Yora reviews Babylon 5

[Kantaki]

Then why was one of those family members trying to kill Vir? The only explanation for that bit is that he thought his relative had actually been put to death by Vir.

Narn have a very odd way of saying thank you?
Or maybe they're acting.

More seriously, he might not know because he's off-world.
A operation like that must remain secret or it fails.
So the only ones who get to know- if at all -are family and (maybe) friends on the homeworld to minimize the risk of the Centauri finding out.

[Yora]

Then why was one of those family members trying to kill Vir? The only explanation for that bit is that he thought his relative had actually been put to death by Vir.

He wasn't. They were after the Nazi bride and Vir just happened to be with her during the first attacked and trying to protect her.
The second assassin went straight after her while Vir wasn't even there.

[tomandtish]

Another show that has recently come to my attention is The Expanse, which apparently just got another season or so. I have never seen this one, or really know anything about it, other than it uses realistic movement physics for spacecrafts, Earthlings have some kind of cold war with the Martians or something, at that at some point an alien virus shows up. That's really all I know. I've heard it's very popular though, and I got the impression that it isn't misery porn like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones.
Season 1 to 3 seem to be pretty easy to get on DVD for very affordable prices, so that certainly would be an option. 36 episodes also seem enough material to make it worth the trouble.


I also don't think I want to do Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched the whole thing when it originally ran but I always felt that it's something that probably aged very poorly, and I remember it having plenty of teenage drama that I just don't much tollerance for anymore.
And I won't be doing X-Files. I gave that one a shot a few years back and it got very quickly clear that the main story made no sense and had zero continuity. That also rules out Lost.

Buffy still holds up well in my opinion, because for the most part the teenage drama isn't a huge part of the show, unlike the CW superhero shows (which makes it worse by the fact they aren't teenagers).

If you have Amazon Prime, the first three seasons of The Expanse are included free.

If you have access to it, I might suggest doing Crusade instead of season 5. It's not as bad as people may make it sound, and has some interesting moments, although my main impression is that any episode with Galen in it is at least okay, while the ones without him in it are at BEST okay.

The biggest problem with Crusade is determining what order you are going to watch them in. There's a good summation of the advantages/disadvantages of any particular order here, but because of extensive network meddling, there's no really great viewing order.

Incidentally, you can get Season 1 of Crusade on Vudu or Amazon for $25.

He wasn't. They were after the Nazi bride and Vir just happened to be with her during the first attacked and trying to protect her.
The second assassin went straight after her while Vir wasn't even there.

Yeah, Yora hits the nail on the head. Everyone THOUGHT they were going after Vir, especially once they found his paper trail of "executed Narns". But she's the target to begin with. And note that even by the end, NO ONE other than Vir knows she was the target. There's no indication Vir told anyone what was really happening.

[Yora]

S3E13: A Late Arrival from Avalon

The Earth Alliance Mail Service is still delivering packages to the revolting colonies, but shipping fees are greatly raised up. Garibaldi refuses to pay three times the normal fee for his package, but is absolutely determined to still get his shipment of cooking ingredients. He tries to bribe the mailman by offering him some fresh peperoni, but the guy would rather die than break mail service regulations.

On a passenger ship arriving at the station, Micheal York is having nightmares about getting lost in spooky starship corridors.He opens doors and is confronted by thunder and lightning which makes him run away in panic. He comes to a dead end where he finds a sword floating in the air and grabs it.

Franklin is treating sick homeless in Brown Sector and praises Marcus for having recognized the early symptoms and calling him before it spreads widely.
"I used to think it's awful that life is so unfair. But wouldn't be it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve it?"

Michael York is stopped at the arrivals area because the scanners detected a weapon, and he pulls out a sword, shouting he is King Arthur, and that he will not have Excalibur taken from him. Franklin and Marcus just happen to hear it and Marcus tells the security officers to step back and let him handle this. He plays along, greeting him as his king, and offering to take him to meet with the other knights. But Arthur (let's call him that) doesn't like being made fun of, since he knows they are all long dead and he has been gone for 2000 years. Marcus manages to convince him to come with him and Franklin to medlab, since it is their duty to ensure the good health of important visitors.

While Franklin examines him, another doctor goes to check his identity, but they can't find anything about him before he departed the passenger ship. Arthur knows that Franklin does not believe he is who he claims he is, and demands that Franklin speak openly with him, and Franklin wants to know how he got here. Arthur says the last thing he remembers how he was mortally wounded in battle and taken to Avalon, where he would heal and sleep until the time when he is most needed again.

Sherridan and Garibaldi are both in agreement with Franklin that the man is delusional, but Marcus reminds them that they know the Vorlons have been to Earth and taken people with them to serve them later. But Franklin is quite certain that his speech and behavior is of a man from their own time.

Arthur skips out from medlab and sneaks away into Brown Sector. He finds an old woman who has been robbed by thugs and vows to find them and return her things. When he catches them while they are robbing another man, G'Kar happens to be around the corner talking with smuggler and goes looking for the noise. Arthur manges to defeat them with his sword, but more come running to fight him, and so G'Kar decides to join him in the fight against the thugs.

Security hears about it and Garibaldi goes searching for him, reasonably concerned about a delusional man with a sword picking fights in Brown Sector.

After they defeated their enemies they return the old woman's things to her and G'Kar takes Arthur to a bar to drink and share stories of their deeds. To thank G'Kar for his aid and recognizing his fight against evil, Arthur decides to make him a knight, which G'Kar gratefully accepts.

At night, Garibaldi breaks into the post office to get his package. The security guy who comes with him says he will go to great length to help him, but messing with the post office is really taking it too far. They are caught by the mailman who is guarding his warehouse and tells Garibaldi the cost for the lock will be added to the shipping fee.

Arthur tells G'Kar about his regrets that he caused the death of all his knights. They were having peace negotiations with his brother's army, and one of the enemy soldiers saw a snake and drew his sword. Arthur has told his man to stay back and let him speak with the enemies, but attack them as soon as one of them draws a sword. Before he could stop them, a fight had broken out and all of them were killed.
Marcus finds them and tells Arthur that security is looking for him and they should go talk with them and make things right. G'Kar loudly and drunkenly proclaims that he will vouch for Arthur's character and that he did nothing wrong. Arthur agrees, but G'Kar is too drunk to walk.

Sherridan and Ivanova are meeting with the ambassadors of the minor powers to remind them that Babylon 5 is still an important place for trade in the area and accepted neutral territory where all the species can come together to negotiate and perhaps find diplomatic solutions for the many small wars they are now having with each other. But since they are now cut off from any support and funding from the Earth Alliance, they require contributions from all their governments to keep the station running and to defend it against attacks.

