Babylon 5 4-22: The Deconstruction of Falling Stars

Episode:

88

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Stephen Furst

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Air Date:

27-Oct-1997

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the Babylon 5 season 4 finale: The Deconstruction of Falling Stars! There's a proper pretentious title for you, it's great.

Babylon 5 was intended from the start to be a five year long novel for television, so it was a bit awkward when their network, PTEN, was set to be shut down after year four. Showrunner jms figured that the best they could do was to accelerate the major arcs so that we reached the original s4 finale, Intersections in Real Time, four episodes early. That way the series had time to reach some kind of closure before the episodes ran out, and they were able to film a replacement s4 finale called Sleeping in Light to wrap it all up properly. Babylon 5 was done. And then the producers made a deal with TNT to get their fifth season after all.

This was great news, but the trouble they had now was that Sleeping in Light was an emotional and unambiguous conclusion to the entire saga, and not the ideal way to launch the story into a new chapter. Fortunately the series was blessed with a huge four month break between the airing of ep 18 (Intersections in Real Time) and ep 19 (Between the Darkness and the Light), giving the production crew the time they needed to film a replacement ep 22... which is the episode I'm writing about now.

tl;dr: Season four was originally intended to end with Intersections in Real Time, which got moved up four episodes and replaced with Sleeping in Light, then after filming they changed it again to Deconstruction of Falling Stars.

SPOILER WARNING: This review is for people who've been watching the series at least up to this episode, as it's going to spoil everything that happens in it, along with the events that led up to it. I won't spoil a thing about season 5 though... well, except for the things that the episode itself spoils.

Also if you've got the DVD commentary, you should maybe hang onto that until you've seen the whole series. It's a bit spoilery too.

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The episode begins with a shuttle with "Just Married" on the side flying past the camera on its way to the station. It's a bit cheesy maybe, but it's fine as the text has completely disappeared by the time it reaches the docking elevator.

We're given about 20 seconds to guess who's going to be disembarking and it turns to be...

Sheridan and Delenn! Not really a huge surprise, seeing as they got married off-screen last episode, but it could've been playing with expectations. Maybe Garibaldi and Lise decided to get married as well, we know she doesn't like to waste any time.

Gates 1 thru 11 are currently blocked off so they can have a bit of a welcome home / congrats on your marriage / yay we're back filming season 5 party, but hey after what they've been through recently they've earned it.

Sheridan's had a shave since the last time we saw him, trimming his beard down to a goatee. I'm not really a fan, but I suppose Sisko grew a goatee on Deep Space Nine and the two series were tied together by fate and coincidence, so it had to happen eventually. He's still wearing his Army of Light uniform though, even after retiring from the military and becoming the president of the Interstellar Alliance. I hope he at least had the sense to buy an appropriate suit while he was on Earth and maybe get some other shopping done, as he likely won't be returning for a long while.

Somehow Garibaldi got back to the station before them, though it's not clear if he plans to stay or if he just turned up for the party. I'm just glad he and Sheridan finally got a scene together this season without one of them being brainwashed or drugged into delirium.

There's no Ivanova though, maybe because she didn't feel like celebrating after Marcus' death, maybe because she couldn't bear to stay on the station a moment longer than she had to, or maybe because the producers couldn't make a deal with the actress to get her back for season five. This isn't the first episode to be missing Ivanova, but she's really gone now.

It seems like someone's gone to the trouble of printing out "SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI" on an old 90s printer, and it's hard to miss with how it's right there in the middle of this shot. It's a Latin phrase that translates to "Thus passes worldly glory." In other words, everything they've gained in this world will eventually be lost. Exactly what you want to be thinking about after spending years trying to build an Interstellar Alliance that'll last.

Oh it seems like other people are getting in from Gates 1 thru 11 just fine. Though G'Kar assaults a balloon on the way in, so I don't think he's really into this human ritual.

Londo sees the celebration and wonders who died, and seeing as there's 'WELCOME HOME' banners everywhere I have to feel like he just wants an excuse to talk about Centauri state funerals. He then segues into talking about how their marriage ceremonies are about reflection, regret, argument etc. Basically Centauri newly-weds deliberately start with the worst, so they know it can only get better from there.

The heroes of the hour duck into a side corridor for a moment to discuss how much neither of them likes all this ceremony. More specifically they don't like how it's all aimed at them specifically.

