Babylon 5 4-04: Falling Toward Apotheosis

Episode:

70

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

David J. Eagle

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Air Date:

25-Nov-1996

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Falling Toward Apotheosis, the 70th episode of cult 90s sci-fi epic Babylon 5.

Hang on, that's the same stock CGI establishing shot they used behind the title for the episode A Day in the Strife! Only this time there's a better title in front of it (in my opinion), and it's in lower case for whatever reason. The previous episode's title was upper case and the one before that was lower case so maybe they're alternating now.

'Apotheosis' sounds like it should be the title of an X-Files or Star Trek: Voyager episode, but it works here I reckon. It means 'the elevation of a person to the status of a divine being'. Here's some more trivia for you: this was the last episode of the series to air (in the US) during 1996. Also this is one of the few episodes to have a commentary track on the DVDs, and I don't think it really spoils anything for once. It's just a few of the actors joking around.

There'll be massive SPOILERS here in this review though, as I'll be going through the whole episode, recapping every scene and talking about relevant events from previous stories. You don't have to stop reading if you're a first-time viewer though. As long as you've watched up to this point you'll be fine.

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Please Stand By. Incoming Transmission. What?

Also something about this reminds me of Red Dwarf, but I'm not sure why. Was there a Red Dwarf episode that started like this? All I know is that it's got me expecting a joke and waiting for the laugh track to kick in.

Red Dwarf 1-01 - The End

Oh it's because they've nicked their font! It's Microgramma D Extended Bold, apparently.

Not that Red Dwarf has any kind of exclusive claim to it. It's been used in games like Doom 3, StarCraft and Grid, it's featured in the logos of companies like Casio, Toshiba and Weyland-Yutani, and it's even shown up in other science fiction series...

Now I'm imagining Star Trek: The Motion Picture with jokes. Man, it'd be like... a regular Star Trek movie.

Hey, it's Ivanova, pre-empting normal BabCom service to bring people an update. I thought her news broadcasts came later in the season, did I put the wrong episode on by mistake?

Apparently Claudia Christian hated doing this newsreader job, because she found it considerably less fun than doing acting. Though the actress who played telepath Talia Winters actually quit acting, studied journalism and became a news anchor, so it's not for everyone I guess.

Two more planetary colonies have been wiped out by the Vorlon planet killer: Ventari 3 and... she doesn't mention the second one. Maybe both colonies were at Ventari 3? Anyway, she tells people not to travel there and lets them know what planets are accepting refugees. Babylon 5's also taking in refugees, but their resources are being pushed to their limits.

Cut to a crowd of people in the customs area, with everyone pushing by each other to get through.

The scene focuses on a woman who's panicking and yelling that she has to get through to speak to her husband. She's not in this screencap by the way, I'm talking about another woman. Unfortunately her yelling isn't helping and neither does getting knocked to the floor.

But people suddenly stop and stare in shock as someone steps into the room. Though we don't know who they're looking at yet, as the scene's shot from a first person POV:

Hang on, this is the same shot as earlier! Except this time the woman in the red top who walked past is now staring at the camera. Did they use one of the alternate takes to pad out the crowd scenes? Or is this woman just walking laps of the room.

Anyway the woman lying on the floor is helped to her feet by the mysterious figure, who turns out to be...

Captain Sheridan! And there's his creepy alien friend who follows him everywhere. The last episode did this as well: teasing the arrival of mysterious visitors and then revealing it was just these two.

Everyone is clearly in awe of Sheridan right now as he nuked Z'ha'dum single-handedly, died, and then lived to tell the tale. They're completely unaware that the (self-proclaimed) oldest being in the galaxy is right there next to him!

Lorien's exactly what Sheridan has needed all along: a Kosh who can give him the full story about what's going on and actually discuss things with him like a person... more or less. He tells Sheridan that they need to believe and Sheridan replies 'not in me'. No apotheosis for him, thanks, he's just an ordinary bloke who fell down a hole and now has to keep the largest alliance in history together with nothing but his legend and his charisma.

