Episode 3.1: Matters of Honor
The big moments in Babylon 5 are payoffs; they’re not big because of what happens, they’re big because of the context surrounding what happens. This is true, I suppose, of most shows, but it feels truer with B5 because of the way the show is built, and the way the show has trained us to watch it. The long-form storytelling is like a slow-motion avalanche, building and growing and gaining steam, and each individual episode is meaningful only as pieces in that larger puzzle.
This is mostly just a long-winded way of saying that MATTERS OF HONOR, as the first episode of the new season, felt curiously devoid of thrill. Everything important in it is new: a new cast member, a new ship, a new relationship between antagonists, a new status quo for the story going forward. There were, by necessity, no payoffs, just a chess player moving pieces into place, setting up for future payoffs. I’m excited to see the things that this episode has made possible by setting up the board so precisely, but this episode itself was pretty boring.
Let’s start with Londo: far too late to matter, he decides he wants out of this Faustian bargain he’s made with the Shadows, so he tells Morden he’s cutting ties. Morden is down—this has always been a bizarrely one-sided relationship, since the Shadows never asked for anything in return, so Londo’s not reneging on anything or breaking any promises—but he has a few stipulations. First, the Centauri are not allowed across a certain line: they can have most of the galaxy, but there’s a big swath of it the Shadows want to keep for themselves. Second: there’s a planet right on the border that lies in what would be Centauri territory but which the Shadows have plans for. Canny viewers accustomed to logic will notice that this is ridiculous, because Morden is now negotiating an exception to a border that HE JUST MADE UP. Why does he need to make a special exception for a border world, when it would be easier to just move the border around that world in the first place? Just include it in your own territory to begin with, genius. As it turns out, there is a reason for this weird behavior, but it has nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with the writers: the planet is called Zagros 7, and they’re planning a big set piece there at the end of the episode, so they needed someone to point out very clearly, on-screen, that the Centauri were abandoning their blockade of it. I guess this was the easiest way? Whatever, writers. This was an awkward kludge and you know it.
Morden’s third reveal about Londo’s break with the Shadows is that it is ultimately meaningless, because Morden is just going to start dealing with Refa anyway. So bad stuff will still happen, and Londo will still be partially responsible for it, and I honestly can’t remember if Londo takes this opportunity to renege on his reneging or not. Does he laugh and say “ha ha, actually I’m still with you?” Or does he stick to his guns and decide that washing his own hands is still worth it, even if the bad stuff is still happening behind his back. I genuinely don’t remember. THAT’S HOW DISCONNECTED I WAS TO THIS EPISODE. Important stuff happened, but I was really struggling to care.
Meanwhile, in HumanTown, a cut-rate Gaius Baltar escapes from a Centauri attack on what we will eventually realize is Zagros 7, and while this may seem at first like the beginning of a one-and-done episode plot, it turns out that cut-rate-Baltar is in the opening credits! He’s the new Keffer! New Keffer is a Ranger named Marcus, coming from a Ranger training camp to ask Sheridan for help with a Centauri blockade. Why does he need Sheridan’s help, specifically? The answer is: “he doesn’t,” because Sheridan brings nothing to the party; Marcus already has access to a brand-new, super-awesome Minbari space ship, fully staffed with Minbari priests, all of whom are capable of taking out this blockade on their own. Just to really hammer home how useless Sheridan is, the Minbari don’t even speak English or Human or Galactic Standard or whatever we’re pretending that they speak on this show, which I’m pretty sure makes them the first characters in all three seasons who need a translator. The writers literally broke the status quo of their own show in order to make Sheridan even more extraneous than he already was. Just like Morden’s negotiation with Londo, though, the real reason for bringing in Sheridan has nothing to do with the plot, and everything to do with the needs of the storytellers: Sheridan is a main character, and Marcus, despite what the opening credits would have you believe, is not, so if the ship goes out and solves this problem on its own we’d have an entire first episode of the season without any meaningful contribution from the leads, so congratulations, Sheridan, you get to be our token main character in this episode. They go to the ship, he gives some very basic orders (“Fly to that planet.” “Shoot that thing.” “Evasive maneuvers.”) and then Lennier translates them into Minbari and the Minbari carry them out and all is well.