Marcus goes to Franklin in medlab to let him know Arthur has been found and security has decided to let him go free. Franklin has been checking the EarthForce medical records to compare his DNA and discovered that he was a soldier and where he served. Marcus looks at the file and tells Franklin they must not show this to Arthur as it would devastate him. Franklin believes that it is important for the man to remember his past to recover his sanity. Marcus thinks him believing to be King Arthur will be much better than having him live with the truth.

Meanwhile Arthur is still having nightmares, but instead of seeing a storm through one of the doors, he sees a battle with Minbari warships.

Franklin goes to see him in the morning and Arthur tells him that he still has awful dreams. Franklin shows him his service file. He is one of the few survivors of the Minbari attack on Earth where 99% of all human soldiers were killed. He also was a gunner on the first human ship that encountered the Minbari. The Minbari gave their ship a warriors greeting by showing all their weapons (S1E17: Legacies), and the captain assumed they were attacking and ordered to fire.
Arthur denies that it was him and that it wasn't a ship battle he was fighting. Franklin says he had mental problems after the incident, but with the war going so badly they didn't turn anyone away who volunteered to fight in the battle for Earth. He starts to remember things but keeps insisting that he is Arthur and has to return the sword to the Lady of the Lake to ask for forgiveness and then falls into total shock.

Ivanova tells Sherridan that enough of the ambassadors have agreed to help funding the station to keep it in operation.

Franklin takes Arthur (I'll still call him that) to medlab, where is isn't responding to anything happening around him. Franklin kind of apologizes to Marcus, admitting that he never can stop himself from thinking he knows how to fix everything. Marcus is wondering why he came to the station, as he must have had a reason to do and probably wouldn't show up there on accident. Franklin says its exactly the same day that the war with the Minbari was started. They wonder why he might be so obsessed with his sword and Marcus said the story was that Arthur could not go to Avalon to be healed before his last knight returned the sword to the Lady of the Lake. Probably he came to the station to do something he thought he needed to do before he can recover.
So they call Delenn to come down and tell him his quest is completed.

Garibaldi goes to the post office to pay the 100 credits shipping fee for his package, and the mailman pranks him with a broken and slightly burned box before getting the actual package. Before he leaves, he lets the mailman know that the Earth Alliance is no longer paying the rent for the post office. But he's going to forget about it for a bribe of 101 credits.

Franklin and G'Kar take the veteran to a transport, as G'Kar has offered him a position to help rebuild the Narn military.

--

Screw it! I don't care what everyone says. I still like this episode.

Sure, it's not one of the best. And yes, it is a bit cheesy. But people get upset when I say that Trials and Tribbleations is a terrible Star Trek episode, so that's no valid argument against it.

I like Michael York in everything he has done. This clearly is not his greatest role, but he's always fun. Even if fun isn't the right word for much of this episode.

Marcus and G'Kar being big fans of Arthur is also great, even though they have very different reasons. Marcus seems to be more concerned with letting a man have his delusions if they give him comfort, while G'Kar probably isn't even aware that there is something strange with the man. Some of his best friends walk around with armor and a sword every day. He just sees a brave man fighting against evil, which is all that matters to him.
And I actually quite like Franklin here. He's working opposite and against Marcus this episode, but he's much more reasonable and less hard-headed than he was in similar situations in the past. I wouldn't say I enjoy him in this episode, but he's not annoying me, which is pretty good for this character.

Spoiler: Delenn

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It's interesting that Delenn is not just some random Minbari he had an opportunity to visit. She actually said in S3E10: Severed Dream that she was with Dukhat when he died, but I am not sure if it has been established that he died in the first encounter with the humans. I am pretty sure Arthur could not possibly have known that, but it greatly impacts the significance of going to her to atone.

I think there is also a subtext thing going on, with the writers letting slip that all good stories are really the same basic ideas interpreted in different ways and contexts. And there really isn't anything being wrong with that.

[Kantaki]

Wait. People consider this one a bad episode?
Just shows you can't argue about taste I guess…

At least it didn't have King Arthur being a random (Energy) Alien.

Although I always wondered, Is "Arthurs" delusional?
I mean, yeah, obviously he ain't the true king of England, but considering souls seem to exist and- if we can trust the Minbari -so does reincarnation maybe his delusions are influenced by a past life.
Seeing that that would make G'Kar a actual Knight of the Round Table- which is kinda amusing -I'm gonna keep that as head-canon.

[Rodin]

I really disliked this one the first time I saw it. Maybe even the first couple times I saw it. I'm still not a huge fan of the Arthurian stuff. It feels out of place and I feel like they were reaching in a few places with this episode.

However, on re-watches I've come to appreciate the funnier stuff in the episode. G'Kar gets some great lines, and Garibaldi's war with the postmaster is hilarious. It's one of the weaker filler episodes, but I give it a pass.

[Grey Watcher]

Yeah, Yora hits the nail on the head. Everyone THOUGHT they were going after Vir, especially once they found his paper trail of "executed Narns". But she's the target to begin with. And note that even by the end, NO ONE other than Vir knows she was the target. There's no indication Vir told anyone what was really happening.

Is Vir's name even on any of the paperwork? Or is it all in Abrahaml Lincolni's name? They only connect it back to Vir because they recognized it as a mangled name from human history.

[GrayDeath]

Honestly hated this at first watching. It simply didnt fit what I back then saw as Babylon 5s tone (like the stupid Boxer Episode in Season 1).

But after having seen the whole series, some signs in this episode could be seen quite differently indeed, which together with the funny stuff make it wquite good.

Also, try doing Garibaldis recipe, trust me, its delicious. ^^

[Yora]

At the start of the episode, a considerable group of Narn are waiting for him in his rooms in the imperial palace. It's never shown what they are talking about, but he is directly coordinating with them in person.
He later mentions that he doesn't just get them across the border to then fend for themselves with nothing, but is arranging for people to pick them up and get them somewhere where they can stay and have their health checked. It sounda like a pretty big opperation and he already got over 2000 people out that way. There are probably a lot of Narn who know about him.

But I assume the Narn who were coming for the bride had no idea who he was. He was just some Centauri man who was with her when the first attacker found her.

[Grey Watcher]

S3E13: A Late Arrival from Avalon

Screw it! I don't care what everyone says. I still like this episode.

]

Who are you and what have you done with Yora?

Spoiler: Delenn

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It's interesting that Delenn is not just some random Minbari he had an opportunity to visit. She actually said in S3E10: Severed Dream that she was with Dukhat when he died, but I am not sure if it has been established that he died in the first encounter with the humans. I am pretty sure Arthur could not possibly have known that, but it greatly impacts the significance of going to her to atone.