Delenn's very aware that it was a team effort where everyone played a part and doesn't want to feel like she's taking more than her share of credit for it. But Sheridan points out that in 100 years no one will care who they were, and this somehow makes Delenn feel better.

I have to wonder if Sheridan actually believes that though. I mean, he's a student of history, so he has to know that many founding figures and wartime leaders have retained their fame long after their deaths. Especially the ones that came back from the dead or were transformed into a half-human hybrid.

Suddenly we're watching ISN as it broadcasts the first footage of President Sheridan and Delenn arriving on Babylon 5... and G'Kar running down the corridor to catch up to them for some reason. I guess jms felt there needed to be 5% more comedy in the teaser.

But then the video starts to skip and eventually dissolves into old fashioned TV static due to 'temporal distortion'.

Apparently there's been a continuity error with the episode! It was caused by 'high energy' but that's as much detail as we get.

The computer corrects for the error and resets, giving us a burst of images from later in the story. It's a bit like the teaser you get at the start of Space 1999 or Battlestar Galactica (2004) episodes, except here there's no chance anyone would ever be able to make anything out. There's about 14 images shown over half a second, though it seems like some have been merged together on my DVD.

I did get a few clear shots out of it, and I recognise that actor on the bottom right from Total Recall. IMDb tells me he's called Roy Brocksmith, and that he also played the irritating Strategema master Sirna Kolrami in Next Gen's Peak Performance and Kira's friend Razka Karn in DS9's Indiscretion.

Oh, plus that image of Sheridan is our first glimpse at his new outfit for season 5, and the image behind him is our first glimpse of the Interstellar Alliance logo

The computer brings us to a DVD menu with four years on it, spanning a thousand years. We don't know when the DVD was made though as the word 'current' gives no clues.

Whoever's steering the menu selects 'auto play', so it seems like we'll be watching all the videos. Fortunately Babylon 5 episodes have five acts so that works out nicely. It's gonna be like that 22 Short Films About Springfield episode of The Simpsons, except with 17 fewer stories and I guess the main characters are going to be long dead for most of them.

Man, the opening credits on my PAL DVDs are getting more wrong every episode.

Starring Bruce Boxleitner as Captain John Sheridan (nope he retired), Michael Garibaldi as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (nope he resigned), Claudia Christian as Commander Susan Ivanova (nope, she's a captain now and the actor chose not to come back), and Jason Carter as Marcus Cole (nope the character died).

This isn't exactly what people saw when it first aired to be fair, as they'd updated Garibaldi's employment status and replaced Ivanova's credit with a clip of the Agamemnon flying through an explosion. That's what you get on the HD Remastered version as well.

Even the narration manages to get something wrong, as it claims that the year is 2261 when we've only just learned that framing DVD menu is being played sometime in the far future. And the first act takes place during...

ACT ONE - 2 JANUARY 2262

Every season covers about a year, from January to December, but there is a bit of overlap. Like Chrysalis didn't immediately cut to black when the New Year's countdown to 2259 ended. It's strange to see a season finale start in January though; that ain't right!

The first historical video is a recording of ISN, though it's not a special report for a change. We're watching Night Side, a "no-holds barred look at the events of today that'll shape the world of tomorrow."

That's nice some nice design work by the way. The title's apparently a reference to US news show Nightline, but that logo's it's own thing.

This is our ISN host for this evening, Derek Mitchell. He's hypertext captioned, but then aren't they all?

Mitchell explains that there's a word in the Old Testament used when it's time to pause for a moment and reflect, "selah", and seeing as this episode of Night Time is about taking a moment to discuss and consider the events of the last few days he thought he should mention it.

But first, a report from special correspondent Jim Bitterbane, a man whose distant ancestor must have been a real grumpy bastard judging by that surname.

You can tell it's a new era, as ISN reporters are able to film openly again on Babylon 5 after the crap they pulled in The Illusion of Truth.

I don't know if this actor was ever a reporter in real life, but he's pretty convincing. He's just talking a bit about Sheridan and how he was just an average unremarkable person doing average unremarkable things and getting average unremarkable grades at school, until something changed and he suddenly rose to greatness. Yeah, I suppose it is a bit weird how he wasn't winning any Shadow Wars in high school.

We get to see photos of him as a kid while he's talking (of Sheridan I mean, not Bitterbane), and they're all actual photos of a young Bruce Boxleitner.

I don't know what this shot of Kevin Sorbo riding a horse is doing here though.

Interestingly they also include a photo from his wedding to Anna, but don't mention anything about his marriages whatsoever.

