yellowblackhaze

1)      There is only one person/alien who can fix the Narn Centauri problem and that’s Vir Cotto. I’m not sure how he’ll do it, but I’m pretty certain Vir will be the catalyst for this. He may even launch a bid for the emperorship. Who’s with me? Vir for Emperor! Sort of got this right. A prophecy does concern him becoming Emperor in the future.

2)      While I’m talking about the attaches I’m going to make another prediction about them. One episode will feature Vir and Lennier working as a team, and it’s going to be a hoot. I love the two of them together, they’ve got this whole odd couple, buddy cop, bro thing happening. Damn! never happened, but it should have.

3)      Deldan (Delenn and Sheridan) will progress, but it will do so slowly, and the memory of Sheridan’s wife could derail it. Woohoo! Got this right on both fronts.

4)      Sector 13 will take on importance in the fight against the Shadows, it could even contain the key to defeating them. I think I got this one right.

5)      They won’t kill off any main characters, but someone will die. I’m betting it’s Zack and it will have something to do with the Ministry of Peace. Wrong.

6)      Babylon 5 will get a new resident telepath. It may not be Lyta, although she’d be ideal, but they will get one. The person may not be sympathetic towards the station and it’s personnel and after what happened with Talia they’re unlikely to be trusted. Possibly another female, because without Talia and Na’Toth the balance is a bit out at present. I got this wrong, but I stand by my comments that the male/female ratio is badly skewed at present.

7)      I don’t believe Kosh will leave his encounter suit this season. I’m not ruling out him doing it in the future, but it won’t be this season. Kosh. Sob.     

8)      Garibaldi will get a girlfriend. This will be a new character, and may be a recurring character rather than main cast. Wrong.

9)      There will be an attempt on Londo’s life. It will be unsuccessful and he’s going to be saved by one of Garibaldi, Vir, or shockingly, G’Kar. I think I got this one right and it was G’Kar who saved him, too.  

10)   Susan will continue to have more command on the ship foisted on her and as a consequence will have to get herself a minion, maybe the guy in the control room who seemed to replace the redhead from season 1. Ever since seeing The Avengers he reminds me of the guy on the helicarrier who was playing Galaga when he thought no one was watching. Sort of right. She does get more command and duties and Corwin was promoted and does seem to be her minion.

11)   ISN will do another documentary about Babylon 5. Like And Now For A Word it will be a standout episode. Nope.

12)   There will be at least one episode like TKO and Gropos that I will find totally pointless and unnecessary. Had to be on the money here, there was probably more than one. Walkabout and Grey 17 immediately spring to mind.

13)   The Ministry of Peace will cause major problems and push the command of Babylon 5 to the absolute brink. Yep.

14)   The rebellion on Mars and Psi-Corps part in it will also have consequences for the station. We haven’t seen the last of Bester. Absolutely.   

By my count that’s 8 out of 14. I’m getting better at this.

Okay what will take place on Season 4, how can Season 4 even follow Season 3 after what was an absolutely stellar season. I rate it as one of the best single seasons of any genre show I’ve ever seen actually.

1)      Sheridan is NOT dead. I don’t know how he can’t be, but he is NOT dead. I simply refuse to even entertain the idea that he is.

2)      Marcus will continue to pursue Ivanova, they will be at the point of having a relationship and something will go horribly wrong, because Straczynski has apparently decreed that Susan Ivanova cannot have nice things.

3)      Marcus will continue to be awesome and both amuse and fascinate me.

4)      Sadly I think Londo and Vir’s relationship will fracture as they both make a play for the position of Centauri Emperor.

5)      We will find out more about the new Vorlon ambassador than we ever did about Kosh, and about the Vorlons in general. At present I don’t even know the new ambassador’s name, unless it really is Kosh and all Vorlons are called that.

6)      Bester will return, but I can’t tell you whose side he’ll be on. More than likely his own side, which may not advantage either of the others.

7)      Sheridan will pilot a Vorlon ship.

8)      Lennier may start a relationship. We NEED another major female cast member.

9)      Someone major has to die. Oh please don’t let it be Vir!

10)   The rebels on Earth and elsewhere will ally with the Minbari to overthrow Clark’s dictatorship and Delenn will lead this.

11)   The fight to overthrow Earth’s government will be the focus of the season now that the Shadows have been dealt a major blow, though I don’t think they’re totally out of the picture.

