Babylon 5: Thirdspace - Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally going to shut up talking about the Babylon 5 movie Thirdspace. I just have to write about what happens in the ending and then I'm done. Though if you want more words you can check out PART ONE and PART TWO and read how the story got to this point.

This review will contain SPOILERS for the movie and the first half of season 4, but I don't intend to give away any more than that, for the sake of people watching the series for the first time. There should always be people watching this series for the first time.

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Previously, on Babylon 5: Thirdspace:

The crew have found an ancient jumpgate built by the Vorlons so they could reach thirdspace, a realm beyond hyperspace. Unfortunately it turns out that thirdspace is occupied by advanced aliens with the means and motivation to wipe out all life in our galaxy. On top of that, the thirdspace aliens rigged the gate to broadcast a telepathic signal which mind-controls its unfortunate victims into becoming its unwitting agents (until they finally jump out an airlock to be closer to it). Now it seems like half the people on Babylon 5 are fighting the other half, while the heroes are assembling a fleet outside the station to buy time for Sheridan to somehow save the day on his own.

And now, the conclusion:

ACT SIX

We don't know what Captain Sheridan's up to exactly, but it seems like step 1 involves putting a spacesuit on and going into the tactical nuclear warhead closet to grab a bomb. You might be wondering why the Starfury pilot changing room on a diplomatic station has multiple suitcases with nukes inside, but I'm not. Sheridan probably had it installed the first day he got here, just to make the place feel more like home.

He got the only real victory in the Earth-Minbari War by nuking the Black Star, he turned the tide of the Shadow War by nuking Z'ha'dum, he forced the Shadows and Vorlons to come into his crucible at Coriana 6 by hiding nukes in asteroids and now he's going to solve this crisis with a nuke as well. Hopefully.

Anyway he gets outside just as everything starts kicking off.

I'm sill not keen on this style of spacesuit but I like how he's got a much better helmet for it now (after that Raider pilot from earlier in the movie stole his previous one.)

These scenes with Sheridan in his spacesuit were shot right at the end of production, just before they started filming the prequel movie In the Beginning. The thing is, that film takes place 15 years earlier, and Bruce Boxleitner had already gotten his hair cut and dyed in preparation by this point. So that's actually young Lieutenant Commander Sheridan under that helmet and you can never tell.

Alright there's now there's 8 minutes and 50 seconds of space battle until the final big explosion, and 5 minutes and 10 seconds of that includes CGI. That's means 60% of it is VFX shots!

If you look carefully you'll be able to make out Sheridan flying through the chaos with his jetpack. It seems a bit weird for him to not catch a ride with Delenn's cruiser or Ivanova's White Star, as if you think a Starfury is fragile you should see what happens to a human when they're hit by an energy blast. But I suppose flying around in a suit makes him the hardest target to hit in the battle and the one at the bottom of everyone's priorities.

Ivanova's fleet has a lot of firepower but the thirdspace aliens are equipped with something truly alien to this universe: Star Trek-style deflector shields.

This may be the closest we'll ever get to seeing a proper Babylon 5 vs Star Trek battle outside of Finnish sci-fi parody Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning and it seems massively unfair to the Babylon 5 side! They're just blasting away at the enemy's shields and they can't even tell if it's even doing anything. I've had fights like this before in video games and it's no fun.

Back on the station, the brawling has intensified and the power's fading. In fact it's lucky that people have been setting random fires everywhere or else the hallways would be pretty dark right now.

Oh damn, they just pushed this guy into a fire and he got up with his arm still burning! That's a good stunt. Sorry Lyta, those were some good stunt falls earlier but you've been outdone.

HOLY SHIT HE'S PUNCHING PEOPLE WITH HIS BURNING HAND!

Man this scene would've been awesome if they hadn't spoiled it in that sepia-tinted preview at the start of the movie.

Zack's busy leading the fight against the artefact's mind-controlled thralls when he runs into Dr Franklin, who's busy trying to single-handedly drag all the wounded to Medlab. Then Vir turns up as well, asking what's going on outside... before trying to strangle Zack! Probably the least convincing stunt in the movie so far, but Zack and Franklin look pretty convincing as they start punching their other attackers (with Zack sending one of them through a window).

This chaos has been going on for ages now so it's amazing that Zack still has the energy to keep fighting. I have to imagine there's a better way to stop hundreds of innocent mind-controlled victims from rioting than knocking each of them out personally, but Zack's been tackling this problem one person at a time and he's somehow still standing.

The trouble with these scenes though is that the heroes aren't actually trying to achieve anything right now. Sure they wanted to get that woman to Medlab, but that's not going to happen, so it's pretty much just about survival at this point.