Hey they can't show this shot! It's from the movie In the Beginning, which hadn't even aired yet! It had been filmed already though, which is why it has Claudia Christian in it. The same is true of the movie Thirdspace, which didn't air until well into season 5.

The most interesting part of Bitterbane's report for me is how normal it seems. I'm still getting used to seeing ISN broadcasts without overt propaganda.

Once it's over they cut back to the studio, where Mitchell talks with the usual panel of experts.

From left to right there's a Elizabeth Metarie, a senator currently in Earthdome, Lief Tanner, an author and journalist living on Mars, and Henry Ellis, a speech writer and political commentator in Paris. That last one's got an interesting combination of jobs.

Their support for Sheridan also goes from left to right, with Senator Metarie feeling confident he'll do a good job in his new role, Tanner feeling like they should give him a fair chance, and Ellis feeling like he's a monster who'll ruin everything he touches. He's so furious.

To be honest, I'm surprised at how well the production crew pulled this scene off. The screens are composited into this shot, but they had all the actors on the same stage together and filmed them simultaneously so that they could talk over each other and argue convincingly. Plus writer jms loosened his usual tight grip over the lines to let them reword things a little and make the conversation flow more naturally.

I suppose it's less surprising that an Earthgov senator is going to be aware of the problems Sheridan will face, but would have faith in the guy that got rid of their tyrannical government. It's also pretty obvious why a journalist from Mars might be pragmatic but optimistic about the Earth captain who delivered on his promise to give his world independence. However it's not clear at first why Ellis is determined to twist every fact to paint the guy in the worst possible light, resorting to over-simplification and emotional outbursts of outrage like "He fires on his own ships and you're calling me irrational?!"

Then Senator Metarie drops the bomb that he was a speech writer for the Clark regime! Man, if ISN wanted a legitimate discussion here they chose their final expert remarkably poorly. Hang on, if this is the 'usual panel of experts' does this mean they were allowed to run this show during Clark's administration, with these same panellists?

Anyway, this video record comes to an end and we get a glimpse of the person watching it.

Only the eyes and nose though. Stay tuned to find out if we ever get to see a mouth.

That's not the only hook for act two though, as he get the next video loaded up, this time from 100 years after Sheridan became president. I'm a bit disappointed though to be honest. I was hoping he'd leave the Night Side recording on, at least until the first ad break. I want to see some 2260's TV commercials.

ACT TWO - 2 JANUARY 2362

The next video starts with a panning shot of this mysterious building, but I can never resist stitching them together for you.

There's a road running underneath it and it seems that people will still be driving cars 340 years from now, but skyscrapers are now located out in the hills instead of being all bunched together and they've developed a new, flatter variety of grass. I'm learning a lot about the future here, but I can't figure out if this is the OBBO building or the 0880 building.

Anyway, this video is an educational stellarcast; basically a live stream with half a million students watching.

Inside there's another panel of guest stars, wearing even more futuristic outfits. The episode's gone from a virtual set to virtually no set at all though, as the series just didn't have the money left for anything more than a table and a featureless black void by this point. But hey maybe the people streaming this didn't have any money either! It works.

From left to right there's historian Dr Jim Latimere, political scientist Dr Barbara Tashaki, and psychologist Dr William Exeter, so they're all academics this time. Hey I recognise the guy playing Dr Latimere. That's Alistair Duncan; he was Detective Dick Durkin in the movie Split Second and Celebrimbor in the Shadow of Mordor games.

He's passing questions from students onto the two on the right, questions such as "What role do you believe Babylon 5 played in the 100 Year Peace?", and they're giving answers such as "None at all". Seems like Babylon 5 station is firmly in the past tense at this point, so it didn't live to see its 105th birthday.

Dr Tashaki talks about how large political movements are rarely due to the actions of one person, and explains that Sheridan and Delenn inspired and allowed others to effect change. Well that's kind of what Delenn herself was saying earlier. Except instead of giving credit to everyone, Tashaki's taking credit away from the people calling the shots... even though they were undeniably in a position where their instructions would be carried out by countless people.

It seems like these two are strong believers in the force of history, and as far as I can tell that means that everything Sheridan and Delenn achieved was actually a result of countless different factors, and they just rode the tide. Everything that went wrong was entirely their fault though.