12)   Garibaldi will return to Babylon 5, but be greatly altered by his experiences.

13)   Another new character will come into the show, ala Marcus in Season 3, but not sure what role that character will play. Lennier’s love interest, a new telepath…

14)   We’ll never see Lillian Hobbs again. I develop interests in minor peripheral characters like her and they invariably disappear after an episode or two. I never recovered from Lydia in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So there we have it another 14 predictions are out there. Roll on Season 4!  

Ummm…yeah. Wow! Gee, I never saw that coming. Uhhhh…

I’m more than a little stunned. I’m not entirely sure what I expected from Z’ha’dum; the final episode of Babylon 5’s 3^rd season, but I can safely say it wasn’t what ultimately happened. I don’t know how they were going to get out of the situation they were in, but I certainly didn’t think the action that was taken would be taken.

Any possible ideas I had about the finale were probably thrown into complete and utter disarray when Sheridan’s ‘dead’ wife appeared on the station. As an aside Anna Sheridan was played by Melissa Gilbert, who was at the time married to Bruce Boxleitner. That added a little note of authenticity to the portrayal of husband and wife.

So now we’ve got Babylon 5 engaged in a war with a very powerful enemy who has possibly limitless resources and they’re wondering when exactly that enemy is going to bring the fight to them. They’re harbouring a fugitive ambassador (G’Kar) whose very presence could spark a diplomatic incident with a powerful and aggressive somewhat uncertain ally (the Centauri)  and they have no support from their home government who considers them a dangerous and rogue element. It’s just peachy. Then the captain’s previously dead wife appears on board to just muddy the waters a little more.

Once Sheridan recovers from the shock of seeing Anna alive again he has her checked out by Franklin to ascertain if she really is who she says she is, and the doctor says that she is, although he does find an anomaly or a similarity between her and another person they had on board. Both have epidermal scarring, which is an indication that she was linked into a Shadow ship.

Sheridan feels betrayed by Delenn, because she knew that there was a possibility that Anna wasn’t dead, but never told Sheridan. Sheridan charges Garibaldi with a mission of importance, although we’re not told exactly what it is, then leaves with Anna to accompany her to Z’ha’dum where she’s spent the last 5 years and where he can hopefully find out the answers to some of the questions he has about the Shadows.

Sheridan leaves a message for Delenn. He tells her in this about the future he saw and believes that if he goes to Z’ha’dum maybe he can prevent the destruction of Centauri Prime and bring about a better ending to the war with the Shadows for everyone. He is also aware that he may not return from Z’ha’dum. Delenn watches the message with tears streaming down her cheeks.

After both Sheridan and Garibaldi have left Babylon 5, G’Kar reports that some of the bombs she and he had planned to use to mine the sky around Babylon 5 as a defensive precaution have gone missing. Only high ranking personnel could even get access to the weaponry and they know that neither of them did it. The only two options are Sheridan or Garibaldi and they’re both off station.     

On Z’ha’dum Sheridan meets with two other members of Anna’s crew. An older man by the name of Justin, and Morden, who until he started popping up on Babylon 5 was also believed dead. The disagreement between the Shadows and the Vorlon seems to be philosophical, although if I had a choice to pick sides I’d take the Vorlons. The Shadows seem to believe that strength comes through conflict and they don’t much care if there’s collateral damage.  The Vorlons, while they do meddle and influence, seem to be far more benevolent. Of course we’re getting this filtered through Justin, who is on the side of the Shadows. The Vorlon don’t get an opportunity for rebuttal here.

Back on Babylon 5 the station has been surrounded by Shadow ships and it’s too late to deploy G’Kar’s weapons, they’d destroy themselves if they try.

On Z’ha’dum, Sheridan’s fears about Anna are confirmed, she was linked into a Shadow ship. She looks like the woman he loved, but there’s nothing of her inside Anna anymore. Sheridan fires on a Shadow entering the room, and calls the Whitestar, which he has packed with explosives. As it crashes through the roof, carrying it’s deadly payload Sheridan hears Kosh’s voice telling him to jump, which he does into a bottomless pit that goes into the heart of the planet. That’s when the Whitestar goes kaboom.

The Shadows surrounding Babylon 5 leave, sensing the disturbance at home and Garibaldi is out in space. No one on the Babylon 5 knows where he is.

