to find that his commanding officer is missing. Though first time around he was betrayed and shot in the back by his second in command, and this time he's been saved by them.
Zack's actually surprised Garibaldi hasn't heard about Sheridan already, even though he's clearly the first person to speak with him since he got back. C'mon Zack, you were doing so well this episode.
The Brakiri ambassador reveals that the League worlds are actually going to protest her action, so her plan seems to have kind of backfired. But Delenn's not going to do anything to try to silence them, because that goes against what she believes. The ambassaor also reveals that they picked up a mysterious ship on its way to the station.
Cut to the mysterious ugly fish ship in hyperspace again.
Hey maybe I could stitch it together as one image to show it off.
Anyway Londo and Vir are covertly scheming to assassinate Cartagia, so they do have reason to be a little nervous about walking into this secret room without being given any explanation about what to expect. Though with Cartagia they should probably be concerned even if he wants to do something nice for them.
The two of them do a little bit of comedy with neither of them wanting to be the first to go inside and then we see what's waiting for them.
This room is almost as stark and miserable as Lyta's quarters, but whoever set up all those moody spotlights did a good job as the lighting is exactly where you'd want it to be. Though Cartagia looks like he doesn't even need a spotlight, he's just going to sit there and emit light all by himself.
When Star Trek: The Next Generation first started, the main antagonists, the Ferengi, were armed with a sci-fi energy whip that appeared once and then was (almost) never mentioned again. Because they looked dumb. But Star Trek's loss was Babylon 5's gain, as they've introduced their own electro whip just in time for the most dramatic scene in the episode!
The electro whip is set to give an increasing level of pain with every strike and if G'Kar is hit 40 times with it then he's dead. So the scene is basically about someone counting to 40 while Londo and Vir flinch.
G'Kar hasn't exactly been an angel these past few years. He was the outright villain of the pilot movie as he conspired to have Kosh killed and Sinclair framed for his murder in order to gain the Minbari as allies in a war against the Centauri (or something like that). In the first episode his people invaded a Centauri colony and he talked about his dream of carving Centauri bones into flutes for children. But it's hard not to be on his side here, especially now that we've seen first hand what made him hate the Centauri so much in the first place.
Of course he doesn't give Cartagia his scream, not until the last moment anyway. He can't afford to hang on to his dignity at the cost of his people's freedom, but he's going to give the absolute minimum submission possible and drag things out for the sake of dramatic tension. It doesn't look pleasant for him though, and only Londo really gets what's going on here.
ACT FOUR
They've taken out the glass behind the captain's chair, untilted the curved railing and added two more curved railings either side of it. Plus there's a second chair there on the right, with the headrest pulled right back for Minbari heads. The rear of the bridge seems to be the same as it was in Hour of the Wolf, with the floor raised a step, the lift entrance moved over to the left and a second entrance added to the right.
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| 3-18 - Walkabout |
Anyway all that happens in this scene is that the White Star arrives at Babylon 5 and Ivanova calls in to tell them that she wants to speak to Lyta soon. Plus she wants them to scan for transmissions coming from that sector they were just at.
It's also nice to see that Minbari ship down there on patrol. I'm glad the people making this remembered that the station needs ships around it to protect them from another Earth Alliance attack and if the League are pulling their ships away then the Minbari have to pick up their slack. Well, either them or the fleet of White Stars they've got hidden somewhere.
Also we're getting to see a lot of the main cast turn up this episode. For a lot of series that would be nothing unusual, but there's literally a dozen characters in B5's opening credits and the show has never put them all into one episode before. Well okay The Gathering managed it but that was the pilot, and a movie, and it didn't even have an opening title sequence, so it doesn't count. Chrysalis nearly managed it but it was missing Talia Winters.
So far this episode we're up to 10 characters out of 12 so we're really close.
She's returned just in time to be informed of an unknown vessel exiting their jumpgate. It's the mysterious fish ship! They can't communicate with it, but it can clearly communicate with them as it's using their own access codes to invite itself into the docking bay!
I guess it's also using them to prevent Ivanova activating the defence grid or sending over a Starfury as the ship's able to dock unhindered. Nothing stopping them making a move once it's docked though as there's a shot of security officers grabbing rifles and running over to welcome it.
Back in Medlab, a freshly shaved Garibaldi gets his uniform on and goes out to join them, because he's got nothing better to do. It's a good thing he left it behind when he went missing in his Starfury as I don't imagine these Army of Light outfits are easy to come by.
