Episode 1.11: Survivors
Every step of the way in this episode, you can tell what they were going for. A lot of TV is like that: the writers room sits down and says "Let's do an episode about X!" and everyone gets excited because they love X, but then the script or the acting or the directing never really hits the target. They say all the right stuff, but the audience doesn't believe it: it's more like the writers are describing the story they would have told, if they'd had the time/resources/background/skill/whatever-it-is to tell it right.
There's a line toward the end of this episode that exemplifies this phenomenon perfectly: Sinclair looks at Garibaldi and says: "You're more trouble than a toilet full of snakes, but I couldn't run this station without you." You can tell what they were going for: the classic police procedural scene where the chief lets the loose cannon cop get his badge and his gun back, because his methods are unorthodox but doggonit he gets results. That's a good scene--we all like that scene--but this is not that scene. Garibaldi is not that character. Garibaldi is the most easy-going, trouble-free character on this entire show, up to and including Ivanova, who has yet to cause any trouble at all beyond a minor tantrum about being bored. Garibaldi does what he's told, he's good at his job, and he doesn't cause drama. The only thing he's ever done to cause trouble is this episode, in which he is framed for treason, tries to prove himself innocent, and falls of the wagon to start drinking again. We're literally only an hour into Garibaldi's trouble-causing phase, and that hardly counts as a "toilet full of snakes." Is this a reference to his past failures, which are described during this episode but never seen? None of those happened under Sinclair's command, so it's a pretty low blow of him to talk about how much trouble Garibaldi is. Is this a reference to his future alcoholism, which we assume will cause problems in the future but only just started up again about ten minutes ago? That's another low blow, there, Sinclair. Or is it, far more simply, the show trying to tell us Garibaldi is one way, even though everything they've ever shown us is another? They've been trying to paint Garibaldi with this brush since the beginning--one of the earliest episodes had a reference to him being fired from several previous positions, gaining a reputation as a problem child. But everything we see on screen--his dialogue, his actions, and his performance--portray Garibaldi as an easygoing pro, and the least problematic guy on the station. You can't have it both ways, Babylon 5.
This whole episode is like that. It wants to be a Wrong Man spy story, with one guy desperate to prove his innocence, but there's no tension in that story because a) we know he's innocent, b) the evidence against him is spurious, and c) he's a frigging main character so of course it will all be wrapped up in the end. "Will Garibaldi catch the saboteur?" is a plot with some tension in it, because we genuinely don't know the answer. "Will Garibaldi prove his innocence or spend the rest of his life in prison?" has zero tension, because we already know the answer. And yet they sink so many resources into this Wrong Man story, firing arrow after arrow at the target, and none of them hit.
What they're really telling is a Haunted By the Past story, and bits of that shine through--especially in the episode title, so you can tell that at least someone on the staff knew what was going on. But the true protagonist of that story in this situation is not Garibaldi, it's Lianna Kemmer, the security officer who accuses him. She's the one making all the important decisions, and she's the one with a character arc that changes because of this story. Garibaldi's just an innocent man caught in the middle of Kemmer's story. More than anything, I think that's the problem with this episode: they set out to tell a story about a woman so wounded by the death of her father that she tries to hang an innocent man, nearly destroying the station and killing the president in her blindness and zeal. But they didn't want to hand over the protagonist reins to a guest star, so they told that story from Garibaldi's point of view, which changed everything, and as they wrote they got farther away from their original goal, and they ended up telling neither story well.
The one big change we do get from Garibaldi in this episode is that he's started drinking again, and I assume will continue to do so--you don't just go from Several Years Sober to Drunk in a Dive Bar without some hard core emotional and physical repercussions. I would argue that this could have been done better, but it's still a nice nod toward the Haunted By the Past theme, and a cool bit of development for an otherwise squeaky-clean character. It will make him more interesting in the future, and that's good.
I feel bad for slamming two episodes in a row, expecially since parts of this one and so much of the last one were so strong. But Season One is, as everyone keeps telling me, a very uneven season, and the show is obviously still finding its feet. Even the bad episodes are getting better, though: SURVIVORS is "not quite hitting the mark," which is a far cry from BORN TO THE PURPLE being "a flat out bad episode." I'm confident the future is bright.
