s1e14: Grail

JMS goes Arthurian, part 1

We’re watching the pioneering 90s TV show Babylon 5. If you want to join us, hit subscribe then go to your account and turn on the Let’s Watch notifications.

Babylon 5 creator and showrunner JMS loves to dabble in Arthurian stories, although I don’t think he’s ever done a direct adaptation. ‘Grail’ is the first direct venture into that territory, and the show will revisit King Arthur references again.

‘Grail’ feels like a step backwards after ‘Signs and Portents’, but I think almost anything would. This is a Richard Compton episode, so it has that slightly uncertain feel of a show finding its feet. There are silly contrivances like Jinxo managing to somehow just run into Sinclair in the finale, despite being on a station 5 miles long. The creature, while interesting from a VFX history point of view, is corny rather than scary (especially the bizarre scene in which it talks to Deuce - I’d forgotten that it was presented as partly sentient). The idea of an accountant-turned-grail hunter who also happens to be expert with a quarterstaff s daft. Jinxo’s relationship with Aldous is touching but also develops over a matter of hours or days, so feels unearned.

All that said, there’s a lot of legit fun in here as well. David Warner is always worth watching, and William Sanderson does a lot of excellent sneering with not much actual substance. I really like seeing the ombudsman and the way the trial process is handled on B5.

Connected to that is some further insight into Garibaldi’s politics. Downbelow is depicted effectively throughout the episode, and Garibaldi’s desire to ‘clean it out’ says a lot. He has very little in the way of compassion or empathy: he sees a problem, a security and order problem, and wants to fix it in the most efficient way possible. Except, of course, when Franklin identifies the victim of the feeder’s mindwipe, and it’s one of Garibaldi’s witnesses. Immediately he does a 180, clearly respecting the woman’s bravery: that’s the kind of Downbelow lurker he supports. Everyone else he regards as a wastrel.

A structure that’s been repeated multiple times through season 1 is to have the main guest character visit each of the ambassador’s in turn, as a way to further the plot and remind us how different they are. We have the same setup here, with Aldous receiving very different responses from the Minbari and the Centauri. Delenn and Lennier are perfectly depicted, especially Lennier’s barely contained excitement about Aldous’ search. The contrast with Londo’s attempts to turn the meeting into a way to raise some cash is stark, and Vir’s sabotage of Londo’s scheming is really quite funny. It’s rather undercut by the return of the dreaded comedy music, which I thought we were done with. As with a lot in this episode, it feels stylistically basic and a bit off-brand, now that we’ve had a good run of solid episodes that have a firmer identity.

It’s entertaining enough, but also entirely skippable.

Next episode, according to the Master Episode List, is ‘Eyes’.

‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️

I don’t think there’s a huge amount of foreshadowing here, but it is the first time we get JMS’ fascination with Arthurian lore. It will show up again in ‘Late Delivery from Avalon’ in season 3, Marcus Cole, the Rangers generally, and of course ill-fated spin-off Crusade. I’ve probably forgotten some.

There’s also potentially a theme of alien interference being misinterpreted as religion. The amusing twist on alien abduction and ‘grey’ aliens early in the episode is fun, but also hints at that interference. It will, of course, become much more apparent as we find out more about the Vorlons. I can’t help but wonder if the implication is that the Holy Grail is similarly a mis-remembered alien artifact of some sort.

Right - see you next week for a rather more consequential episode.