"This scene really reminds me of Star Trek: Discovery" isn't a phrase that typically jumps to mind while I'm watching Babylon 5, but this scene of the hero flying through a massive space battle in a spacesuit definitely giving me some déjà vu. (Though I think Discovery did it better).

While Sheridan's doing his thing, Ivanova's moved over to a White Star to command the fleet. It was probably a smart move for Sheridan to let someone else be the general this time, as he doesn't have any computer screens to look at out here, and the more he talks on the radio, the more chance the bad guys are going to notice him.

So Ivanova's the one who has to deal with Starfury pilot Alpha 6 calling in and requesting to withdraw just because blowing up their ships is really hard. He doesn't seem to get that these are the weak scout ships they're fighting right now and these are the best odds they'll ever have. Once the big ships make it through that portal that's it, they'll steamroll over the whole damn galaxy and there'll be nowhere left to withdraw to.

1-19 - A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II

Though perhaps they could give a call to Epsilon 3 maybe? I know this is a standalone movie so they can't bring in the Great Machine without first establishing it exists, but there's a bloody big gun on that planet and it hasn't been fired since the episode it was introduced in!

Okay now it's reminding me of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with the hero out in a spacesuit waiting for the right moment to make it through an aperture and travel deeper within the alien machine.

Ivanova has everyone concentrate their fire on the front of the shield in the hopes that it'll make it weaker at the back so Sheridan can slip through. If this was Star Trek technology that wouldn't work, fortunately it's not. Thanks Vorlon-Lyta for the info!

The trouble with this sequence is that Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: Discovery both had really impressive visuals, and this just looks like mid 90s TV movie CGI.

There's more mid 90s CGI on the inside!

For some reason I was expecting him to find himself in that creepy city people have been seeing, even though that would make no sense. But no it's the thirdspace gate's central reactor core, as seen in Return of the Jedi, Star Fox, and anything else with spaceships in it.

Meanwhile Ivanova goes nose to nose with a thirdspace ship and blasts the crap out of it (getting her ship's nose all mangled in the process). The White Star's still going afterwards though! Who needs shields when you've got plot armour?

Oh, speaking of the White Star's hull, I noticed a bit of continuity error. Well, more like a continuity-complete-non-issue. Probably nothing spoilery.

In a couple of shots you can see a smeary blotch of colour on the wing of Ivanova's ship (and only her ship), like something had been painted on it. That's not supposed to be there.

Inside the artefact, Sheridan now has to solve a puzzle to get his nuclear bomb to work. You know what these things are like; he's got to screw in each of the metal rods then program a card and slide it in. Only then will he be rewarded with the digital timer screen. This is sadly the only reason why they couldn't have had a maintbot do this job instead of him. Well, aside from the fact that they all blew up.

Sadly Sheridan hasn't thought of any one-liners to say this time, like "Get the hell out of my plane of existence!" or "Give my regards to King Tut, asshole!"

Damn, they're really showing off their movie budget here with all the costumes they're wrecking. Those things aren't cheap!

She's really wrecked the White Star's bridge as well, not that it's slowing her down any. By the way I caught a glimpse of the coloured railing posts that let you know what ship you're on, and she's back in the purple White Star (Sheridan's favourite in season four is the red White Star 2).

Meanwhile Sheridan's finished setting the bomb to explode, so assuming the thing goes off in time the day is pretty much saved. Happy ending! Now all he has to worry about is saving himself.

And that means getting past this thing. We finally get to see the monster in full, and it's another ancient alien that doesn't wear pants. There was a great shot of it reflected in his visor before this but you can't really see it when it's not in motion so I didn't take a screencap.

The film has been full of psychic visions so far so I kind of expected Sheridan to have to overcome some kind of mental trial inside the artefact, maybe some kind of temptation, but no he apparently just has to get past a thirdspace alien that's been waiting here in the dark for a million years. The poor thing.

Sheridan decides to let his suit's autopilot solve this problem for him by automatically taking him back through the way he came in, which isn't actually the worst move to make against a telepath. But it seems that the creatures want the protagonist to actually have to struggle against adversity during this movie climax as another one materialises to block his way.

Or maybe it's the same one, it's not clear. Man I bet he's kicking himself for not bringing a gun right about now. By the way, I love how cropping this to 16:9 widescreen has left his head poking up from the bottom of the frame. I'm sure the HD remaster looks a lot less goofy.

Sheridan spots another exit and flies towards that instead, but the alien materialises a tail and fires it off to block the hole! So Sheridan spots another exit and flies towards that instead.

The movie eventually realises that he's not going to do anything interesting here and just lets him escape the artefact.