Also: this episode gives us a line so famous that I've actually heard it quoted several times, though I admit I thought it was a Ferengi line: "The universe is run by the interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar, you are the greatest.
There's a line toward the end of this episode that exemplifies this phenomenon perfectly: Sinclair looks at Garibaldi and says: "You're more trouble than a toilet full of snakes, but I couldn't run this station without you." You can tell what they were going for: the classic police procedural scene where the chief lets the loose cannon cop get his badge and his gun back, because his methods are unorthodox but doggonit he gets results. That's a good scene--we all like that scene--but this is not that scene. Garibaldi is not that character. Garibaldi is the most easy-going, trouble-free character on this entire show, up to and including Ivanova, who has yet to cause any trouble at all beyond a minor tantrum about being bored. Garibaldi does what he's told, he's good at his job, and he doesn't cause drama. The only thing he's ever done to cause trouble is this episode, in which he is framed for treason, tries to prove himself innocent, and falls of the wagon to start drinking again. We're literally only an hour into Garibaldi's trouble-causing phase, and that hardly counts as a "toilet full of snakes." Is this a reference to his past failures, which are described during this episode but never seen? None of those happened under Sinclair's command, so it's a pretty low blow of him to talk about how much trouble Garibaldi is. Is this a reference to his future alcoholism, which we assume will cause problems in the future but only just started up again about ten minutes ago? That's another low blow, there, Sinclair. Or is it, far more simply, the show trying to tell us Garibaldi is one way, even though everything they've ever shown us is another? They've been trying to paint Garibaldi with this brush since the beginning--one of the earliest episodes had a reference to him being fired from several previous positions, gaining a reputation as a problem child. But everything we see on screen--his dialogue, his actions, and his performance--portray Garibaldi as an easygoing pro, and the least problematic guy on the station. You can't have it both ways, Babylon 5.
This whole episode is like that. It wants to be a Wrong Man spy story, with one guy desperate to prove his innocence, but there's no tension in that story because a) we know he's innocent, b) the evidence against him is spurious, and c) he's a frigging main character so of course it will all be wrapped up in the end. "Will Garibaldi catch the saboteur?" is a plot with some tension in it, because we genuinely don't know the answer. "Will Garibaldi prove his innocence or spend the rest of his life in prison?" has zero tension, because we already know the answer. And yet they sink so many resources into this Wrong Man story, firing arrow after arrow at the target, and none of them hit.
What they're really telling is a Haunted By the Past story, and bits of that shine through--especially in the episode title, so you can tell that at least someone on the staff knew what was going on. But the true protagonist of that story in this situation is not Garibaldi, it's Lianna Kemmer, the security officer who accuses him. She's the one making all the important decisions, and she's the one with a character arc that changes because of this story. Garibaldi's just an innocent man caught in the middle of Kemmer's story. More than anything, I think that's the problem with this episode: they set out to tell a story about a woman so wounded by the death of her father that she tries to hang an innocent man, nearly destroying the station and killing the president in her blindness and zeal. But they didn't want to hand over the protagonist reins to a guest star, so they told that story from Garibaldi's point of view, which changed everything, and as they wrote they got farther away from their original goal, and they ended up telling neither story well.
The one big change we do get from Garibaldi in this episode is that he's started drinking again, and I assume will continue to do so--you don't just go from Several Years Sober to Drunk in a Dive Bar without some hard core emotional and physical repercussions. I would argue that this could have been done better, but it's still a nice nod toward the Haunted By the Past theme, and a cool bit of development for an otherwise squeaky-clean character. It will make him more interesting in the future, and that's good.
I feel bad for slamming two episodes in a row, expecially since parts of this one and so much of the last one were so strong. But Season One is, as everyone keeps telling me, a very uneven season, and the show is obviously still finding its feet. Even the bad episodes are getting better, though: SURVIVORS is "not quite hitting the mark," which is a far cry from BORN TO THE PURPLE being "a flat out bad episode." I'm confident the future is bright.
Also: this episode gives us a line so famous that I've actually heard it quoted several times, though I admit I thought it was a Ferengi line: "The universe is run by the interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar, you are the greatest.
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