EpDis: And Now For A Word

[Looney]

Torqueman is raising a totally natural objection to Delenn's transformation. (She's doing it in an incredibly passive-aggressive, brutal, and un-journalistic way, of course, but her point still stands.) And Delenn realizes Torqueman has a point, an angle she never even considered -- an angle which could ruin her entire mission in going through the chrysalis.

Yes I think it is brilliant. I just don't like seeing Delenn rattled, but there is a realism to it.

And I just now realized this: when Sebastian asks Delenn if she's ever considered that she might be wrong, and she says yes -- this scene is one of those times.

Yep you hit that one right on the head!!!!! :thumbsup:

 

[Karajorma]

Good point. I've never considered that but yeah, Delenn would have seen that as a point at which she may believe she was wrong.





@Looney, it's not just that the Minbari don't have press, they don't even dissent in that way much within the Grey Council. Delenn has probably had very few people talk to her in such a fashion in over 12 years, if ever.

 

[Looney]

@Looney, it's not just that the Minbari don't have press, they don't even dissent in that way much within the Grey Council. Delenn has probably had very few people talk to her in such a fashion in over 12 years, if ever.

Very true. The Council polices itself. A very dangerous way to run a government, but at least it isn't as dangerous as one individual making all of the decisions.

 

[KoshFan]

Considering how the Grey Council talk to each other sometimes, I expect Delenn has been talked to that way before. Remember, she got savaged by Neroon in "All Alone in the Night." And heck, the one she was talking to in "In the Beginning" (when she picked out Sinclair's fighter) wasn't exactly polite.

But there's a difference between getting chewed out by people she's known for years and disagrees with strongly (Neroon) and someone who ostensibly is just there to ask some questions and then ambushes you from nowhere.

 

[Jan]

It's worth noting that Delenn has been called a 'freak' by both Humans (GROPOS) and Minbari recently and her change is still new. It can't be easy for her to realize that she's not being accepted by either Humans or Minbari and they seem to hate her for what she did. She literally sacrificed all she was and it's not going as she expected.

 

[Looney]

She literally sacrificed all she was and it's not going as she expected.

Very true. And having cameras on her while that point is being forced on her would create a very uncomfortable situation.

 

[Karajorma]

Considering how the Grey Council talk to each other sometimes, I expect Delenn has been talked to that way before. Remember, she got savaged by Neroon in "All Alone in the Night." And heck, the one she was talking to in "In the Beginning" (when she picked out Sinclair's fighter) wasn't exactly polite.

But there's a difference between getting chewed out by people she's known for years and disagrees with strongly (Neroon) and someone who ostensibly is just there to ask some questions and then ambushes you from nowhere.

Yep, that's my point. Neroon would have just come straight at her. The reporter comes at her in a very passive-aggressive way that I suspect is somewhat new to her. She acted like she was just going to ask Delenn soft, easy questions that she could answer easily (like what does Minbar look like) and then suddenly asked her a question which was an attack on multiple levels.



A human politician would be used to this sort of thing. But I doubt anyone ever talks to someone on the Grey Council that way. The Minbari government isn't a democracy where anyone feels the need to try to turn the public against you with this sort of question.

 

[Lennier's Tears]

Well, I certainly don't hate this episode. I also don't hate Eduardo Delvientos I am pleased he reappears here, because I like it when shows reuse characters like that. It makes the world feel more real.

The weird format where the whole episode is contained in an in-universe TV show doesn't detract from the actual content, I feel. The episode has both main arc stuff and character stuff, which is always a mix I like. I love how the various characters' personalities shine through when they're being interviewed on camera, especially the Earthforce personnel. Sheridan is such a talker, he's always speechifying, and he gets pretty animated. Ivanova is all business and refuses to get personal in any way. Garibaldi worries on camera about keeping his job if he talks about things on camera. The only thing that maybe detracts a little is that this camera crew is all up in everyone's business and apparently everyone is OK with this? The parts where they're in medlab in the middle of a huge crisis trying to interview people as they're trying to save lives, and when they're in C&C during a sensitive investigation.

People in the background acting like people in the background during a live broadcast are pretty funny. Also Corwin being interviewed with Ivanova hovering over him. Haha. I'm sure that's not at all a funny situation in real life, having to watch what you say because your supervisor will have your hide if you don't, but, you know, it's funny here

Main arc stuff includes not just the obvious Narn - Centauri war, but also "smaller" stuff, like Senator Quantrell representing certain factions on Earth. Little snippets of background information about Clark's rising popularity due to his focus on "the needs of Earth." Some people don't think Babylon 5 is all that useful 14 years (14 years is what they say on this episode, but shouldn't it be 12?) after the end of the Minbari war, and those resources would be better spent on Earth. I wrote a whole post somewhere else on this forum some time ago about how differently I view Babylon 5 after all this time, not just because TV has changed, but because I am older. One major thing that I couldn't appreciate when it was the 90s and I was in my teens, is what those "ten years after the Earth - Minbari war" would have meant to the characters. When I was a teenager, ten years seemed like a really long time. Now it seems like no time at all, and I much better understand how traumatized everyone must still be, and how difficult this whole subject must be for them. Anyway, it's interesting that we see people making these bold claims about how much more advanced Earth's technology is now, and how the war surely would go differently if it were to happen now. This is not the first time we have heard characters say that. I love how we get all this background stuff about what is going on back on Earth a little bit at a time throughout various episodes.