Londo was a bit of a loose end, although he did have a rage early on about being given a useless post that would effectively allow the administration to keep him under the thumb. He’s advised to leave the station by a mysterious character who isn’t Morden, but is clearly working for the Shadows in a similar capacity.

Like I said I didn’t know what the ending to this season would be, but I didn’t see that. Sheridan sacrificed himself. Delenn’s heartbroken. Garibaldi is missing. Londo’s been rendered useless. Ivanova and G’Kar are rudderless, yet somehow they’ll have to steer the station through some very rocky water. Even without the threat of the Shadows, the Centauri are still a problem, the Narn homeworld is still being devastated and Babylon 5 is effectively still at war with President Clark’s dictatorship on Earth. It will be interesting to see what effect Sheridan’s actions have on the alliances between the Shadows and Earth and Centauri.

I think I want to go and cry.

Are J. Michael Straczynski and Joss Whedon related? I’m sure they both went to the same school and majored in How to crush your viewers dreams and mess with their expectations. 

There is a story in Shadow Dancing, it takes place in the first 40 or so odd minutes of the episode, but because of what happens at the very end I’m having trouble remembering much of it.

Sheridan makes the decision that it’s time to take the fight to the Shadows, and Delenn campaigns with the representatives of the non aligned worlds for their military support, without them Sheridan’s got Babylon 5’s defences, the fleet of Whitestars which are largely shock troops, some Minbari forces, some of the Narn that have escaped Centauri persecution, and that’s it. The Centauri won’t help, and they are still possibly allied in some way to the Shadows. Earth is still under martial law and it’s likely that it’s government is also allied with the Shadows and as Babylon 5 is now considered a rogue operation they’re not going to get any assistance from them either. Although the non aligned worlds have valid concerns that helping Babylon 5 in it’s fight against the Shadows both opens their own worlds up to reprisals and could possibly leave them undefended, Delenn still does talk them around.

Marcus and Ivanova are going to pilot the Whitestar that will play the ‘rabbit’ and draw the Shadow forces in. There’s a great scene with Claudia Christian, again utilising her comedic potential, when she has to sleep on board the Whitestar. Sheridan had the same problem. The Minbari use a slanted bed that seems unnatural for humans, although Marcus does tell Ivanova that if you can get used to it, it’s quite restful and good for the posture. She manages to slide off it headfirst! We see her arranging the cushions in a bed shaped configuration on the floor and just settling down for the night when she’s called urgently to the bridge.

They do initially have the upper hand, but soon become out numbered and are only rescued by the arrival of the non aligned world fleet. The space battle is very well done for a show working with the effects available to a TV show in the late 90’s, but it’s Sheridan’s control room that really stands out. It’s a large room where he’s covered by a glowing net, but can see both sides of the battle all around him and command it from there. The Shadow ships are really cool too. They look like giant flying spiders, which for an arachnophobe like me is quite scary. The battle itself is a bit of a stale mate. The Shadow forces are certainly hit hard, but not without cost, for every Shadow ship that was taken down they took two of their enemy, and their resources seem limitless, which Babylon 5’s certainly are not. There’s also the question posed by Garibaldi, ‘Now that we’ve gotten their attention, when do they come knocking on the front door?’ and indeed why haven’t they already done so and what if they do? Could Draal possibly be of any use in that sort of confrontation?

Sheridan shares the dream that Kosh sent him on the Streib with Delenn, Garibaldi and Ivanova, but none of them can make sense of it with it’s cryptic talk of ‘men between’, ‘the Hand,’ and Sheridan’s ‘equal and opposite’ on the Shadow side. Morden maybe?

I was left with more questions than answers this time.

Franklin is still on his ‘walkabout’ trying to find himself. He’s badly wounded when he intervenes in an assault down below. As he lays dying he has a conversation with another version of himself. Once this other self started haranguing him I knew he wasn’t going to die. I didn’t know exactly how he was going to get out of it, but I knew he wasn’t going to die. I was proven right and he survived, he was also over his addiction and had a new outlook on things, so this storyline may be over. I hope it doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of Dr Hobbs, because they don’t have any other regular female characters aside from Delenn and Ivanova (possibly Lyta), and I don’t see why Dr Hobbs can’t be a recurring character in the same way Zack is.

