Episode 2.7: Soul Mates
Uuuuuuggggghhhhh this episode is dumb. I didn’t like a single part of it, with the arguable exception of Carel Struycken as a trader. The Londo plot is tiresome (Londo plots that aren’t about Shadows are invariably tiresome), the Talia plot is obnoxious, and the Delenn plot strained the limits of my patience. Which one do I even start with? The thing is, I don’t want to start with any of them. For the first time since BORN TO THE PURPLE, I disliked an episode so much I didn’t even want to finish it, let alone write about it.
But I said I’d watch them all, so I guess I’m stuck.
Let’s start with Delenn. This human hybrid thing just gets dumber every time they bring it up. We’re six episodes in from her transformation, and it’s still never actually mattered to anyone, up to and including Delenn. One scene of Minbari locals acting worried that she might not represent their interests anymore is hard to take seriously when it’s surrounded by episode after episode of Delenn not really representing anything at all because she never does anything. Season 1 had more Minbari politics than this, which is amazing because Season 1 is practically defined by the fact that nothing important happens in it. And then, after all of this lack of action, to throw us a C-plot about the one most mockable aspect of the whole transformation—not just her hair, but her maintenance of it? She’s appeared (if I remember correctly) twice this season prior to this episode, and both times her hair was perfect—not just “publicly acceptable” but “professionally styled”—and now we’re supposed to believe that she doesn’t know how to take care of it and has no one to take care of it for her? She can show up to diplomatic meetings looking styled and immaculate, but has no idea how to wash it? THIS IS STUPID. This Delenn thing had better go somewhere, and it had better go there quickly, because it was bad enough to start with but against all odds it is getting worse literally every time she appears on screen.
And Talia. I made fun of the writers last time for being unable to write a Talia plot that doesn’t show her being menaced by creepy, powerful men, and lo and behold the very next episode has her being menaced by yet another creepy and powerful man. Not a serial killer this time, but clearly a sociopath, and a grotesquely annoying one at that. Some villains you love to hate, and some villains you just hate. Talia’s ex-husband is pointlessly obnoxious to everyone he meets, and the thing about fictional characters is that we have to spend time with them, and I don’t want to spend 45 minutes of my life with this a-hole. He doesn’t evoke danger or thrills or pathos; he doesn’t make me tense or worried or scared. I've built my career on villains; I love villains. This one is just a dick, and in his first scene we see him control somebody’s mind, and 45 minutes later the characters finally catch up to the rest of us and get rid of him, and hooray for that but why did I have to spend 45 minutes with a dick to get there? A good villain makes you want to revel in their downfall. With this one I just wanted to punch the actor.
And Talia herself? Is she the weakest female character in television history? Her entire personality is defined by the men who want to control her, and she has just enough gumption to be visibly upset about this without actually doing anything about it. She’s like a perfectly engineered victim: she struggles enough to make it fun for the monster, without ever posing a significant threat to it. And don’t tell me she’s an artifact of the era or whatever, because this is the same show that’s given us Ivanova and Na’Toth and Dr. Rosen and that union rep from BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY and that security officer from SURVIVORS and, in this episode alone, three merciless Centauri wives, and I could go on and on. Babylon 5 frigging LOVES strong women, just not when they’re Talia. You’d almost think somebody on the staff has a creepy Hitchcock-and-icy-blondes thing going on. I am done with it. Give this woman a good storyline and a viable personality, please, because I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
(I want to complain about her sudden desire to leave Psi-Corps, too, but apparently that’s explained in the next episode, and they were aired out of order. And I knew this going in, because people warned me there was a broken character motivation, so I tried not to let it alter my perception of the episode. It’s possible that it still did, and added to my frustration, but believe me: there is plenty to hate in this episode no matter what order you see it in.)