Tashaki hints about the loss of life we can look forward to during season five and an 'incident 'concerning their son', but she's stopped before she can give us more than that. Then Exeter goes and drops a huge spoiler for next year, mentioning that Sheridan allowed telepaths to set up a colony on Babylon 5 and they turned on him. In fact it might have precipitated the Telepath War.

Next the experts are asked to comment on this video of Garibaldi in Medlab being held hostage by telepaths at some point during 2262. You know, for people claimed to be historians and scientists, not one of them points out that he's leaning on a very anachronistic CRT monitor.

Speaking of a CRT screen, they did well here by thinking ahead and making the blue border fit when it's cropped for a widescreen frame... well, almost. It looks like the footage on my DVDs has been stretched a bit to make it work.

The clip shows Garibaldi trying to convince the telepaths to work with him to find a better way to resolve this situation, but all he gets is silence. Interesting that it's Garibaldi trapped in Medlab, not Franklin, but we don't get any context for any of this. Makes me want to peek ahead at season 5, at least to check if this matches the scenes filmed later, but I'll resist the temptation.

Then Sheridan comes on the monitor to let the telepaths know that he and Captain Lochley have discussed the matter and they've decided not to give in to their demands. So the telepaths point a gun at Garibaldi and a shot goes off.

Now we know there's going to be a captain called Lochley on the station in season 5! If that's the third commander, here to replace Sheridan, then Londo must have been very very drunk when he was recording the original opening narration for the pilot movie. Fortunately they changed the narration for The Gathering - Special Edition to remove his line about Sinclair being the station's final commander.

Anyway Garibaldi's been shot and stabbed tons of times, and he's already lived past one flash forward of his death (seen in Babylon Squared), so I'm sure he was fine after this. I mean they wouldn't have broadcast his murder to 500,000 students... unless they would?

It's Sheridan's response that the panel wants to comment on. They concede that many governments in 2362 have same rule about negotiating with terrorists, but Sheridan seemed really mean when he said it, which shows he was pathological, or worse!

Tashaki loves going on and on with absolute certainty about how the Interstellar Alliance's PR perpetuates fantasy, like the story of Sheridan's final fate and their claims that Delenn is somehow still alive after all this time. But just they start talking about Sheridan being a megalomaniac, the building's bullshit alarm goes off!
 

Oh, it was Old Delenn breaking into the studio! She raced here in under six minutes to verbally bitchslap their asses, and you can tell she's serious as she brought her triangles.

She only says the one thing though: "John Sheridan was a good and kind and decent man."

Latimere's amazed she came so far just to say that (however far you can get in 6 minutes in 2362), and she replies that they came just as far to say less.

"You do not wish to know anything. You wish only to speak. That which you know you ignore because it is inconvenient, that which you do not know you invent. But none of that matters. Except that he was a good man. A kind man, who cared about the world even when the world cared nothing for him."

And then Exeter goes and says "Of course we would expect you to say that," which earns him the full force of Delenn's withering stare. A glare made from a mix of human and Minbari organic technology, it's one of the most powerful and ancient of the weapons in the Interstellar Alliance arsenal.

The experts can only look away from her in shame. They know what they did and 500,000 students saw it happen. You know, I'm starting to get the feeling that jms is trying to say something with this chapter, and it's not just 'my characters are awesome'.

Though it is a bit strange how there's been no legit criticism about their decisions so far. Everyone with anything negative to say about Sheridan and Delenn has had an agenda to tear them down, Ellis because he was Team Clark, and these two because I guess it's their estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of son of a bitch or another. They're experts, so they feel empowered to speak with authority and tell people how it is, when all they've got is poorly-supported opinion.

There's no shot of the mysterious future guy at the end of this act, just another shot of the DVD menu and a voice saying that this time we're jumping to 500 years after the creation of the Alliance.

ACT THREE - 2 JANUARY 2762

The special guest star for this segment is Eric Pierpoint from Alien Nation and an episode of DS9, playing a guy called Daniel.

Here's wearing an even further future costume, with a worrying badge on it that's basically an SS symbol. Speaking of symbols, that's the B5 logo table! I'm not sure we've seen it since they moved to the war room mid season 3. That's over 501 years ago! Those metal legs on the left probably belong to something even older, as I don't think they were meant to be in the frame.

Daniel finishes making the B5 meeting room and then decides to bring the B5 crew in as well. Though it's 400 years after even Delenn was ancient so he has to settle for Star Trek/Red Dwarf-style holograms, designed to simulate historical figures using the surviving records as a reference. And the records are surviving very well actually, despite Babylon 5 being destroyed 480 years ago. Well that puts a date on it then: RIP Babylon 5 station, 2256-2282.

