Cool stuff throughout the show

[GKarsEye]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

yea who's the man in between? bester?

Season 3 finale, "Z'ha'dum," Justin tells us pretty much straight up that it's him.

and i didn't make the connection that the hardware in the telepaths were put in by those same aliens that kidnapped john.

They were not. Assuming that by Sheridan's kidnapping you're referring to the episode where he was forced to fight the Narn with the sword, those aliens were the Streib. Delenn tells us at the end of that ep. They are not involved w/ the Shadows, just general agitators that try to pick on vulnerable races and individuals.
The aliens that operated on the telepaths were Shadow servants.

"The hand" refers to the fact that Sheridan is the principle actor on the side of the "Army of Light." As (I believe it was Justin) who explains that just as there are two equal and opposite hands, Sheridan and Justin are the equal and opposite of their respective sides.

The imagery of a hand was initially used by Elric to describe Londo's then growing role in galactic events, and is visually show to us as part of the montage about Londo's bio that G'Kar saw when he used dust to invade his mind.

Crows are a symbol of death in many Western cultures. Doves are a symbol of death in Eastern cultures. Both were also used by Noah to test the climate after the flood to see if it was safe to disembark. The raven was sent first- it failed to return. The dove returned with an olive branch, telling Noah it was safe. Consequently, in western culture, doves and olive branches are symbols of peace (note the opposite of the dove's connotation between cultures.
The birds are in the dream for general symbolism and creepiness (like Ivanova's veil).

Sheridan wearing the Psi Cop uniform does indeed foreshadow the his working w/ Bester, as Ivanova said.

 

[KoshFan]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

Season 3 finale, "Z'ha'dum," Justin tells us pretty much straight up that it's him.

But JMS lately posted something, I think, which talked about how Lorien and Sheridan himself could also be "the man in between," and that the image of a grim Sheridan isn't so much a reputation of Sheridan's opposite as a representation of what he'll become on the other side of death.

 

[Sindatur]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

yea who's the man in between? bester?

Sheridan goes to see the man in between

Spoiler for :

at Zha'ha'dum

 

[GKarsEye]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

But JMS lately posted something, I think, which talked about how Lorien and Sheridan himself could also be "the man in between," and that the image of a grim Sheridan isn't so much a reputation of Sheridan's opposite as a representation of what he'll become on the other side of death.

Dude.. re-watch that scene with Justin and Sheridan (I just did, coincidentally). It actually made me laugh out loud how much the script is hitting the viewer over the head with the dream reference.

"I'm a sort of middle-man, you could say" and "just like you have two equal and opposite hands" etc. It's a wonder he didn't just say "hey, John, remember that funky dream you once had in that episode when you fought the Narn?"

 

[vacantlook]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

jms wrote in one of the scriptbooks about the "man in between" reference:

Garibaldi stating "The man in-between is looking for you": The meaning of this line resulted in heated debates among the Babylon 5 fan community, arguments that continue to this day. So part of me is tempted to let it go unexplained. But the larger part of me wants to annoy the hell out of the deconstructionists who say that authors never know what the heck it is they're really writing, so here goes.

Some have speculated that this refers to Justin, who meets Sheridan in "Z'ha'dum" and refers to himself as "a middle man." And I've since noted that in one sense, yes, the description fits. That was one of the things I considered when writing this scene, but not the only thing. Images and dreams have more than one meaning. Other fans have decided that the main in-between is Sinclair, or Kosh, or Morden, and those interpretations are as valid as anything else in terms of what each viewer takes away from the scene. Art, I think, is what happens in the distance between the observer and that which is observed. Interpretation is half the job. So if any of those options are what people wish to interpret, then for them that interpretation is valid.

But in terms of the author's original intent... what I meant and what I was thinking about when I wrote it... while there was the Justin aspect, which is the easiest to explain in a quick internet note or on a convention platform... the truth is that, knowing what was coming up in the story years down the road, for me the man in-between... is Sheridan himself.

Again... look at the scene. He's looking up at himself, both here and in "Sleeping in Light." Consider the following exchange between Lorien and Sheridan in "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"

LORIEN
If you did not hit bottom, then you are still falling, and all this is a dream.
(beat)
Unless... you're in-between.

SHERIDAN
Between what?

LORIEN
Between moments. When we are born, we are allocated a finite number of seconds. Each tick of the clock slices off a piece of us. Tick, a possibility for joy is gone; tock, a careless word ends one path, opens another. Tick, tock, tick, tock, always running out of time. Yours is almost used up. You're between seconds, lost in the infinite possiblities between tick and tock; tick, you're alive, tock... well, it was a good life, but a short one.

And then, from later in the same episode:

SHERIDAN
The others need me --

LORIEN
They need what you can be when you are no longer afraid. When you are no longer looking for reasons to live, but can simply be.

SHERIDAN
I can't.

LORIEN
Then I cannot help you, and you will be caught forever in-between. You must let go. Surrender yourself to death. The death of flesh, the death of fear. Step into the abyss and let go.

At the risk of being trite... the Sheridan that he is one day going to become is looking for him, waiting for him on the other side of his decisions.

Quantum physics tells us that time is primarily a matter of perception, that we actually exist simultaneously in the past, present and future. To someone who can step outside of human perception, such as Lorien, or Kosh, who transmits this dream to Sheridan just as he does to G'Kar later in "Dust to Dust," all those Sheridans are equally real at the same time. (Hence Kosh's comment, "You have always been here," and Lorien saying that Sheridan is "caught between seconds," caught in the subjective perception of time.) So what we have here is Sheridan looking at himself on the bridge, from his return from death in "The Summoning," looking at himself looking at himself in "Sleeping in Light."