And the Londo plot? I guess we have another Londo plot. Let's get one thing out in the open first: once I realized what this show was doing with Londo, I fell in love with it. Serialized television is the standard now, and we are living in a golden age of long-form storytelling, but very rarely--vanishingly rarely--do we see a character who is specifically designed to change as much as Londo is. My perception, looking at the series, is that they are slowly leading Londo down the road of a tragic villain, which is awesome, but the fact that they started him from the position of a comic buffoon only elevates that character arc to brilliance. I can count on one hand the number of TV characters who change as much as Londo seems primed to, and none of them began as comic relief. It's like if Coach from Cheers had slowly and believably turned into Walter White. And no, I haven't actually enjoyed any of Londo's early buffoonery, but I do enjoy what it adds to his character arc: from pathetic hedonist to tragic monster. And I guess I'd just assumed for some reason that we were done with the comic relief stuff, but I suppose we're still mid-transition, so now he has a birthday party, and he's going to divorce two of his three wives, and yaaaawn. To her credit, Jane Carr as Timov is the most watchable part of the episode, so let me add her to Carel Struycken for the dubious honor of "the best parts of SOUL MATES." But, as with Talia's ex-husband's mind control, the end of this plot is obvious from the beginning: Londo is clearly going to pick Timov, even before she donates blood to him, because we have seen TV shows before and we know how they work. The entire plotline is just treading water until it gets where we all know its going. A long, tall drink of shirtless G'Kar does not make the wait worthwhile.
And while we're on the subject, this episode never gave us a good answer for why Talia's ex supplied the Centauri booby trap that almost killed Londo. Was it really just a coincidence? Were they in league somehow? Was it not even a real assassination attempt, and really just a pure accident? As with many plotlines that B5 doesn't know how to close off, it just kind of forgets this one exists. It's super weird, and fantastically frustrating. Kind of like how the maybe-assassin wife, Mariel, is introduced to us as "a moth, attracted to powerful men, except she burns them," and then this never happens or even kind of happens with any of the powerful men on the ship. Sorry, Mariel, but when it comes to attracting the attention of powerful men you can't compete with Talia. She's like catnip for misogynists.
And you want to know the weirdest part of all? This episode was written by Peter David. Peter David is amazing. He's an incredible writer, and this is a good show that just gave us three standout episodes in a row, and yet here we are. This is one of the worst episodes the show has ever given us: I'd put it at number 3 on the list I made after Season 1; worse than SOUL HUNTER but still not as bad as TKO. The best laid plans of moths and men, I guess.
The next episode has Bester in it again, so my hopes are high. Back to the good stuff! (But probably still with Talia being passively menaced by a sociopath!)
But I said I’d watch them all, so I guess I’m stuck.
Let’s start with Delenn. This human hybrid thing just gets dumber every time they bring it up. We’re six episodes in from her transformation, and it’s still never actually mattered to anyone, up to and including Delenn. One scene of Minbari locals acting worried that she might not represent their interests anymore is hard to take seriously when it’s surrounded by episode after episode of Delenn not really representing anything at all because she never does anything. Season 1 had more Minbari politics than this, which is amazing because Season 1 is practically defined by the fact that nothing important happens in it. And then, after all of this lack of action, to throw us a C-plot about the one most mockable aspect of the whole transformation—not just her hair, but her maintenance of it? She’s appeared (if I remember correctly) twice this season prior to this episode, and both times her hair was perfect—not just “publicly acceptable” but “professionally styled”—and now we’re supposed to believe that she doesn’t know how to take care of it and has no one to take care of it for her? She can show up to diplomatic meetings looking styled and immaculate, but has no idea how to wash it? THIS IS STUPID. This Delenn thing had better go somewhere, and it had better go there quickly, because it was bad enough to start with but against all odds it is getting worse literally every time she appears on screen.
And Talia. I made fun of the writers last time for being unable to write a Talia plot that doesn’t show her being menaced by creepy, powerful men, and lo and behold the very next episode has her being menaced by yet another creepy and powerful man. Not a serial killer this time, but clearly a sociopath, and a grotesquely annoying one at that. Some villains you love to hate, and some villains you just hate. Talia’s ex-husband is pointlessly obnoxious to everyone he meets, and the thing about fictional characters is that we have to spend time with them, and I don’t want to spend 45 minutes of my life with this a-hole. He doesn’t evoke danger or thrills or pathos; he doesn’t make me tense or worried or scared. I've built my career on villains; I love villains. This one is just a dick, and in his first scene we see him control somebody’s mind, and 45 minutes later the characters finally catch up to the rest of us and get rid of him, and hooray for that but why did I have to spend 45 minutes with a dick to get there? A good villain makes you want to revel in their downfall. With this one I just wanted to punch the actor.