But! This is the planet the Shadows wanted to keep for themselves, and right as the ship is wondering where all the Centauri are, a Shadow ship shows up, presumably to eat the Rangers down on the surface. Instead, Sheridan’s ship (called the White Star, which seems either poignant or on-the-nose given Sheridan’s history with the Black Star) (I'm just going to call it the Defiant), baits it into a warp gate and then opens a new warp gate INSIDE OF THE WARP, which blows up the gate and kills the Shadow ship. Good thing Sheridan was on that ship he didn’t need to be on, because I doubt anyone else could have handled the threat nearly as effectively. It’s almost like the writers knew they’d need him! Either way, this is the first time any ship has been able to effectively fight the Shadows, which seems like a really big deal, but meh. There was something about this episode that I sill just can't get into.
It is worth pointing out that this episode included a scene where Sheridan and Garibaldi and Delenn and Lennier and not-Baltar take Ivanova into a conference room to tell her about the Rangers, only to discover that she already knows everything about them. My thoughts, in order:
1: Wait, she didn’t already know?
2: Oh, I guess she did.
3: But apparently this is the first on-screen confirmation that she knows?
4: Which means she wasn’t involved in any of the prior Ranger stuff at the end of Season 2?
5: Weird, I could have sworn she was there.
6: There’s no reason for her NOT to have been there.
7: Apparently the writers agree with me, because this is the quickest and easiest way to just say “she knows everything, pretend like this never happened,” and move on with the story.
8: Wait, so she just figured this all out on her own? That doesn’t speak very highly of their security.
9: How long has she known?
10: Was she mad that they didn’t invite her to their secret club?
11: Probably. She’s not the kind that wouldn’t be. But the entire purpose of this scene is to correct an oversight in not having officially brought her in earlier, so we’ll all just pretend that everything is fine.
The episode ends with the reveal that the Shadows are working with Earth, which is probably intended to be shocking but is mostly just disappointing, because consolidating the two main antagonists into one only serves to make the story less interesting. It’s like in the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, where the bad guys in every episode were Krang and Shredder: every now and then it might LOOK like the bad guy was somebody else, but no, behind the scenes it was always and inevitably Krang and Shredder. The Shadows, it seems, are the Krang and Shredder of Babylon 5, and going forward every villain will be somehow connected to them. Gone are my dreams of multifactional warfare; gone is the exciting dance of multiple major powers that all had their own agenda and made and broke alliances as necessary. That’s what made the first two seasons so exciting, but bit by bit they’ve been paring down the politics: we’ve lost the Narn as a major Faction, and the Centauri and Earth are just part of the Shadows now, and the Minbari and the Rangers are just part of Team Sheridan, so...blerg. I don’t doubt that the stories that will be told under this new status quo will be good, but they don’t appear, from this vantage point, to be the kinds of stories that I came to this show looking for in the first place. That said, I can see how the Psi-Corps and the Minbari warrior caste can still act as wild cards and screw things up, so here’s hoping. Bester and Neroon, I’m counting on you!
Can I also talk about how lame it is to watch people just hand free power to Sheridan in a constant deluge of plot convenience? “Hey Sheridan, we created and trained this massive covert army, and we’re not really doing anything with it, so...want to be the boss of the Rangers?” “Hey Sheridan, we built this super amazing ship using the first-ever combination of Minbari and Vorlon technology, and the crew literally can’t speak your language, but, uhhhhh...well, I guess we’re not really using it for anything either so do you want that too?” Why are the people who are making these things not using them for themselves? Why doesn’t Sheridan have to create any of his own assets, or even earn them? There comes a point when “Sheridan is the main character so of course he gets all the toys” becomes too much of a plot contrivance for me to bear.
So. MATTERS OF HONOR was not an episode that I liked, obviously, but it’s in a show that I like and it’s in a season that pretty much everyone agrees is the best in the series, so I’m willing to file it away as Kind of Dumb and focus on the chess board. Because complaints aside, the pieces are in place for a pretty amazing stuff in the future. I’m excited to see an outright war with the Shadows; I'm excited to see the Defiant raising hell in that war; I’m excited to see the Rangers take an active hand in the galaxy; I’m excited to see the Narn resistance; I'm excited to see the Psi-Corps ruin everything.
