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B5 Episodes You Prefer To Skip?

Episode of Babylon 5 that I hate beyond words is Believers.It is a great episode, but I despise it. Dr Franklin operated on the child against thir parents wish and because of their beliefs that the surgery would cause the boys soul to escape. They were going around to the ambassadors trying to stop the surgery and when they failed, they killed their own child after the doctor saved him. I just cannot watch this one. :(
 
I actually like Believers. Similar things have happened in my family twice, so I don't get how many people claim that it is not plausible.
 
I don't have an issue with the plausibility of this one. Ive seen to many tragic examples in the news of parents not taking their kids to the doctors because of their beliefs. With equally tragic results.
 
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I also like "Believers".It's not excellent but there are some very touching moments especially the end of the episode.Let's not forget one of the best lines spoken by Kosh:

"The avalanche has already started.It is too late for the pebbles to vote."

I'm wondering why Delenn didn't support the parents.She is a very religious person so it's expected from her to respect other religions.We see her fascinated by the man looking for the Holy Grail even if everyone else thought that he was insane.Why didn't she help the parents of the boy.
 
She said so in the episode, Minbari do not interfere in matters of the soul, and that is what this was.
 
Knowing what the parents were about and what they were planning, How could she in good conscience support them? Their actions are going to result in the death of a child, their own, how does one even respect that kind mentality, because I simply cannot.
 
It's a religious matter to her, she can not get involved because it is her religious belief that you should not interfere with the soul in any way. Also, she has no idea what the parents are going to do, because she doesn't know that Franklin will perform the surgery against the wishes of both the parents, the child, and Sinclair. That type of insubordination is a foreign concept to the Minbari, where you do what you are told and don't ask questions.
 
Sorry Cell this is perhaps the wrong Topic for me to be in. I don't look at things quite that way. doing things for the sake of beliefs that lead to the death of a child to me, smacks of lunacy. You are right Dellen probably had no idea what the parents were doing. But I agree with Jade Jaguar the episode should have ended with parents on trial for murder.
 
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I don't think the issue is that simple. Yes, they should have ended up on trial for murder, but then Franklin should have ended up in jail for what he did as well. Religious beliefs are considered sacred for a reason, and yet Franklin went against those beliefs and merely had to face a slap on the wrist or his actions.
 
Garovorkin said:
Sorry Cell this is perhaps the wrong Topic for me to be in. I don't look at things quite that way. doing things for the sake of beliefs that lead to the death of a child to me, smacks of lunacy.
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There was a rather in-depth discussion on this episode a few times over on this board, and on JMS news when it aired. Obviously, you are of the school of thought that Dr Franklin was. But the thing about this episode is that there IS no right answer. The only one who really made the "right" call was Sinclair in supporting the neutrality of the station.

JMS himself said the following about the conflict in this episode: Unless it can be scientifically proven that the soul of the child of this species did NOT pour out of his body when Franklin cut him with the knife, then who is to really say who is wrong and who is right?

That is pretty much it. This is a science fiction show, and no one can know for certain that the parents were not correct.

Back to the topic, while it is an episode that some obviously skip, one that inspires this kind of debate to me makes it a good quality episode. I put this up there as one a lot of people don't care for...but is one of the better sleeper episodes of the series.
 
Again this is wrong topic for me to argue. I just can't really be that objective here, nor do i have a definitive answer either
 
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FWIW, it'll be interesting to see what David Gerrold has to say about the episode in the upcoming script book.

Jan
 
Upcoming script book? I thought they just released the final ones? (though Vol 15) Is there another?
 
Recoil said:
Upcoming script book? I thought they just released the final ones? (though Vol 15) Is there another?
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Babylon 5: Other Voices Volume 1 is due to be released shortly with scripts by Larry DiTillio, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Christy Marx and Marc Scott Zicree.

Jan
 
They've released all the jms scripts. Now, they're going to release (three, I think) books of scripts written by people other than jms. These new books are subtitled "Other Voices". Coming up in volume 1 are scripts by: Larry DiTillio, DC Fontana, David Gerrold, Christy Marx, and Marc Scott Zicree.
 
Jan said:
Babylon 5: Other Voices Volume 1 is due to be released shortly with scripts by Larry DiTillio, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Christy Marx and Marc Scott Zicree.

Jan
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Damn it woman! We've posted simultaneously again! :thumbsup: :devil:
 
I usually try to avoid the episodes written by Larry DiTillo. His episodes didn't seem to work well with me on a character-level, plot-level or idea-level. They felt very much like ho-hum episodes that wouldn't be out of place in the episodic 80s television paradigm. Babylon 5 was striving for a new model and DiTillo wasn't a good fit.

However, I have enjoyed his cartoon work especially the He-Man and She-Ra movie, Power of the Sword.
 
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