The teaser ends with Ivanova finishing her broadcast with the same message the preacher preached in And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place: their greatest enemy is fear. Though the final shot makes the case that perhaps the ship blowing up entire planets is their greatest enemy? It's got to be in the top five at least.

I still don't like the look of that thing though, with its stuck-on tentacles. It looks like it's been assembled from separate organic shapes instead of it having an organic shape of its own.

ACT ONE

Act one begins with Garibaldi flicking through screencaps from the teaser with his tiny metal stick. I've seen episode footage passed off as security cam footage before, everyone does that, but this may be the first time I've seen a POV shot passed off as being from a security camera.

Wait, did Garibaldi notice the same thing I did? Is he getting screencaps? Does Garibaldi have a Sci-Fi blog?

Zack drops by to see how his boss is doing and finds that he's just as grumpy as last episode. Then he notices he's been spying on the captain.

Hey has Garibaldi trimmed his hair even shorter? It hasn't made him look any less like Bruce Willis.

Anyway Garibaldi explains that he's not spying on Sheridan, he's spying on Lorien. The guy has been following Sheridan around everywhere he goes and it's downright weird. Also Garibaldi's getting sick of everyone keeps asking him if he's okay! They won't let him go back to work because they're all so worried about him, but Sheridan strolls in telling everyone he's back from the dead and no one seems be the slightest bit concerned!

It seems like Garibaldi isn't quite aware of the fact that his anger and paranoia is what's making everyone worry about him, and that's why it's making him more angry and paranoid. He's turned into season three Dr Franklin, always snapping at everyone.

But the music does hint that maybe he's onto something and there is something sinister about Lorien.

Over on Centauri Prime, Cartagia summons Londo to the garden and asks him to look up at the night sky... and we actually get a shot of what he's looking at! That's amazing for two reasons: first, they rarely ever go to the trouble of creating a new VFX shot for a POV shot like this, and second, there's nothing there to see! It's basically an entirely pointless shot, but it does help to make it feel like we're not just watching actors on a soundstage.

There is actually something up there though, light years away, and that's the Vorlon planet killer. There's something here as well, as Mr Morden has crept in behind them.

He's not quite the same without his hair, but he looks a lot better than he did a few episodes back. The Shadows have done a good job of reversing the effects of taking two thermonuclear blasts to the face. Assuming that the process is still ongoing.

Morden lets him know that the Vorlons are attacking every world where the Shadows have had any influence and they've had a ton of influence on Centauri Prime. In fact they're influencing it right now in this very conversation! But Morden is willing to gamble that'll never attack a world as populated as Centauri Prime and so the Shadow ships parked on their planet are staying put. In fact he wants the Centauri to bring their own fleet over to protect them, under the theory that the Vorlons won't want to slaughter them all effortlessly and will just turn around and go elsewhere instead. You know, like how the Minbari suddenly surrendered during Earth's Battle of the Line despite wiping the floor with them.

Londo is getting a little worked up about this, but Cartagia can't stop grinning like an idiot. Once Morden's gone he reveals that he's not really on the Shadows' side! In fact he's decided that he and Londo think alike, and that's why he's going to show him his secret lair! His own little Batcave.

Though it's more like a batshit crazy cave.

See, this is where Cartagia talks to the heads of the people he's had executed. He calls them his Shadow Cabinet.

Londo tries not to show too much of a reaction but he can't help but bring a handkerchief up to his face to try to deal with the horrific smell. Cartagia doesn't even seem to notice it. In fact he offers Londo some 'snicks'.

This bit wasn't in the script, jms came up with it on the day to make it a bit creepier.

That's a bust of Andreas Katsulas playing the deceased Minister Dugarri by the way. The makeup team had made a cast of his head to aid them in creating the prosthetics he wore as G'Kar, so it was handy when it came to film this scene.