Spoiler: Season 4 Delenn Stuff

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I think JMS had it in mind, certainly. Dukhat was mentioned briefly when Delenn was bullying the doorman to let her into the council chambers before she broke it. And way back in season 1, Frankllin asks what she was up to during the Earth-Minbari War and she just sort of coyly brushes it off with "perhaps another time." So I'm quite sure JMS had the whole thing entirely in mind pretty much from the beginning. Even if the rest of us had to wait until season 4 to get anything more than hints and glimpses.

Spoiler: Later this season

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Also, the stinger of "But who's Morgana le Fay?" is actually referencing Anna Sheridan.
I wanna say that's explicitly stated in the DVD commentaries somewhere.

[factotum]

If you have Amazon Prime, the first three seasons of The Expanse are included free.

Um, so is season 4? Not sure why you specified only the first three.

S3E13: A Late Arrival from Avalon

Screw it! I don't care what everyone says. I still like this episode.

...well, just going to have to disagree there, I've always found this episode awful on any of my B5 rewatches. I'll agree that Michael York is always worth watching, but the material he's been given here is cringeworthy at best.

[Yora]

I rated Equilibrium, A Simple Investigation, and Prodigal Daughter on DS9 as good, and those are really unpoplar. I also defended Playing God and Rivals as being not at all awful.
I can have fun with things nobody else does.

Though I do sense somewhat of a trend with episodes that I like even though they are unpopular. Though I am not quite sure what it is. Something about doing the right thing with certainty when the world isn't making sense and people tell you to trust them over your intuition?
Hm, very interesting. I have to look further into this. As someone who is dabbling in writing, this could be useful to explore. Though it might lead me to writing stories that are unpopular with most people.

[Grey Watcher]

I rated Equilibrium, A Simple Investigation, and Prodigal Daughter on DS9 as good, and those are really unpoplar. I also defended Playing God and Rivals as being not at all awful.
I can have fun with things nobody else does.

Though I do sense somewhat of a trend with episodes that I like even though they are unpopular. Though I am not quite sure what it is. Something about doing the right thing with certainty when the world isn't making sense and people tell you to trust them over your intuition?
Hm, very interesting. I have to look further into this. As someone who is dabbling in writing, this could be useful to explore. Though it might lead me to writing stories that are unpopular with most people.

For what it's worth, I've always enjoyed this episode myself, so not EVERYONE else hates it. I'm just surprised you liked it is all.

[Daimbert]

The biggest problem with Crusade is determining what order you are going to watch them in. There's a good summation of the advantages/disadvantages of any particular order here, but because of extensive network meddling, there's no really great viewing order.

I've only ever watched it in the DVD order, which is probably the original broadcast order. I don't think the complaints about it in the post are valid, and although it does leave some continuity errors they aren't big enough to bother at least me.

To be fair, though, I've read "The Passing of the Technomages" trilogy a few times and so the early technomage entries are more interesting to me than they might be to others. Also one of the JMS orders might do better at spreading out the technomage episodes, which are the best ones in my opinion.

[Yora]

Looking at lists of episode ratings, I think we're in for a wild ride. A dozen great ones almost end on end.

S3E14: Ship of Tears

Everyone's excited that the news are back on, but it becomes clear within seconds that this is now PropagandaTV, apologizing for the technical difficulties caused by foreign agents and terrorist preparing for a repelled alien invasion. The first news item is how the government eliminated all crime.
"Are people really gonna fall for this?"
"Why not? It worked before."

Sherridan is out training with one of the new X-Wings they got from a destroyed rebel ship. Unlike the old starfuries, these ones can also fly in atmosphere. He gets a call that an unknown damaged starfury has been detected. He goes to recover it and take it to the station, and the pilot turns out to be Bester from PsiCorps. Bester decided it would be best to come alone and unanounced and trust that Sherridan and Ivanova would not destroy his ship on sight and listen to what he wants.

G'Kar keeps pestering Ivanova about wanting to be allowed into their secret alliance he's been knowing about for a long time. Sherridan told him he would discuss it with the others and nothing has happened yet, while his Narn soldiers are already fighting for them. Ivanova promises to get to it.

Sherridan tells the other that Bester wants to warn them of something dangerous coming to the station. Ivanova thinks Bester plans to scan them. But Franklin wonders what for, since all their secrets are pretty much out in the open already. Sherridan talks to Ivanova in secret and asks her to be the one to welcome Bester, since with her own minor abilities she should be able to sense if he tries to scan her. If he does, they know he's lying to them about only wanting to help, and if he doesn't there's a good chance he won't be trying it with the others either. She's not looking forward to it, but sees the reasoning.

Talking with Bester turns out as unpleasantly as she expected, but he doesn't try to scan her. Bester tells her that the president isn't really holding the power on Earth and is being quite certain he's controlled by aliens, which he only knows as Shadows. And he thinks the officers on the station know more about them than he does.
Bester believes that the future belongs to human telepaths. Which the normals might disagree with but neither of them has any interest in a future that is ruled by the shadows, so it's in all their interest to oppose them.

Sherridan and Delenn are discussing letting G'Kar in on their secrets. Sherridan trusts G'Kar, since he was the first one who tried to warn everyone about the shadows. But he's concerned how G'Kar will react to learning that they knew the Shadows are supporting the Centauri and didn't act on it when the Narn were already getting attacked. Delenn decides that she's the one who's going to tell him, since for a long time she was the only one who knew about them with certainty and didn't tell anyone about it, and then told them not to share it with anyone else when she did.

Bester tells Sherridan that a ship from Earth is transporting very important supplies to the shadows, which they need to intercept and capture. Destroying the ship is not an option. Finding the ship in hyperspace would be extremely difficult, but very powerful telepaths can locate people in hyperspace over extremely long distances, so they need him to lead them to it.

Delenn tells G'Kar that the Minbari leaders knew about the shadows for a long time, and knew what it meant when he told them he discovered mysterious ancient aliens on Zahadum. But at that time they had no resources to fight them back, and Delenn believes if they had tried the Centauri and the Shadows would have conquered the Narn homeworld anyway, but simply killed everyone instead of enslaving them.
G'Kar is very upset about it, but reveals that he already knew most of it. And he also admits that there was nothing else that she could have done.

Sherridan, Ivanova, and Bester take the White Star to intercept the transport, which turns out to be escorted by six shadow fighter. They take the fighters out easily and grab the transport, but one of the big shadow ship arrives near them. To everyone's surprise, it suddenly turns around and leaves.
The transport turns out to carry humans in stasis pods with PsiCorps markings. The pilot of the transport appears to be an unknown alien who killed himself and mostly destroyed his body with some acid.