The Drazi announces that Delenn is risking all of their lives by leading an attack on Z'ha'dum, while they believe they can find a peaceful solution.
It's not a bad idea trying to make peace, especially considering that they've got a space station here designed especially to help different races work out their problems. But the trouble is that as far as we know the League races aren't even in contact with the Shadows, except maybe through agents like Morden, who were sent to overthrow their leaders and get them to start wars with their neighbours.
The Centauri do have a pretty good relationship with the Shadows but their arrangement has led to their homeworld being used as a Shadow base and having a huge target painted on it, so I can't say the peaceful approach is working out all that well for them either.
This is a complicated shot as there's security officers composited into the background on a walkway and in the foreground, and the camera's moving the whole time to follow the lift. It's just a shame that that the lift itself looks like something they found looking around in a CD full of deleted assets from the game Half-Life.
Garibaldi hasn't seen the last episode so when the door opens he clearly doesn't expect to see a familiar face looking back at him when the doors open up. We don't get to see what he's seeing though, it's still a secret. Don't tell anyone that it's Sheridan.
They yell to the crowd that Delenn must be silenced, but anyone who tries it soon gets a face full of Lennier's palm. Not a lot of Delenn-fu going on though. And no spin kicks!
The ambassador keeps making his case, saying that no one who goes to Z'ha'dum comes back alive, while a mysterious figure climbs up the steps to join them. The crowd just stares at them in utter shock, though Delenn is extra shocked because it turns out to be...
The ambassadors up there literally do a double take when they see him. Then they mostly just apologise.
Sheridan immediately starts giving a speech, telling the ambassadors that they're right, he was dead, but he's better now. Then he tells everyone that Delenn's also right to build a fleet... well, it's a start anyway.
He explains that they're going to form the biggest fleet in history and they're going go change the shape of the galaxy, and asks if they're with him. If this was a discussion in the war room there might have been some questions asked, but this is an emotional crowd he's just hijacked and it doesn't take him long to get them cheering at the idea of attacking... something, somewhere. They haven't actually been told yet.
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| 2-11 - All Alone in the Night |
It's a shame this shot's so dark by the way, as I could've shown you the old ceiling. It was just made of those plastic pallets you see everywhere on the station.
Anyway Sheridan has managed to turn this around and given people hope, and has apparently come up with a better plan than 'go to Z'ha'dum, die in an inspiring explosion' as well. Even Lennier has to smile at how it's turned out.
It's just a shame that the crowd cheering down there is mostly made up of human civilians instead of ambassadors, so it looks more like he's just convinced the local shopkeepers to go to war.
ACT FIVE
Ivanova doesn't have to say a word, Lyta already knows that they've stumbled onto what the Vorlons are doing.
Then the episode cuts to Sheridan's office, where he's got half the cast assembled.
Sheridan gives his team the whole story, passing on what he's learned from Justin and Lorien. The Vorlons and Shadows stayed behind when the First Ones left so they could keep an eye on the younger races. But the Vorlons believed in order and discipline while the Shadows believed in chaos, and their respect for each others' positions was eroded over time until each decided that their way was the only way. Then the wars started.
Garibaldi's been a little grumpy ever since he woke up, but he's not keen on this at all. I can see where he's coming from though, as it's weird for Sheridan to be so secretive to his inner circle, especially after his decision in Matters of Honor to tell them everything.
It's at this point that Ivanova, Marcus and Lyta arrive to tell them urgent news about the giant Vorlon fleet. Man, they need to get Londo, G'Kar, Vir and Zack in here quick so they can get the full cast into one room at the same time.
The mysterious Vorlon ship isn't a massive battleship, it's a tiny Death Star, and they're wiping out any planet that's been touched by the Shadows. You thought the Shadows were bad, well the Vorlons are even worse... they're hypocrites (they filed an official protest against the Centauri's use of mass drivers against civilians in The Long, Twilight Struggle). And they're likely going to wipe out every planet 70 light years in any direction. And it's all because Sheridan hit the Shadows at Z'ha'dum and gave them an opening.
This seems like a bit of a bleak situation, even bleaker than the one they were facing a few hours ago, but on the positive side they just gave us a scale for the Babylon 5 setting! Seems that every world involved in these events is within a 140 light year diameter sphere (Earth is 10.5 light years away from the station).