Cartagia explains that they're not going to use their own fleet to defend the Shadow ships from the Vorlons, there'll be no Battle of the Centauri Prime Line, but he's not going to send the Shadows away either. He's going to let the Vorlons attack Centauri Prime and turn it into an inauguration pyre for his ascension to godhood! So that would be the apotheosis mentioned in the title then.

It makes sense though, in Cartagia's head anyway, as if he becomes a god then the planet will fall apart without his leadership. Best to put everyone out of their misery quickly. "Let it all end in fire," he says, giving the editor a dramatic line to cut to commercials on. It's also kind of familiar, as Kosh once told Cartagia's predecessor that it would all end "In fire." It's just taken a couple of seasons to get there.

ACT TWO

Garibaldi's got one last test to take before he can get back to work and... he passes! There's no sign of scarring on the back of the neck so he hasn't been given any Shadow implants like Anna Sheridan had.

Plus it turns out that Garibaldi didn't need worry about the Captain being excluded from their scrutiny, because as soon as he leaves Sheridan comes in asking if his own test results are ready. But the camera doesn't follow them, instead it zooms into a TV where Ivanova's doing her newsreader thing again.

Then it cuts to Delenn coming to see Sheridan in his quarters.

Nice to see that despite everything they're still getting those fresh oranges shipped in.

Delenn and Sheridan get their first chance here to really talk since his return... and since their argument. She admits that she thought it was her fault that he left and he reveals that she actually gave him a reason to come back. Not just from Z'ha'dum but from death itself. He's said his goodbye to Anna now and absolutely forgives her for keeping secrets from him.

Aww, that was a nice scene. No one snapped at anyone, no one plotted the destruction of their own world in front of a row of decomposing heads. Plus it turns out that Lorien doesn't actually follow him everywhere after all! Unless he's hiding just off screen. Lurking in the bedroom or something.

Then we get our first real war room scene so far this season, and Zack's been invited!

The station's being swarmed by refugee ships, again, but that's the least of their problems with that unstoppable Vorlon fleet flying around annihilating entire planets. Franklin does think he has a solution though, as they could move people down to Epsilon 3 - the planet full of booby traps that likes to shoot missiles at visitors. I'm sure they can come to some arrangement with Draal though, especially considering that they've been kind enough not to bother him about any of the big crises they've had to deal with so far.

Sheridan likes the plan, and he's got an idea about their next move to tackle the Vorlon problem as well: they need to get rid of Bad Kosh. He's not an ambassador, he's a spy, and they can't do anything until he's gone.

Garibaldi's been fairly belligerent all meeting, but he is not keen on the idea of being sent in to confront Bad Kosh, especially as Sheridan won't tell him what he's got planned. They don't know how telepathic Vorlons are so he can't have the full plan inside his head when they're in the same room. It's like how Londo couldn't tell Vir the plan in And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place because of the Centauri telepath.

But Garibaldi will go fall on his sword for him, if that's what he wants!

You know what, I just realised something: Garibaldi and Franklin didn't get coats. Only Sheridan and Ivanova. This seems very unfair.

Anyway, once Garibaldi has gone, Lyta and Lorien walk through the door and Sheridan can finally admit that the plan is to straight up kill Bad Kosh. It has to be done, so they're going to do it, simple as that. Franklin's obviously not into this, but he hasn't exactly got a counter argument.

It seems that the reborn version of Sheridan skips the scenes where he sits and stresses over a problem, and just gets right to the point. He's more decisive and maybe more ruthless, and considering that original Sheridan just sneaked off on his own to nuke the Shadows' homeworld that's saying something.

ACT THREE

Hey this is just like the time where the Shadows killed Kosh, except we're getting a much clearer look at the Vorlon's room. It's bigger than I thought it was.