Sherridan is angry with Bester not telling him about the frozen telepaths, and Bester admits he didn't trust them to help him rescue PsiCorps members. They were marked as weapons supplied and Sherridan wants to know why.

Franklin wakes up a woman who immediately starts to panic and is sedated, and she turns out to have several implants on her head. He takes her identity tag to Bester, who identifies the code as marking her as an escaped rogue telepath who was recaptured. She also was rated as having very high powers. The last codes on the tag make him demand to see her immediately.

The woman has hallucinations about alien scientists working on her and then a shadow ship. She wakes up causes an incident that half destroys medlab. Garibaldi and Bester arrive with Franklin and find her connected to lots of wires she's been pulling out of the walls. She recognizes Bester and asks him to help her, but when she sees his PsiCorps badge she shots electricity at him. The woman keeps mumbling about a machine being in her mind and making her attack, and Franklin manages to approach and sedate her again. Bester tries to scan her and sees the same hallucinations.

Sherridan wants to know what's going on and Bester admits that the telepath is his girlfriend. She refused to obey to PsiCorp rules and disappeared four weeks ago. With all the clues combined, they figure out that the telepaths on the transport had been given implants to connect them to Shadow ships as control units. Bester says she's important enough to him that he will everything they ask of him that they need to help her.

Garibaldi is looking through G'Kar's book looking for clues about the Shadows and finds something about mind-walkers being destroyed. He calls Sherridan that they need to meet and he has important information.
He has G'Kar translate the page and it reveals that when the Shadows came to their homeworld, they first wiped out almost all the Narn telepaths, but in the end they were repelled by the last surviving ones. Garibaldi thinks the Shadows fear telepaths, and Ivanova assumes that this is why the Shadow ship did not attack the White Star when Bester was with them. Delenn suspects the Shadows have made a deal with PsiCorps to get human telepaths to control their ships, to allow them to fight back against telepathic attacks.
Ivanova gets a report that a shadow fleet is directly attacking the Brakiri.

--

Alright, this was pretty decent with good story development, but looked at by itself it's not an outstanding episode. I find it quite interesting that it doesn't really wrap up by the End. The telepath is still sedated and Bester is still on the station. Nothing got actually resolved yet. What we do have is clarifications about the connections between the Shadows, PsiCorp, and the Earth government that had been hinted it for the last one and a half seasons, and all the scattered clues getting connected.
Difficult to judge in hindsight when you already know the big picture and were always aware what the clues meant. For people seeing this episode for the first time, the reveals might be a much bigger deal.

In the first half of the episode I found Bester to be needlessly antagonistic. He really was not missing out on a single opportunity to insult everyone he was talking to and making them despise him. Nothing too bad, but it all seemed rather pointless, and I think he's too intelligent and calculating to not being able to help himself from doing it unintentionally.

In an earlier episode, might have been late season 2, we had a scene on Earth where both a PsiCop and Morden were in a meeting with EarthForce intelligence regarding worries that news of Shadow ship sightings would spread among the public. We know have confirmation that at least some in PsiCorps are making deals with the Shadows. And while EarthForce might not know who exactly Morden is representing or what the Shadows are, those people in PsiCorps know exactly what they are and supply them with disobedient telepaths.
However, even very high ranking PsiCops like Bester are not fully aware of who the Shadows are and what deal PsiCorps has with them. Not sure if that is really important, but I still find it interesting. At this point, PsiCorp probably isn't any closer connected to the shadows than Londo and Refa. They likely regard themselves as partners, and not as servants. Though Bester is seeing what kind of partners the Shadows are, just like Londo.

But perhaps most importantly, the Shadows have now switched towards all out offensives against minor powers instead of hidden sneak attacks to support other powers. As Ivanova says, this is a game changer.
I wonder if this is in any way a result of she Shadows losing the telepath shipment and being afraid the secret about their weakness is out?

[Grey Watcher]

S3E14: Ship of Tears

But perhaps most importantly, the Shadows have now switched towards all out offensives against minor powers instead of hidden sneak attacks to support other powers. As Ivanova says, this is a game changer.
I wonder if this is in any way a result of she Shadows losing the telepath shipment and being afraid the secret about their weakness is out?

Spoiler: Mid Season 4, I think

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This plot point has never made sense to me. We learn later that the Shadows aren't looking to conquer or destroy, they want to have everybody fighting each other so that they can claim their ideology is more popular (and therefore better) than that of the Vorlons. I've never understood what attacking openly gets them or how it helps achieve their goals. In fact, it seems pretty blatantly counterproductive, since it just gives people a common enemy to unite against. And it makes it harder to continue their shtick of trading their services for favors, since someone is less likely to accept a deal with you if you're shooting at them.

[Kantaki]

Spoiler: Mid Season 4, I think

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This plot point has never made sense to me. We learn later that the Shadows aren't looking to conquer or destroy, they want to have everybody fighting each other so that they can claim their ideology is more popular (and therefore better) than that of the Vorlons. I've never understood what attacking openly gets them or how it helps achieve their goals. In fact, it seems pretty blatantly counterproductive, since it just gives people a common enemy to unite against. And it makes it harder to continue their shtick of trading their services for favors, since someone is less likely to accept a deal with you if you're shooting at them.

Spoiler: Shadows

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Considering that they (Shadows and Vorlons) have been doing this for so long they basically forgot what the whole mess was about in the first place the Shadow shooting themselves in the knee isn't that surprising.

But considering they have already shown they can be directed acting less secretive might actually cause more conflict*.
Simply because evryone will suspect their rivals of being behind the attacks.

*And I just realized that Worm's Entities are a almost perfect embodiment of the Shadow's Philosophy in all it's glorious idiocy.

On Bester acting unneccessarily antagonistic, I guess it's the combination of being used to it and the stress of someone he cares about being in danger.
By the way, I love the irony of it. Bester always was this… embodiment of the psycorps and what it represents, so him being directly affected himself fells… deserved.
And let's be realistic, if not for his girlfriend he would care less about the whole thing.

[Grey Watcher]

Spoiler: Shadows

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Considering that they (Shadows and Vorlons) have been doing this for so long they basically forgot what the whole mess was about in the first place the Shadow shooting themselves in the knee isn't that surprising.

But considering they have already shown they can be directed acting less secretive might actually cause more conflict*.
Simply because evryone will suspect their rivals of being behind the attacks.

*And I just realized that Worm's Entities are a almost perfect embodiment of the Shadow's Philosophy in all it's glorious idiocy.