This is mostly just a long-winded way of saying that MATTERS OF HONOR, as the first episode of the new season, felt curiously devoid of thrill. Everything important in it is new: a new cast member, a new ship, a new relationship between antagonists, a new status quo for the story going forward. There were, by necessity, no payoffs, just a chess player moving pieces into place, setting up for future payoffs. I’m excited to see the things that this episode has made possible by setting up the board so precisely, but this episode itself was pretty boring.
Let’s start with Londo: far too late to matter, he decides he wants out of this Faustian bargain he’s made with the Shadows, so he tells Morden he’s cutting ties. Morden is down—this has always been a bizarrely one-sided relationship, since the Shadows never asked for anything in return, so Londo’s not reneging on anything or breaking any promises—but he has a few stipulations. First, the Centauri are not allowed across a certain line: they can have most of the galaxy, but there’s a big swath of it the Shadows want to keep for themselves. Second: there’s a planet right on the border that lies in what would be Centauri territory but which the Shadows have plans for. Canny viewers accustomed to logic will notice that this is ridiculous, because Morden is now negotiating an exception to a border that HE JUST MADE UP. Why does he need to make a special exception for a border world, when it would be easier to just move the border around that world in the first place? Just include it in your own territory to begin with, genius. As it turns out, there is a reason for this weird behavior, but it has nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with the writers: the planet is called Zagros 7, and they’re planning a big set piece there at the end of the episode, so they needed someone to point out very clearly, on-screen, that the Centauri were abandoning their blockade of it. I guess this was the easiest way? Whatever, writers. This was an awkward kludge and you know it.
Morden’s third reveal about Londo’s break with the Shadows is that it is ultimately meaningless, because Morden is just going to start dealing with Refa anyway. So bad stuff will still happen, and Londo will still be partially responsible for it, and I honestly can’t remember if Londo takes this opportunity to renege on his reneging or not. Does he laugh and say “ha ha, actually I’m still with you?” Or does he stick to his guns and decide that washing his own hands is still worth it, even if the bad stuff is still happening behind his back. I genuinely don’t remember. THAT’S HOW DISCONNECTED I WAS TO THIS EPISODE. Important stuff happened, but I was really struggling to care.
Meanwhile, in HumanTown, a cut-rate Gaius Baltar escapes from a Centauri attack on what we will eventually realize is Zagros 7, and while this may seem at first like the beginning of a one-and-done episode plot, it turns out that cut-rate-Baltar is in the opening credits! He’s the new Keffer! New Keffer is a Ranger named Marcus, coming from a Ranger training camp to ask Sheridan for help with a Centauri blockade. Why does he need Sheridan’s help, specifically? The answer is: “he doesn’t,” because Sheridan brings nothing to the party; Marcus already has access to a brand-new, super-awesome Minbari space ship, fully staffed with Minbari priests, all of whom are capable of taking out this blockade on their own. Just to really hammer home how useless Sheridan is, the Minbari don’t even speak English or Human or Galactic Standard or whatever we’re pretending that they speak on this show, which I’m pretty sure makes them the first characters in all three seasons who need a translator. The writers literally broke the status quo of their own show in order to make Sheridan even more extraneous than he already was. Just like Morden’s negotiation with Londo, though, the real reason for bringing in Sheridan has nothing to do with the plot, and everything to do with the needs of the storytellers: Sheridan is a main character, and Marcus, despite what the opening credits would have you believe, is not, so if the ship goes out and solves this problem on its own we’d have an entire first episode of the season without any meaningful contribution from the leads, so congratulations, Sheridan, you get to be our token main character in this episode. They go to the ship, he gives some very basic orders (“Fly to that planet.” “Shoot that thing.” “Evasive maneuvers.”) and then Lennier translates them into Minbari and the Minbari carry them out and all is well.