We all look to the future, trying to see the person we will one day become.

We all look to the past, to the person who was and the decisions made that brought us to where we are today.

For Sheridan, those moments... are this moment, brought together.

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us... and our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between." (pages 52-54)

 

[Kara Baxter]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

ok, now i can see that its Justin...cus yea, he's kind of the in between dude..and they sent for john.

but, with the lorien/john dialog -where john is in between..it doesn't make sense that john is looking for himself.

and it can't really be lorien, cus he's not really a man.

and i can see the crows = death.

now back to the aliens who put the wires in the telepaths...bester's gf gave bester a mind blast - and in that vision - it was the same aliens that kidnapped john.

Its the ep where his gf is in the med lab full suspended in wires.

 

[fisheggs]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

Franklin went looking for himself. And found himself.

 

[GKarsEye]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

it was the same aliens that kidnapped john.

Its the ep where his gf is in the med lab full suspended in wires.

The only aliens that kidnapped John were the Streib in season 2.
The episode with Bester's gf is season 3. The two aliens are not the same, trust me.

The man in between stuff- well you can't blame someone for assuming that part of the dream was as literal as the rest. All the other parts had a 1:1 correlation between something someone said and something that later happened. Except this one thing that can be interpreted in every way. Whatever. It's cool- I dig dream logic stuff. I am, after all, a David Lynch fan. Now that guy knows how to do it right- nothing has any explanation!

 

[vacantlook]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

The only aliens that kidnapped John were the Streib in season 2.
The episode with Bester's gf is season 3. The two aliens are not the same, trust me.

It's amazing how many different alien species have that similar look. There's the Streib that captured Sheridan, as you say, and the ones that worked on the telepaths and on a certain someone in season 5, and then there were the Vree, who we only saw once in court in a season one episode. I can't remember what it was, but I think the ones that worked on the telepaths are actually named in either the techno-mages or the Centauri novel trilogy.

 

[Elric]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

It's amazing how many different alien species have that similar look. There's the Streib that captured Sheridan, as you say, and the ones that worked on the telepaths and on a certain someone in season 5, and then there were the Vree, who we only saw once in court in a season one episode. I can't remember what it was, but I think the ones that worked on the telepaths are actually named in either the techno-mages or the Centauri novel trilogy.

The third species that have the "grey alien" appearance are called the Zener. They are servants of the Shadows who generally perform all the nasty squishy operations It is this race who implant the telepaths with the bio-tech on behalf of their masters.

 

[GKarsEye]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

a certain someone in season 5

I don't remember this reference. I will be watching season 5 though (once I get it back from my sister).

Is thread supposed to not have spoilers (given your phrasing)? 'Cause first ep of season 4 has a great call-back visual that I totally forgot about until my current viewing...

 

[Sindatur]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

I don't remember this reference. I will be watching season 5 though (once I get it back from my sister).

Is thread supposed to not have spoilers (given your phrasing)? 'Cause first ep of season 4 has a great call-back visual that I totally forgot about until my current viewing...

Technically, since the series is so old, one would think Spoilers wouldn't be an issue, but, I personally am trying to be careful about what I say in the current threads (or spoilering them) because we have recently had I believe 2 newbies join the board (of course not counting the new posters who have seen the series already), and since the thread references S1 in the title...

 

[vacantlook]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

I don't remember this reference. I will be watching season 5 though (once I get it back from my sister).

Is thread supposed to not have spoilers (given your phrasing)? 'Cause first ep of season 4 has a great call-back visual that I totally forgot about until my current viewing...

I wasn't exactly trying to avoid spoilers, but more that I figured you already knew and I thought I'd look like a dork for telling you something you already knew. But, since you don't remember...

In season 5, the same aliens that did the work on the telepaths are the ones who capture Londo and prep him prior to his receiving his Keeper.

 

[vacantlook]

Re: Cool stuff in season 1

And since this thread has, for a while now, had mentions of events outside of season one, I'm altering the thread's title to reflect that.

 

[Kara Baxter]

darn. and i thought i figured something out!

rats!

 

[GKarsEye]

VL, you give my memory too much credit. While re-watching the series now, I am stunned and embarrassed about how often I see something that I totally forgot. Maybe that's also why I can listen to the same damn record a billion times. I'm old.

Ok so to hell w/ spoilers, if a newb wants a spoiler-free thread they'll say so...

Anyway the cool visual throw-back I saw recently was in the 1st ep of season 4 when Sheridan is stumbling around Lorien's cave and drops his stat bar. Beauty in the dark...

This one is kind of outside the scope of this thread but I watched Thirdspace last night on my 50" plasma. I liked the movie well enough before but the visuals totally kicked ass. Also the IPX lady is probably Harry Belafonte's daughter (same last name, similar features).

 

[Sindatur]

Also the IPX lady is probably Harry Belafonte's daughter (same last name, similar features).

Absolutely correct

 

[Kara Baxter]

ok, so let me get this straight, the aliens that kidnapped john are not the same ones who implanted the telepaths? they looked the same..

ok more memory lapse...wasn't there an ep on Centari Prime - where there were aliens - and someone was strapped down to a table and they were going to get something horrid done to him?

are those the same aliens? they weren't the drauk.

 

[Sindatur]

ok, so let me get this straight, the aliens that kidnapped john are not the same ones who implanted the telepaths? they looked the same..

ok more memory lapse...wasn't there an ep on Centari Prime - where there were aliens - and someone was strapped down to a table and they were going to get something horrid done to him?

are those the same aliens? they weren't the drauk.

That was what VL recently mentioned to GKE, Londo was the one being tested or whatever for Keeper implantation. Different aliens, check back a few posts

 

[Kara Baxter]

Ok so many aliens...so little time...