Spoiler: Still into mid-Season 4

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I dunno, I've always had the idea from Sheridan's visit to Z'ha'dum and what he tells his allies when he gets back as well as from his final speech at Coriana 6 the part that they'd forgotten was that all of this was supposed to be for the younger races' benefit. That what had gone wrong was that each had become so focused on getting rid of their allegedly-wrong-headed opposites that they were simply trying to get everyone onto their philosophy as thoroughly as possible, with no regard for the benefit or detriment to the younger races themselves. They're each trying to get the other to give up and concede the field (as Sheridan points out, they don't strike at each other directly). They're still telling themselves they're teaching the younger races, but the only things they're teaching are "how to resist the influence of the other guy."

It just feels off that they have enough of a tenuous connection to their original charter to use as a rationalization later, but here seem to have gone so far off the rails that they've dropped any pretense of helpful guidance. Even if they're only attack people who refused their advances, it still seems like it'd make more sense to use their allies as proxies. Don't beat up the Brakiri because no one among them would answer "What do you want?" Convince the Drazi or the Vree to do it.

I know that part of the whole point is that none of them are being particularly rational, but this move always felt out of step with the self-serving BS they've been selling themselves for the past few millennia.

[Xyril]

Spoiler: Mid Season 4, I think

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This plot point has never made sense to me. We learn later that the Shadows aren't looking to conquer or destroy, they want to have everybody fighting each other so that they can claim their ideology is more popular (and therefore better) than that of the Vorlons. I've never understood what attacking openly gets them or how it helps achieve their goals. In fact, it seems pretty blatantly counterproductive, since it just gives people a common enemy to unite against. And it makes it harder to continue their shtick of trading their services for favors, since someone is less likely to accept a deal with you if you're shooting at them.

Spoiler: No direct B5 spoilers, but implicitly acknowledges previously spoilered info

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Well, historically this kind of thing happens pretty often. You've got two or more sides that conspicuously represent different ideologies, and those beliefs actually seem pretty sincere at first, but as the conflict (which may or may not involve open war) drags on, it becomes easier to justify going against your own beliefs a few times if it helps you to ultimately defeat the other guys--which would mean spreading your beliefs unchecked. So those minor compromises become short-term investments that pay dividends in the long run.

Also if you look at real life, people don't always unite against a common enemy. When the Huns attacked the Visigoths and other barbarian tribes, they didn't unite against a common enemy. They fled because fighting and raiding the Roman Empire was apparently preferably than making a stand against the Huns, and this triggered a rather chaotic chain reaction.

[factotum]

What is might be is that the Shadows are finding the influence of the Vorlons to be too strong for their usual "get the younger races fighting each other" to work, so they're showing their hand directly more because of their hatred of the Vorlons than because it's a sensible move--they're maybe hoping to draw the Vorlons out? I dunno, there are a few things the Shadows do during the series that don't fit their stated aims all that well.

Regarding this episode, I think it has a fantastic exchange between Sheridan and Bester at the beginning:

Sheridan: Mr. Bester, we no longer have any ties to Earth or to the Psi Corps. So we don't have to put up with *you* or your games. Now, I am sitting on four brand new uni-directional pulse cannons. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow you out of the sky.
Bester: Because you're curious. Kill me and you'll never know what brought me all the way out here. I think if you weigh that against the brief satisfaction of blowing me out of the sky, you'll do the right thing.

[long pause]

Captain?

Sheridan: I'm thinking it over.

Also, there's the moment where Delenn reveals to G'Kar that she has known about the Shadows for a long time and never told him. He says something like, "If you'd told me this when the Centauri were bombing my homeworld, I would have killed you, you know that?". She asks if he can forgive her, and he answers, "Perhaps...but not today." Katsulas as always knocking it out of the park.

[Yora]

That scene somehow didn't work for me. Might be because I am already too familiar with Season 3 and 4 G'Kar who sees all the Narn as martyrs fighting to save everyone else. In that context Delenn has no reason to assume gets angry.
But I guess it's different when the new G'Kar is still new and mostly known as the violent guy from season 1 and 2.

Spoiler

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I don't see the Vorlons being very much involved at all at this point. They have some form of exchange with the Minbari, but that has been going on for a long time. Morden once ran into Kosh, but that was literally years ago. This season, Kosh barely has appeared at all.
I think the White Star has some Vorlon technology in it, and this episode a Shadow ship came near it and survived. But I doubt that made them decide to attack the Brakiri.

[Yora]

S3E15: Interludes and Examinations

With the start of the Shadow War things are getting more crowded and chaotic on the station and they have to hire more security guards without being able to do proper background checks. A corrupt guard lets Morden secretly get through security, and is then killed by the Shadows escort to hide his tracks.

Londo tells Vir to get a luxury suite for his dancing girl girlfriend (S1E3: Born to the Purple) who is coming to visit him.

Sherridan is meeting with the ambassadors of the the Brakiri and the Gaim to discuss the continuing attacks by the Shadows in their part of space. The Brakiri desperately need help from their neighbors, but the smaller worlds only want to risk sending their ships if the Gaim also join in. The Gaim want to stay out because so far the Shadows have not attacked them and are hoping they can stay off the radar. The allies of the Shadows have a very powerful supporter who can come to aid them when things get desperate, but Sherridan can't offer any assistance of that kind.

Franklin is loudly arguing with one of his doctors about how to properly treat an alien in critical condition because she thinks the procedure he is ordering will kill the patient and he isn't having on of that. Garibaldi arrives with a severely injured security officer causing further distraction and he's starting to snap. The alien almost dies and the other doctor tells him its because Franklin gave the wrong instructions, even though he now claims he said the correct number.

As Londo goes to see the rooms that Vir has rented, the lights in the corridor go out and Morden shows up to have a word with him about the Centauri no longer cooperating with the Shadows like they used to and ending some of the wars with their neighbors early. Morden and Londo had made a deal to split the galaxy between them, and for that to work the Centauri needs to continue fighting their common enemies.
Londo doesn't care and says he won't budge, because there's nothing that the Shadows can do to him that would be worse than the situation he's already in.

Garibaldi comes to Franklin's quarters to have a talk with him, but he says he's just getting ready to go work for another extra shift. Garibaldi tells him directly that this can't go on and wants to offer his help, but Franklin doesn't want to hear any of it and tells him to stay out of his business. Garibaldi leaves, but tells Franklin that he gave him an offer of help, but if he refuses he won't let him accidentally kill a patient because of it.

Sherridan tries to figure out the Shadows' strategy but their attacks appear to be completely at random. Delenn says that this is how they did it in the last war as well, and that it seems to be intended to make it impossible to properly prepare defenses. Sherridan wants to know what the Shadows even want to accomplish and Delenn has no answer for that. Getting the other powers to work together would be hard enough, but at the current state he doesn't really have anything to offer to them, since he never accomplished a real victory against the Shadows either.
Delenn tells him he will think of something to get a victory. Sherridan thinks she's starting to talk more and more like Kosh, which gives him the idea to go talking to him.