[Minor spoilers for general sort of storyline stuff from later seasons in this paragraph].
Cynthia Torqueman, while discussing the various opinions on Babylon 5's usefulness, says "growth only comes through pain and struggle." That of course is an opinion lots of people have had throughout human history without any Shadow interference, but, who exactly has she been consulting with, eh?


The Delenn interview makes me very uncomfortable. On the one hand I feel like "HOW did she not see that question coming?" but on the other hand, she clearly doesn't know humans well enough yet, and she has been struggling with her change, so it does make sense. It really is painful to watch. I like how she talks about Minbar with such love, though.

Some minor things:

• Sheridan says "armchair quarterbacking" several times. The character is American, but would people back on Earth know what he is talking about? I mean the ones outside the US I can't remember now, but I probably didn't know what a quarterback was when I first watched B5.
• Cynthia Torqueman says "roughly" a lot, and then G'Kar says it when he is interviewed by her.
• That Psi Corps ad ... It's kind of funny, with all we know about Psi Corps, and that subliminal message and all, but how realistic is this? I guess it isn't so much an ad as a PSA, but how long has Psi Corps existed at this point? Do they really need to advertise? Doesn't everyone know what happens to telepaths?
• "No one else would ever build a place like this." It's that thing where sci fi shows position humans as somehow unique among humanoid species. I have commented on this in other threads for sure, so pardon me repeating myself. I don't see what is so unique about humans in this universe.
• It's interesting that Cynthia Torqueman doesn't at all challenge the colonialist language when she interviews Londo and he talks about how the Centauri "civilized" the Narn.

I was going to do a little victory dance here, and have a small party, for having posted in ALL the episode discussion threads, but then I realized I forgot The Lost Tales. D'oh! Soooooon, though.

 

[Karajorma]

"No one else would ever build a place like this." It's that thing where sci fi shows position humans as somehow unique among humanoid species. I have commented on this in other threads for sure, so pardon me repeating myself. I don't see what is so unique about humans in this universe.

Really? This show is actually pretty good about showing off this point. Look at the main cast.

Garibaldi is shown as being good friends with Londo and then G'Kar. Vir even goes to Ivanova for advice on women. And Delenn does the same for hairdressing tips. Throughout the show we see the friendships between humans and aliens. Now look at the aliens. Name a single friendship between any of them in the first couple of seasons. The closest we have is a conversation between Vir and Lennier (who never show friendship again) and Londo being ordered to make friends and taking Lennier out.

And that's just the early seasons. As the show goes on we see more and more than the humans are exactly what Delenn said, the race that draws all the other races together.

It's one thing I love about B5. Humans aren't the most powerful, or the strongest or the smartest or really that special in any way except that we are hugely variable. Not only does that make sense in universe, it also explains why the other cultures are so monolithic.

 

[Lennier's Tears]

I feel like it's SAID a bunch of times, but not actually shown to be the case at all. Sure, all the things you say are true. We see human characters making friends with non-human characters. But, it's a human station, full of humans. Vir doesn't have many options for advice, and Delenn just turned half-human, so it makes sense for her to go to a human to ask about these things. And anyway, I feel like those are all individual actions by individual humans. Some humans are good at building communities, others, not so much (that would be me ).

Whenever we learn about any of the alien societies, or at least about the younger races, and particularly the more humanoid ones, and when we see their homeworlds, their cities, and communities, they seem extremely similar to human ones in all the important ways. Any story set in or involving such a community could have been set in some place/time on Earth. And I don't mean that as a storytelling criticism, that is totally normal sci fi storytelling. It just makes it hard to believe that humans are unique.

The League of Non-Aligned Worlds didn't need humans to be created, and if there hadn't been any humans in this universe, surely somebody else would have accidentally gone to war with the Minbari (or someone else) and after the war decided that maybe a diplomatic station would be a good idea to keep the peace. Which I guess doesn't take away the fact that in THIS reality the humans did bring together everyone, but I feel that's more due to coincidence than any human race particulars.

Also, the Vorlons and Minbari started the Conspiracy of Light before bringing in the humans (though of course you could argue that [spoilers for later storyline] all that was instigated by human action

 

[Karajorma]

I disagree. I don't think another race would have made that station. Hell, the other races had space travel for hundreds or even thousands of years, if you're right, B5 should already have existed in the form of someone else's station with humans simply one delegate amongst many.

 

[Looney]

Some notes:

-Did the League of Non-Aligned Worlds exist prior to B5? My impression was that it was a result of the formation of B5.

-The impression I got from IN THE BEGINNING was that those races with the ability to travel in space somehow knew to leave the Minbari alone. Clearly other races were interacting with each other before humans entered the mix. The question is would any of them bothered to have the idea for B5?

-I think a key phrase to remember is "commerce and diplomacy." Perhaps before humans came up with the idea for B5 the other races were limited to talking to each other when it came to commerce and the diplomacy of territorial disputes, but not overall governing policies.

-And don't forget there is also that little argument with regard to humans needing to an idea like B5 to create stability enough for them to rebuild their forces after the war.

And just to keep things on track. This is one of my favorite episodes and I think it is a brilliant concept, but I've said that before.