Daniel's currently recording a log for Politdivision Central describing his work here and recapping what they already know. The purpose of this simulation is to provide reverse-correct infospeak... so we're basically in a 1984 future. Earth's been Clark'd again. Man, they just can't keep the fascism off this planet can they?

Future Earth has got pretty good records of the station and the characters, but this is apparently supposed to be a recreation of the goatee era where Sheridan ran the Alliance as president and he's got his Army of Light uniform on instead of his suit for some reason.

This is where the episode title really starts to make sense as the plan here is to "deconstruct historical figures revered by prole sector", as propaganda against the Interstellar Alliance. Basically it's The Illusion of Truth all over again. In fact if Daniel had looked a little harder and found Dan Randall's hatchet job in the historical records he could've just played that to prole sector and saved himself some time.

Apparently it's sensible to test the simulation by first creating accurate versions of the B5 heroes and then filling their virtual heads with 500 years of history. This also has the helpful side effect of letting them give us exposition about the story so far and the world outside this tiny fake room.

In this time there's realfacts and goodfacts... so it's basically just like our time, except the labels have changed. The realfact (or just 'fact') is that Earth is on the verge of another civil war and the opposing faction is the one that's loyal to the Interstellar Alliance. So today Daniel's going to record a few videos to propagate goodfacts (or 'lies') to tarnish the Alliance's image. First up is the goodfact that Sheridan became an evil tyrant. Man I knew it was a bad idea for him to grow that goatee.

With Holo-Sheridan reprogrammed we get to see a re-enactment of one of his famous speeches, the one given to a group of prisoners he had lined up in front of a firing squad. Bruce Boxleitner was given the opportunity to go full Space Hitler here and he really went for it, with Holo-Sheridan telling his virtual prisoners that the Interstellar Alliance will conquer the galaxy through blood: theirs and their children's.

Holo-Franklin and Holo-Delenn maybe aren't as freaked out by the nightmare scenario they're trapped in as you might expect, but they do want to do something about it. Unfortunately Holo-Franklin is next to be reprogrammed and Holo-Delenn is put into standby mode. Daniel didn't bother doing anything to Holo-Garibaldi though, I guess because he's mostly staying quiet.

Holo-Franklin's video is all about how the guy was an evil Nazi doctor, carrying out experiments to create alien/human hybrids (man these fascist Earth regimes always come back to that). Unfortunately the younger children can only survive without their organs for so long, but he's hoping to increase that time with drugs. He's a bad person.

It's also a bit harsh to tell your lead actors to just stand perfectly still in the background of a scene, though Richard Biggs does a good job of switching performances as he robotically returns to the group and shuts down.

But Holo-Garibaldi's still active and he's been doing a little thinking. He tells Daniel he has a proposition for him... and Daniel just gives the computer an order to turn him off.

Fortunately Garibaldi escapes being reprogrammed to be evil a second time this season, as the computer can apparently tell that Daniel is reconsidering and leaves him running so he can share his idea. Garibaldi explains that he did most of the strategic planning during the war (he didn't) and he has some advice for him. Maybe enough to get him a promotion.

Daniel likes the idea of a promotion, and he's an idiot, so he lets Holo-Garibaldi in on the plan, confirming his suspicion that they're about to make a devastating first strike against the pro-Alliance side. Their fleet's leaving within the hour and they'll be targeting civilian population centres to force a quick surrender. 15 to 20 million estimated casualties.

They're really cutting it close with this holo-propaganda. They could at least give people a day or two to watch it first before obliterating the other side.

That was all Holo-Garibaldi needed to hear, as he's secretly managed to figure out how to interact with the computer systems, crack the system codes, connect to an exterior network, and transmit this whole conversation to the enemy. Bloody hell... is this a trait exclusive to the hologram or can all Garibaldis work out how to hack computers with their brain in just five minutes?

Holo-Garibaldi has a lot of faith in how persuasive a hologram recording can be, and figures that the pro-Alliance side will immediately send missiles against military bases and research facilities... like this one for instance. The academics in the last video attacked Sheridan's reputation to the point where they were shamed live on air, but for making him out to be Space Hitler, Daniel's gone and earned himself nuclear annihilation. Unless he can somehow get clear of the blast range in however many seconds he has left (it's a really speedy pre-emptive strike).