And Talia herself? Is she the weakest female character in television history? Her entire personality is defined by the men who want to control her, and she has just enough gumption to be visibly upset about this without actually doing anything about it. She’s like a perfectly engineered victim: she struggles enough to make it fun for the monster, without ever posing a significant threat to it. And don’t tell me she’s an artifact of the era or whatever, because this is the same show that’s given us Ivanova and Na’Toth and Dr. Rosen and that union rep from BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY and that security officer from SURVIVORS and, in this episode alone, three merciless Centauri wives, and I could go on and on. Babylon 5 frigging LOVES strong women, just not when they’re Talia. You’d almost think somebody on the staff has a creepy Hitchcock-and-icy-blondes thing going on. I am done with it. Give this woman a good storyline and a viable personality, please, because I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
(I want to complain about her sudden desire to leave Psi-Corps, too, but apparently that’s explained in the next episode, and they were aired out of order. And I knew this going in, because people warned me there was a broken character motivation, so I tried not to let it alter my perception of the episode. It’s possible that it still did, and added to my frustration, but believe me: there is plenty to hate in this episode no matter what order you see it in.)
And the Londo plot? I guess we have another Londo plot. Let's get one thing out in the open first: once I realized what this show was doing with Londo, I fell in love with it. Serialized television is the standard now, and we are living in a golden age of long-form storytelling, but very rarely--vanishingly rarely--do we see a character who is specifically designed to change as much as Londo is. My perception, looking at the series, is that they are slowly leading Londo down the road of a tragic villain, which is awesome, but the fact that they started him from the position of a comic buffoon only elevates that character arc to brilliance. I can count on one hand the number of TV characters who change as much as Londo seems primed to, and none of them began as comic relief. It's like if Coach from Cheers had slowly and believably turned into Walter White. And no, I haven't actually enjoyed any of Londo's early buffoonery, but I do enjoy what it adds to his character arc: from pathetic hedonist to tragic monster. And I guess I'd just assumed for some reason that we were done with the comic relief stuff, but I suppose we're still mid-transition, so now he has a birthday party, and he's going to divorce two of his three wives, and yaaaawn. To her credit, Jane Carr as Timov is the most watchable part of the episode, so let me add her to Carel Struycken for the dubious honor of "the best parts of SOUL MATES." But, as with Talia's ex-husband's mind control, the end of this plot is obvious from the beginning: Londo is clearly going to pick Timov, even before she donates blood to him, because we have seen TV shows before and we know how they work. The entire plotline is just treading water until it gets where we all know its going. A long, tall drink of shirtless G'Kar does not make the wait worthwhile.
And while we're on the subject, this episode never gave us a good answer for why Talia's ex supplied the Centauri booby trap that almost killed Londo. Was it really just a coincidence? Were they in league somehow? Was it not even a real assassination attempt, and really just a pure accident? As with many plotlines that B5 doesn't know how to close off, it just kind of forgets this one exists. It's super weird, and fantastically frustrating. Kind of like how the maybe-assassin wife, Mariel, is introduced to us as "a moth, attracted to powerful men, except she burns them," and then this never happens or even kind of happens with any of the powerful men on the ship. Sorry, Mariel, but when it comes to attracting the attention of powerful men you can't compete with Talia. She's like catnip for misogynists.
And you want to know the weirdest part of all? This episode was written by Peter David. Peter David is amazing. He's an incredible writer, and this is a good show that just gave us three standout episodes in a row, and yet here we are. This is one of the worst episodes the show has ever given us: I'd put it at number 3 on the list I made after Season 1; worse than SOUL HUNTER but still not as bad as TKO. The best laid plans of moths and men, I guess.
The next episode has Bester in it again, so my hopes are high. Back to the good stuff! (But probably still with Talia being passively menaced by a sociopath!)
"It's like if Coach from Cheers had slowly and believably turned into Walter White." - That is a great description of Londo's story arc.
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