A giant red tentacle chases CGI Sheridan through the tunnel into space, but it's too slow to catch him. Haha, so long you dumbass tentacle!

The movie doesn't really pull off the transitions between CGI Sheridan and regular Sheridan, but I reckon the direction's as much to blame for that as the model. In fact I'm sure CGI Sheridan did just fine after this movie, as he had the looks and the polygon count to get plenty of good parts in Dreamcast video games.

And the artefact is annihilated, along with one of the big capital ships that was on its way through the portal. That's the most powerful ship Sheridan's nuked yet!

Well Sheridan just single-handedly saved the entire galaxy! If the other races didn't think he was messianic before they will now.

Whoa, Vir lasted this long in a fight against Zack?

It's over with now though, as the thirdspace aliens' mind-control device is now in lots of very tiny pieces that the engineering crews are currently in the process of picking up. So Zack and Franklin give each other a manly, exhausted hug in relief.

Speaking of things that need picking up, Sheridan used the last of his jetpack fuel escaping from the explosion and now he needs Delenn to swing over and rescue him from tumbling through the vacuum of space.

Delenn's in a playful mood though and decides to leave him there for a bit. He doesn't find it funny. She disagrees. I guess they mustn't have lost all that many ships in the fight, as I doubt Delenn would be so cheerful if she was surrounded by debris and floating bodies on that 360 degree holographic screen.

Sheridan is eventually recovered and as the only crew member with an intact uniform it's his job to say goodbye to Dr Trent.

I'm honestly surprised that Trent survived the movie, even though I've seen it before. It just seemed like she was on the path to dying as a villain or redeeming herself by dying as a hero.

She's very sorry about being evil, shooting her friend Bill and nearly causing the death of all life in the galaxy and she won't do it again. No really, she genuinely shook up by what she's done. Sheridan's pretty sympathetic and isn't even going to yell at her for withholding information even before the telepathic signal started affecting people. In fact everyone who got telepathically possessed is getting a free pass, because thankfully Sheridan agrees with the Star Trek rules which say it's not their fault.

But then he says that this can be a learning experience for her. 

What the hell, Sheridan? Sure she just nearly caused the extinction of all life in the galaxy due to her greed, but her friend's dead and she has to live with the fact that she shot him!

Then we get some Sheridan narration saying that he's sure Trent still hasn't handed over all her information, but that's fine because "as Mr Garibaldi has been known to say from time to time, we all lie."

Who the hell is Mr Garibaldi? He's not a character in this standalone movie!

Sheridan continues his narration, saying... holy crap what's happened to the video quality here? Did they lose the original footage for this bit when the were putting the DVD together and had to take a clip from a 50mb QuickTime trailer downloaded from their website?

Plus the fact that all the characters (minus Lyta) got together for a hero walk is bloody strange as well. Where are they all going?

Anyway Sheridan continues by saying that they've lied as well, to keep the nature of the device they blew up a secret so that no one ever gets the idea of making another one. Because "There are times when we don't need the whole truth". Well that kind of contradicts the point of the Shadow War, so that's weird. But it's not as weird as this other line: "We got through it alive and everyone's okay, that's the important thing." Uh, Sheridan, lots of people actually died!

Anyway, they've sorted out the Vorlons' big mistake and Sheridan's sure that this isn't the kind of problem that's likely to happen again. Then it cuts to Lyta standing in the sanctuary, so she can have the last words in the movie. "One mistake. One mistake out of so many others."


CONCLUSION

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Perhaps Babylon 5's biggest strength is that it was planned out in advance and episodes are generally leading somewhere. They build from previous stories and have consequences which lead to more consequences and so on. Thirdspace doesn't do that though. It's a standalone story designed so that new viewers can follow it without being too confused, and it was retconned into the timeline so it can't have any consequences. The characters involved can't ever mention this story again, even though it was nearly the end of all life in the galaxy. That's the highest stakes of any story in B5.

I've found it's actually not all that satisfying to learn that the biggest event ever happened off screen in between or before the stories you've been watching, and you couldn't be told about it until later (because the writer hadn't thought of it yet). If it was filling in a gap in the narrative and explaining plot holes that'd be one thing, but this is wedged into a tightly plotted season so awkwardly that it's hard to even figure out where it can go. Star Trek: Discovery has had similar issues and I didn't like it much there either, but at least that did a better job of supporting a weak story with fantastic effects.