Daniel lets out a really good "NOOO!" and runs out of the simulator as the alarm confirms the arrival of the missiles Holo-Garibaldi ordered. Seems like one person really can make a difference, even if he's actually a hologram. Nice that the guy gets a big damn hero moment at the end of the season to make up for all the ones his missed out on when he was an unwitting Psi Corps agent.

Holo-Garibaldi joins the frozen images of his friends and tells them to rest easy as the screen flashes white. Meanwhile the actors are probably thinking "Someone please say cut so we're allowed to move again". If only Claudia Christian had known she'd be missing out on this.

The next video jumps another 500 years to the year 3262, so we will get to learn what happened next to humanity. But I don't think we'll ever know for sure if Daniel got that promotion in the end.

ACT FOUR - 2 JANUARY 3262

Act four takes place in 3262, a thousand years after season 4, so we're now as far from Sheridan's time as Sheridan was from Valen's era.

This time there's no panellists and no holograms, just a pair of monks in a very nice set. They built the full 360 degrees of it as well, which becomes more obvious when it switches camera angles. This is where all the episode's money went!

The events of this chapter were documented by a series of cameras hidden around the room, each numbered by a Roman numeral in the bottom left corner of the screen. Because we've apparently forgotten what numbers are by this point.

One of the monks, Brother Alwyn, is just about to make a report when Brother Michael drops by. He's having a bit of a crisis of faith, wondering why it is that they work so hard to preserve knowledge from before the Great Burn. The one that wiped out civilisation 500 years ago. Uh-oh Holo-Garibaldi, did you do a nuclear apocalypse?

I remember the episode Exogenesis had alien parasites protecting knowledge for a future galactic dark age. Probably not this one though, this is only a planetary dark age. Hang on, something called 'The Burn' has led to a new dark age without space travel huh? Well it doesn't remind me of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine this time, but there is a certain other Star Trek series that's jumping to mind... by which I of course mean Star Trek: The Next Generation, which showed the post-apocalyptic horror following World War III in its pilot episode.

Anyway, Brother Michael's problem is that the history they're passing on seems a little suspect, especially as there's zero evidence to support it. On Earth anyway.

Like blessed Lorien for instance, last of the firstborn. How can they know he ever existed?

This is suddenly reminding me of G'Kar's Book of G'Quan, which had a record of the last Shadow War, a thousand years ago. Well, two thousand years now. Maybe someday the story of Coriana 6 will be passed down to the next generation of First Ones, and they'll be able to avoid the cycle the Shadows and Vorlons ended up in.

Brother Michael gives us another hint about the circumstances surrounding Sheridan's death, saying that he was taken bodily into heaven. He also mentions Ivanova the strong and Delenn the wise, but at this point people have gone beyond questioning if they were good people. Now they question if they ever existed at all.

The evidence is up in space, but just because they've read about spaceships in their books doesn't mean they're any closer to building one and going up to the stars to check.

Glad to see they've preserved the ancient skill of webcomic art... along with Latin, for some reason (the text translates to something like 'Rangers is the name of an' apparently). Sadly we never get to see pictures of Sheridan and the others. This could've been the moment to get Ivanova into the episode!

It turns out that Michael's heart went out of his work halfway through this illustration of a Ranger, when he realised that the prophecies they're passing down claim that the Anla'shok would return in Earth's greatest time of need, and then they didn't. If that story is just a myth, then maybe it's all a myth.

Alwyn tells him that faith and reason are a pair of shoes, or something like that. Basically you'll get further with both. Personally I'd prefer them both to be reason, so they match, but he's not saying that Michael should believe the Rangers will help them and that the myths are real, he saying that he should believe there's a possibility. It's the difference between having faith that it will work out and having faith that it can work out.

But Alwyn does give Michael some actual reason to go along with his faith: if the Rangers did come back, they'd have to do it in secret, because people still blame science for the Great Burn and they're not keen on it at the moment. Michael finally leaves, his faith renewed, and Alwyn gets back to making his report.

Surprise, Alwyn was a Ranger all along! Not the descendant of one who inherited his technology and outfit, no he's the real deal. Trust the Minbari to keep the Ranger uniform the same for 1000 years. Or 2000 years I guess, as the Rangers were created by Valen in the first Shadow War.

The Rangers are trying to make it seem like the folks on Earth are rediscovering technology themselves from the books they've gathered, but they're also giving them a bit of help from the supply department if it's needed. The monks have the knowledge to build an internal combustion engine, for example, but they'll need to arrange for an old container of petrol to be 'found' before they can get it running.