Garibaldi tells Bad Kosh that due to his government's attacks on the League of Non-Aligned Worlds (I thought that had collapsed), he is being asked to leave the station. Bad Kosh says "No."

The situation soon escalates with one of Garibaldi's team getting zapped with a shot from Bad Kosh's eye hole. The Vorlon then goes and puts up a shield bubble that prevents any of their PPG shots from getting through. A high pitched sound starts cracking their visors and they decide it's probably the right time to make a hasty retreat.

The shield bubble effect was actually pretty good I thought. The glass cracking effect, less so.

So now we finally know what would've happened if someone had tried fighting Kosh... it would've gone hilariously badly. Which isn't really good news for them, seeing as they still have to find a way to take this guy down. The B5 crew are really out of their depth here.

Man, it's crazy how the pilot movie was about them desperately trying to save Kosh's life in order to escape retribution from the Vorlon fleet, and now three seasons later they're trying really hard to kill Bad Kosh because that Vorlon fleet's coming whatever they do. Things have gotten kind of bad.

Just as Sheridan's about to go into action he gets a call from Londo Mollari! For the first time in a long time Londo's getting a chance to speak to someone on the B5 side of the story.

Londo would like a bit of information about the Vorlons and Sheridan's surprisingly happy to tell him what's going on, despite his association with the Shadows. Though it's not exactly happy news. The Vorlon fleet will probably get around to wiping his homeworld out in 7 or 8 days. Londo assumes that Sheridan's currently working on a plan that will somehow save the galaxy, which he is, but there's no guarantees.

In exchange for this information Londo tells him he owes him a favour, and he's talked about calling in favours before so this might end up being important later. I honestly don't remember.

Now it's Lyta's turn to play her role in the plan, so she goes to Bad Kosh and tells him that she's pretty sure now that someone has a piece of Kosh inside them. Bad Kosh finds this intolerable and marches off to do something about it.

Then the two of them have to wait around in the airlock outside the Alien Sector for a moment while it does its thing. The music's insisting that this is a tense scene, but it's kind of not. It doesn't help that you can see the actor's foot for a split second as they're walking out.

Lyta's not all that convincing as an actor, partly because she's utterly terrified, but Bad Kosh seems to be falling for it... until he isn't.

He starts to read her mind to find out what she's hiding and realises he's surrounded by signs saying "HIGH VOLTAGE". Kosh seemed to have some limited ability to forsee the future, but it seems that Bad Kosh is about as prophetic as Wile E. Coyote.

Lyta dives behind cover and the crew unloads the output of the station's fusion reactor into his suit, along with lots of PPG shots. It's just like all those times they had to kill the monster of the week back in the olden days, except this time it's a genuine Vorlon.

It takes a while but the suit finally cracks and we get to see what a Vorlon really looks like, when they've got bigger things to worry about than maintaining their angelic disguise. No time for appearances of divinity now, especially when everyone's seen through the act.

There you go, that's what Bad Kosh really looks like.

For some reason both Sheridan and Delenn had to turn up to watch this, despite this being an incredible stupid place to be. I guess they're putting their money where their mouth is and showing that Garibaldi wasn't asked to do anything they wouldn't do themselves.

ACT FOUR

By act four things could be better, could be worse. Bad Kosh's ship is trying to tear itself free of the station while Bad Kosh himself has turned his attention to Delenn.

This is a lot like the scene in Ceremonies of Light and Dark where they faced off against the last of the Nightwatch in a corridor very similar to this one, except that time Delenn leapt out and took a knife for Sheridan and here Sheridan leaps out to save Delenn.

Quick, Delenn, now's your chance! Run over and put a poison skin tab on Bad Kosh's arm!

What actually happens is that Sheridan releases the piece of Kosh from his body, which has been charged up with a bit of Sheridan and Lorien's lifeforce to get it into fighting shape. The two Vorlons wrestle each other and disappear up into the ceiling... which is actually taking them further inside B5, not outside.