But! This is the planet the Shadows wanted to keep for themselves, and right as the ship is wondering where all the Centauri are, a Shadow ship shows up, presumably to eat the Rangers down on the surface. Instead, Sheridan’s ship (called the White Star, which seems either poignant or on-the-nose given Sheridan’s history with the Black Star) (I'm just going to call it the Defiant), baits it into a warp gate and then opens a new warp gate INSIDE OF THE WARP, which blows up the gate and kills the Shadow ship. Good thing Sheridan was on that ship he didn’t need to be on, because I doubt anyone else could have handled the threat nearly as effectively. It’s almost like the writers knew they’d need him! Either way, this is the first time any ship has been able to effectively fight the Shadows, which seems like a really big deal, but meh. There was something about this episode that I sill just can't get into.
It is worth pointing out that this episode included a scene where Sheridan and Garibaldi and Delenn and Lennier and not-Baltar take Ivanova into a conference room to tell her about the Rangers, only to discover that she already knows everything about them. My thoughts, in order:
1: Wait, she didn’t already know?
2: Oh, I guess she did.
3: But apparently this is the first on-screen confirmation that she knows?
4: Which means she wasn’t involved in any of the prior Ranger stuff at the end of Season 2?
5: Weird, I could have sworn she was there.
6: There’s no reason for her NOT to have been there.
7: Apparently the writers agree with me, because this is the quickest and easiest way to just say “she knows everything, pretend like this never happened,” and move on with the story.
8: Wait, so she just figured this all out on her own? That doesn’t speak very highly of their security.
9: How long has she known?
10: Was she mad that they didn’t invite her to their secret club?
11: Probably. She’s not the kind that wouldn’t be. But the entire purpose of this scene is to correct an oversight in not having officially brought her in earlier, so we’ll all just pretend that everything is fine.
The episode ends with the reveal that the Shadows are working with Earth, which is probably intended to be shocking but is mostly just disappointing, because consolidating the two main antagonists into one only serves to make the story less interesting. It’s like in the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, where the bad guys in every episode were Krang and Shredder: every now and then it might LOOK like the bad guy was somebody else, but no, behind the scenes it was always and inevitably Krang and Shredder. The Shadows, it seems, are the Krang and Shredder of Babylon 5, and going forward every villain will be somehow connected to them. Gone are my dreams of multifactional warfare; gone is the exciting dance of multiple major powers that all had their own agenda and made and broke alliances as necessary. That’s what made the first two seasons so exciting, but bit by bit they’ve been paring down the politics: we’ve lost the Narn as a major Faction, and the Centauri and Earth are just part of the Shadows now, and the Minbari and the Rangers are just part of Team Sheridan, so...blerg. I don’t doubt that the stories that will be told under this new status quo will be good, but they don’t appear, from this vantage point, to be the kinds of stories that I came to this show looking for in the first place. That said, I can see how the Psi-Corps and the Minbari warrior caste can still act as wild cards and screw things up, so here’s hoping. Bester and Neroon, I’m counting on you!
Can I also talk about how lame it is to watch people just hand free power to Sheridan in a constant deluge of plot convenience? “Hey Sheridan, we created and trained this massive covert army, and we’re not really doing anything with it, so...want to be the boss of the Rangers?” “Hey Sheridan, we built this super amazing ship using the first-ever combination of Minbari and Vorlon technology, and the crew literally can’t speak your language, but, uhhhhh...well, I guess we’re not really using it for anything either so do you want that too?” Why are the people who are making these things not using them for themselves? Why doesn’t Sheridan have to create any of his own assets, or even earn them? There comes a point when “Sheridan is the main character so of course he gets all the toys” becomes too much of a plot contrivance for me to bear.
So. MATTERS OF HONOR was not an episode that I liked, obviously, but it’s in a show that I like and it’s in a season that pretty much everyone agrees is the best in the series, so I’m willing to file it away as Kind of Dumb and focus on the chess board. Because complaints aside, the pieces are in place for a pretty amazing stuff in the future. I’m excited to see an outright war with the Shadows; I'm excited to see the Defiant raising hell in that war; I’m excited to see the Rangers take an active hand in the galaxy; I’m excited to see the Narn resistance; I'm excited to see the Psi-Corps ruin everything.
And I for one am excited you're back on the Babylon 5 horse. I'll be curious to see your thoughts on some of my favorite (and least favorite) episodes (and parts of episodes) going forward. (Won't indicate now what any of those are to keep with no spoilers).
ReplyDeleteI love Marcus!
ReplyDelete