I thought the episode would end after Sheridan’s reveal to the others about Kosh’s dream, but it doesn’t. We see someone enter the station, but don’t see the person as it’s filmed from their perspective. A sleeping Ivanova is woken by Zack and informed about the new arrival because it concerns Sheridan. The scene then crosses to Sheridan’s quarters, he’s asleep, Delenn beside him. She wakes and contemplates the snow globe that Sheridan has as a memento of some sort. Someone requests entrance and Delenn allows them in. It’s an attractive blonde woman (she was played by Melissa Gilbert. I’d seen Melissa Gilbert was in the show at the start of the credits and knew we hadn’t seen her, but I didn’t know who she was playing. I remembered Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls Wilder in Little House on the Prairie even though I didn’t watch the show. It had a pretty high profile and she and Michael Landon were the two highest profile actors in it.) She introduces herself as Anna Sheridan; John’s wife.

Delenn doesn’t say anything, although she does drop the snow globe. I think I can speak for her here: What? WTF? What? But you’re dead! How? What? Damn!     

And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place is an unusually named episode, and it starts to tie all the threads together for what is going to be I am sure a stunning end to the 3^rd season of Babylon 5.

We hadn’t seen much of Londo for a little while and this is very much Londo’s episode. The confrontation with his mortal enemy Lord Refa has been coming for a while and this is where it takes place. Both men are using the Narn and Vir to take down the other. Londo places Vir between a rock and a hard place when he tells him to issue an invitation to G’Kar, which will see G’Kar go to his capture and death. Vir, because he’s a decent person without Londo’s skewed sense of morality, refuses, until Londo threatens to destroy Vir’s family. I had problems with this scene, not because I didn’t believe it, but because I did. Even in his worst moments Londo harbours an affection for Vir, he’s rather like a grumpy, but kindly uncle, and I’m sure he’s seen himself as a father figure to Vir, and I think Vir often feels the same way about Londo. Yet he can so easily threaten to destroy Vir, for not doing his bidding. Londo and G’Kar hate each other, although I’m not sure G’Kar after his rather Gandhiesque transformation is capable of hating one person anymore, the Centauri and the Shadows as entities, but not hatred of a single person, but there was always a grudging respect of each other’s status and abilities. Would Londo really do this to G’Kar? It appears so.

Terrified that Londo will get one up on him and leap frog him in the standing of the Centauri hierarchy, Refa intercepts Vir on his return from his meeting with G’Kar and has him mindread to see what message he carried. He threatened Vir with physical torture first, but I’m not really sure why, because he always intended to have him mindread anyway, so why bother with the torture threats? Possibly because Refa is a vile person and just likes to scare others. I’d like to see someone cut his eyebrows off and stuff them down his throat so he could choke on them.

During the confrontation with G’Kar on Narn homeworld it looked as if Londo was doomed and Refa was going to take him down in a screaming heap, that was until the Centauri guards put down their weapons and were revealed as being loyal to House Mollari. Londo had played his rival like a violin and it was Refa who was in danger. Londo didn’t want to publicly shame Refa, he wanted him out of the way permanently, and he had used Vir delivering false information to G’Kar to do this. Not happy that Londo did that to Vir, but loved that Refa was taken down.

As Refa desperately tries to escape the angry mob of Narn they cut back to Babylon 5 during a religious service given by a hot gospelling minister as the choir sing a rousing spiritual which contains in it’s lyrics the title of the episode we see Refa’s demise. It was very effective. I’ve never liked Refa, and it’s always nice to see a hissable villain meet their just desserts. Refa was beaten to death, it’s a painful way to go, and it was something Refa could see coming, but was powerless to do anything about. Londo possibly could have killed Refa by poison or a bullet, but this way he knew it was coming. Although Londo takes precautions to ensure that he can’t be connected to it, people, especially his rivals, will know, and he takes another significant step on the path to becoming Emperor.

There’s a lot of really cute stuff between Delenn and Sheridan. They’ve really become Babylon 5’s power couple, they no longer hide it, and it’s wonderful. They seem to be learning from each other. Sheridan is picking up some Minbari traits and Delenn is leaning more about how people from Earth react.

The episode ends with Delenn showing Sheridan the fleet of White Stars she’s had built. They’re captained by Rangers. I had doubts about her becoming Ranger leader as she was a member of the Religious Caste and not a Warrior, but she’s done a real good thing here. Sheridan knows from personal experience that the White Star has an even chance against Shadow technology and now he’s got an entire fleet of them. Makes the hairs of the back of the neck stand up.