Garibaldi goes to talk with one of Franklin's assistants doctors to ask her to check Franklin's regular blood checks for irregularities. She says she can't do such a thing unofficially, so he just wants to know where the files are so he can get the proper authorization to get access.
Franklin notices that they have been talking.

Vir is doing errands for Londo to buy expensive flowers when he runs into Morden. Wisely he quickly leaves without telling Morden anything. Morden then goes to the man who is taking care of the flowers and other luxury things, claims to be one of Vir's helpers, and asks what things Vir has already ordered.

Garibaldi goes into Franklin's office to use his access codes to get his personal medical files. In the last moment he tells the computer to cancel the request, but Franklin already saw him doing it. He tries to apologize but also explains that he has to do something about the situation. Franklin says when he figured out Garibaldi was trying to get his blood reports, he went to check them himself to prove that his stimulant levels are perfectly safe, but found that they are really way too high and he was taking much more of the stuff than he thought. Garibaldi leaves it to Franklin to decide what he wants to do now.

Sherridan goes to talk with Kosh and asks him to have a Vorlon fleet attack the Shadows and show everyone that the Shadows can be beaten in battle. Kosh refuses, saying that this is not the time of the Vorlons and that they are not prepared yet, and it is up to the other races.
Sherridan isn't going to just let him leave like that and demands that Kosh do something to help them. He's been telling them things he wants them to do for years, but never explained anything or did anything himself. Kosh manages to look really pissed at Sherridan shouting at him, and when he tries to block his way, Kosh hits him with a psychic slap. Sherridan keeps insisting that he doesn't have any other way to survive this war and there is no other option than the Vorlons helping them. They don't have any more time to wait until the Vorlons decide on their own to get involved and countless people will die before of that. Sherridan will rather get killed by Kosh than letting him weasel out again. Kosh finally gives in and says he will help, but there will be a price to pay and he won't be there to help when Sherridan goes to Zahadum.
Sherridan says if Kosh does not want to help him then, he will just go by himself, but Kosh tells him he doesn't understand.

The Shadows attack another Brakiri world and a fleet of Vorlon ships comes from hyperspace to attack them. Ivanova brings the news to Sherridan and the ambassadors assembled in the war room.

Londo is totally excited and giddy to welcome his girlfriend, but he and Vir don't see her coming from her transport. They go trying to find her himself after everyone else has already left and only find a medical team unloading a corpse. They only know that she's a Centauri woman who was found dead in her cabin with no indication of what could have killed her. Londo tells them to check her for poison, as he assumed Refa was getting back at him for being threatened to be assassinated by poisoning.
Meanwhile Morden is paying off the last passenger who came from the transport.

With the Vorlons having helped winning a fight against the Shadows, the ambassadors are willing to sign up to an alliance with Sherridan. Morden breaks into Kosh's quarters with his Shadow guards and Sherridan has a dream of his father. The father tells him that he wants Sherridan to know that he was right, that what was done had to be done, and that he shouldn't blame himself for the consequences that followed. The Shadows attack Kosh and in the dream the father apologizes that it has taken him this long to take action and that he should have done and explained more before, but now it is too late for this. He tells Sherridan that for as long as Sherridan is here, he will also always be here. Sherridan wakes up and realizes that Kosh is dead.

The next morning, Garibaldi only has to report that they found Kosh's destroyed suit in his quarters but nothing else, with no sign of what happened to him. Sherridan and Delenn tell him to trust them that Kosh is dead. Delenn got a message from the Vorlons not to reveal any of this and that someone will come to replace Kosh. They also asked that the suit and everything from his quarters be put on Kosh's ship.

Londo got the autopsy report which does show that the woman was killed by poison. He asks Morden if he knows anything about this and Morden says he only knows that Refa was really pissed at Londo for threatening him with poison, but couldn't find out anything more because he broke off contact with the Shadows. Had he known about this, he would of course have prevented her death.
Londo says that everyone around him is dying, except for the people he wants dead the most. If Morden is up for it, Londo is willing to help him with whatever he wants to do, as long as he gets his revenge and Centauri civilization is safe.

Franklin talks with Sherridan to tell him he needs to quit his job because he's no longer able to do it properly with his addiction and first needs to find a way to manage dealing with his own problems.

When Kosh's ship is loaded, it automatically leaves the station and flies into the star.

--

Fantastic episode, one of the big highlights of the show.
At least that's what I rationally know it to be. Somehow it didn't actually wow me this time. Might just be my mind today, or the phase of the moon, or something like this. Objectively speaking, this is a really well done episode with nothing bad to say about.
I knew the Vorlons were going to fight and I knew what the consequences would be. I also knew that Londo's lady wouldn't arrive and what the consequences would be. If you already seen the show three times, these are things you remember very well. Because they are really critical moments in the whole show. It's been quite a long time since I last watched it, and so for many of the previous episodes so far I had just a general overall idea where everything would go, but it was still entertaining to see how things actually play out in action. This episode had nothing of that to me so it didn't quite get me excited.
Franklin and Garibaldi have very good scenes that could be regarded as quite impressive. If I just would care about Franklin.

In his last proper appearance, Kosh is fantastic. It always amazes me how through camera work and editing they managed to make a creature with no real face and basically no body movement look really pissed off without using its voice. It's just his one eye piece focusing and a slight tilt of the head. Nothing else. And he looks like he's seething. Fantastic work.

Though what I also noticed when I realized what episode this is, is that is seems we have not been seeing Kosh in ages. The last thing he did was talking to G'Kar in S3E6: Dust to Dust. In S3E4: Passing Through Gethsemane he was giving Lyta a ride, and at the very start of S3E1: Matters of Honor he had a conversation with Sherridan about he saved him at the end of season 2. And that was his entire involvement in season 3.
Which seems really weird to me.
While all the things were going on with the president taking over the world but all the colonies rebelling against him, Kosh obviously had no involvement in anything. But limiting him to playing a significant part in only two episode is really very little. In the second half of season 2 (the good half, remember how bad the first half was?) he appeared in almost every single episode.
I guess it kind of makes sense for Kosh staying low with the Vorlons wanting to stay out of the war. But this episode makes a huge deal of Kosh being killed as one of the really big moments of the whole story of the show, and when this episode first aired it had been over six months since viewers would have watched S2E11: The Fall of Night. I think from a storytelling perspective, he really should have had a much stronger presence to remind the audience of him being important and getting invested in him. Kosh has been a legend of 90s Sci-fi shows ever since and I am sure audiences loved him just as much during the original run of season 2. That he's basically absent from season 3 until his grand exit is just baffling.