It doesn't matter though as they soon become a wave of energy that washes over the station. It's the same effect as when Kosh died the first time, except this time it blows up Bad Kosh's fleeing ship as well.

So that's one bad Vorlon down I guess.

Sheridan's not in great condition after being drained of Kosh, but Lorien's able to give him a jump start again with his magic glowing hand. Man it must have been awkward for the actor to have those finger extensions on all day, as they seem like they'd impede basically anything he wanted to do between takes, like scratching his nose or holding a sandwich.

If reborn Sheridan was decisive and ruthless, is double reborn Sheridan now twice as decisive and even more ruthless? Is he twice as messianic?

Back on Centauri Prime, Londo has decided to summon Cartagia for a change and the emperor is not happy about it. He's the one about to become a god, he's the one that does the summoning around here!

Londo starts his pitch, while Cartagia just stares back at him, stony-faced. But he starts to become more receptive when Londo points that that the destruction of Centauri Prime will mean the death of everyone who knows how awesome he is. A god with no one visiting his temples isn't much of a god.

Cartagia may be nuts but he's no idiot and he immediately assumes this is Londo's clever scheme to get off the planet before its annihilation. But Londo assures him that he doesn't want to be the one left alive to sing Cartagia's praises, he thinks it should be the Narn. If they hold G'Kar's trial on his own homeworld instead of here, everyone there will see how awesome Cartagia is and the word will spread to the stars! It's a three day trip so they'll be able to make it back home just in time to be blown up.

Londo is great when he's being cunning and manipulative, and this gives us a glimpse of how he might have been before becoming a depressed drunk on Babylon 5... but I can't help but notice that all his best plans involve using G'Kar to lure his enemy to Narn and then killing them there.

ACT FIVE

By act five a hell of a lot of warships have started to gather around the station, with more on the way. It's not the best looking CGI shot in the series' history, it's like the VFX team were too busy rendering Vorlons to give it fine tuning it needed, but it gets the message across.

They're assembling the biggest fleet in history, because that's apparently what it's going to take to finish this. At least that's what Sheridan told Ivanova.

Whoa, C&C's looking blue today. It suits it; this shot looks great.

I also like how Garibaldi has turned his crankiness down to a 9.5 for a little while. He even grins for a bit... after telling Ivanova that even if they somehow win this they'll still be renegades who may never be able to return home.

Things are a little grim in Sheridan's quarters later as well, as Lorien explains to Delenn the limits of his resurrection. Lorien's a friendly old wizard but there was nothing magical or spiritual about his rebirth, the guy just gave him life energy. It sounds similar to how the alien healing execution machine from The Quality of Mercy works, though Franklin's never seen anything exactly like this.

Anyway, Lorien's pretty sure the Sheridan's only got about 20 years left to live, and Delenn is understandably distraught about this. This is the terrible price that Future Delenn told him about in War Without End, almost 20 years from now. Man, it's no wonder she changed her mind at the last minute and told him not to go to Z'ha'dum if he was that close to death.

Though on the plus side he's gotten her a ring!

Delenn doesn't really get what's going on at first, wedding ring boxes aren't really a thing in her culture, but she's certainly into the idea of getting married.

As proposals go this was only slightly better than Commander Sinclair's one to Catherine Sakai in Chrysalis, in fact I'm not sure there was even a question in there, but it worked out in the end. And hopefully Sheridan and Delenn won't suddenly disappear from the series by the next episode like Sinclair and Catherine did.

The episode cuts to the Centauri Royal Palace one last time to check in with Londo and Cartagia. Also G'Kar's turned up as well!

Cartagia's just making sure everything's going okay here before they leave for Narn, as not everyone's as utterly infallible as he is. The only problem he's found is that he doesn't like the way that G'Kar's looking at him. He asks Londo for a suggestion about what to do about it, but Londo understands that every word out of his mouth is another step towards inadvertently pissing him off somehow and becoming another head on his desk, and decides not to offer up any ideas.