He says to his cameras that the plan is to rebuild the Earth and make it better this time, so I'm not entirely sure why they're not focusing on reintroducing tech that uses cleaner, renewable energy sources, but I'm sure the Interstellar Alliance knows what it's doing. Alwyn has faith that they'll give Michael his wish of visiting the stars within 20 years. Not because they'll be done by then, no the process of restoring the Earth might take another 2000 years, he's just going to recruit him as a Ranger... eventually. That's why he's not going to delete this inadvertent recording of their conversation.

ACT FIVE - 2 JANUARY 1002262

We're firmly in the far future now, one million years after Sheridan's time, and we finally get to see the identity of the guy who's been reviewing all these records! It's... some guy from a million years in the future.

The good news is that he can use enhanced tachyon sequence to get the records to New Earth in time for the celebrations. Incidentally, our current recorded history spans about 5000 years, so they're doing 200 times better than us at data preservation even with the Great Burn.

The bad news is that they're apparently celebrating the death of the Earth (which is very Centauri of them). In fact the whole Sol system is about to go up, due to Sun turning into a nova in under five hours. We never find out why it's exploding so early, only that there's "atypical solar emissions", but jms later revealed that it was due to someone opening jump points inside it.

I suppose it's possible that they're celebrating because the entire human race has just moved in to a new planet, but we don't get to see that. It's a shame, because according to jms humanity actually claimed the Vorlon homeworld (after cleaning out a million years of cobwebs first, obviously). Because... we're basically Vorlons ourselves now!

The human race has evolved into energy beings who use encounter suits like Kosh! We've finally caught up to Jason Ironheart (from Mind War). He did say he'd see us a million years.

The first three seasons or so of Babylon 5 showed the crew gaining knowledge and levelling up so that they saw legends at more of an eye level and could fight them. In season one G'Kar believed the Walkers of Sigma-957 saw us as nothing more than ants, but by season three Ivanova was manipulating them into joining the war. By the start of season four Sheridan was working side by side with the oldest of the First Ones in order to send them all away and so that the younger races could control their own destinies. Now we know that in the end our crew have become the legends, and the humans are the ancients.

We don't get to see what happened to the other races, but jms told people that the Minbari also became energy beings in the end. The Narn and the Centauri did not, but they also haven't died out. So that's a happier outcome for them than the one Kosh predicted.

And the episode ends with another ship showing off its paint job as it flies by. Man, trust the Minbari to keep the Ranger logo exactly the same for one million years.

Well the station's gone, everyone in the cast is dead, the Earth was ruined, and now the sun's just exploded. It ended in fire, just like Kosh said. I guess a lot of things end in fire. Hey, does a sun eventually exploding before its time due to mysterious (unexplained) interference count as a deconstruction of a falling star?

This situation reminds of something the prophet Valen once said (in the episode Infection):

"Whether it happens in 100 years, or 1000 years or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold and go out.

When that happens it won't just take us, it will take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-tzu and Einstein and Morobuto and Buddy Holly and Aristophanes. And all of this, all of this, was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars."

So I hope Brother Alwyn made sure to rescue some Marilyn Monroe movies and got the monks illustrating some replacement Blu-ray covers for them. Also what about the rest of the life on Earth? I hope we got all the animals, plants and insects etc. off the Earth before it went. I also hope the spiders didn't ascend into energy beings too.

Then the episode cuts back to 2262 for a moment, where Sheridan's talking to Delenn about whether people will still remember them in 100 years or 1000 years' time. He's been giving it a bit of thought and has decided... probably not. But she replies that it doesn't matter. History will attend to itself.

They didn't do all this to be remembered. The plan was to bring peace to the galaxy, everything else they get is just a bonus.

It's funny that the episode is supposed to be about Sheridan and Delenn's legacy, but we keep seeing all the good that the Rangers will do. It's the Ranger logo on the final ship leaving Earth, not the Interstellar Alliance logo. I know that they adopted them for the Interstellar Alliance and gave them a new purpose, but the Rangers were Sinclair's project.

And the last shot is a big middle finger to the haters. Though I suppose that could describe the whole episode really.