CONCLUSION
The momentum's really building up and the series is so serialised at this point that the episodes are starting to blend together in my mind. It doesn't help that the episodes really are starting to blend together, with Ivanova's one appearance in the last episode being cut and moved to this one instead. She and Marcus really didn't get much to do in this story, except for accidentally stumble across a Vorlon fleet. The chances of them just coming across the Vorlons while searching for the First Ones feels like an absurd coincidence but it's forgivable because... because I want to forgive it! The series is too good right now for me to care. Also to be fair they were following up on reports of godlike weirdness, and a thousand ships, some of them miles across, is a lot of godlike weirdness.
I'm starting to see why the Sigma 957 Walkers didn't much seem to like the Vorlons back in Voices of Authority, because it turns out that the Vorlons are actually pretty horrible! They're blowing up entire planets and being mean to Lyta; they don't even care anymore. In fact it really doesn't seem like they cared much to begin with and the clues were there all along. They nearly destroyed the station in The Gathering, they blew up the secret to immortality in Deathwalker, they tortured Sheridan and Delenn in Comes the Inquisitor, they manipulated people into seeing them as angels (The Fall of Night), they had to be dragged into participating in just one battle in Interludes and Examinations etc. They made people like Delenn and Sinclair believe that they needed their help and deserved loyalty and obedience in return, but then the Shadows did exactly the same thing with Londo and President Clark. Though one difference is that Original Kosh seemed to care about about people a lot more than Morden does, and way way more than Bad Kosh does. They've got a real abusive nasty Kosh on the station right now and Lyta is obviously suffering. It's the opposite of her relationship with Original Kosh, who she genuinely adored.
On the plus side, Sheridan and Garibaldi are finally back home, though things feel far from the status quo and both heroes have come back changed. Sheridan's not the same tired, frustrated man who was kept in the dark by his allies and couldn't understand his enemy, as now he knows the game they're playing and has a plan to win. He's not a man driven to sacrifice himself to avenge his lost wife anymore either, as he's committed to his friends and especially to Delenn.
Garibaldi on the other has come back cranky and distant, and seems to have lost any remaining trace of his sense of humour. He's not even trying to fake it like he did the last time he recovered from an ordeal like this in The Geometry of Shadows. I want moderately happy Garibaldi back! The guy who has dumb conversations about whether people fasten or zip first, who wears a hat when he goes incognito, and who pretends to be mind controlled by the Psi Corps for a joke... oh hang on.
And somehow this was also the episode where G'Kar has to give Cartagia the satisfaction of hearing him scream. The guy resigned himself to days of torture as part of Londo's plan, but a scream was not part of the deal and it's a real barrier for him to get past. I can't imagine he would've ever given up his opportunity to save his people for such a selfish reason, this time last year he was giving himself over to the Centauri to save his people's families, but it did demonstrate how difficult it was for him and it gave Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas another chance to share a scene together.
Overall this was a pretty good episode I thought! It's not quite Severed Dreams trilogy good, but it's got a similar feeling of everything going to hell. Now it's B5 versus the Shadows and the Vorlons (and the Psi Corps and so on), and the threat has been very clearly demonstrated this time. They're not up against a rumour of an attack, they're up against a planet killer, and it's only a matter of time before it comes for Centauri Prime.
COMING SOON
In fact chances are you're reading this in the future and the next review is already up. But you should leave a comment here anyway, telling people what you thought about The Summoning. Or you could visit the Sci-Fi Adventures Discord server and discuss it there.
My understanding is that you need to stay within range of a beacon because there are no natural reference points you can use to navigate in hyperspace. Between that and the hyperspace currents that can confound an inertial guidance system, it's easy to get yourself pointed in the wrong direction. Ships with jump engines can presumably return to normal space to get their bearings. Explorers (and maybe some warships) have to be able to go off the beacon system somehow.
ReplyDeleteIf the White Star and the Vorlon fleet were moving between jump gates, then it's maybe not so unlikely they'd stumble across each other. Like, your chances of meeting anyone randomly in the forest are small, but much less so if you're both following a path. If I recall correctly, the Vorlons were using some hyperspace trickery to hide themselves, so they were apparently expecting to meet ships. They just didn't take into account a Minbari ship with Vorlon sensor tech.
ReplyDeleteI like your logic and I will accept it.
DeleteHa! I remember "brickbat lingerie"! I also remember that there's some fun behind-the-scenes story about it -- I think involving Bill Mumy -- but I don't remember the actual story. Ah.
ReplyDelete