This turns out to be a mistake.

3-09: Point of No Return

About 9 months ago, in Point of No Return, Londo had his future told by Lady Morella. She also told him he had three chances to avoid the fire that awaits him: he must save the eye who does not see, he must not kill the one who is already dead, and he must surrender himself to his greatest fear.

It's possible that we've already seen him take the last two chances in War Without End's flashforward, by not killing Sheridan and by letting G'Kar murder him. The thing is, in that glimpse of the future G'Kar was wearing cloth over his right eye, like it was missing.

And that's the eye that Cartagia decides to have plucked out here.

Did Londo mess up here by failing to save the eye that does not see Cartagia's divinity? I honestly don't know. Either way he failed to stop a maniac mutilating the guy! The two of them have had their disagreements and have attempted to murder each other at least once, but I'm sure he didn't want this on his conscience and it's not going to be much fun for G'Kar either.

The door closes between us and the unlicensed surgery going on in the cell and the camera lingers there for a moment to wait for the scream. But of course we're not getting one.


CONCLUSION

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That was a pretty good episode I reckon. In fact it was of comparable quality to the last three.

The fallout from Z'ha'dum had thrown everyone's lives into chaos at the start of the season, but now that Sheridan and Garibaldi are back the series is starting to return to some kind of normality. Well, except for Ivanova spending the episode broadcasting reports of colonies getting wiped out by a Vorlon Death Star, Londo, Vir and G'Kar having torture fun off world, Garibaldi being extra cranky, and Delenn and Sheridan getting engaged. Plus they plucked out G'Kar's eye and murdered Bad Kosh! Even though the stakes are getting more... cartoonish and difficult to relate to, with multiple planets getting obliterated, the consequences are feeling very real.

Londo's really damn lucky that he was never entirely on an opposing side to Sheridan considering what the guy does to the Vorlon Ambassador the moment planets start get bombed. I thought Babylon 5 was supposed to be finding ways to reach peaceful solutions and prevent conflicts. This is setting a bad precedent! Though to be fair we still don't know what Sheridan's working towards, only that he's getting a massive massive fleet together and he finally understands what's really going on.

Up to this point in the series the characters have been left in the dark, struggling to understand the motives and plans of the enemies working against them, and there's still a bit of that here with Garibaldi's time with the Psi Corps. But now we know all about the Vorlons and the Shadows, and we know about Cartagia's ultimate goal, so the biggest mystery in the series at the moment is what are our heroes going to do about it? Or to be more accurate, what do Sheridan and Londo already have in mind? Because they've clearly both got schemes in motion. Man, remember when Londo was the comic relief? It's hard to imagine the series having another comedy B plot for a long while the way things are going.

Characters can really change in this series, as G'Kar and Londo have both shifted from antagonists to heroes over the seasons, but it doesn't seem like the Vorlons are going to be making a face turn after this. Turns out that they're willing to destroy entire populated worlds to make sure the Shadows can't pull their 'bury some ships and wait a thousand years' trick again, and somehow Sheridan's attack on Z'ha'dum has made this possible (like how Londo's manipulations made Cartagia possible). If the Vorlons look at the lesser races as children, then they are seriously shitty parents. They should be a cool dad like Lorien who hangs around and advises, never pressuring you but always there to give you an extra 20 years of life if you need it. Though they did give the Minbari the tech to make White Stars so I suppose they're not all bad.

Incidentally, if Babylon 5 had never stopped airing, Sheridan's final death would've come early in season 24, broadcast during November 2016. Here's another fun fact for you, this episode was the point during the original US airing that the series went on a two month break, so people had to wait a while to see what happened next. I won't be keeping you waiting though, not any longer than usual anyway, as I'll be back with the next episode next week.

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COMING SOON

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, Babylon 5 returns with The Long Night.

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