I'm not sure about the message however. Emperor Cartagia and President Clark had a lot of faith too and it didn't end well for them. Plus faith didn't manage to get any of the Babylon 5 spin-offs to work. Faith helps keep you motivated but it won't protect you from failure. However Babylon 5 had gotten its fifth season by this point, something that had only been achieved by two other US space operas before it: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. There were still 21 more episodes left to film, but they knew they were going to be able to film them, so the series had pretty much won. They stuck with it and achieved what they set out to achieve, and that's more than many people hopping around with their single shoe of reason could say.


CONCLUSION

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I've got an alternate idea for what they could've called this episode: One Million January 2nds.

Deconstruction of Falling Stars isn't your typical episode of sci-fi television. Not just because it jumps into the far future and shows how the actions of the heroes have been analysed and distorted over time, (Star Trek: Voyager's Living Witness had a similar premise a few months later), but also because of how it gives the story over to guest stars, a new batch for each segment. You flip a coin whenever you get a guest star on this series, B5's had some terrible performances over the years, but they were pretty much all winners this time. Lots of decent actors giving solid performances that suit the settings they're in. Everyone in the ISN broadcast is very natural, while the Ranger monk is hamming it up, but it all works.

The episode's a compilation of short stories, without a whole lot of story to them. They're basically just isolated discussions, with a final twist that shines some new light on things and brings them to a conclusion. The political speech writer is revealed to have written for Clark, Old Delenn makes a personal appearance to school the academics, Holo-Garibaldi hacked the computer, Brother Alwyn is a Ranger, and humans are Vorlons now (also the Earth exploded). It's really kind of depressing to follow up the super happy Rising Star with a story about how the Interstellar Alliance's first year was a disaster, everything eventually goes to shit, the planet enters a new dark age, and then the Sun blows up. It's more dramatic this way, but damn man! Creator jms explained that the episode was actually supposed to be an ultra-happy ending, where humanity survives all of its problems and moves on to the next phase of existence, but we don't get to see that part. What was see is cycles of fascism, and an Earth left in ruins and then atomised completely.

Interestingly it doesn't confirm or deny whether we're still on track for the future where Centauri Prime burns and G'Kar strangles Londo to death out of friendship, but the two of them are hanging around together a lot lately. We do learn that Sheridan will allegedly ascend bodily into heaven (whatever that means) 20 years from now and Babylon 5 station will be destroyed the same year. We also know that Garibaldi is going to be held hostage by telepaths at some point next season and that Sheridan will look mean when he addresses them on a monitor screen.

A recurring theme in each chapter is the deconstruction of the heroes and the different interpretations of who they were and what they were trying to do, as we get further and further from the events, and they fall further into myth. Basically it's about people analysing Babylon 5 and getting it all wrong, either because they're reading it through their own political bias, or they're too attached to their own theories, or they're just straight up lying... so it's a complicated episode to analyse.

I definitely don't like to make assumptions about what was going through a writer's head (I'll check their Twitter for that), though I'm not surprised that jms made this episode about his series' legacy seeing as he'd only just wrote the actual finale, Sleeping in Light. It makes sense that this would be half epilogue and half trailer for the fifth season. Plus one thing that came through loud and clear is that jms doesn't like it when people say with absolute conviction that events are out of any one person's control and individuals are just stuck on the ride. Though at the same time the monk chapter clearly argues that you also have to have faith.

People say that the 3262 chapter with the monks is a bit too similar to the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, including jms himself who eventually realised it himself halfway through writing the act. I've never read the book, but I did a bit of research and now I can say... nothing, because it would spoil the novel. Though I will say the sign at the start saying "Sic transit gloria mundi" could be seen as a reference as well, among other things, so the comparison doesn't need to be contained to just one chapter, or even two, and then I'll shut up.

Anyway, I'm glad this episode exists, I'm glad it's so weird and I'm glad it's got things to say. It's very static and dry, and there's barely any soundtrack, but that helps give it a unique feel. That said, it's one of my least favourite episodes of season four, just because the rest of the season is so strong. After so much epic drama and momentum, an episode that takes a moment to pause and consider was always going to feel like a bit of let-down. It's not too jarring though, as Rising Star was already becoming more detached from events, especially with Future Delenn's voiceover at the end. Plus the opening titles have been in the past tense from the start. This series was always a chronicle of historical events at the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind, and now we know for a fact that someone was taping it all.

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COMING VERY SOON

I did it, I got through it all! It's over! Man this was a tough episode to write about. I've also made it through Babylon 5's fourth season, so you can look forward to a season review very soon.

Thanks for reading by the way! I'd also thank you for leaving a comment but I don't actually know what the future will hold.