Spoiler: Morden

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I actually never noticed before that this episode is (visually) telling us that Morden killed Londo's lady. It doesn't spell it out loud, and people might wonder "who's that guy he's paying", but it really doesn't make it hard to put the pieces together even if you don't recognize the face as the passenger that left the ship before Londo went to look for her.
On the one hand, it does reduce the impact of when Londo learns that Morden had her killed and lied about having anything to do with it.
On the other hand, Londo's story has always been a tragedy that relies heavily on the audience seeing perfectly clear what mistakes he is making. So I think knowing it was Morden works just as well.
But I am curious if this will affect how I view future interactions with Londo and Morden.

[GrayDeath]

Yep, one of the best.

as for

Spoiler: Morden

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That was so obvious to me the first time that I could hardoly wait forLondo to find it out. Especially since I liked Kosh a lot, and Morden had just killed HIM as well ^^

[factotum]

Sherridan tries to figure out the Shadows' strategy but their attacks appear to be completely at random. Delenn says that this is how they did it in the last war as well, and that it seems to be intended to make it impossible to properly prepare defenses. Sherridan wants to know what the Shadows even want to accomplish and Delenn has no answer for that. Getting the other powers to work together would be hard enough, but at the current state he doesn't really have anything to offer to them, since he never accomplished a real victory against the Shadows either.

This makes me think of a possible answer for "Why have the Shadows shown themselves now". Their purpose is to spread dissent and make everyone else fight each other, so by attacking at random they make everyone insular and paranoid, desperate to defend their own space rather than heading out to assist anyone else who's under attack.

As for the episode itself--even knowing it's coming, Kosh's "funeral" at the end, and Delenn's accompanying voiceover, always get me in the feels.

"Then, once Kosh's belongings are loaded into his ship it will activate itself. The ship was made for him. It is a part of him. In a curious way, it is alive. It cannot live without him, so it will grieve as we do, in its own way, and then perform its last duty in memory of Kosh."--the last duty in question to be to fly into the nearest star.

[Grey Watcher]

S3E15: Interludes and Examinations

Franklin and Garibaldi have very good scenes that could be regarded as quite impressive. If I just would care about Franklin.

For me, Biggs and Doyle do a lot of good work in this episode that goes a long way to making me care about Franklin, though I suspect softening his characterization a touch via his banter with Marcus helped lay the groundwork for that.

In his last proper appearance, Kosh is fantastic. It always amazes me how through camera work and editing they managed to make a creature with no real face and basically no body movement look really pissed off without using its voice. It's just his one eye piece focusing and a slight tilt of the head. Nothing else. And he looks like he's seething. Fantastic work.

Really, the team does a consistently fantastic job of bringing Kosh to life onscreen throughout. There's an exchange much earlier where Kosh deflects a question by being cryptic and Sherdian says, "Y'know, I really hate it when you do that." When Kosh responds "Good," you can practically see him smirking.

Kosh really shouldn't work. A giant, klunky thing that's right on the border between a puppet and a costume, that has no proper face, and that talks almost exclusively in riddles and koans, when he talks at all, should be train wreck that lives firmly in so-bad-its-good territory. On paper it's a disaster waiting to happen, but in execution they really do make him genuinely read like a real boy.

Though what I also noticed when I realized what episode this is, is that is seems we have not been seeing Kosh in ages. The last thing he did was talking to G'Kar in S3E6: Dust to Dust. In S3E4: Passing Through Gethsemane he was giving Lyta a ride, and at the very start of S3E1: Matters of Honor he had a conversation with Sherridan about he saved him at the end of season 2. And that was his entire involvement in season 3.
Which seems really weird to me.
While all the things were going on with the president taking over the world but all the colonies rebelling against him, Kosh obviously had no involvement in anything. But limiting him to playing a significant part in only two episode is really very little. In the second half of season 2 (the good half, remember how bad the first half was?) he appeared in almost every single episode.
I guess it kind of makes sense for Kosh staying low with the Vorlons wanting to stay out of the war. But this episode makes a huge deal of Kosh being killed as one of the really big moments of the whole story of the show, and when this episode first aired it had been over six months since viewers would have watched S2E11: The Fall of Night. I think from a storytelling perspective, he really should have had a much stronger presence to remind the audience of him being important and getting invested in him. Kosh has been a legend of 90s Sci-fi shows ever since and I am sure audiences loved him just as much during the original run of season 2. That he's basically absent from season 3 until his grand exit is just baffling.

I think part of the intent is that the audience is meant to have started taking Kosh for granted. Like Sherdian himself says, you wouldn't really imagine there's actual vulnerability to be found behind that suit. We've had Kosh dry spells before, so his absence is perfectly in character, especially when people are distracted by the Earth Alliance situation. Vaguely reminiscent of how the assassination of Santiago took Sinclair's focus away from him and Delenn until it was too late. We sometimes forget about him, but he has always been here. And then, suddenly, he is gone.

Spoiler: Morden

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I actually never noticed before that this episode is (visually) telling us that Morden killed Londo's lady. It doesn't spell it out loud, and people might wonder "who's that guy he's paying", but it really doesn't make it hard to put the pieces together even if you don't recognize the face as the passenger that left the ship before Londo went to look for her.
On the one hand, it does reduce the impact of when Londo learns that Morden had her killed and lied about having anything to do with it.
On the other hand, Londo's story has always been a tragedy that relies heavily on the audience seeing perfectly clear what mistakes he is making. So I think knowing it was Morden works just as well.
But I am curious if this will affect how I view future interactions with Londo and Morden.

Spoiler: Morden

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I definitely think the audience is meant to know right away that Adira's death is Morden's doing, not Refa's. When Londo does finally learn the truth of the matter, the audience isn't meant to be having the same "Wait, WHAT?" moment he is. We're watching the Sword of Damocles finally drop, after seeing it up there the entire time.

As you say, Londo's character arc runs on dramatic irony.

[Caledonian]

"A Late Delivery from Avalon" is a filler episode, sure, but it takes on greater meaning in the future. Dark irony for the win!

Kosh... oh man, Kosh. How did they make us love a jukebox in a mumu?

[factotum]

Kosh... oh man, Kosh. How did they make us love a jukebox in a mumu?

The actor under all that definitely didn't love it--I don't think it's a spoiler to say that he had a special request: to destroy the costume himself after filming on the final season wrapped, because he hated being in it so much.

[Yora]

Something I just realized is that the previous episode was very open ended and unresolved, feeling like the first half of a two parter. And then this episode doesn't pick up on any of the hanging threads. Is Bester still on the station? What happened with the telepaths? Especially the woman they already unfroze. Is she still in medlab under sedation? Back in stasis?
I know this stuff gets picked up again later, but it feels really strange right now.