There's so much CGI in Thirdspace, roughly 22 and a half minutes of creepy Lovecraftian visions and epic space battles, and it's obvious they had a bit more time and money to spend on this one than the average episode. The trouble is that it relies on you being creeped out by the visions and swept away by the spectacle of the space battles, and mid-90s TV CGI has its limits! It can really enhance a good story like Severed Dreams or Into the Fire, but here it feels like it's meant to be the filling rather than the icing. I mean when you take away the spaceships and explosions, the epic finale is just a guy flying a jetpack in a straight line and setting an alarm clock when he gets there.

There's basically only the one plot here, but the movie follows five people: Sheridan, Lyta, Zack, Ivanova and Dr Trent.

First I want to congratulate Zack on getting such a prominent role in a B5 movie. Even if his was a tragic tale of a man who picked the exact wrong moment to confess his love and then had to spend the rest of the story yelling orders and punching people. Franklin didn't get quite so much to do but he did eventually join in to help him with the punching, which was nice.

Ivanova also got to punch someone, but her story's all about how being in a spaceship makes her far smarter and more competent. When she's in the the Starfury at the start she pulls off a cunning trap and successfully salvages a million year old artefact lost in hyperspace (just two years ago that would've been considered impossible). But when she got back to the station she ignored all the reports of strange behaviour, she ignored Lyta's sleepwalking, she ignored her own dream, and she ignored Deuce mentioning her dream... until she was finally ready to say 'maybe the artefact is screwing with people'. And then she went and confronted Trent with her back turned to her. But once she was back in a spaceship all her choices were good ones again and she successfully saved the galaxy!

Trent's decisions were... less good, even before the mind control. I did like the actress though. Shari Belafonte nailed all the technical terms and exposition, and she played the antagonist role without being a moustache twirling villain, which is an issue B5 has sometimes.

Lyta's decisions were downright inexplicable, but then she was out of her mind. If she'd just listened to what her walls said or tapped into her Vorlon memories earlier she could've resolved this so much sooner! Instead she spent most of the story falling over. On the other hand, if she hadn't been on the station during this episode then all life in the galaxy would've died, so that's a lucky coincidence. I don't want to keep comparing this to Star Trek: Discovery, but how can I not when it's pulling the same crap!

And then there's Sheridan's story. I think he does a good job of remaining just on the right side of morality even though he drags a potentially dangerous artefact to his colony of 250,000 people and then allows IPX to poke around with it just because he loves mysteries. I mean the thing could've just as well been something useful like the Great Machine (which was entirely absent during this story), and like they said, it was researching an artefact like this that got them hyperspace. The trouble I have with Sheridan's role in the story is he doesn't really have to overcome a challenge or think of a plan, or make a decision, or deal with his own issues, or use the Force, or anything a hero generally has to do when resolving a story. You could change the ending so that they put a new battery inside that maintbot, strapped a time bomb to it and sent it into the artefact on autopilot, and all we'd really lose was that nice shot of the alien reflected in Sheridan's visor. The one that doesn't show up in still screencaps.

See, you can't see the alien at all! It only works when it's moving.

The theme of the story is hubris, but the moral Sheridan takes from it that sometimes you don't need to know the whole truth, which is a bit ironic coming from the guy who needed to know the whole truth in order to end the Shadow War and to stop this thirdspace crisis. Especially seeing as chronologically this comes right after The Illusion of Truth! Our heroes nearly ended the galaxy here because they stumbled upon a technology they didn't understand and just because they blew it up there's no guarantee someone else won't eventually invent this technology themselves. Those who don't learn from the mistakes that people didn't want them to know about are doomed to repeat them. But I feel like the story's not entirely on Sheridan's side for once, as it ends with Lyta's comment about all the other terrible mistakes that the Vorlons didn't think Sheridan should know about, still waiting for them out there in the galaxy.

And the true moral of the story is the same as many sci-fi stories before it: don't take a shortcut through Hell.

Anyway I'd give this around 6 out of 9, maybe. I found it watchable enough, though I imagine it works better as a horror story if you're into Lovecraftian lore, or just horror stories in general. Plus I found it hard to be impressed by these one-dimensional Old Ones that are even more dangerous and unknowable than the First Ones! It's all been done before and it's been done better. In fact I hate to say it, but I think Star Trek: Voyager handled this better in Scorpion a few months earlier. But I did like all the little jokey conversations that the regulars had with each other about murdering IPX guys, or whatever. The movie shines when it's about B5 people saying B5 lines and I got enough of that to feel satisfied by the end.

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COMING SOON

Here's a fun fact for you: I actually watched Thirdspace during season four, where it's supposed to go chronologically, so this was written back in July 2020. It didn't fit so great so I figured I'd hold onto it and post it where it goes in airing order instead.

Babylon 5 will return with episode 5-18 but next on Sci-Fi Adventures I'll be writing about the second part of the first half of Star Trek: Prodigy's first season!