[factotum]

That's what makes B5 unusual for its era. There's not really such a thing as a "two part story", there's just one hundred-part one which occasionally has irrelevant sideplots in it.

[Yora]

S3E16: War Without End, Part 1

On Minbar, a priest comes to Sinclair with a box that was sealed for almost a thousand years with orders to open it on this day, and inside it is a letter that has his name on it.

Babylon 5 receives a distress signal from Sector 14 where Babylon 4 disappeared and was discovered to have been travelled through a time anomaly two years ago (S1E20: Babylon Squared). Ivanova tells Corvin to play it and it turns out to be her own voice calling for someone to save Babylon 5 from attackers.

Sinclair tells the rangers to continue their work and training and that he has to leave alone. As he leaves, a Vorlon talks to the priest, telling him that Sinclair is returning to the beginning.

Garibaldi figures out that the distress call is coming through the anomaly from the future. When he was rescuing workers from Babylon 4, he had a vision of a big battle against boarders somewhere on Babylon 5, and thinks it might be the same event. Sherridan gives him permission to take a fighter and see what's going on in Sector 14.

Sinclair arrives on the station (on a public flight). Lennier goes to Delenn's quarters to tell her, but she already knows what's happening, because she also got a letter.
She goes to Sharridan in the war room to tell him he and Ivanova have to leave with her on the White Star immediately. Sinclair also walks in and introduces himself to Sherridan. They get a call from Garibaldi that the anomaly in Sector 14 has greatly increased in size and power, and that it is being fed by an energy beam from Epsilon III, the planet next to Babylon 5. (Seems like literally everything is coming together now.)
On the planet, two Zathrases are worried about the machine suffering from the huge energies it is handling, but one tells the other that this is how it has to be.

Garibaldi gets a better signal for the message coming from the anomaly and starts recording in case there is any information that might help them later. He gets a video signal of a pretty badly injured Ivanova and confirmation that the station is being destroyed by a fleet of Shadow ships.

On the White Star, Delenn shows the others secret thousand year old recordings that are known only to the Minbari Grey Council, which show that in the last war against the Shadows their primary space station got destroyed, which broke their ability to coordinate their forces. The war was saved by Babylon 4 appearing from the future as a replacement. She also got another recording from Draal on Epsilon 3, which shows that when Babylon 4 was completed and the time anomaly first appeared, the Shadows were trying to destroy it with a bomb, but it was destroyed before it got there by the White Star. This means that now they will have to go back in time with the White Star to prevent Babylon 4 from being destroyed so it can be send back in time to help the Minbari win the previous war. If they don't save Babylon 4, the Shadows will not have been defeated a thousand years ago, and because of that they will be unbeatable in the present. The message Ivanova send from the future is probably from an alternative future where Babylon 5 will be destroyed by the Shadows eight days from now.

A small transport from Epsilon 3 arrives next to the White Star and Delenn tells Lennnier to let it dock, as it is Zathras who is bringing equipment to survive the time anomaly. Zathras recognizes Sinclair, who remembers Zathras saying that he "is not the One. Not yet" when they met two years before on Babylon 5. Zathras does not remember the meeting, and Sinclair realizes that this event is still in Zathras' future. So to make sure they won't be messing up the past, Sinclair orders Zathras that when he meets his past self, he's not going to tell him anything that is going on. Zathhras is confused, but promises to do as he's told.

Sinclair tells Sherridan to call Garibaldi and tell him to return to the station, without mentioning that he's here.
Zathras gives everyone a device to protect them from time distortions and the White Star flies into the anomaly. They arrive near Babylon 4 and see six Shadow fighters hauling the bomb. Three of the fighters turn around to delay them, but their weapons do no real damage to the White Star. Lennier explains that the hull is based on organic Vorlon technology that adapts to hits by energy weapons by learning how to disperse and redirect the energy.
"Well, as my great-grandfather used to say: Cool."

When Garibaldi comes back to the station, Zack mentions that Sinclair was there but already left with Sherridan and the others on the White Star. He goes to his quarters and has a message from Sinclair, but the computer demands a password to display it. After lots of failed attempts, he tries "Hello, old friend", which decodes the message. (Somehow I guessed it right away, but have no idea how?!) Sinclair apologizes for not seeing him in person, but he knows Garibaldi would not accept letting him go to Babylon 4 by himself, and he is certain there is no coming back for him from this journey.

The White Star can't properly target the bomb, so Ivanova has to take the ship close enough to aim at it manually. When the bomb is destroyed, they get hit in the explosion and the energy it releases breaks Sherridan's time stabilizer and causes him to disappear into another time.
Sinclair says they have to take care of Babylon 4 first before they can start trying to find and save Sherridan. He tells Delenn that Sherridan will be alright, because he knows the future.

Sherridan find himself a prisoner in the Imperial Palace on Centauri Prime, where Londo is the emperor, and appears to have been expecting him. He has been waiting for a long time for the opportunity to punish Sherridan for what he has done to the Centauri and has the guards drag him to a window to see the destroyed capital cite on fire.

The White Star secretly docks with Babylon 4 and everyone climbs over to prepare the station for its time jump into the past.

--

Now this is peak Babylon 5 for me. I thought the previous episode wasn't that amazing, but this one is. I usually am not a fan of time travel stories, but the Babylon 4 story is one I really like. S1E20: Babylon Squared is still among my very favorite episodes so far.

As usual with two-parters like this, I'll be covering my full thoughts on the story at the end of part 2.

But I think it's amazing how so many things from the last two and a half seasons are coming together now. Sinclair is back, Zathras is back, the mystery of Babylon 4 is solved, the last war against the Shadows comes up, Garibaldi's vision of the future battle makes sense now. And we get to see Londo as emperor.

I really loved the scenes with Londo in the future at the very end. I had totally forgotten that Sherridan going to this future is happening. But I think the way they cut the final scenes is done needlessly poorly. They are cutting back and forth between Sherridan being on Centauri Prime and Sinclair leading the others to sneak on the station, with a switch seemingly happening every 30 seconds or so. I think it would have been a much better way to end the episode by just having Sherridan disappear and then follow Sinclair and Delenn until they are on the station. And then switch to Sherridan in the future as the final scene of the episode. It's not a long scene, and cutting it into two halves really isn't necessary. The Sinclair and Delenn stuff that is happening isn't really interesting and switching back to it and also ending the episode with them feels like a waste, when it could have ended on a great stinger with Londo showing Sherridan the burning city.

Also, why did I know that the password for Sinclair's message is "Hello, old friend." Was that the first words of the surprise message he send Garibaldi at the start of season 2? Somehow those words jumped into my mind as soon as I heard that Garibaldi has a message from Sinclair.